Beyond NATO

O'Hanlon, Michael

2017

Brookings Institution Press

In this new Brookings Marshall Paper, Michael O’Hanlon argues that now is the time for Western nations to negotiate a new security architecture for neutral countries in eastern Europe to stabilize the region and reduce the risks of war with Russia. He believes NATO expansion has gone far enough. The core concept of this new security architecture would be one of permanent neutrality. The countries in question collectively make a broken-up arc, from Europe’s far north to its south: Finland and Sweden; Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and finally Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly several other Balkan states. Discussion on the new framework should begin within NATO, followed by deliberation with the neutral countries themselves, and then formal negotiations with Russia.

Political Science

English

ISBN 9-780-8157-3257- 0 (print)

9-780-8157-3258-7 (ebook)

BEYOND NATO

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T H E M A R S H A L L PA PE R S E R I E S

­ fter World War II, Brookings scholars played an instruA
mental role in helping the United States craft a concept of
international order and build a set of supporting institutions, including what became known as the Marshall Plan,
in honor of Secretary of State George C. Marshall who spearheaded the effort. Now, a generation ­later, the Brookings
Foreign Policy program has evoked that vital historical juncture by launching The Marshall Papers, a new book series
and part of the Order from Chaos proj­ect. ­These short books
­will provide accessible research on critical international
questions designed to stimulate debate about how the United
States and o
­ thers should act to promote an international
order that continues to foster peace, prosperity, and justice.

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T H E M A R S H A L L PA PE R S

BEYOND NATO
A NEW SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
F O R E A S T E R N E U ­R O P E

MICHAEL E. O’HANLON

BRO OK I NG S I N S T I T U T ION PR E S S
Washington, D.C.

v

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Copyright © 2017
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
1775 Mas­sa­chu­setts Ave­nue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
www​.­brookings​.­edu
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the
Brookings Institution Press.
The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organ­ization devoted to research, education, and publication on impor­tant issues of domestic and foreign policy. Its principal purpose is to bring the highest quality in­de­pen­dent
research and analy­sis to bear on current and emerging policy prob­lems. Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood
to be solely ­t hose of the authors.
Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication data are available.
ISBN 9-780-8157-3257-­0 (pbk: alk. paper)
ISBN 9-780-8157-3258-7 (ebook)
987654321
Typeset in Minion
Composition by Westchester Publishing Ser­v ices
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legal

In memory of Brookings colleagues
Robert Lindsay   Charles Schultze
Pietro Nivola   John Steinbruner
Lois Rice     Kathleen Elliott Yinug

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Contents

Introduction and Synopsis

1

1 How We Got ­Here

7

2 A Primer on Eu­rope’s Frontier States T
­ oday

35

3 The Case for a New Security Architecture

65

4 Constructing an East Eu­ro­pean
Security Architecture

89

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Notes

121

Index

147

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BEYOND NATO

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Introduction and Synopsis

S

hould the North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization continue
to expand? An alliance of just twelve countries when it was
created in 1949, NATO grew to sixteen members by the end
of the Cold War, and has added another thirteen countries
since then. This extremely successful security organ­ization
protected Eu­rope in the Cold War, came to Amer­i­ca’s
­defense a­ fter the 9/11 attacks, and then deployed a major
mission to Af­g han­i­stan that continues to this day, among
numerous other achievements. It has also helped new member states avoid conflict with each other, as with Greece and
Turkey during much of the Cold War, and then consolidate
demo­cratic rule and civilian control of the armed forces
during the period of post–­Cold War expansion. It has also
become a controversial organ­ization in recent de­cades, with
Rus­sia increasingly objecting to its eastward growth. ­Great
controversy and uncertainty now exist over ­whether it should
someday expand to include not just the Baltic states, which
1

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

joined in 2004, but other post-­Soviet republics, as well, notably
Ukraine and Georgia.
This history sets the context for an extremely impor­tant
issue in U.S. foreign policy ­today. If the Trump administration
is serious about its worthy goal of improving U.S. relations
with Rus­sia, how exactly can it do so? A
­ fter all, Mr. Trump’s
two immediate pre­de­ces­sors had similar hopes for a better
rapport with Putin; both failed. President Trump himself is
already using far tougher words t­ oward Rus­sia than he did
as a candidate, and his national security team is generally
hawkish t­oward the Putin regime in Moscow. Rus­sia’s meddling in Amer­i­ca’s 2016 elections further mars the situation.
Vladimir Putin and many of ­those around him are hard-­
edged autocrats, and ­there ­will likely be no easy way to put
U.S.-­Russian relations fully back on track as long as they are
in power. But it may be pos­si­ble to reduce the risks of rivalry
and war by focusing on what may be, in Putin’s mind, the
fundamental cause of the prob­lem: NATO expansion. We do
not owe the Rus­sian strongman any apologies for the enlargement of the twenty-­nine-­member North Atlantic Treaty
Organ­ization to date. Nor should we abandon demo­cratic
friends like Ukraine and Georgia to Rus­sian domination.
However, ­there is likely a better way to help them than the
current U.S.-­led approach.
At pres­ent, we have, arguably, created the worst of all
worlds. At its 2008 summit, NATO promised eventual membership to Ukraine and Georgia, but it did so without offering any specificity as to when or how that might happen. For
now, t­ hese two countries, as well as other eastern Eu­ro­pean
neutral states, get no protection from NATO. Knowing of
our eventual interest in bringing ­these nations into an alliance that he sees as adversarial, Vladimir Putin has e­ very
incentive to keep them weak and unstable so they ­will not

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BE YOND N AT O

3

become eligible for NATO membership. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has been considering a domestic referendum on pos­si­ble NATO membership; this further fuels
the flames. We have inadvertently built a type of NATO-­
membership doomsday machine that raises the likelihood
of conflict in Eu­rope.
It is time that Western nations seek to negotiate a new
security architecture for t­ hose neutral countries in Eastern
Eu­rope t­ oday. The core concept would be one of permanent
neutrality—at least in the formal sense of ruling out membership in a mutual-­defense alliance, most notably NATO.
The countries in question collectively make a broken-up arc
from Eu­rope’s far north to its south—­Finland and Sweden;
Ukraine and Moldova and Belarus; Georgia and Armenia
and Azerbaijan; and fi­nally Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as
possibly other Balkan states. The discussion pro­cess should
begin within NATO, and then include the neutral countries
themselves; formal negotiations could then take place with
Rus­sia.
The new security architecture would require that Rus­sia,
like NATO, commit to help uphold the security of Ukraine,
Georgia, Moldova, and other states in the region. Rus­sia
would have to withdraw its troops from ­those countries in a
verifiable manner; ­a fter that occurred, corresponding sanctions would be lifted. The neutral countries would retain
their rights to participate in multilateral security operations
on a scale comparable to what has been the case in the past,
even ­those operations that might be led by NATO. They
could think of themselves and describe themselves as Western states (or anything e­ lse, for that ­matter). They would
have complete sovereignty and self-­determination in ­every
sense of the word. But NATO would decide not to invite them
into the alliance as members; ideally, they would endorse

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

and promote this concept themselves as a more practical way
to ensure their security than the current situation or any
other plausible alternative.
Ideally, this architecture might be codified in treaty form
and ratified by key legislative bodies, including, in the case
of the United States, the U.S. Senate. It should be couched as
of indefinite duration. If, someday, the world w
­ ere to evolve
to where a new security order also including Rus­sia ­were
pos­si­ble, or if Rus­sian politics and strategic culture evolved
to the point where Moscow no longer objected, NATO (or
a  new organ­ization) might expand further, but only a­ fter
mutual agreement had been reached.
It is worth underscoring that the new security order would
guarantee neutral states the right to choose their own form
of government, po­liti­cal leadership, diplomatic relations, and
economic associations. Notably, Rus­sia would acknowledge
the prerogative of t­ hose not yet in the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU)
to join the EU (except for its security-­related pledges),
should that someday be of interest to them as well as current
EU members.
To be sure, the concept of neutrality has not always
worked out so well historically, as with the fates of Belgium
and Holland in the world wars. In other cases, however, such
as Switzerland and Austria, it has helped ensure the sovereignty of the neutral nations while also contributing to a more
stable security environment in bordering regions.
NATO must not be weakened u
­ nder the new paradigm.
It has been, and remains, a remarkable organ­ization. It did
much to protect the security of demo­cratic states and to preserve peace in Eu­rope during the Cold War. It then successfully changed into a mechanism for stabilizing the post–­Cold
War Eu­ro­pean order thereafter, including in places such as
Bosnia and, more recently, even distant Af­ghan­i­stan. It also

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BE YOND N AT O

5

helped several former Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic states
solidify their transition to post-­communist polities.
NATO has worked hard on its relationship with Rus­sia
since the Cold War. It agreed not to station significant foreign
combat forces on the territory of any of its members admitted since the Cold War ended. It also created mechanisms
such as the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, the Partnership for Peace program, and the NATO-­Russia Council to
reach out in collegial and collaborative ways to Rus­sia and
other former members of the Warsaw Pact.
Yet this is an American, and Western, perspective. Rus­
sians in general do not share it. W
­ hether most truly see
NATO as a physical threat is a question, but many do see it as
an insult—­a psychologically and po­liti­cally imposing former
­enemy that has approached right up to their border. Rus­sia’s
declining population and weak economy when contrasted
with t­ hose of NATO states—­roughly a $1.5 trillion GDP and
less than 150 million p
­ eople, versus a combined NATO total
of $40 trillion with 900 million ­people—­contribute further to
Rus­sia’s negative view of NATO. This critical attitude is found
not only among Rus­sia’s current president and older former
Soviet apparatchiks, as well as Mikhail Gorbachev, the f­ ather
of glasnost and perestroika, but even among many younger
reformers. Putin’s sky-­h igh popularity at home, partly a
result of his crackdown on critics and competitors, is, nonetheless, also an indication of how strong anti-­NATO sentiments have become in Rus­sia.
While pursuing a new security architecture for the neutral states of Eastern Eu­rope, NATO should stay strong and
resolute in defense of existing members. The alliance is now
stationing a total of some 5,000 troops—­a modest force, more
of a tripwire than a forward defense—in the Baltic states and
Poland. Mr. Trump should signal his intention of sustaining

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

Amer­i­ca’s so-­called Eu­ro­pean Reassurance Initiative even as
he seeks to negotiate the new security system.
­There is no guarantee, of course, that President Putin w
­ ill
prove interested in this idea. Putin may feel he is in an advantageous position to continue to try to weaken NATO, and
the EU more generally, by stoking vari­ous conflicts, promoting and supporting extremist leaders in Western Eu­rope, fomenting dissent in American politics, and generally keeping
the major demo­cratic powers guessing as to what w
­ ill happen
next. He may further conclude that the sanctions imposed on
Rus­sia over the Crimea and Donbas aggressions in Ukraine
­will weaken or dissipate, without any Rus­sian action being
necessary, as po­liti­cal forces and leaders change in the West.
Putin may also welcome an ongoing standoff with the West
for the additional excuses it provides him for his strongman
be­hav­ior at home and his aggressiveness abroad.
The outcome of any effort to create a new security architecture is, therefore of course, uncertain but it should be attempted, nonetheless. Western leaders should pursue this path
confidently and unapologetically, and not portray it as an
admission of previous wrongdoing. If Rus­sia refuses to negotiate in good faith, or fails to live up to any deal it might initially support, ­little ­will be lost and options for a toughening
of f­ uture policy against Rus­sia w
­ ill remain. Indeed, a range of
such responses should be developed in advance, including the
possibility of expediting consideration of NATO membership
for neutral states that are subsequently coerced or attacked by
Rus­sia. The hope, of course, is to avoid that. The current strategic situation involving most of the world’s ­great economies
and several of its nuclear-­weapons states in Eu­rope is quite
dangerous, and it w
­ ill not become less dangerous if simply
left on autopi­lot.

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CHAPTER 1

How We Got ­Here

I

t is hard to believe, but a quarter ­century ­after the fall of
the Berlin Wall, the United States and Rus­sia again became
adversaries. They remain in such a state ­today. They may not
be military enemies, but their respective military establish­
ments now focus largely on each other in modernizing their
weapons and devising force posture plans. Some Rus­sians
talk openly of already being at war with the United States;
a former deputy supreme allied commander in Eu­rope re­
cently wrote a novel about a war pitting NATO against Rus­
sia that he intended as a clarion call about something that
­really could happen. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff in the United States, General Joseph Dunford, testified
to Congress in the summer of 2015 that Rus­sia could be
Amer­i­ca’s most dangerous security worry in the world.
Dunford subsequently placed Rus­sia among his top con­
cerns when devising his “4 + 1” threat framework—­w ith
Rus­sia listed along with North K
­ orea, Iran, China, and
ISIS/Salafism/violent extremism as the priority concerns
7

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

of the Department of Defense. President Donald Trump’s
early aspirations to put the U.S.-­Russia relationship on friend­
lier footing already appeared to be dashed by the spring
of 2017. Rus­sian attacks on Ukraine, a country whose sov­
ereignty the United States as well as Rus­sia and the United
­K ingdom pledged to help guarantee in the 1994 Budapest
Memorandum, have destabilized Eu­rope.
Rus­sian cyber transgressions against Estonia, and pro­
vocative military maneuvers near the territories or military
assets of vari­ous NATO nations, have further underscored
that direct military confrontation pitting the United States
and allies against the Rus­sian Federation is far from incon­
ceivable. Indeed, Rus­sian aircraft maneuvers near NATO ter­
ritory or military assets produced up to a doubling in the
frequency of NATO fighter “scrambles” designed to intercept
the offending aircraft in 2016; serious prob­lems persist t­ oday.1
A Rus­sian concept of “escalate to de-­escalate”—­purportedly
an effective war-­w inning strategy for any ­future conflict
against the West—­has again raised the prominence of nuclear
weapons, and veiled nuclear threats, in the Russia-­NATO
relationship.2
How did we get h
­ ere? And what can we do about it? This
short book begins with the first question, the main subject
of this chapter, but focuses its main analytical thrust on the
second question. Without claiming that the dramatic de­
terioration in the U.S.-­Russian relationship has any single
cause, or that any one change in policy can right it, I none­
theless propose a new security architecture for the currently
in­de­pen­dent states of eastern Europe–­Finland and Sweden,
George and Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, Armenia and
Azerbaijan, as well as Cyprus and Serbia (and perhaps other
currently neutral Balkan countries, as well). I believe this
security construct could significantly defuse the acute crisis

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BE YOND N AT O

9

and dangers in the U.S.-­Russian relationship ­today. A negoti­
ated agreement should be pursued between NATO nations,
Rus­sia, and the neutral countries a­ fter intensive consultations
between NATO states and the neutral states. The goal would
be to create a permanently nonaligned zone in eastern Eu­
rope while guaranteeing the full diplomatic and economic
sovereignty and territorial security of t­ hese same countries.
­Because the Trump administration, the intended electoral
beneficiary of Rus­sian meddling in the 2016 American presi­
dential election, could be the lead player on proposing this
new framework, it is especially impor­tant to explain why it
would not be a concession to Rus­sia or its strongman presi­
dent. In fact, it would not be a gift to Rus­sia at all.3 The
security architecture would place stringent demands on
Rus­sia to keep its hands off the neutral countries and insist it
reach fair agreements on existing territorial disputes (other­
wise, sanctions could not be lifted and the overall architecture
could not be implemented). It would be explic­itly under­
stood, and stated, that any subsequent violation of ­these and
other terms could end the entire accord and revive the pos­
sibility that some of the countries at issue would join NATO.
­Those who might be quick to criticize my proposal should
ask if they can ­really defend the status quo. As of ­today,
NATO has promised Ukraine and Georgia f­ uture member­
ship without offering any timetable to that membership or
any interim protection—­a perfect formula to stoke Rus­sian
meddling in t­ hose countries and, undoubtedly, an incentive
to Moscow to perpetuate the ongoing Russia-­Ukraine war.
Current policy has failed by leaving NATO half pregnant
with membership for Ukraine and Georgia, and Rus­sia in­
censed over the situation. What­ever the merits of NATO ex­
pansion may have been to date—­and, as ­later discussed, ­there
­were respectable arguments in its ­favor (even if not completely

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

convincing ones)—­the proj­ect has run its course. Indeed, it
has become counterproductive.
T H E H E A D Y D AY S O F T H E E A R LY 19 9 0 s , A N D A N T E C E D E N T S
O F P R O B ­L E M S T O C O M E

The warming in U.S.-­Russia relations that culminated in very
positive American relationships with Mikhail Gorbachev
and Boris Yeltsin in the late 1980s and 1990s took some time
to develop. From glasnost and perestroika, to the fall of the
Berlin Wall, to the iconic image of Yeltsin facing down So­
viet tanks in the summer of 1991 as the USSR collapsed, the
pro­cess took more than half a de­cade. By the time Bill
Clinton was elected president in the United States, however,
it was pos­si­ble to believe that U.S.-­Russia relations a­ fter the
Cold War could be headed to almost as happy a place as
U.S.-­Germany and U.S.-­Japan relationships ­a fter World
War II.
Prob­lems began to develop fairly early on, however. By
1994, adding insult to the injury of the Soviet Union’s own
demise, the Warsaw Treaty Organ­ization had also collapsed;
meanwhile, NATO was still ­going strong. East Eu­ro­pean
countries w
­ ere approaching Brussels about establishing new
security arrangements, and then in January 1994, the NATO
alliance created the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. Its
declared purpose was to facilitate military and po­liti­cal coop­
eration between NATO and former members of the defunct
Warsaw Pact. However, it did not take long for many Rus­
sians, including key reformers like Anatoly Sobchak and
Andrei Kokoshin, to begin to view PfP suspiciously as a path­
way to NATO expansion for t­ hese countries.4
As the 1990s unfolded, officials in the Clinton adminis­
tration felt pressure to reach out to countries like Poland,

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BE YOND N AT O

11

but they also wanted to support Yeltsin and avoid creating
excessive po­liti­cal prob­lems for him at home. They ­were
often told by the reformers around Yeltsin that NATO en­
largement would create serious difficulties for the Yeltsin
team from Rus­sian nationalists and Communists, and dam­
age the Kremlin’s efforts to pursue a pro-­Western foreign
policy. Yeltsin himself coined the expression that NATO ex­
pansion might augur in “a cold peace.”5
­There ­were reasonable arguments being voiced in the
United States to carry out NATO expansion just the same.
Some came from diasporas of countries that had been incor­
porated into the communist world and Warsaw Pact largely
against their w
­ ill and that saw it as only fitting and proper that
they be allowed, in effect, to rejoin the West once the Cold
War was over. ­There w
­ ere additional voices in ­favor of using
NATO to help ­these former Warsaw Pact states strengthen
their young democracies and civilian control of their militar­
ies. And t­here ­were ­those with a long view of history who
worried about a return to an aggressive Rus­sia in the ­future,
irrespective of what policies ­were followed by the West in the
meantime. According to this view, Rus­sia’s temporary weak­
ness presented an opportunity that should not be missed.6
Already by February 1995, in fact, the Clinton administration
had announced its national security strategy of “engagement
and enlargement,” in which it underscored that it had “initi­
ated a pro­cess that w
­ ill lead to NATO’s expansion.”7
Thus in the mid-1990s the Clinton administration
pushed ahead with enlargement while also seeking to mit­
igate Moscow’s negative reactions. That proved a difficult
task. For many Rus­sians, if NATO was still a military alli­
ance and a mechanism for ensuring collective defense, it must
be directed against some country—­and the Rus­sian Federa­
tion was the obvious target.

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TA BL E 1-1.

Member States of NATO

Belgium
Canada
Denmark
France
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
United Kingdom
United States
Greece
Turkey
Germany
Spain
Czech Republic
Hungary
Poland
Bulgaria
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Albania
Croatia
Montenegro

Year joined
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1952
1952
1955
1982
1999
1999
1999
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2009
2009
2017

NATO Member Countries (www​.­nato​.­int​/­cps​/­en/nat​
ohq/­topics​_ ­52044​.­htm).

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BE YOND N AT O

13

Yeltsin won reelection in 1996. From that point forward,
the Clinton administration felt less need to hold back. Po­
land, Hungary, and the Czech Republic ­were soon put on
paths to join NATO and became alliance members in 1999.
At the same time, Washington and Moscow tried to keep
their own relationship moving forward. Notably, in Paris on
May  27, 1997, Yeltsin signed the NATO-­Russia Founding
Act on Mutual Relations. The Founding Act set out the basic
po­liti­cal framework for Rus­sia and the alliance to work to­
gether, but the forces pushing the two countries apart w
­ ere
rapidly becoming stronger than ­those holding them together.
Subsequent events included the August 1998 Rus­sian finan­
cial collapse, the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999, and Rus­sia’s
renewed war in Chechnya in the summer of 1999.8
KOSOVO

In 1999 NATO went to war for the first time in its history in
response to Yugo­slav military atrocities against ethnic Al­
banian civilians in Kosovo, which was still part of both Ser­
bia and Yugo­slavia.9 The war came only two weeks ­after the
alliance had admitted Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Re­
public. NATO did not secure authority from the United Na­
tions to intervene; NATO warplanes bombed Serbian forces
in the field and, increasingly, Belgrade. NATO forces, with
American troops in the lead, then moved into Kosovo to
secure the territory.
NATO’s intervention shook the Rus­sian establishment.10
As Vladimir Putin put it in his March 18, 2014, speech fif­
teen years l­ater, no one in Rus­sia could believe that NATO
had attacked Yugo­slavia: “It was hard to believe, even seeing
it with my own eyes, that at the end of the twentieth c­ entury,
one of Eu­rope’s capitals, Belgrade, was u
­ nder missile attack

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

for several weeks, and then came the real [military] interven­
tion.”11 Moscow could do ­little about what happened, and
Rus­sian leaders took the intervention almost personally,
given their longstanding ties to Serbia and their sense of close
kinship with fellow Orthodox Christians t­ here.12
NATO justified its operation, of course, as a response to
­human suffering at the hands of the very same Slobodan
Milosevic who had torn apart Bosnia earlier in the de­cade.
However, in Moscow, Rus­sian officials interpreted the inter­
vention as a means of expanding NATO’s influence in the
Balkans, not as an effort to deal with a humanitarian crisis.13
In June, at the end of the bombing campaign, Rus­sian
forces engaged in a tense standoff with NATO troops in
Kosovo. This came as the Clinton administration tried to
persuade Rus­sia to take part in the Kosovo peacekeeping
force (KFOR). Moscow had agreed to a similar arrangement
a ­couple of years earlier in Bosnia; Rus­sian troops ­were
still serving t­ here. But this case proved dif­fer­ent. A
­ fter the
intervention which, as noted, occurred with NATO but not
UN approval, Rus­sia resisted the idea of its forces working for
NATO. Moscow also demanded a decisionmaking role in
KFOR, and U.S. military commanders ­were concerned that
Rus­sia might attempt to create a “Rus­sian sector” in Kosovo.14
While ­these vari­ous m
­ atters w
­ ere being discussed in Mos­
cow, Washington, Brussels, and elsewhere, Rus­sian general
Leonid Ivashov sent a Rus­sian troop contingent from Bosnia
to Kosovo, where it secured the main airport in Kosovo’s capi­
tal of Pristina. However, Rus­sian forces w
­ ere isolated and soon
­running low on food, w
­ ater, and fuel. New NATO member
Hungary, along with NATO aspirants Bulgaria and Romania,
refused access to their airspace for Rus­sian planes seeking to
conduct resupply runs. At the same point, supreme allied
commander in Eu­rope General Wesley Clark ordered the

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15

NATO commander in Kosovo, British general Michael Jack­
son, to send in NATO forces to block the runways at the air­
port. Jackson refused, telling Clark, “Sir, I’m not starting
World War III for you.”15 The British did seal off the roads
leading to the airport, but they also provided the beleaguered
Rus­sian troops with food and ­water.16 The result was not a
direct conflict between Rus­sia and NATO, thankfully. But it
was another humiliation for Moscow.
During this same period Vladimir Putin was gaining
greater power within Rus­sia. Putin had been the head of the
Federal Security Ser­vice; in 1999 he was promoted to chair
the Rus­sian Security Council and gained a key role in
managing Rus­sia’s relationships with NATO and the United
States. The Kosovo war then occurred and became a defin­
ing moment in Putin’s c­areer, one that influenced him
deeply.17 Within months, he was Rus­sia’s acting president.
OF COUNTERTERRORISM, COLOR REVOLUTIONS,
A N D N AT O E X PA N S I O N

For a period of time around the turn of the ­century and early
in the 2000s, it seemed that counterterrorism might unite
Moscow and Washington in common cause. ­After all, the two
countries had been cooperating on nuclear security through
vari­ous global nonproliferation efforts as well as the Nunn-­
Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, so it seemed
natu­ral to think they could work together when a new threat
presented itself.
In November 1999 Putin, then prime minister, wrote a
New York Times op-ed asking the American public for sup­
port for Rus­sia’s second intervention in Chechnya, which
had begun a few months before. He defined the fight as a
strug­gle against terrorism that Americans should understand.

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

­ fter September 11, 2001, the terrorist strikes on U.S. soil rein­
A
forced Putin’s view that Amer­i­ca and Rus­sia should be united
in purpose. Then-­President Putin immediately reached out to
President George W. Bush to express his sympathy and offer
his assistance.18 Indeed, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, Putin
had called Bush to warn him about a terrorist threat that Rus­
sian intelligence had identified.19 Putin expected Washington
would see linkages between al Qaeda in Af­ghan­i­stan and ter­
rorists in Chechnya. He also believed he could help the United
States.20 He expected American sympathy and support for his
wars against terrorism, especially in light of the terrible terror­
ist attacks against Rus­sians that began around 1995 and con­
tinued into the first de­cade of the 2000s and beyond.21
That did not happen. Chechnya remained a major subject
of contention between Rus­sia and the United States. Th
­ ere
22
was to be no co­ali­tion. The United States saw Rus­sia’s situ­
ation as entirely dif­fer­ent from its own. The al Qaeda threat
justified a global war on terrorism; Amer­i­ca and its allies
­were ­under direct and unprovoked assault. By contrast, the
Chechnya situation, in Washington’s eyes, was an inter­
nal conflict. The terrorist acts that emanated from the North
Caucasus w
­ ere directed only against Rus­sian targets. Most
Americans felt Rus­sia had largely brought its prob­lems upon
itself b
­ ecause of the brutal way it fought the Chechnya
campaigns.23
­After the 9/11 attacks, Putin was befuddled by Amer­i­ca.
He even blamed himself for not having been sufficiently em­
phatic in his warnings and his efforts to fashion a unified
front against the extremist threat.24 As time went on, how­
ever, he blamed the United States more and more—­for being
overly assertive in Rus­sia’s backyard and the ­Middle East,
yet at the same time inept in how it wielded power. Iraq and
Af­ghan­i­stan and Libya went badly, demonstrating Ameri­

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17

can incompetence in his eyes. Yet Putin also ascribed al­
most super-­human powers to Washington for its purported
roles in the Rose, Orange, Tulip, and Maydan revolutions
(in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004–05, Kyrgyzstan in
2005, and Ukraine again in 2013–14, respectively), as well as
with the domestic opposition to his own attempt to regain
the Rus­sian presidency in 2012. ­There was apparent contra­
diction in t­ hese contrasting interpretations of Amer­i­ca’s sup­
posed omnipotence mixed with sheer fecklessness, but ­there
was prob­ably a good deal of sincerity in both aspects of
Putin’s somewhat oxymoronic view of the United States.
Shortly ­after the 9/11 attacks, in December 2001, Wash­
ington announced it was pulling out of the 1972 Anti-­Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty and would move ahead with creating a
new missile defense system to ­counter threats from countries
like Iraq or North ­Korea or Iran—­the so-­called rogue states
or “axis of evil.” Putin’s initial response was relatively muted,
perhaps b
­ ecause the 9/11 attacks w
­ ere still so recent and
­because both the Putin and Bush presidencies ­were still in
their early, hopeful days. However, in ensuing months and
years, many of the old Rus­sian fears about Ronald Reagan’s
Strategic Defense Initiative, his “Star Wars” program, ­were
gradually resurrected in Moscow. Putin and other Rus­sian
officials expressed growing opposition to the system. Putin
came to believe, it would appear, that American missile de­
fense was more about diminishing Rus­sia’s nuclear deterrent
than about countering threats from small, extremist states.25
The U.S.-­led invasion of Af­ghan­i­stan was perhaps not so
hard for Moscow to stomach. Its eye-­for-­an-­eye character
prob­ably made sense to Putin. And the next year, Moscow
and NATO established a new NATO-­Russia Council at the
alliance’s Rome summit. NATO leaders saw the creation of
this council as yet one more piece of evidence that the West

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

was bending over backward to help Rus­sia, to treat it with
re­spect, and to assuage its worries about post–­Cold War se­
curity in Eu­rope. On top of that, Western economic help to
Rus­sia had been moderately generous since the Cold War had
ended. Rus­sia’s economic travails continued, of course, but
they w
­ ere, from this viewpoint, the result of the inevitable
pain of transforming a command economy into a free-­market
system combined with some bad be­hav­ior by Rus­sian oli­
garchs who w
­ ere exploiting their fellow citizens with robber-­
baron-­like activities. The major NATO states ­were ­doing all
they reasonably could to help, in economic and po­liti­cal and
security spheres. At least, that was how the West saw it, and at
times Putin did not seem to disagree.
Of course not all was well, and the good vibes would
not last. That same NATO summit in May 2002 produced
decisions leading to the second major round of alliance
enlargement in March  2004, including Bulgaria, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. From
Moscow’s perspective, the inclusion of Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania in the group was particularly galling b
­ ecause they
had been part of the Rus­sian Empire and the Soviet Union.26
The three Baltic states, along with the Czech Republic, Hun­
gary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, w
­ ere also admitted to
the Eu­ro­pean Union in May of that same year, and Bulgaria
and Romania joined in 2007.
Moreover, the 2003 U.S.-­led intervention in Iraq con­
vinced Putin even more that the United States was looking
for pretexts to act hegemonically, throwing its military weight
around the Mideast region and the world. Indeed, Putin, as
well as Rus­sian intelligence, apparently believed that Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein was bluffing about his possession
of chemical and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
They stated this bluntly to U.S. officials on numerous oc­

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19

casions.27 As the intervention quickly went south l­ater in
2003, Putin’s anger at alleged American imperiousness was
­increasingly combined with disdain for how ineffectually
the United States seemed to be employing its power around
the world.
When the terrible Beslan school terrorist attack in Sep­
tember 2004 took place in Rus­sia, two years ­after the bloody
Moscow Dubrovka Theater attack, Western reactions to
Moscow’s response furthered in Putin’s mind the idea that a
­double standard was being applied against Rus­sia.28 The Or­
ange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004–05 was impor­tant in
this regard, as well. Putin was always somewhat dismissive
of Ukraine as a truly separate and sovereign entity capable
of genuinely in­de­pen­dent action. Thus, he believed the mas­
sive demonstrations in Ukraine known as the Orange Revo­
lution could only have been orchestrated from the outside.29
The Bush administration’s Freedom Agenda and American
neo-­imperialism more generally ­were the most likely cul­
prits.30 Putin did not accept the sincerity of U.S. democracy-­
promotion efforts. He saw their roots in the Cold War and
in Washington’s unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of
Rus­sia’s po­liti­cal system. And now they ­were affecting a
fairly large country that was very close to home for Rus­sia.
Then ­there was Georgia. The Kremlin was very concerned
about U.S. support for the Georgian government of Mikheil
Saakashvili as the Bush presidency progressed into its second
term.31 The strengthening relationship between Tbilisi and
Washington raised worries about Georgia’s eventual member­
ship in NATO. Given Georgia’s distance from Eu­rope and the
North Atlantic, it was increasingly hard for many Rus­sians to
view NATO’s interest in Georgian membership as anything
more than imperial overstretch, and at their own country’s
expense.32

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

­T H I N G S FA L L A PA R T

Thus the stage was set for a confluence of events in 2007 and
2008 that prob­ably marked the decisive turning point in re­
lations between Vladimir Putin and the West in par­tic­u­lar,
as Clifford Gaddy and Fiona Hill have persuasively argued.
At the February  2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin
gave the following public remarks:
It turns out that NATO has put its frontline forces
on our borders, and we continue to strictly fulfill the
treaty obligations and do not react to ­these actions at
all. I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does
not have any relation with the modernization of the
Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Eu­rope.
On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation
that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have
the right to ask: against whom is this expansion
intended?33
­ ere was no acknowl­edgment by Putin that the United
Th
States and major Western Eu­ro­pean NATO states demon­
strated restraint by not moving combat power into perma­
nent bases in the alliance’s new eastern regions, or that
American military energies at the time ­were clearly focused
on Iraq and Af­ghan­i­stan, not Eu­rope.
A year ­later, Putin made almost identical remarks to the
press on the sidelines of the April 2008 NATO Summit in
Bucharest, Romania. On this occasion, building on his re­
marks in Munich, Putin returned to what he saw as the fun­
damental questions posed by NATO’s continued existence
and seemingly inexorable expansion, even ­after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Putin stated:

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21

It is obvious that ­today ­there is no Soviet Union, no
eastern bloc and no Warsaw Pact. So NATO exists
to confront whom? We hear that it exists in order to
solve ­today’s prob­lems and challenges. Which ones?
What are the prob­lems and challenges? . . . ​I think
that many ­here in this room would agree with me that,
in itself, the existence of the NATO bloc is not an
effective answer to t­ oday’s challenges and threats. But
we recognize that it is nonetheless a f­actor in t­oday’s
international life, a f­actor in international security,
and that is why we cooperate with the bloc. With re­
gard to expansion, I heard ­today that this expansion is
not against Rus­sia. You know, I have a ­great interest in
and love for Eu­ro­pean history, including German his­
tory. Bismarck was an impor­tant German and Eu­ro­
pean po­liti­cal leader. He said that in such ­matters what
is impor­tant is not the intention but the capability. . . . ​
We have withdrawn our troops deployed in eastern
Eu­rope, and withdrawn almost all large and heavy
weapons from the Eu­ro­pean part of Rus­sia. And what
happened? A base in Romania, where we are now, one
in Bulgaria, an American missile defense area in Poland
and the Czech Republic. That all means moving mili­
tary infrastructure to our borders.34
In February  2008, the United States and several Eu­ro­
pean states recognized Kosovo against Rus­sia’s wishes. That
reopened old wounds from 1999 and conjured up the im­
mediate possibility of Kosovo, heretofore a province of Ser­
bia, becoming a NATO member someday. Putin declared
this “a harmful and dangerous pre­ce­dent” and immediately
raised the implications of Kosovo’s in­de­pen­dence for Geor­
gia’s secessionist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.35

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

NATO’s Bucharest summit in April then promised Georgia
and Ukraine eventual membership. The fact that NATO
leaders chose not to take the technical step of offering Kiev
and Tbilisi formal Membership Action Plans was l­ittle
solace.
In June  2008 Dmitry Medvedev, just inaugurated as
Rus­sian president, gave his first major foreign policy speech
abroad. In his speech, he proposed the creation of a new
Eu­ro­pean security arrangement and treaty, an idea that was
quickly rejected by the United States and its allies.36 Even
though it was vague, and even though in l­ater revisions it
acknowledged NATO’s continued right to exist, Medvedev’s
vision may have come too close to condemning the NATO
alliance to obsolescence—or at least to a constrained ­future
role—­for the West to accept it.37
By August 2008 Rus­sia had gone to war with Georgia.
Rus­sia’s incursion was justified as a response to President
Saakashvili’s decision to launch his own attack against sepa­
ratists in South Ossetia. Georgian shelling killed Rus­sian
peacekeepers in the South Ossetian capital Tskhin­va­li, pro­
voking a full-­scale Rus­sian military invasion. But in a broader
sense, it was the result of pressures that had been building in
Rus­sian minds for many years.38
The year 2009 marked the arrival of a new American
president and Mr. Obama’s “reset” policy with Rus­sia.39 The
approach seemed to address Putin’s main demand that Rus­
sia be treated with re­spect and pragmatism on major issues
of mutual interest, but it did not succeed. The first year and
a half of the Obama presidency produced a New START
Treaty, a new architecture for Eu­ro­pean missile defense,
further cooperation on Iran and North ­Korea sanctions,
and the opening of the Northern Distribution Network into
Afghanistan—­providing NATO with multiple new logistics

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23

options that involved Rus­sian territory or other former
Soviet republics. However, t­hings soon deteriorated. In
Moscow’s eyes, the perceived offenses included Amer­i­ca’s
unsuccessful h
­ andling of aspects of the Arab Spring, such as
the NATO Libya intervention which quickly exceeded the
scope of the UN Security Council resolution approving it,
to the unsteady American h
­ andlings of unrest in Syria and
Egypt, to the Sergei Magnitsky Act targeting Rus­sian officials
who had been complicit in the death of a Rus­sian h
­ uman
40
rights ­lawyer. That tragedy and other Rus­sian crackdowns
on dissent at home led to more critical American words con­
cerning Rus­sian internal politics.
A vicious cycle had developed. Putin and his inner circle,
prob­ably never true demo­crats at heart, ­were critiqued by
Washington for their suppression, including through occa­
sional vio­lence, of internal dissent. ­These critiques enraged
Putin, who then saw Amer­i­ca’s hand in any Rus­sian po­liti­cal
activity that did not support him (such as party-­building and
other democracy-­promotion activities), and he clamped down
even more forcefully. To maintain Rus­sian public support for
his short-­circuiting of proper demo­cratic practices, he pointed
to a supposedly hostile and devious West that was purport­
edly inciting Rus­sians to turn against each other. The combi­
nation of disinformation and coercion worked, at least at
home. In recent years—according to what Rus­sians tell poll­
sters (­whether they feel ­free in expressing their true views or
not is another ­matter)—­Putin’s internal popularity has typi­
cally been 80 to 90 ­percent.41
In a 2017 interview with the National Interest, Rus­sian
foreign minister Sergey Lavrov pointed to a speech that Sec­
retary of State Hillary Clinton gave in December 2012 in Ire­
land in which she expressed the hope that the United States
could slow Moscow’s efforts to “re-­Sovietize the former

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

Soviet space.” One might have thought all could agree that
re-­Sovietization was not in anyone’s interest. Yet Lavrov ar­
gued that such words revealed malevolent and expansionist
American intent that was manifest even before the crises of
Crimea and Ukraine.42
On September  11, 2013, on the anniversary of the 9/11
terrorist attacks, Putin again wrote an op-ed in the New York
Times. Putin was extremely critical of Amer­i­ca’s style of
world leadership. He argued: “It is alarming that military
intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has
become commonplace for the United States. Is it in Amer­
i­ca’s long-­term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the
world increasingly see Amer­i­ca not as a model of democ­
racy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling co­a li­
tions together ­u nder the slogan ‘­you’re e­ ither with us or
against us.’ ”43
The Ukraine crisis of 2013–14 was the nail in the cof­
fin. The precipitating events ­were not about NATO mem­
bership, but Ukraine’s general westward movement and
consideration of closer ties to the Eu­ro­pean Union. Yet they
­were in a broader context in which eventual NATO mem­
bership for Ukraine was clearly on the ­table, admittedly
making it hard to disentangle the relative importance of
the vari­ous f­ actors in Putin’s mind. One t­ hing the Rus­sian
strongman did clearly believe is that the vari­ous color revo­
lutions as well as this latest, the Maydan uprising, w
­ ere not
indigenous or legitimate. Of course, he was bound not to like
them; they had the aggregate effect of replacing pro-­Moscow
politicians with pro-­Western regimes. Worse, Putin saw the
hand of the West b
­ ehind all of them. He blamed Western
involvement with new po­liti­cal parties and nongovernmen­
tal organ­izations and other new actors in ­these young coun­
tries for what tran­spired. Not only was it against his own

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25

interests; he saw t­ hese developments as bad for the countries
themselves.
By this time, Putin could invoke the failed Arab Spring
movements in the ­Middle East to reinforce his argument. The
West, Putin argued in a March 2014 speech, tried to impose a
set of “standards, which w
­ ere in no way suitable for e­ ither the
way of life, or the traditions, or the cultures of ­these ­peoples.
As a result, instead of democracy and freedom—­there was
chaos and the outbreak of vio­lence, a series of revolutions. The
‘Arab Spring’ was replaced by the ‘Arab Winter.’ ”44 This speech
helped justify, for Putin, Rus­sian aggression against Ukraine
in Crimea and in the Donbas region, in cyberspace (including
with an attack on the electricity grid), and beyond. The West,
of course, saw ­these actions as entirely illegitimate, a threat to
basic international order, and proof of Putin’s autocratic and
strongman ways.45 Although they did not embark on a major
transfer of lethal weaponry, several NATO countries, includ­
ing the United States, did assist the Ukrainian military in
vari­ous ways in response to Rus­sia’s aggression, further hard­
ening ­battle lines.46
The reset was dead. By the end of the Obama years, so
­were 10,000 Ukrainians, who perished in civil war, as well
as 300 passengers on a Malaysian jet shot down by a Rus­sian
anti-­aircraft missile.
The breakdown in relations extended to the M
­ iddle East,
too. While the West blamed Putin for bloody, brutal Rus­sian
tactics in Syria from 2015 onward that primarily killed mod­
erate insurgents (rather than the purported ISIS targets), Putin
saw that war as another demonstration of the West’s naiveté
about power politics and under-­appreciation for the impor­
tance of po­liti­cal stability in troubled countries.47
In short, a quarter c­ entury a­ fter the end of the Cold War,
NATO and Rus­sia had again effectively become adversaries.

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

E C O N O M I C A N D M I L I TA R Y P O W E R

Two more dimensions of the equation need to be overlaid
with this brief review of security events and crises: trends
in economics and trends in the related m
­ atter of military
spending and defense modernization.
During Yeltsin’s time in power, Rus­sia’s economic power
and the standard of living of its p
­ eople deteriorated precipi­
tously. Western observers often forget how much Gorbachev
and Yeltsin, seen as reformers and demo­crats in much of
NATO, are generally associated with the decline of the state
by Rus­sian citizens.
Putin changed that. He presided over a stabilization of
the Rus­sian economy. To be sure, the economy remained un­
healthy in many ways, and it remained dwarfed by NATO’s
aggregate wealth. But at least it ceased its f­ ree fall in the 2000s,
benefiting from, among other t­hings, the rise in many com­
modity prices on global markets. As Gaddy and Hill have em­
phasized, Rus­sia’s capacities for action changed dramatically
in the summer of 2006, when Moscow fi­nally paid off the last
of its international debt to the so-­called Paris Club of major
creditor nations. Putin had also paid off Rus­sia’s debt to the
International Monetary Fund by then. Rus­sia was effectively
unchained from its financial shackles to foreign countries and
international financial institutions. The United States and the
West could no longer exert pressure over Rus­sia using debt
and the prospect of new loans in the way they had since the
Cold War ended.48
The global financial crisis and g­ reat recession of 2008
and onward caused less damage to Rus­sia than to some
Western states, and perhaps, therefore, taught Putin and fel­
low Rus­sians another strategic lesson: t­here was value to a
degree of autarky and in­de­pen­dence. When sanctions ­were

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Population and Gross Domestic Product
for Key Countries

­T A B L E   1 - 2 .

Country

Population
(millions)

GDP (US$
billions, 2016)

NATO

 Albania
 Belgium
 Bulgaria
 Canada
 Croatia
  Czech Republic
 Denmark
 Estonia
 France
 Germany
 Greece
 Hungary
 Iceland
 Italy
 Latvia
 Lithuania
 Luxembourg
 Montenegro
 Netherlands
 Norway
 Poland
 Portugal
 Romania
 Slovakia
 Slovenia
 Spain
 Turkey
  United Kingdom
  United States
Total

02-3257-0 ch1.indd 27

3.0
11.4
7.1
35.4
4.3
10.7
5.6
1.3
66.8
80.7
10.8
9.9
0.4
62.0
2.0
2.8
0.6
0.6
17.0
5.3
38.5
10.8
21.6
5.5
2.0
48.6
80.3
64.4
324.0
933.4

12.1
470.0
50.4
1,530.0
49.9
194.0
303.0
23.5
2,490.0
3,490.0
196.0
117.0
19.4
1,850.0
27.9
42.8
61.0
4.2
770.0
376.0
467.0
206.0
187.0
90.3
44.1
1,250.0
736.0
2,650.0
18,600.0
36,307.6
(continued)

6/21/17 11:08 PM

­T A B L E   1 - 2 .

(continued)

Country

Population
(millions)

GDP (US$
billions, 2016)

142.4
142.4

1,270.0
1,270.0

3.1
9.9
9.6
3.9
1.2
5.5
4.9
1.8
2.1
3.5
7.1
9.9
44.2
106.7

10.8
35.7
48.1
16.5
19.9
239.0
14.5
6.6
10.5
6.7
37.8
517.0
87.2
919.3

8.7
4.9
0.4
8.2
22.2

387.0
308.0
10.5
662.0
1,367.5

RUS­S IA

  Rus­sia
Total
NEUTR AL AND CS TO

 Armenia
 Azerbaijan
 Belarus
  Bosnia-­Herzegovina
 Cyprus
 Finland
 Georgia
 Kosovo*
 Macedonia
 Moldova
 Serbia
 Sweden
 Ukraine
Total
OTHER NEUTR AL

 Austria
 Ireland
 Malta
 Switzerland
Total

*Kosovo’s in­de­pen­dence is not yet fully established.
Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2017
(New York: Routledge Press, 2017), pp. 42, 45, 90, 91, 93, 96, 98, 100, 102, 104,
106, 108, 110, 116, 120, 123, 125, 127, 131, 135, 137, 139, 142, 144, 149, 152, 154,
156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 170, 199, 200, 203, 205, 209, 210.
The World Fact Book, “Kosovo,” Central Intelligence Agency, March 14, 2017
(www​.­cia​.­gov​/­library​/­publications​/­t he​-­world​-­factbook ​/­geos​/­k v​.­html).

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29

applied by the West ­after the Crimea and Donbas operations
in Ukraine, Putin may not have welcomed the punishment,
but he, perhaps, saw a silver lining in helping ensure that
Rus­sia would be reminded to take care of itself and not
depend on the outside world for its economic viability.
Rus­sia’s economic recovery also permitted a reassertion
of military power. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Rus­sia’s armed forces had been the target of a series of largely
ineffectual reform programs. They ­were also far less well re­
sourced than NATO’s forces. However, in late 2008, ­after the
difficult war with Georgia, Rus­sia launched a much more se­
rious set of reforms ­under Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyu­
kov.49 The general improvement in Rus­sia’s economy and
desires for a reassertion of national power led to an expansion
in available resources to fund the country’s armed forces and
implement t­ hose reforms.
The modernization agenda had several components. A
central goal was to create higher-­performance, more mobile,
and better-­equipped units. The military was shrunk by about
a third, and officer ranks ­were reduced by half. As with the
U.S. military in this time period, the main unit of ground
combat capability was reduced from the division to the bri­
gade, and remaining brigades ­were more fully staffed and
manned. Most tanks ­were eliminated as well, though some
2,000 remained out of an initial force ten times that size.
Military education was revamped; pay was improved; pro­
fessionalism was emphasized.50
In late 2010 then-­Prime Minister Putin announced a dra­
matic weapons procurement plan to go along with this earlier
set of reforms in personnel, force structure, and readiness.
Ambitiously, some $700 billion was projected for weapons
modernization over a ten-­year time frame. This plan included
a wide range of equipment. For example, in the naval realm it

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Defense Spending and Active Force Size for
Key Countries

­T A B L E   1 - 3 .

Country

Defense
GDP on
Active
defense bud­get (US$
(­percent) millions, 2016) force size

NATO

 Albania
 Belgium
 Bulgaria
 Canada
 Croatia
  Czech Republic
 Denmark
 Estonia
 France
 Germany
 Greece
 Hungary
 Iceland
 Italy
 Latvia
 Lithuania
 Luxembourg
 Montenegro
 Netherlands
 Norway
 Poland
 Portugal
 Romania
 Slovakia
 Slovenia
 Spain
 Turkey
  United Kingdom
  United States
Average/Total/Total

02-3257-0 ch1.indd 30

0.95
0.83
1.35
0.86
1.18
1.02
1.17
2.14
1.90
1.10
2.37
0.85
0.16
1.21
1.47
1.50
0.36
1.63
1.19
1.59
1.94
1.06
1.49
1.09
1.02
0.98
1.19
1.98
3.25
1.34

115
3,900
678
13,200
588
1,970
3,550
503
47,200
38,300
4,640
996
31
22,300
411
642
220
69
9,190
5,970
9,080
2,180
2,780
983
450
12,200
8,760
52,500
604,000
847,300

8,000
29,600
31,300
63,000
15,550
21,950
16,600
6,400
202,950
176,800
142,950
26,500
250
174,500
5,310
17,030
900
1,950
35,410
24,950
99,300
29,600
70,500
15,850
7,250
123,200
355,200
152,350
1,347,300
3,200,500

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­T A B L E   1 - 3 .

(continued)

Country

Defense
GDP on
Active
defense bud­get (US$
(­percent) millions, 2016) force size

RUS­S IA

  Rus­sia
Average/Total/Total

3.67
3.67

46,600
46,600

831,000
831,000

3.96
4.03
1.06
1.16
1.79
1.37
1.98
NA
1.02
0.44
1.34
1.13
2.49
1.80

428
1,440
509
191
356
3,280
287
NA
107
29
507
5,830
2,170
15,100

44,800
66,950
48,000
10,500
12,000
22,200
20,650
NA
8,000
5,150
28,150
29,750
204,000
502,100

0.53
0.32
0.55
0.71
0.53

2,070
1,000
58
4,720
7,800

21,350
9,100
1,950
20,950
53,350

NEUTR AL AND CS TO

 Armenia
 Azerbaijan
 Belarus
  Bosnia-­Herzegovina
 Cyprus
 Finland
 Georgia
 Kosovo*
 Macedonia
 Moldova
 Serbia
 Sweden
 Ukraine
Average/Total/Total
OTHER NEUTR AL

 Austria
 Ireland
 Malta
 Switzerland
Average/Total/Total

*Kosovo’s in­de­pen­dence is not yet fully established.
Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2017
(New York: Routledge Press, 2017), pp. 42, 45, 90, 91, 93, 96, 98, 100, 102, 104, 106,
108, 110, 116, 120, 123, 125, 127, 131, 135, 137, 139, 142, 144, 149, 152, 154, 156,
158, 161, 164, 166, 170, 199, 200, 203, 205, 209, 210.
The World Fact Book, “Kosovo,” Central Intelligence Agency (www​
.­
cia​
.­
gov​
/­library​/­publications​/­t he​-­world​-­factbook ​/­geos​/­k v​.­html).

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

included Yasen-­class nuclear attack submarines, Lada-­class
and Kilo-­class diesel attack subs, several classes of frigates and
corvettes, Borey-­class ballistic missile submarines, and two
Mistral-­class amphibious vessels from France.51 Fighter air­
craft deliveries began to average about two dozen a year, in­
cluding MiG-29SMT, Su-34, and Su-35S jets.52
By 2014 annual military spending levels had reached
the range of $80 billion, almost double the 2008 figure. The
imposition of sanctions against Rus­sia in the course of
the Ukraine crisis, followed by the plummeting of global oil
prices, changed this plan. But much of its thrust survived.
And much of it had been accomplished by 2014, when the
Rus­sian military began to truly swing back into action.
CONCLUSION

By 2013, as the crisis in Ukraine began to unfold, Putin’s
worldview and his view of Amer­i­ca had become quite dark.
The stage was thus set for the Maydan revolution in Ukraine,
and for the sense in Putin’s mind that the West orchestrated
that revolution to further weaken Moscow. The narrative was
strengthened when, having helped negotiate a graceful de­
parture for President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014,
the West seemed to quickly abandon the plan once his ouster
could be achieved more quickly. The conditions w
­ ere in place
for the unleashing of “­little green men,” and much more.
As Putin concluded in his March 18, 2014, speech, ­after in­
vading and just before annexing Crimea: “Rus­sia strived to
engage in dialogue with our colleagues in the West. We con­
stantly propose[d] cooperation on ­every critical question, [we]
want[ed] to strengthen the level of trust, [we] want[ed] our re­
lations to be equal, open and honest. But we did not see recip­
rocal steps [from the West].” Limited by lack of direct contacts

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33

Soviet versus Rus­sian Military Indicators a Quarter
­ entury ­after the Cold War
C

­T A B L E   1 - 4 .

Annual estimated
bud­get (2014 $)
Active military
personnel
Reserve ­personnel
Active-­duty army
strength
ICBMs
Bombers
Fighter aircraft
Submarines
Principal surface
combatants

Soviet military
1989

Rus­sian military
2014

$225 billion
4,250,000

$82 billion
845,000

5,560,000
1,600,000

2,000,000
285,000

1,450
630
7,000
368
264

356
220
1,240
64
33

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance
1989–1990 (Oxford, E
­ ngland, 1989), pp. 32–37, and The Military Balance 2014
(Oxfordshire, E
­ ngland, 2014), pp. 180–86.

with the United States and driven by his threat perceptions,
Putin believed he had been rebuffed or deceived at ­every turn
by the West. His worldview, and that of many other Rus­sians,
may not be persuasive to most Western observers, but it does
appear to be largely sincere.
Meanwhile, negative Western views of Rus­sia and Putin
have spiked considerably. Rus­sia’s aggressions against Ukraine
in 2014, which continue to this day, w
­ ere followed by its sup­
port for Syrian president Bashar al-­Assad in 2015. Rus­sia’s mili­
tary assertiveness went from relatively limited and short in
Georgia in 2008 to quick and decisive in Crimea in early 2014

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

to sustained and deadly in the Donbas region thereafter—to
absolutely brutal in Syria, where its support for the inhumane
tactics of Assad’s forces have deprived its intervention of
any legitimacy whatsoever in Western eyes.
And of course Rus­sian meddling in the American elec­
tions of 2016 added insult to injury. Putin saw it, perhaps, as
repaying the ­favor that U.S. democracy-promotion efforts
had done him several years earlier. But Americans rejected
this comparison. Even Republicans who might have sup­
ported a Trump victory could not accept Rus­sian meddling
through hacking and disinformation, or view it as somehow
simply giving the United States its just deserts.
The advent of the Trump administration in Washington,
thus, comes at a crucial moment in history. The odds of
Mr. Trump being able to engineer an improvement in rela­
tions seem rather low u
­ nless he can fundamentally recast re­
lations between the West and Rus­sia that twenty-­eight years
of post–­Cold War history have done so much to undermine.
In the remaining chapters, I explore how a substantial
change in U.S.-­Russia and NATO-­Russia relations might
be attempted through the creation of a new security archi­
tecture. First, in chapter 2, I review briefly the basic state
of national security and national security politics in the
key neutral states that are the focal point of the proposal.
In chapter 3, I make the case for a new security paradigm
or structure for the neutral states of eastern Eu­rope, and in
chapter 4, I sketch out the main contours and characteris­
tics of such a plan.

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CHAPTER 2

A Primer on Eu­rope’s Frontier
States ­Today

A

ny discussion of a ­future security architecture for currently neutral states in eastern Eu­rope should be cognizant of the histories, strategic environments, and current
po­liti­cal debates in t­hese key countries. Specialists w
­ ill
not require this primer, but since the territory in question
stretches all the way from the Nordic region down through
the Balkans and into the Mediterranean, it may be worth
summarizing the basics to establish a common foundation
for the subsequent proposal of a new security system for the
overall area.
The purpose ­here is not to suggest that each and ­every
one of the countries at issue should be given a veto over the
proposal. Indeed, the security architecture I propose is ­simple
and in most ways passive. It is not about creating a new
organ­ization or new obligations for any of t­hese presently
neutral countries, and it would not bar them from teaming
up with each other in vari­ous combinations if they so wish.
35

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

Nor would it preclude them from self-­identifying any way
they wished in the f­uture—­including as “Western” states.
The issue ­here is simply about formal security alliances involving mutual-­defense pacts with major Western powers,
most notably NATO.
Regardless, American and NATO values require taking
into account the interests and views of ­these countries, which,
ideally, would be part of the consultation and negotiation
pro­cess before NATO and Rus­sia embarked on that effort.
Certainly the case for a new security system ­will be stronger
if ­t hose countries that would be most affected believe they
would benefit from it and generally support—or at least
accept—­the concept. It is, thus, essential to have some feel for
their security contexts prior to embarking on the design of a
new paradigm or architecture. This chapter examines four
groups of countries—­Sweden and Finland; Ukraine, Georgia,
Moldova, and Belarus; Armenia and Azerbaijan; and Cyprus
and Serbia—­plus other countries in the Balkans.
None of ­these countries except Ukraine, with 45 million
inhabitants, has a large population. Sweden has just u
­ nder
10 million p
­ eople and Finland just over 5 million. Georgia
has 5 million inhabitants, Belarus 10 million, and Moldova
­under 4 million. Armenia has 3 million souls and Azerbaijan 10 million. Cyprus has a population just over 1 million
and Serbia some 7 million. All told, the ten countries at issue
have 90 million citizens, half of them in Ukraine.
In military terms, Sweden is rather impressive for a country with a small population and spends $5 billion a year on
its armed forces. Ukraine spends roughly as much; other­
wise, only Azerbaijan cracks the $1 billion threshold, at
about $1.7 billion annually. Only Ukraine exceeds 100,000
uniformed personnel in its armed forces (in its case, the
number is now at least 200,000). Several of the countries de-

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ploy a ­couple hundred troops in vari­ous peacekeeping missions around the world; only Georgia approaches the 1,000
figure (which is impressive, given its small size).1 ­These
countries are impor­tant and valuable members of the international community for many reasons, but it is safe to say
that they are not strategic or military power­houses. Their
overall importance to the global order prob­ably has, at least
at pres­ent, much more to do with how they affect broader
Eu­ro­pean security dynamics than with their own direct military contributions, deployments, or operations.
This is not an excuse for Rus­sian domination of t­ hese small
states in any purported sphere of influence, no m
­ atter that
some Rus­sians might wish to claim other­wise. Indeed, ­there is
one impor­tant theme that emerges from t­ hese brief pages that
even specialists need to take greater stock of: t­ hese are proud,
in­de­pen­dent, and fully sovereign nations that deserve their
own security, prosperity, and self-­determination. Even t­hose
that ­were part of a Rus­sian empire at some previous stage in
history developed their own strong identities over time. Moreover, ­those Rus­sian “empires” w
­ ere often fluid and amorphous
constructions, not strong nation-­states of the Westphalian variety. The modest sizes and geographic locations of the countries considered ­here in no way compromise their inherent
rights as complete members of the international community,
with all the pride associated with true nations and all the prerogatives associated with statehood. They are not tributary
states of Rus­sia, or appendages of the Rus­sian empire, or part
of some special Rus­sian sphere of influence and interest.
FINL AND AND SWEDEN

The Nordic countries of Finland and Sweden are crucial
parts of any discussion about NATO’s f­uture, even if they

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

tend to be somewhat less in the crosshairs of the debate than
Ukraine or Georgia.
Finland and Sweden, two remarkable, market-­oriented
democracies, are already Western countries by most definitions. Their po­liti­cal systems, standards of living, and overall
quality of life are akin to t­hose of nations in NATO and the
Eu­ro­pean Union. They are in t­hese regards more similar to
neutral countries like Austria or Switzerland than to most
other neutral countries of eastern Eu­rope that are the focus of
this book. In addition, while they have modest populations—­a
bit more than 5 million for Finland and just ­under 10 million
for Sweden—­they are geo­graph­i­cally large. Finland shares a
long border with Rus­sia. Sweden does not directly make contact with Rus­sia, as Norway stretches around, so to speak, and
touches the northern tip of Rus­sia’s Kola Peninsula, but Sweden, too, is very close to Rus­sia.
Finland and Sweden are the two Nordic countries not part
of NATO t­oday. (Norway, Denmark, and Iceland are also
Nordic states, all within NATO.) Both Finland and Sweden
are members of the Eu­ro­pean Union, an organ­ization they
joined in 1995. This EU membership, in princi­ple, gives Finland and Sweden very strong security assurances from other
member states, most of which are, of course, also in NATO.
The absence of an American commitment and the somewhat
murkier character of that Eu­ro­pean Union security pledge,
however, prob­ably make the EU membership more significant
in diplomatic and economic realms than in security terms
per se. (Similarly, for the Baltic states, NATO membership is
likely a much greater source of security-­related reassurance
than EU membership.)2
Finland and Sweden are also the only two countries bordering the Baltic Sea, besides Rus­sia itself, that are not in
NATO. That sea is sometimes erroneously viewed as an ex-

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39

tension of the Atlantic Ocean when, in fact, it is much closer
to an inland body of w
­ ater geo­graph­i­cally; its only access to
outside ­waters is via the narrow Danish Straits. The Baltic
Sea’s eastern border is mostly made up of the Baltic states.
Rus­sia has a small access point near St.  Petersburg, in the
Gulf of Finland, the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. The
Baltic’s southern border consists of the Polish littoral, plus
Rus­sia’s Kaliningrad enclave. The northern borders of the
Baltic Sea are made up of the long Finnish and Swedish coastlines, largely along what is called the Gulf of Bothnia, an
extension of the Baltic in the northward direction. The Baltic
Sea’s western border is composed of Germany and Denmark.
This brief review of geography is intended simply to
underscore the stakes involved in the ­future of Finland
and Sweden. Historically, the waterways—as well as the
Finnish, Swedish, and Danish islands in the Baltic Sea—­
have been strongly contested during numerous conflicts,
including both world wars. ­Today, the Baltic Fleet is one of
Rus­sia’s four main navies, with some fifty ships (and 25,000
sailors) stationed in Kaliningrad.3 The w
­ aters of this region
are crucial for Rus­sian commerce as well, with crude oil exports and other goods transiting through them. If one thinks
in strictly military terms, it is a straightforward m
­ atter to see
that, since the Baltic region is so crucial for Eu­ro­pean security, NATO operational plans could benefit greatly by having
Sweden and Finland within the alliance.4
Historically, Sweden and Finland are joined not only by
geographic proximity and Nordic heritage but by politics,
too. Finland was part of Sweden ­until 1809, when it was ceded
to Rus­sia, remaining part of the latter ­until the Bolshevik
Revolution. Finland then gained in­de­pen­dence but was l­ ater
caught up intensively in World War II, ­a fter first fighting
the 1939–40 Winter War against the then–­Soviet Union to

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

preserve its in­de­pen­dence.5 Though it lost that war and some
territory, Finland managed to retain sovereignty. It did so,
subsequently, through the Cold War as well. The pejorative
phrase “Finlandization” that came into vogue during the Cold
War period wrongly implied greater Rus­sian dominance over
Finland than was ever the real­ity, particularly in domestic
policy and governance.
­Today Sweden and Finland retain much of their previous
predisposition t­ oward neutrality—­even as they also nurture
strong ties with NATO nations, including the Baltic states.
The tradition of neutrality in both countries is strong, dating back at least two centuries, and is grounded largely in
the pragmatic desire to avoid implication in the Eu­ro­pean
continent’s wars, as well as to avoid provoking Rus­sia.6 Both
countries, with their sparse populations, could face challenges in trying to fend off determined invaders, yet their
rugged terrain, rough climates, and geographic isolation have
generally made it pos­si­ble to stay out of o
­ thers’ crosshairs with
a ­little bit of prudence. Despite their commitment to neutrality, ­there has also been a long tradition of quiet security
cooperation with the West, which Sweden, in par­tic­u­lar, cultivated during the Cold War. Intelligence sharing, among other
­things, has been extensive.7
To be sure, recent Rus­sian assertiveness and bullying
be­hav­ior in the Baltic region have caused greater anxiety in
Finland and Sweden of late. Frequent violations of airspace
and territorial w
­ aters, buzzing of ships by aircraft, simulated bombing runs by nuclear-­capable aircraft, and other
unfriendly actions cause understandable consternation in
Stockholm and Helsinki.8
Historically, Swedish and Finnish voices in f­ avor of joining NATO w
­ ere relatively few and far between,9 but public
opinion in both countries is increasingly inclined to ­favor

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consideration of a NATO membership option more than was
ever the case before. A solid majority is still prob­ably against
it in Finland, but in Sweden recent polls have reflected an
evenly divided populace on the issue.10 Indeed, the possibility of pursuing NATO membership is shaping up as a major
issue for the 2018 parliamentary elections. It is significant
that a bloc of parties favoring membership has been leading
in some polls as of early 2017.11 In Finland, a 2016 government white paper explic­itly underscored the importance of
not just security collaboration with the United States and
NATO, but the pos­si­ble pursuit of a NATO membership option in the f­uture and the value that such an option could
provide, even if ultimately not exercised, for helping Finland
deal effectively with a more threatening Rus­sia.12
In summary, Finland and especially Sweden lean Westward, but they also have strong traditions of neutrality rooted
in pragmatism and a rugged sense of self-­reliance. Consideration of NATO membership tends to get an airing only
when acute threats from Rus­sia and the absence of alternative reliable means of ensuring national security overcome
more historical ways of thinking. Of course, at pres­ent ­those
Rus­sian threats feel acute in some Nordic quarters, and NATO
membership is being discussed much more than has historically been the case.
G E O R G I A , U K R A I N E , M O L D O VA , A N D B E L A R U S

The four countries of Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus can be usefully analyzed together. Even though Georgia is closer geo­graph­i­cally to Armenia and Azerbaijan, it
shares the distinction with Ukraine of having been invaded
by Rus­sia in recent years and of having been promised, in
2008, eventual NATO membership. Georgia and Ukraine

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

can, thus, naturally be considered together. Belarus and Moldova are somewhat less contentious, given the former’s geostrategic closeness to Moscow and the latter’s smaller size
and greater distance from Rus­sia, but both are in the same
general part of Eu­rope and both could certainly be caught
up in a tug-­of-­war between NATO and Rus­sia in the ­future.
Moldova also has a part of its territory, the Transnistria region, populated primarily by Rus­sian speakers and functioning as an autonomous zone of sorts, with Russian troops
on its soil, as well as an economy benefiting from Rus­sian
largesse and prob­ably ­doing better financially than the rest
of the country.13
Georgia is wedged between the Black Sea and beautiful
mountains in the Caucasus region of southwest Asia. Though
populated primarily by a distinct ethnic group known, appropriately enough, as Georgians, it is also very cosmopolitan
and diverse.14 Historically, it was at the crossroads of competition involving Ottomans, Persians, and, for a time,
Mongols before being incorporated into Rus­sia in the early
nineteenth c­ entury. Like Ukraine, it had a brief period of
in­de­pen­dence, from 1918 through 1921, before being absorbed into the Soviet Union. The three non-­Georgian parts
of Georgia, known as Abkhazia, Adjara, and South Ossetia,
­were accorded special status and autonomy in 1936.
Georgia has a special place in Rus­sian hearts. Not only
­were some of Rus­sia’s greatest writers, like Tolstoy, taken
with the country, but Stalin, his special police chief Lavrenti
Beria, and former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze all came, originally, from Georgia. Georgia’s relationship with Rus­sia has thus been one of closeness but also of
some tension, as the strong Georgian sense of identity combined with the country’s small size and geographic distance
from Moscow have created complex dynamics.15

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Events since the end of the Cold War and the dissolution
of the Soviet Union have exacerbated tensions. Fighting and
ethnic cleansing ensued a­ fter Georgia became in­de­pen­dent
in the early 1990s. Shevardnadze came back to Tbilisi from
Rus­sia in 1992 and became president in 1995. But Mikheil
Saakashvili and other strong-­willed reformers led movements
that increasingly opposed what they saw as the Soviet-­like
ways and patterns of corruption of the Shevardnadze government. They w
­ ere supported by American NGOs and groups
like the National Demo­cratic Institute and the International
Republican Institute, government-­funded agencies that ­were
sometimes portrayed as part of a conspiracy to steer Georgian politics in a pro-­Western direction. Armed only with
flowers, ­these reformers led a “­Rose Revolution” ­after disputed
elections in 2003, and demanded Shevardnadze’s resignation,
which was secured a­ fter troops refused the president’s order
to disperse protesters. Saakashvili then won a hastily arranged
election in January 2004, with 94 ­percent of the vote. As he
then tightened ties to Washington and sought to bring Abkhazia as well as South Ossetia back u
­ nder Tbilisi’s control,
relations with Putin deteriorated. On April  3, 2008, at its
Bucharest summit, NATO promised Georgia eventual membership, in Article 23 of the summit declaration. That same
August, Rus­sia invaded Georgia.16 It kept large forces in South
Ossetia and Abkhazia well ­after the invasion had technically
ended and even ­after the new Obama administration sought
a reset in relations between Moscow and Washington.17
It is not difficult to see why Georgia, with its Eu­ro­pean
mores and distinct ethnic group and its location far from
Moscow, would aspire to be a part of Eu­ro­pean institutions.
It is also not difficult to see why Rus­sia would consider it a
serious affront—if not to its ­actual physical security, then at
least to its sense of self and its history and traditions—­t hat

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

Georgia be courted by faraway NATO and promised f­ uture
membership.
Of course the story with Georgia did not end in 2008.
Saakashvili lost his own hold on power and, indeed, somewhat bizarrely, relocated to Ukraine, where he has become a
politician there. He is now very unpop­u­lar in Georgia. Indeed,
he may have contributed to his former party’s defeat in October 2016 elections at the hands of the Georgian Dream party
by suggesting that he might come back to seek office again.
The NATO question is now on indefinite hold, though in
surveys, the idea of membership has consistently remained
relatively favorable among Georgians (with 50 to 65 ­percent
typically approving fully and another 20 ­percent supporting
the idea in more lukewarm fashion since 2008–09).18 The
“frozen conflicts” with the autonomous regions persist unresolved, and relations with Rus­sia remain uncertain. Georgia
now has an Association Agreement with the Eu­ro­pean Union,
which surely raises eyebrows and furrows foreheads in Moscow.19 Even so, the country continues to strug­gle in many
ways, including in the strength of its civil society and demo­
cratic institutions, and its economy remains troubled. The
Georgian f­ uture remains murky.20
Ukraine is a case similar to Georgia in some ways, though
with almost ten times as many ­people, it is an entirely dif­fer­
ent m
­ atter in o
­ thers. Indeed, it is the largest, and far and
away the most populous, country u
­ nder consideration h
­ ere.
As Ambassador Steven Pifer writes in his book The Ea­gle and
the Trident, Ukraine’s history is deeply interwoven with Rus­
sia’s. Apart from, perhaps, Belarus, Ukraine may be the former Soviet republic that has the deepest sense of common
identity with the Rus­sian Federation—­yet at the same time a
strong and growing sense of separate nationhood and sovereignty, w
­ hether Rus­sians like Putin recognize it or not.

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Ukraine and Rus­sia ­were essentially part of the same ancient polity, Kyivan Rus’, from 882 to 1240. Of course, given
the huge expanses of central Eurasia, the myriad ethnic and
religious groups, the ebbs and flows of invaders, and many
other f­ actors, it would be misleading to think of Kyivan Rus’
as the equivalent of a strong nation-­state with a type of
governance resembling the modern era. ­These w
­ ere, a­ fter all,
the M
­ iddle Ages, when much of Western Eu­rope was only
gradually witnessing the development of the nation-­state
itself.
Ukraine then experienced several centuries of separate existence. During that long period, vari­ous parts of its territory
shifted hands on numerous occasions. Lithuanians, Austro-­
Hungarians, Crimeans, Poles, Rus­sians, even Ottomans exercised some degree of control at times. Then, in 1654, its leaders
(of the Cossack group or ­people) agreed to join Rus­sia, and the
accession held u
­ ntil the Bolshevik Revolution. From 1918 to
1921, Ukraine was briefly in­de­pen­dent before joining the
Soviet Union.21
The Soviet de­cades included enormous pain and suffering. Stalin’s rule led to the ­Great Famine and the death of
millions of citizens. Ukraine was obliterated by World War
II, losing an estimated 15  ­percent of its population in the
course of the conflict.22
Premier Khrushchev famously gave Crimea to Ukraine
in 1954. This could be interpreted as an act of ­great generosity or, alternatively, as l­ittle more than an administrative
rearrangement given that the constituent republics of the
Soviet Union w
­ ere entirely subservient to Moscow. The fact
that the Black Sea Fleet was based in Sevastopol on the
Crimean peninsula underscored the degree to which Moscow
would hardly have seen this change as reducing its own
control of all ­matters Ukrainian.

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Pifer argues that in the years since the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, American policy ­toward
Ukraine has been decidedly mixed in its effectiveness. He
asserts that Washington found a good balance of incentives
and disincentives in dealing with Ukraine’s foreign and security policies. Notably, Kiev was persuaded to denuclearize
­after inheriting a substantial fraction of the Soviet Union’s
nuclear infrastructure and arsenal. This decision was accompanied by the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, by which Rus­
sia, the United States, and the United Kingdom promised to
uphold Ukraine’s security—­a promise that clearly has not
been kept, most notably not by Rus­sia.
If Washington was happy with Ukraine’s decision to
denuclearize, it was less successful over the years in encouraging domestic and economic reform. Some reforms
have been enacted in areas such as the pricing of energy,
the transparency of the financial holdings of government
officials, and the country’s fiscal situation.23 However, the
current Ukrainian state remains mired in corruption and
poor management and a fractious po­liti­cal system.24 The so-­
called Orange Revolution of 2004–05, as well as the Maydan
Revolution of 2013–14, failed to lead to major improvements. If one compares Ukraine and Poland—­t wo former
parts of the Warsaw Pact, countries of roughly comparable
population and GDP per capita at Cold War’s end—it is
striking that Poland is now three times richer per person.
This divergence in economic fortunes occurred despite the
facts that Ukraine has some of the world’s best farmland
and that it inherited a substantial fraction of the former
Soviet Union’s high-­technology industrial base (though as
economist Clifford Gaddy has convincingly argued, the
latter was a very mixed blessing for building a post-­Soviet
economy).25

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Again, it is impor­tant to note that the sense of Ukrainian
identity among Ukrainians is quite strong despite the many
centuries in which Rus­sia and Ukraine ­were part of the
same country or empire. This and other ­factors led to strong
support for in­de­pen­dence when a referendum was held
in late 1991, with 90 ­percent supporting self-­determination.
­These nationalistic sentiments have prob­ably strengthened
further since the Rus­sian aggressions that began in 2014.
However, while impressing themselves and the world with
their strong sense of nationalism, Ukrainians often have
found in the last quarter c­ entury that their geopo­liti­cal value
for the West is less than they might have hoped.26
Ukrainian identity and nationalism have historically been
strongest in the country’s western regions. In eastern Ukraine,
a higher proportion of the population is ethnic Rus­sian (that is
where most of the nation’s Rus­sians, who make up 17 ­percent
of the population, live). However, more recently the po­liti­cal
line between east and west Ukraine has begun to blur. Po­liti­
cal parties based in the east have started to enjoy some support
in the west of the country, and vice versa. Anti-­Russian sentiment has hardened, as the Donbas war has by now taken
10,000 lives—­even if t­ here is still an ele­ment of pragmatism in
trying not to alienate Moscow entirely among the country’s
key po­liti­cal parties and leaders.27 Polls in April 2014 revealed
that a large portion of the population in eastern areas, including even the conflict-­afflicted Donbas regions of Donetsk and
Luhansk, wanted to remain in Ukraine,28 yet only a modest
plurality of Ukrainians overall supported NATO membership
as of June 2016, by a margin of thirty-­nine to thirty-­two (with
support much stronger in the west and center than the east or
south).29
In terms of national security policy, Kiev has sought to
strengthen its military with modest NATO and EU help to

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defeat Russian-­a ided separatists in the east. It has also
maintained support for the so-­called Minsk and Minsk II
pro­cesses (based on pacts negotiated in 2014 and early
2015). Th
­ ese would lift Western sanctions on Rus­sia and
accord Donetsk and Luhansk more autonomy in exchange
for a cessation of hostilities and standing down of armed
units t­here. However, Kiev has believed that the separatists, and Moscow, should make efforts on the latter ­matters
before it carries out any major initiatives or constitutional
changes in regard to the autonomy question.30 Rus­sia and
the separatists have not obliged; thus, the situation remains
stuck, and the conflict saw an uptick in vio­lence in early
2017 yet again.
A brief word is in order about Belarus and Moldova.
They are the much smaller neighbors of Ukraine. Belarus is
essentially just south of the Baltic states, and to the north
of Ukraine—­t hus, like Ukraine, situated squarely between
Poland and Rus­sia. Moldova does not share a border with
Rus­sia but has a modest-­sized Russian-­speaking population
that has effectively broken off from the rest of the tiny country. It is a very poor and landlocked state, bordering Romania, as well. Like Ukraine, both Belarus and Moldova have
historically been at the junction of competing nationalities
and cultures and religions, given their locations in central
and eastern Eu­rope. Both are dominated by distinct ethnic
groups from which their countries draw their names, and
their minority populations are not unimportant in size or
po­liti­cal weight (roughly 75 ­percent of Moldova’s population
is Moldovan, almost 85  ­percent of Belarus’s is Belarus­sian,
with Rus­sians about 6 ­percent of the former’s population and
8 ­percent of the latter’s).31
Neither country has had a successful post-­Soviet experience. Belarus has effectively been taken over by the auto-

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cratic Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Rus­sia (even
before Putin’s rise to power) and strong critic of NATO. He
has ruled since 1994, having recently “won” a fifth presidential term in sham elections, controlling the state with an iron
fist and l­ittle tolerance for dissent or opposition. The country had been reasonably prosperous in earlier times, by Soviet
standards, at least. Since the demise of the Soviet Union,
it was granted favorable terms for importing energy by
Moscow but remained saddled with an obsolete and state-­
controlled industry.32 It has not flourished.
Moldova is a very small and weak state. The year 2014
seemed to augur a brighter f­ uture, as it featured completion
of an Association Agreement with the Eu­ro­pean Union and
also an accord on visa-­free travel in Eu­rope,33 but the country has since experienced numerous changes of government,
as well as a huge and costly banking scandal. Its po­liti­cal
class is mostly ineffectual; its citizenry is struggling, not
particularly or­ga­nized po­liti­cally, and not very confident in
the nation’s effort to build a new democracy out of the vestiges of the Soviet Union.34 By about a two to one plurality
since 2015, its citizens consistently oppose the idea of Moldova joining NATO.35
At pres­ent neither Belarus nor Moldova seems likely to
drive the NATO enlargement discussion. That said, a change
in po­liti­cal leadership in e­ ither country could lead to new
dynamics in relations with Rus­sia and, thus, the broader
NATO debate.
ARMENIA AND A ZERBAIJAN

The Armenia and Azerbaijan region of the Caucasus is also
relevant to the ­future of security organ­ization and architecture in Eu­rope. The two countries are closely linked with

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each other—by a common border, by an ongoing “frozen
conflict” over the Nagorno-­Karabakh region, by their shared
history as former Soviet republics. In one sense, the two small
states are far away from it all and not particularly germane to
the security concerns of anyone besides each other on a day-­
to-­day basis. On the other hand, their potential for further
vio­lence could erupt into open warfare again, at which point
Rus­sia and Turkey and ­others might feel the repercussions of
the fighting or become involved in it themselves. Indeed, the
situation did erupt into a brief period of focused combat in
the spring of 2016, when Azerbaijan tried unsuccessfully
to benefit from a recent period of military buildup with
what some have described as the largest attack in the area
in more than twenty years. That may not be the last word in
the ­matter.36
Geo­graph­i­cally, Armenia and Azerbaijan both border
Georgia. Georgia and Azerbaijan essentially create an east-­
west swath through the Caucasus region that links the Black
Sea to the Caspian Sea, with Rus­sia to the north of that
swath of land and Armenia to the south. Landlocked Armenia also borders Turkey, of course, and shares a short border
with Iran. Technically, Azerbaijan is also landlocked, since
its only littoral is along the inland Caspian Sea. In addition
to Armenia, Georgia, Rus­sia, and Iran, Azerbaijan also
shares a short common border with Turkey, due to a small,
separated piece of territory to the west of the main part of
the country.
Armenia benefits from good relations with Moscow and
is part of the Eurasian Economic Union, along with Kazakhstan, Rus­sia, and Belarus. It is also part of the Collective Security Treaty Organ­ization, along with Rus­sia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.37 However,

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it is in a difficult strategic position, with no access to the sea
or “global commons” except via one of the four neighboring
countries with which it has complex relations. Much of its
energy comes from Rus­sia via pipeline through Georgia. As
for Azerbaijan, its best foreign relationships include t­ hose
with Turkey and several western states.
Both countries are dominated by ethnic groups that give
the countries their names and languages. Azerbaijan has
more than three times the population of Armenia, but the
latter has a global diaspora of some 10 million ­people (Azerbaijan’s diaspora is prob­ably as large, though much of it is in
nearby Iran). Armenia’s ­actual population has been shrinking due to economic and po­liti­cal challenges. Azerbaijan
certainly has its own share of economic prob­lems, but hydrocarbon revenue stimulates at least some sectors of the
economy and some regions of the country. In terms of GDP
as well as per capita income, it is well ahead of Armenia
­today. It sends its oil and gas exports to the world via Georgia and Turkey as well as Rus­sia.38
Both countries rank in the world’s top ten for the fraction of their respective GDPs devoted to their armed forces,
due principally to their conflict with each other.39
Po­liti­cally, Armenia has had stable presidential leadership for nearly a de­cade u
­ nder Serzh Sargsian, but ­after constitutional revision, it is soon to make the transition to a
parliamentary system and a new head of state. Azerbaijan is
closer to an authoritarian regime. President Ilham Aliyev
has been in power since 2003 and elections in the country
have not been deemed to be up to international standards.
Armenia has a very long history. It was the first nation
to declare itself a Christian po­liti­cal system, in the fourth
­century, based on a tradition with many similarities to the

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Rus­sian Orthodox Church. Given its location and small
size, it was frequently at the mercy of nearby powers, including the Ottomans and Persians and Rus­sians. The Ottoman
Empire ceded eastern parts of present-­day Armenia to Rus­
sia in the nineteenth ­century. Armenians suffered genocide
at the hands of Turkish forces in 1915, caught up in the rivalry and vio­lence between Rus­sia and Turkey. Like many of
the other countries at issue in this book, it made a brief
break for in­de­pen­dence a­ fter World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, only to be subjugated by the Soviet Union
shortly thereafter.
Azerbaijanis are a mix of Turks, Persians, and other groups
who settled in areas to the east of Armenia over the course of
many centuries.40 However, the Nagorno-­Karabakh region of
Azerbaijan is almost entirely populated by Armenians. As
such, it was granted special autonomous status in the 1920s by
the Soviet Union. That mostly quelled dissent ­under the coercive Soviet system—­though not entirely, as t­ here ­were protests
in the 1960s in which Armenians demanded the territory
back.41 The situation erupted when the Soviet Union broke
apart in the early 1990s, leading quickly to a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that remains ongoing.42 It is not truly a
“frozen” conflict; indeed, it seems pos­si­ble that having embarked on a military buildup in recent years, and in the absence of any successful international mediation effort (by
­either the OSCE or Moscow, both of which have tried and
failed), Azerbaijan may again escalate hostilities in an attempt
to reestablish control of the territory.43 Meanwhile, the situation remains essentially as before: Armenian forces, aided by
Rus­sia, have managed to help the local population establish a
greater degree of separation and autonomy than they previously had, but at the price of Nagorno-­Karabakh existing now
in a sort of po­liti­cal no-­man’s-land.

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Armenia remains in an uncertain place vis-­a-­vis Turkey, as
well. Efforts at rapprochement dating to a 2009 understanding
that addressed the history question and other m
­ atters have not
been translated into an official accord or formal improvement
of relations.44 Armenia has been attempting to strike a balance
in ties with Moscow and the West. It is seeking to complement
its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union with closer
economic ties with the United States and EU, for example.45
Armenia and Azerbaijan remain a long way from most
of the world’s attention, in one sense. But with an ongoing
conflict between them, the potential for serious prob­lems
that could affect the equities and interests of other parties
remains real, as well.
CYPRUS, SERBIA, AND THE BALK ANS

Fi­nally, ­there is the Balkans region, together with Cyprus.
This region may be far from Rus­sia geo­g raph­i­cally, but it
is quite impor­tant strategically. The Balkans region includes
not only Serbia but also Montenegro, Macedonia, and BosniaHerzegovina, as well as Kosovo. Macedonia and Bosnia have
formal NATO Membership Action Plans; Montenegro has
just acceded to the alliance. Kosovo has declared its in­de­pen­
dence from Serbia, something Washington and more than
100 other countries have recognized, but it remains in a sort
of diplomatic and strategic limbo.
All of the Balkan entities at issue are small. Serbia is the
big kid on the block with 7 million ­people (not counting
Kosovo), with 85 ­percent or so of t­ hose citizens Serb by ethnicity. Bosnia has just u
­ nder 4 million inhabitants; Montenegro has about 650,000. Each of t­ hose two countries is about
30 ­percent Serbian. Bosniaks make up half of the population
of Bosnia, and about 15  ­percent of the country is Croat.

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Montenegrins make up almost half of the citizens of Montenegro. Kosovo has almost 2 million citizens, more than
90 ­percent of whom are Kosovar Albanian. Macedonia has
about 2 million citizens, with Albanians the most sizeable
minority.
The Balkans have been a major source of post–­Cold
War contention between Moscow and Western governments
­going back to the Yeltsin days. NATO’s intervention in the
Kosovo war of 1999, an action opposed by Moscow and, thus,
not approved by the UN Security Council, was seen as one of
the original sins of Western and American unilateralism by
many Rus­sians (including Putin, even though he was not yet
president), as discussed in chapter 1. Serbia, with its orthodox
traditions, had been close to Rus­sia for many years. The outbreak of World War I had its catalyst in the Balkans, not least
­because of competing Rus­sian and Western interests ­there.
Yugo­slavia formed in that war’s aftermath and became a
communist yet partially non­a ligned autocracy ­u nder Tito
during the Cold War. When Tito died in 1980, the country
managed to hold together another de­cade, but the end of the
Cold War and the arrival on the scene of Slobodan Milosevic
as the leader of Serbia led to the multinational confederation’s
breakup in the early 1990s.46 NATO intervened to help end
the Bosnian civil war, which was largely a result of Milosevic’s
expansionism and sectarian favoritism, in 1995. When it
sought to do something similar within Serbia itself, helping
protect Kosovar Albanians from Milosevic’s ravages in 1999,
Rus­sia cried foul.47
The twenty-­first c­ entury has remained complicated for
the Balkans, as well. Serbia began to move po­liti­cally in a
generally pro-­Western direction; Milosevic lost at the polls
in 2000 and was subsequently extradited to the Hague, where

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he died in 2006. But Serbs did not feel quickly rewarded for
their reforms. The small remaining Yugo­slav Federation,
made up of Serbia and Montenegro, dissolved in 2006,
with the latter electing for in­de­pen­dence, and now NATO
membership as well.48
Kosovo declared in­de­pen­dence on February 17, 2008—
an action recognized by the United States the next day. More
than 100 other countries have done so, as well, as noted, but
not Serbia or Rus­sia (or China), and as such, Kosovo is not
currently a member state of the United Nations.
With t­ hese developments, Serbia has taken several hits. It
lost its access to the sea via Montenegro, an impor­tant and
historic region populated primarily by co-­religionists. It also
effectively lost Kosovo, also a key part of its history and culture, containing among other ­things the fabled Field of the
Blackbirds, the location of the ­great 1389 b
­ attle that pitted
Serbian Christians against invading Ottomans in a strug­gle
that Milosevic exploited when he first came to power.49 Serbia has become smaller and more isolated in its corner of
Eu­rope than when it was a part of a larger federation.
Bitterness over this ­matter lingers between Moscow and
Western capitals. Even in 2016, Rus­sia’s RT media outlet
(formerly Rus­sia T
­ oday) was publishing an article wrongly
claiming that Milosevic had somehow been exonerated for
his war crimes, not wanting to let go of that earlier issue.50
Part of the bitterness is, undoubtedly, explained by the fact
that t­ hese m
­ atters are not merely m
­ atters of history. In light
of existing NATO-­related plans for Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia, and the aspirations of many Kosovars not
only to fully separate from Serbia but to join NATO, the
geostrategic competition between Rus­sia and the West continues in the Balkans. Serbia, meanwhile, is taking gradual

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steps t­ oward joining the Eu­ro­pean Union, though it retains
some bitterness at the West and some pro-­Russian sentiments, as well. At pres­ent it does not, therefore, seem interested in NATO membership.
As for Cyprus, the situation is, perhaps, somewhat less
fraught, but even in this distant Mediterranean island of just
over 1 million, East-­West tensions linger. Cyprus was ruled
by Britain for centuries ­until achieving in­de­pen­dence in the
twentieth c­ entury, with a power-­sharing formula established
for its Greeks and Turks. But a Greece-­supported coup in
1974 led to the countervailing intervention of Turkish troops
on the northern third of the island, where they remain.
Cyprus is now part of the Eu­ro­pean Union, but the normal
terms of association only apply where the internationally
recognized government rules, in the southern two-­thirds of
the island. Both Cyprian governments now express an interest in reunification of some type but acceptable terms
have not yet been reached.51
Meanwhile, Cyprus remains geo­graph­i­cally close to the
­Middle East and Syria in par­tic­u­lar. Its associations with the
West could, therefore, have strategic implications in Moscow’s
eyes if they extended to substantial military cooperation or
even NATO membership. Cyprus has also become an
impor­tant financial haven and vacation getaway for many
Rus­sians, constituting one of Rus­sia’s few remaining friendly
outposts in Eu­rope. While much of the narrative in 2016
and 2017 in the West has been about Rus­sian encroachment
on Western democracy, from Moscow’s vantage point the
broad sweep of history prob­ably looks very dif­fer­ent, as Rus­
sia has lost most previous close alliances and friendships in
eastern Eu­rope and the Balkans over the last quarter c­ entury
or so. Cyprus represents a partial exception to that overall
trend.

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C O N C L U S I O N : H O W N AT O E U ­R O P E S E E S
T H E C R I S I S T­ O D AY

Although this chapter’s main purpose is to understand how
the countries that would be at the center of the new security
architecture see their interests and their options, it is worth
taking stock of some broad sentiments within the existing
alliance t­ oday, as well. With twenty-­nine countries, NATO
is a complex entity. T
­ oday, several of its longest-­standing
members are in the midst of major po­liti­cal change of one
type or another, several of its newer members are showing
signs of internal strain, and all of its nations are sorting
through the dual shocks of the refugee crisis combined with
the renewed threat of Rus­sian revanchism.
One ele­ment of the discussion is what might be termed
NATO’s front-­line states, t­ hose bordering Rus­sia or close to
it. ­These countries include Norway in the north, Estonia
and Latvia in the northern Baltic region, and Lithuania plus
Poland in the southern Baltic/central Eu­ro­pean area. Of
­these, the most exposed are the Baltic states and Poland.
­These are also the places where the United States is carry­ing
out its Eu­ro­pean Reassurance Initiative, part of NATO’s
broader Operation Atlantic Resolve.
Taken together, the typical thinking within ­t hese four
states can prob­ably be summarized this way. First, they
are, collectively, rather ardent in their belief in NATO
expansion—­not only out of gratitude for being included
themselves, but out of a belief that an inclusive approach to
the alliance’s f­uture also stands to benefit close neighbors,
such as Ukraine. They would not feel right about denying
options to countries like Ukraine that they have benefited
from themselves. The original logic of the expansion pro­cess
saw it as a way to stabilize a ­whole region, benefiting not just

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any individual country receiving an Article V guarantee that
an attack on one is an attack on all, but its neighbors, as well.
At the same time, ­these four countries are acutely aware of
the potential threat posed by Rus­sia in recent times. They do
not tend to justify or excuse Rus­sian hostilities of the last few
years with reference to the fact of earlier NATO expansion.
They do tend to appreciate the sensitivities in the relationships t­oday, recognizing that the current situation has
­become far more tense and dangerous than when they joined
(1999 in the case of Poland, 2004 for the three Baltics).52
A word is also in order on Turkey. That nation, on the
front lines of the Syrian civil war and among the leaders of
the anti-­democratic backlash movement in Eu­rope t­ oday, has
suffered enormously since 2011. Its leader, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, has moved in autocratic directions internally, while
encountering a renewal of domestic vio­lence involving Kurdish groups and a huge threat from ISIS and ­others in the Arab
world. Perhaps all that can be said with confidence is that
Turkey’s new strategic directions are up in the air. Erdogan
has changed his thinking considerably already. He has moved
­toward limited forms of collaboration with Rus­sia and suggested that, perhaps, he no longer insists on regime change in
Damascus, ­after having made the removal of Bashar al-­Assad
his preeminent goal earlier in the Syrian conflict. Turkey feels
si­mul­ta­neously somewhat abandoned by NATO and in need
of NATO, angry at Putin yet unable to afford the luxury of a
complete showdown with Rus­sia, and broadly nationalistic
yet also at a moment in its history at which most of its key
decisions are made by just one man. It is improvising, and
where that ­will lead in the years to come is very difficult to
fathom.53
As for the rest of the NATO states, a useful crystallization
of key attitudes emerges from a poll released in June 2015

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that the Pew Research Center conducted over the previous
several months. It showed in a nuanced way both NATO’s
enduring strength as an organ­ization and its members’ divided views about just how firmly to push back against
Rus­sia. To the extent that ­these poll results are similar to
attitudes t­oday, it suggests that NATO is still serious about
holding together as a self-­defense organ­ization, but it is not
spoiling for a fight with Rus­sia and does not tend to foresee
the need for military force.
The Pew study surveyed publics in Poland, Spain, France,
Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and
Canada. It found that majorities of citizens in a number of
key NATO states would not f­ avor the use of force to protect
another alliance member in the event of Rus­sian aggression.
That would seem, on its face, to ignore Article V of the NATO
alliance’s founding charter, the Washington Treaty of 1949,
which states that an attack on one is an attack on all, and
should be treated accordingly.54 Specifically, Article V says:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or
more of them in Eu­rope or North Amer­i­ca s­hall be
considered an attack against them all and consequently
they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of
them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective
self-­defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of
the United Nations, w
­ ill assist the Party or Parties so
attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. . . . ​
This lack of willingness to commit to an automatic military
response may appear to some as tantamount to an invitation

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to renewed Rus­sian aggression. It seems to raise the scenario of Vladimir Putin again employing his patriotic cyber
attackers and “­little green men,” not just in Crimea but, perhaps, in Latvia or Estonia—­former republics in the Soviet
Union turned in­de­pen­dent nations and, since 2004, members of NATO. Each also has significant populations of Rus­
sian speakers that, Putin can purport, want to be re­united
with the motherland. Each is too far east for NATO to easily
mount a military defense in any case. Operation Atlantic
Resolve together with the Eu­ro­pean Reassurance Initiative
only partially addresses the prob­lem. Are such parts of the
Western alliance, and perhaps other countries like Poland,
therefore, now vulnerable to Rus­sian aggression?
In fact, it would be a m
­ istake to reach this conclusion
based on the Pew survey or any other recent polling. While
­there are, indeed, some troubling findings in the Pew results,
on balance what emerges is the picture of an alliance that still
provides the West with considerable cohesion, and considerable leverage, in addressing the prob­lem of Putin. Yet Western
publics also wisely see the current crisis as one that fundamentally should not have to be solved by military means.
Before trying to chart a path for the ­future, it is impor­tant
to summarize not just the headline-­dominating findings just
noted, but several other key results from Pew, which generally comport with more recent indicators of NATO public
sentiment:
• The NATO publics had negative views of Rus­sia and
Putin. They seem to have ­little doubt of who is primarily
responsible for the crisis in relations of the last several
years, dating to the immediate aftermath of the Sochi
Olympics, when protests in Ukraine forced out the country’s previous leader, President Yanukovich.

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• Publics in five of eight NATO countries surveyed (the
UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany) opposed sending
weapons to Ukraine to defend itself in the current crisis,
as did President Obama as a m
­ atter of American policy.
• Nonetheless, six of the eight countries had majorities in
­favor of bringing Ukraine into NATO, with percentages
ranging from France’s 55 ­percent to Canada’s 65 ­percent.
In Germany and Italy, however, the figures ­were only
about 35 ­percent.
• NATO countries remained more than willing to employ
sanctions against Rus­sia over its be­hav­ior. This was true
in e­ very alliance member-­state that was polled, including Germany, the most pro-­Russian NATO state that was
included in the polling.
• Although just 38 ­percent of Germans favored a military
response in the event of a hy­po­thet­i­cal Rus­sian attack
against another NATO member, they remained in ­favor
of sanctions against Rus­sia. Only 29  ­percent favored a
loosening of the current sanctions, ­unless Rus­sia’s be­
hav­ior ­were to change.
• Putin remained extremely popu­lar in Rus­sia, with favorability ratings approaching 90 ­percent; Rus­sians blamed
the West, and falling oil prices, for their current economic woes, and not their own government or its policies. (Two years ­later, in 2017, this basic situation appears
unchanged.)
• Forebodingly, most Rus­sians believe that eastern Ukraine,
where the current fighting rages, should not remain part
of Ukraine but should ­either become in­de­pen­dent or
join their country.

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Two more key points are impor­tant to remember. First,
the type of hy­po­thet­i­cal Rus­sian attack against a NATO
country that formed the premise for the Pew question about
Article V was not clearly specified. Perhaps respondents w
­ ere
in some sense wondering if a takedown of several Latvian or
Estonian computer networks, or something similar in scale,
or a very minor incursion by a small number of Rus­sian forces
over a remote border, r­eally needed to be met with NATO
tanks. For most Western publics, the advisability of a major
military response might well, understandably enough, depend
on the nature of the perceived Rus­sian attack as well as the
other options available to the alliance.
Second, and related, it is impor­tant to remember that
Article V does not demand an automatic, unconditional military response by each alliance member. It says, rather, that an
attack on one should lead to a response by all—­involving
what­ever means the individual states determine. Specifically,
in quoting Article V again, note the phrase that is italicized:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or
more of them in Eu­rope or North Amer­i­ca s­hall be
considered an attack against them all and consequently
they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of
them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective
self-­defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of
the United Nations, w
­ ill assist the Party or Parties so
attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. . . . ​
Furthermore, ­there are two more sentences in Article V,
which read: “Any such armed attack and all mea­sures taken

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as a result thereof s­ hall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such mea­sures s­ hall be terminated when the
Security Council has taken the mea­sures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.” In
other words, the NATO Treaty assumes that a conflict might
not be ended by NATO’s own response, but only ­after the
UN Security Council has engaged as well.
This ambiguity may risk complicating deterrence, to be
sure. It also needs to be reflected upon as a potential indicator
of where alliance thinking about pos­si­ble further enlargement might go in the ­future. If alliance publics are already
skittish about defending the Baltics, it needs to be asked how
likely their governments ever ­will be to invite more members
into NATO. Even if they do, it can be questioned w
­ hether
they would necessarily fight in the defense of faraway friends
located right next to Rus­sia. For all of NATO’s enthusiasm
about bringing in thirteen new members since the Cold War
ended, none of ­these countries was at real risk of Rus­sian attack when they ­were offered membership. The enlargement
imperative was driven much more by the desire to consolidate democracy, stability, and civilian rule in new parts of the
continent than by consensus about offering countries protection against a potentially aggressive Moscow.
A more recent set of Pew polls in NATO shows strong
support for the alliance ­today, in all countries surveyed
except Greece. In the United States, where Donald Trump
spent 2016 denigrating the alliance, a February 2017 Gallup
poll showed a whopping support of 80  ­percent among the
American public.55 But the Pew polling also showed ambivalence in Eu­rope about any increase in military spending.
That was before Trump’s victory in the United States on
November 8, yet was prob­ably still relevant as another indication of most alliance members’ longstanding bud­getary

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priorities. Across eleven countries surveyed, positive views
about NATO dominated negative ones by a fifty-­seven to
twenty-­seven median margin. Yet most publics had a strong
preference for keeping military spending roughly where it
was or cutting spending further. (In the typical country,
perhaps 30 to 35 ­percent of respondents favored increasing
spending, 45 to 50 ­percent favored holding the line, and the
remainder preferred reductions.)56
The overall picture that tends to emerge is one of an alliance where support for current security arrangements is
solid, but enthusiasm for new obligations—or even defending new members with force in certain kinds of scenarios
and circumstances—is much more limited. Perhaps the enlargement proj­ect, however noble its motivations, has now
run its full course. That is the question to which chapter 3
now turns.

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CHAPTER 3

The Case for a New
Security Architecture

R

ather than leave the situation in dangerous limbo, it is
time that Western nations conceptualize and seek to negotiate a new security architecture for the neutral countries
of eastern Eu­rope. The countries in question collectively
form a broken-up arc from Eu­rope’s far north to its south—­
Finland and Sweden, Ukraine and Moldova and Belarus,
Georgia and Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cyprus, as well as
Serbia and other Balkan states.1 As we have seen in the previous chapter, most though not all are ambivalent themselves about NATO, and where ­there is interest in joining, it
is often due to a recent sense of threat from Rus­sia that could
be substantially mitigated by a new security order. Moreover, many existing NATO member states have publics that
are already ambivalent about their military commitments to
the eastern extremes of the alliance, making the very feasibility and the wisdom of any further expansion dubious. Put
differently, NATO could actually be weakened by further
expansion, if the core mutual-­defense pact that undergirds
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the alliance w
­ ere cast into some doubt by a membership that
became too large and extended too far. The arrival in power
of the Trump administration in the United States provides a
golden opportunity to pursue a new vision and a new paradigm. The discussion pro­cess should begin within NATO,
and then include consultations with the neutral countries
themselves. The formal negotiations would then include all
the aforementioned states as well as Rus­sia.
­Today’s situation in Eu­rope, and therefore globally, is
highly fraught. At pres­ent, no one’s intentions are clear. NATO
may or may not someday offer formal Membership Action
Plans to countries, including Sweden and Finland; it has already vaguely but quite publicly promised to offer MAPs to
Ukraine and Georgia. Ukraine is considering a national referendum on the NATO membership concept. It has now suffered some 10,000 fatalities and huge economic decline as a
result of Russian-­sponsored aggression in its east. Rus­sia may
or may not attempt to anticipate and fend off such alliance enlargement with further efforts to annex territory or to stoke
“simmering” conflicts as it has from Moldova to northern
Georgia to Crimea to eastern Ukraine over the past ten years
or so.
Moscow may continue the other kinds of actions and
threats it has perpetrated over the last de­cade, as well. A partial list includes:2
• Cyber attacks on Estonia in 2007
• The promulgation of a new foreign policy doctrine
claiming the right to defend Rus­sian citizens and business interests abroad in 2008
• Frequent buzzing of the aircraft and ships of NATO
countries and neutral states in recent years

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• Provocative deployment of Iskander-­M nuclear-­capable
short-­range missiles to Kaliningrad
• Large-­scale no-­notice military exercises near NATO borders that violate the 1990 Vienna Document among OSCE
countries
• The abduction of an Estonian military officer in 2014
• An attempt to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in 2016
• Disinformation campaigns involving slander against
NATO troops as they deploy to the Baltic states, purporting heinous crimes that, in fact, did not occur
• Apparent deployment of as many as several dozen nuclear-­
armed SSC-8 ground-­launched cruise missiles in violation of the Intermediate-­Range Nuclear Forces treaty
The stakes are high. Even war is not out of the question.
President Putin or another nationalist Rus­sian leader could
elect to take even more aggressive steps. A crisis could be
concocted within a Baltic state, for example, that provided a
pretext for a limited Rus­sian incursion to “protect” Rus­sian
speakers. If conducted quickly and bloodlessly enough, using
vari­ous methods of deception and so-­called hybrid warfare
that Rus­sia has been employing of late—­including ele­ments
such as the non-­uniformed “­little green men” who became
so noteworthy in the 2014 seizure of Crimea—it could quickly
create a fait accompli.3 Perhaps NATO nations would not
consider it worth the risk to mount a huge conventional operation, with all the associated risks of nuclear escalation, to
liberate a few towns in Latvia or Estonia.4 Or so Moscow
might hope. This prospect might make the operation seem
appealing and relatively safe to the Kremlin. Moscow could

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decide it was worth the perceived risks if it stymied any further NATO expansion. Indeed, Moscow might even hope
that such a sequence of events could weaken NATO at its
core, by revealing internal disagreement over how to honor
the alliance’s Article V mutual-­defense pledge in a gray-­area
scenario. And once Article V w
­ ere revealed to be less than
robust in one place, it would inevitably suffer a degree of reduced credibility more generally.
The odds of such a showdown seem low to modest ­today.
But even a modest risk of a conflict that could in theory
escalate into war among nuclear-­armed states is uncomfortably high.5 The dangers could also grow larger in the f­ uture if
relations with Rus­sia continue on their downward spiral.
The acrimony in U.S.-­Russian and NATO-­Russian relations
also impedes cooperation on other urgent ­matters, such as
the need for improvements in the security of nuclear materials worldwide.6 ­There is also ­little reason to think that,
left essentially on geostrategic autopi­lot, the relationship ­will
markedly improve in the years ahead. Perhaps President
Donald Trump can change ­things for the better simply by
turning over a new leaf with Mr. Putin, but both of Trump’s
pre­de­ces­sors came to office with the same aspirations and
­were stymied. The structural clash of core interests appears
serious and ­will be difficult to defuse.7 The investigations over
possibly illicit contact between members of the Trump presidential campaign and Moscow in 2016 have also seriously
dampened the prospects for an easier relationship.
­Today, Ukraine and Georgia, in par­tic­u­lar, have been
publicly and officially promised ­future NATO membership,
yet with no specificity about when or how that might be
achieved. As a result, they are strategically exposed. They
enjoy no current benefit of Article V protection guarantees,
yet Rus­sia has extra incentive to keep them in its crosshairs,

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since by destabilizing them and raising the prospect or real­
ity of conflict, it reduces to near nil the odds that NATO
­w ill, in fact, commit firmly to offer them membership. This
half-­pregnant state for Ukraine and Georgia is in some ways
the worst of all worlds—­just enough provocation to Rus­sia to
give Moscow reason to destabilize some of ­these countries,
yet no ­actual protection now or in the foreseeable ­future from
NATO’s mutual-­defense pact. Except for the Nordic states,
­these countries are collectively ­doing badly in economic, po­
liti­cal, and security terms, and geostrategic uncertainty about
their ­future is a big part of the cause. As Samuel Charap and
Timothy Colton persuasively put it, at pres­ent, “every­one
loses.” That every­one includes Rus­sia, as well.8
T H E S O V E R E I G N R I G H T S O F S TAT E S A N D
THE PROPER ROLE OF ALLIANCES

A new security architecture for eastern Eu­rope needs to be
based on several foundational concepts. The first, as a ­matter
of moral princi­ple and strategic necessity, is that all countries, big or small, east or west, are fully sovereign and have
inherent rights to choose their own form of government,
po­liti­cal leadership, diplomatic relations, and economic associations. This is as true for Ukraine and Georgia, and
other countries of eastern Eu­rope, as for Amer­i­ca’s traditional core allies or any other nation. They cannot be conceded or condemned to some Rus­sian sphere of influence. A
new security architecture must not amount to a “Yalta 2”
that, with echoes of the February  1945 summit between
Churchill, Stalin, and Roo­se­velt held in Crimea to discuss
the postwar security order, effectively relegates a number of
in­de­pen­dent and sovereign countries to Rus­sian domination. Indeed, they must be accorded ­every right to think of

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themselves as Western. Their ­future neutrality, or perhaps
better described as alliance non­alignment, only concerns formal membership in mutual-­defense security organ­izations; in
other ways, they must be able to “align” themselves as they
choose.
This princi­ple of complete sovereignty and in­de­pen­dence
is inherent to the UN Charter. It is also central in the 1975
Helsinki Final Act, with its emphasis on self-­determination
and territorial security, that was signed by virtually all Eu­ro­
pean countries, including the Soviet Union.9 Anything short
of this standard would invite a return to the great-­power politics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well
as previous eras in h
­ uman history, which w
­ ere notable for
their frequent interstate conflict and hegemonic wars. Even
if it ­were deemed normatively acceptable that ­great powers
have spheres of influence, ­there is no natu­ral way to define
­these that would or could be stable. Once the pursuit of such
spheres is condoned, history and logic suggest that ­great powers ­will define them in increasingly ambitious and expansive
terms, ultimately producing conflict.10
It is worth underscoring the point about economics.
Without complete economic freedom, a country might
sacrifice not only its prosperity but its national security as
well. Absent strong economic foundations, a nation w
­ ill generally lack the ability to build modern and effective security
forces. It ­will also, possibly, squander the self-­confidence and
strength needed for cohesive governance of its own country
and population. To be sure, if t­ here ­were some specific economic association that sought its own advancement at the
expense of o
­ thers, through mercantilist or other self-­serving
mechanisms, countries on the outs of any such association
could object to its close neighbors joining the group. But the
Eu­ro­pean Union is not of this nature. If countries in Eu­rope

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not currently part of the EU wish to join it, and the EU
wishes to invite them in, Rus­sia has no reasonable basis for
objecting.11 Any new security order must reinforce this essential princi­ple.
Eventual EU membership need not be mutually exclusive with favorable economic relationships that countries
such as Ukraine and Georgia might also negotiate with Rus­
sia. Indeed, it would be good that they do so, if acceptable
terms could be reached.12
By contrast, it is more reasonable to discuss w
­ hether the
security provisions of the Eu­ro­pean Union—­which effectively echo ­those of NATO—­should be extended to any new
members. I argue below that they should not be, in fact.
Similarly, the EU’s policies on migration are not prejudicial to the interests of Rus­sia, regardless of which countries
might join. A Ukraine or Georgia entitled to the f­ ree movements of individuals across national borders, as would be
implied by EU membership, does not harm Rus­sia. They
would not, for example, encourage any brain drain of individuals out of Russia—­since the Ukraine-­Russia border and
associated controls on the flow of ­people and goods could
remain. As such, Moscow should not claim any special right
to influence or approve ­these kinds of arrangements.
In short, and in summary, eastern Eu­ro­pean neutral states
should be in charge of their own po­liti­cal, diplomatic, economic, and demographic destinies. And before approaching
Moscow about any discussion on a new security architecture, Washington and other Western capitals should engage in vigorous diplomacy with the nonaligned countries
to convey that message clearly and to hear and consider
their concerns.
By contrast, security organ­izations are a dif­fer­ent m
­ atter,
and the option of NATO membership is not one that the

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Western nations should presume to be available to any country. ­There is no inherent prerogative for all countries to join
any security organ­ization they wish. Security organ­izations
are not inherent to the Westphalian state system or even the
post–­World War II UN-­supervised international order. They
are constructs designed to serve par­tic­u­lar purposes for specific countries during certain periods. If well designed, they
­will improve security first and foremost for their own members, but also for the regional or global order writ large, without prejudice to the security interests of other states. The
effort to or­ga­nize international society is an ongoing one that
involves many dif­fer­ent layers of interaction and organ­ization
among states, with no clear, predominant role for alliances as
the ultimate and central feature of that society.13 Alliances
may help in some cases; they may be irrelevant or cause damage in o
­ thers. No norm of global governance or international
order exists that creates an inherent right for additional countries to join NATO; the North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization
charter is not the international equivalent of the American
Bill of Rights for its own citizens.
One need not believe in the concept of “offshore balancing” or sympathize with isolationism to believe that Washington should be highly selective in which f­uture alliance
commitments, if any, it seeks to take on.14 Some talk of the
importance of sovereign choice for the neutral countries of
Europe—­but the United States, and other NATO countries,
also have their own right to sovereign choice in terms of
which countries they pledge to help defend.15 In 1954,
George Kennan emphasized the importance to the United
States of the United Kingdom, the western Eu­ro­pean heartland, Japan, and Rus­sia in world politics, arguing that ­t hese
centers of economic activity and military potential could
not be allowed to fall u
­ nder the control of a single potential

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adversary.16 The United States has devised a g­ rand strategy
that places several of ­t hese zones, as well as much of the
­M iddle East and several other regions, within its security
system. Doubting the value of ­f uture NATO enlargement
is, thus, hardly tantamount to isolationism—­a nd may be
fully consistent with the logic of Kennan’s ­g rand strategic
thinking.
Indeed, w
­ ere NATO enlargement to go too far, its integrity and credibility for its core members might be weakened.
Promising to risk war to defend faraway lands seen by
American citizens as less than central to their own security
might lead to a general lessening in the believability of NATO’s core mutual-­defense pledge—­risking deterrence failure
as well as the gradual weakening of the alliance from within.
­There is such a ­thing as overreach, even for a country with as
expansive interests, and as impressive a network of overseas
alliances, as the United States of Amer­i­ca.
­There w
­ ere a number of ideas promulgated in the aftermath of the Cold War for new Eu­ro­pean security architectures based on first princi­ples of international relations and
the broad lessons of history. It is time to get back to that way
of thinking for the currently neutral states of the continent,
rather than to somewhat reflexively assume that any and all
countries wishing to join NATO somehow should have that
opportunity.17
Indeed, permanent neutrality is itself a possible ele­ment of
a security architecture, if chosen carefully and widely accepted by all. Neutrality has not always worked out so well, as
with the fates of Belgium and Holland in the world wars. But
in other cases, like ­t hose of Switzerland and Austria, it has
helped ensure the safety and sovereignty of the countries in
question while also helping stabilize relations between neighboring powers or blocs.

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Some have counseled me not to use the term neutrality
to describe the status of the eastern Eu­ro­pean states at issue
­here ­under the ­future security order I propose. They worry
that it could be interpreted as a state of complete ambivalence, an unmooring of countries that may wish to be part of
the West—­a sort of strategic purgatory. However, I have chosen to use the term unapologetically in its strictest sense—­
neutrality in regard to security pacts with mutual-­defense
provisions. This sense of the term is well known and, as noted,
has numerous historical pre­ce­dents. Countries remaining
non­a llied with NATO and, thus, neutral can, according to
the security architecture proposed h
­ ere, remain not only
pro-­Western but part of the West themselves, if that concept
is defined in any other way.
Article X of the North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization
charter states the following: “The Parties may, by unan­i­mous
agreement, invite any other Eu­ro­pean State in a position to
further the princi­ples of this Treaty and to contribute to the
security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.”
Some could read this to suggest an inherent right of any and
all Eu­ro­pean states to join NATO. That would be a misreading of the treaty—as well as an illogical and unfounded analy­
sis. It is worth underscoring a key operative phrase in Article
X: “any other Eu­ro­pean state in a position to . . . ​contribute to
the s­ ecurity of the North Atlantic area.” If NATO membership for another state would not contribute to improving Eu­
ro­pean security, t­ here is no implication or suggestion that
membership should be offered. That statement should not be
­interpreted only to refer to the noble intentions and military
burden sharing capacities of prospective new members, but
also to their specific geostrategic circumstances. Not all
countries that might mea­sure up to NATO standards in po­
liti­cal and military terms should necessarily be part of the

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alliance. It is also worth noting that as NATO expands eastward, its new members get further and further away from the
geographic area of the North Atlantic that was intended to be
the focal point of the alliance and that gave it its name. Georgia is not even in Europe. We are also now more than a quarter c­ entury beyond the Cold War that gave rise to NATO, and
its Article X clause, in the first place. The world has changed.
Judgment calls about new members are required; not ­every
case is the same, and circumstances are certainly not what
they w
­ ere in 1949.
In this era of Donald Trump—­and even in other eras—it
is worth putting this argument in more nationalist terms
from an American perspective. The United States alone outspends the rest of NATO by more than two to one in its military bud­get, despite having a GDP that is relatively comparable to the rest of the alliance in aggregate. Another way to say
this is that the United States spends more than twice as high a
fraction of its GDP on its military as does the typical NATO
ally.18 The United States remains the military backbone of the
alliance. Burden sharing is not fair and equal across the alliance. As such, one might observe that Eu­ro­pean states do not
have the inalienable right to expect American military underwriting of their security. Given that the United States is
potentially committing the lives of its sons and ­daughters to
the defense of Eu­rope whenever it takes in new alliance members, like other NATO states, it has an inherent right to decide
­whether such a move makes sense—­for its own security, for
existing NATO allies, and for Eu­rope writ large.
N AT O ’ S L E G A C Y A N D N AT O ’ S F­ U T U R E

NATO has been a remarkable organ­ization throughout its
history. It remains remarkable ­today. It did much to protect

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the security of demo­cratic states and to preserve peace in Eu­
rope during the Cold War (with very limited exceptions, notably Turkey and Greece’s strug­gle over Cyprus in 1974). It
then successfully changed into a mechanism for stabilizing
the post–­Cold War order thereafter, including in places such
as Bosnia and, more recently, even distant Af­g han­i­stan. It
transformed itself from what was primarily a self-­defense
organ­ization to an institution seeking to promote demo­cratic
governance, civilian control of the military among member
states, peace among new member states (some of which had
active territorial disputes before joining NATO, as with Hungary and Slovakia or Hungary and Romania, disagreements
that NATO has helped hold in check), and broader regional
order.19 It helped several former Warsaw states and the Baltic
states solidify their transition to post–­communist polities.
­Whether post-1989 NATO expansion was on balance a
wise strategic move or not, it was well intentioned and nobly
undertaken. Even if opposed to it myself throughout the
last twenty-­plus years, I always saw the argument against
expansion as a sixty/forty proposition rather than a slam
dunk. NATO did provide real benefits for the new member
states, primarily in terms of promoting the quality of their
internal governance and civil-­military relations, as well as
their broader roles in the international order.20 It may have
protected some new members from the kind of Rus­sian
meddling that non-­NATO states like Ukraine and Georgia
have suffered; we cannot know, and thus cannot rule out the
possibility. It does not threaten Rus­sia and has taken pains to
reduce any plausible bases for any perception to the contrary.
Most notably, longstanding members have chosen not to station significant foreign combat forces within the territory of
any of the new members admitted since the Cold War ended.
Even ­today, Operation Atlantic Resolve—­the effort to shore

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up NATO’s commitment to Poland and the Baltic states by
the combined stationing of several thousand troops in ­those
four countries combined—is as notable for its modest scale as
its welcome resoluteness. NATO also created mechanisms
such as the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and the
Partnership for Peace program to reach out in collegial and
collaborative ways to Rus­sia and other former members of
the Warsaw Pact.21 The G-7 invited Rus­sia to join its ranks
in the late 1990s as well, though Rus­sia l­ ater lost that standing
when it invaded Ukraine in 2014.22
At times, moreover, the w
­ hole ­t hing seemed to be working. The first President Bush got along well with President
Gorbachev, as did Bill Clinton with Boris Yeltsin. This ­century,
President George W. Bush felt he had a rapport with Vladimir
Putin in the early years, and President Barack Obama attempted a “reset” in relations featuring a major change in U.S.
missile defense plans for Eu­rope that was designed, in part, to
alleviate Rus­sian worries.23 Rus­sia itself did not always seem
so convinced that NATO expansion was a terribly threatening
or unfriendly ­thing.
Yet this is an American point of view. The fact that most
Westerners fully believe it does not mean that ­others can or
should be expected to do so. Rus­sians, in general, have not.
­Whether most truly see NATO as a physical threat, many
do see it as an insult—­a psychologically and po­liti­cally imposing antibody that has approached right up to their borders. This attitude is found not only among older former
Soviet apparatchiks, and Rus­sia’s current hard-­liner president, but even among many younger reformers. A striking
example can be seen in the eloquent comments of the young
Rus­sian scholar Victoria Panova at Brookings in the fall of
2014, for example.24 Putin in par­tic­u­lar seems motivated by
a petulant variant of this outlook. But the views may be

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at least partly sincere. They are also consistent with the way
­human beings have traditionally viewed the actions of competitor states in the international arena through history.25
For Americans, history may have ended, at least temporarily, in 1989. For most Rus­sians, it did not. As Richard Betts
trenchantly and presciently put it in regard to post–­Cold War
Rus­sia, “Defeated g­ reat powers usually become competitive
again as soon as they can.”26
This train of thought also leads me to some skepticism
about the wisdom of the democracy promotion mission associated with NATO enlargement. Yes, it was sincere and
noble in its goals, and yes, it did help consolidate democracy
as well as civilian control of the military within a number of
mid-­sized states in Eastern Eu­rope. But it did so at the risk of
setting back democracy within Rus­sia itself, by providing a
pretext for hyper-­nationalists to oppose liberalism and reform. The net effect of ­these dynamics—­more democracy in
smaller countries, less within Russia—­has not been so clearly
favorable to the overall cause of democracy promotion or
to the goal of peace and stability in Eu­rope. The lit­er­a­ture
on demo­cratic peace theory—­t he notion that democracies
do not tend to fight each other—­shows that it is not simply
about countries holding elections, but that it is ­those countries that maintain strong and in­de­pen­dent institutions and
a transparent, fair-­minded media that remain peaceful.27
As such, Rus­sia’s early moves ­toward democracy should not
have been assumed to be adequate or irreversible.28 A NATO
enlargement pro­cess that set back Rus­sian democracy to help
strengthen democracy in much smaller and inherently less
power­ful countries rested on dubious logic.
All that said, one might reasonably ask how Rus­sia could
view a NATO that had no substantial combat formations

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within hundreds of miles of its borders as a threat. Surely
Rus­sians should have seen that Western democracies had become so casualty averse that they w
­ ere highly unlikely to
launch aggressive conflicts abroad. ­Couldn’t Moscow see that,
as Bob Kagan famously put it, Eu­ro­pe­ans themselves w
­ ere
now “from Venus,” not interested in fighting any more than
absolutely necessary, and much more intent on sustaining
their high standards of living than on sustaining strong armed
forces? And ­wasn’t the welcome given Rus­sia on the world
stage—­including in the G-8, establishing a special NATO-­
Russia relationship based on the so-­called Founding Act and
from 2002 onward the NATO-­Russia Council, forging vari­ous
nuclear arms control collaborations, tightening economic
engagement—­further proof of the West’s desire to move beyond the Cold War and treat Rus­sia as a true partner?
Even ­today, the battalion rotations that NATO has committed to conduct in the Baltic states and Poland are verymodest in their military capabilities. They ­will be respectively
led by Britain, Canada, Germany, and the United States
(working from north to south, Estonia to Latvia, and then
Lithuania, and fi­nally to Poland).29 They are to be constituted
as combat formations, but modest ones, each with about
1,000 total uniformed personnel. Even collectively they stop
short of a single robust, integrated, joint-­force-­capable combat
brigade recommended by former Deputy SACEUR General
Sir Richard Shirreff and far short of the RAND Corporation’s
proposal to station the capability for seven such brigades in
eastern member states. The NATO-­Russia Founding Act of
1997 by which NATO pledged not to carry out “additional
permanent stationing of substantial combat forces” is, thus,
still being observed—­even ­after Rus­sia’s aggressiveness of recent years and even ­after its violation of the 1994 Budapest

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Memorandum ­under which Washington, London, and Moscow pledged to uphold Ukrainian security.30
It is the case, in my view, that some Rus­sians, including
President Putin, have whipped themselves up into an unjustified anger over perceived slights by NATO nations. Putin
uses that anger to excuse classic bullying and revanchist be­
hav­ior, which is truly dangerous. Indeed, his regime uses it
to provide cover for squelching dissent and silencing opponents at home, including through po­liti­cal vio­lence.31 Such
be­hav­ior absolutely must not be appeased.32 But it is not
impossible for a state to be motivated si­mul­ta­neously by
greed as well as a desire for honor and/or a fear of o
­ thers,
as Thucydides timelessly taught us. In other words, some of
Putin’s sentiments, while not necessarily legitimate or fair-­
minded, may not fall so far out of the historical norm for
­human be­hav­ior.
It is not only Putin and the older Rus­sian cold warriors
who feel put out. Many Rus­sians feel that NATO did not win
the Cold War. Rather, a new generation of leaders of their
own country had the wisdom to end it. They w
­ ere then rewarded for their good sense, not only by a reaffirmation of
the organ­ization that had been their nation’s adversary, but by
a major expansion of that very alliance.33 President Gorbachev
had taken a ­great deal of time to accept the idea of a reunified
Germany remaining in NATO. The first President Bush was
unapologetic that Germany had the right to do so, but still
worked hard with Secretary of State Baker and ­others to address as many reasonable Rus­sian/Soviet concerns as pos­si­ble,
including a pledge not to station non-­German NATO forces
on former East German territory.34 But then, in the ensuing
de­cade and a half, the NATO alliance moved its eastern border 1,000 kilo­meters east. This is not to say that NATO broke
an ­actual promise never to expand; no such explicit promise

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was made.35 However, the discussion over Germany reveals
very clearly the Rus­sian sensitivities even about the territory
of the former East Germany, to say nothing about countries
much closer to Rus­sia.
The perception among Rus­sians that its former adversary was being triumphalist and insulting proved hard to
extinguish, especially as Rus­sia endured the hardships and
chaos of Yeltsin’s Rus­sia of the 1990s. Former Secretary of
Defense William Perry pointed out, when opposing immediate NATO enlargement at the end of President Clinton’s first
term, that Rus­sia would need more time to move beyond the
habits and mindsets of the Cold War. Even if some degree of
NATO expansion might eventually make sense, he thought
that rushing the pro­cess could cause severe setbacks.36 But
NATO enlargement occurred anyway—­and then did so again
in ensuing years. Rus­sian resentments gradually grew. It was
not only President Putin, but also former President Medvedev, who opposed this pro­cess.37 Gorbachev criticized the
idea of NATO expansion, as well. Other Rus­sian officials,
such as former Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, expressed
serious reservations as far back as the early to mid-1990s.38
In Rus­sian eyes, not just the Kosovo war but also the
Western world’s reaction to the events of 9/11 challenged any
sense that the world’s mature democracies ­were passive, as
noted in chapter 1. President Bush’s policies of regime change
and the freedom agenda seemed that they might even target a
state like Rus­sia, even if only by nonmilitary means. The color
revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere made Rus­
sian conspiracy theorists think that no region of the world
was off limits to the Americans.
Much of this thinking was overwrought, to be sure. But
­there is ­little doubt that the United States and other NATO
nations ­were trying to do more than just ensure a peaceful

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world. They w
­ ere trying to create a world more in their
image, with Western notions of democracy and individual
rights at the heart of it—­a vision that other countries could
find off-­putting, especially if they saw it as being promoted
in a self-­serving way. One can believe in the basic morality
and wisdom of the Western approach to governance, but at
the same time recognize that it is associated with American
hegemony by many other ­peoples.39 One can also acknowledge that the United States and allies often make major
­mistakes in how they pursue that agenda, exacerbating resentments as a result.40
NATO’s expansion to the Baltic states—­not just former
members of the Warsaw Pact, but former constituent republics of the Soviet Union—­followed by a promise in 2008 to
someday invite Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance furthered the sense among Rus­sians that the West’s ambitions
knew few bounds. As former government official and scholar
Angela Stent put it, “[The George W. Bush administration]
wanted NATO membership for Ukraine more than Ukraine
itself wanted it—­even as American officials throughout the
post–­Cold War period brushed off any willingness to talk seriously to Rus­sia about its own pos­si­ble long-­term membership in the alliance.”41
In military terms, Rus­sia’s anx­i­eties about NATO membership often seemed excessive—­but w
­ ere not entirely without
kernels of understandable, even if incorrect, concern. Rus­sia’s
history and exposed geostrategic position have created a
deeply rooted strategic culture that has power­ful defensive as
well as offensive characteristics.42 NATO access to bases in
new member states could provide the hy­po­thet­i­cal capacity
for a major military push eastward even if alliance forces are
not routinely stationed in such places in peacetime. Moreover, ongoing advances in technologies such as cyber, stealth,

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and robotics realms could lead to worries that traditional
deterrence concepts and conventional military forces might
no longer be quite enough to protect core state interests.43
American attack submarine capabilities may make Rus­sia’s
ballistic missile submarine fleet less survivable than Rus­sia
would like, even t­ oday; U.S. strengths in stealth, and in geographic position, give it advantages in air defense against
Rus­sia’s bomber deterrent as well. Ongoing U.S. research in
missile defense may someday produce systems that could
pose a meaningful capability against Rus­sia’s ICBMs, too
(even though ­today’s do not). Rus­sia’s declining population and weak economy when contrasted with ­those of
NATO states—­currently roughly a $1.5 trillion GDP and less
than 150 million ­people, versus a combined NATO total of
$40 trillion in GDP with 900 million p
­ eople (to say nothing
of NATO’s fifteen to one advantage in military spending)—­
may heighten the sense of relative enfeeblement. Rus­sian
doctrines like “escalate to de-­escalate” that threaten early
nuclear weapons employment in the context of a ­future war
with the West sound belligerent and reckless. But they may
also reflect a ner­vous­ness among Rus­sians that the imbalance
of power with NATO combined with advances in weaponry
may leave them quite vulnerable in a ­future conflict, absent
such a bold warfighting concept.44
So Rus­sia has deci­ded to push back. By the early 2000s, it
increasingly had the means to do so, as it emerged from
acute economic malaise caused by de­cades of communism
and a turbulent transition to a quasi-­market economy.45 It
established some degree of social stability ­under President
Putin, enjoyed stronger commodity prices on global markets,
paid off international loans, and regained some of its swagger.
And in many Rus­sian minds, the invasions of neighboring
sovereign states, and violations of the OSCE and UN charters

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as well as the Budapest Memorandum that ­these actions constituted, ­were justifiable in light of the supposed provocations
that had preceded them. That this argument is wrong does
not make it purely cynical; many Rus­sians likely believe it
quite genuinely.
The importance of Rus­sia’s partial economic recovery is
easy to miss. Many theories of hegemonic change in world
politics might not underline the significance of such a partial comeback of a middle-­sized power, since they often
focus on the most power­ful countries—­and Rus­sia, by most
mea­sures, was no longer such an entity.46 But m
­ iddle powers, especially ­those with certain great-­power attributes and
traditions, can push back against o
­ thers in their own neighborhoods if they choose. That is what Rus­sia proceeded to
do, and what it is still d
­ oing t­ oday. Its economy is not truly
healthy; even beyond the immediate issues of sanctions and
lower oil prices, President Putin has failed to change an
oligarch-­based economy that largely benefits him and his
cronies. Rus­sian manufacturing is still characterized by
what Clifford Gaddy called a “virtual economy,” in which
many industries actually lose value—­they produce goods
worth less than their component parts. Corruption remains
rife, inefficiency remains pervasive. But Putin did arrest the
economic ­free fall of the Yeltsin years.
Thus, t­ hose who believe that “time is on NATO’s side” and
we only need wait out Putin ­until his own star dims or Rus­
sia’s strength further erodes make an unwise argument. How
the world’s largest country, in possession of nearly 5,000 nuclear warheads, can be outwaited is difficult to see. Already,
Rus­sia is far weaker than the West—­but even so, it is perfectly
capable of making trou­ble in places where it feels a strong interest and believes it can outmaneuver even much wealthier
and healthier nations. Nothing about the trajectory that Rus­

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sia is now on w
­ ill change t­hese basic realities over the next
­couple of de­cades. Even if it did, living with the kind of danger
in Western-­Russian relations that we have ­today is not something the world should blithely do in the meantime, while it is
awaiting Rus­sia’s supposed f­ uture submission.
Not all of the Rus­sian narrative is credible, of course. Many
of i­ ts arguments are hijacked in f­ avor of a hyper-­nationalist
agenda that Putin and some of his cronies ­favor for their own
reasons having ­little to do with the a­ ctual merits of the case. If
the narrative w
­ ere so inherently compelling, why would
Putin need to prevent serious debate and dissent about it—­
silencing his po­liti­cal critics and opponents? Rus­sia’s be­hav­
ior has been brutal at times, as well. It has invaded not just
one but two former Soviet republics—­Georgia in 2008,
Ukraine in 2014. It has also refused to withdraw military
equipment from Moldova (as required by the Adapted CFE
Treaty accord of 1999, with which Rus­sia subsequently “suspended” compliance in 2007).47 Even having seen Moldova
show l­ittle interest in NATO membership, Rus­sia keeps its
forces ­there for reasons it claims relate to peacekeeping, but
which may, in fact, also preserve its leverage over a smaller
neighbor and fellow former Soviet republic.48
Thus, no proposal for a new security architecture for
central Eu­rope should be made out of a sense of redress in regard to Rus­sia. Although I agree with much of George Kennan’s argument when, in early 1997, he called pos­si­ble NATO
expansion “the most fateful error of American policy in the
entire post–­cold-­war era,” it is impor­tant not to overdo the
critique.49 Rus­sia’s reactions w
­ ere predictable, and predicted.
But they have not been justifiable in any objective moral or
strategic sense. In practical terms, NATO expansion may
have been a misjudgment, and in any event it no longer
makes sense in my eyes. But t­here ­were reasonable efforts

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made to assuage Rus­sian concerns, and t­ here ­were ­viable arguments in ­favor of the idea in terms of cementing democracy and peace in Central and Eastern Eu­rope.
Indeed, it is impor­tant to make a proposal for a new security architecture with the willingness and ability to walk
away, should Moscow begin to engage in negotiations and
then escalate its demands—­perhaps proposing that some
new NATO members be removed from the alliance, or that
the alliance itself be somehow recast or neutered. The former idea should be entirely nonnegotiable for the West. The
latter could only be countenanced if it preserved NATO’s
substance while changing some of its procedural modalities
or perhaps its name—­a nd that kind of largely cosmetic
change would likely not be enough to please Moscow. Thus,
­there must be clear limitations on how far NATO would
bend over backward to please Russia—­a nd t­here should
not be any form of apology from Western capitals as they
discuss and negotiate the idea. A proposal for a new security
system for the neutral states of Eu­rope should not be a penance for past perceived offenses, given that ­there ­were solid
reasons for that expansion and that many efforts ­were made
to defuse Rus­sian objections. But at this juncture—with NATO
on Rus­sia’s doorstep, the enlargement pro­cess stalled for reasons that ­will be hard to overcome, and the level of east-­west
animosity conjuring up echoes of the Cold War—it should
be attempted.
CONCLUSION

NATO has been an excellent organ­ization throughout its
history, and even the questionable pro­cess of NATO enlargement has been well intentioned. Th
­ ere is no reason the
West should feel somehow guilty about the overall prepon-

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derance of its power, or believe that somehow a strong
NATO is inherently destabilizing. The growth of NATO
has, ­after all, occurred mostly ­because of its appeal to ­others.
­There is also no historical reason to believe that more equal
“balances of power” in the world would make it a safer,
more stable place.50 NATO nations should be proud of what
their organ­ization has been and what it has accomplished in
its long history, and continue to seek to improve its relevance for t­oday’s world.51 But NATO states should rethink
the presumption of further expansion and be creative in
imagining ­future security ­orders for Eu­rope, particularly
for t­ hose states in the central and eastern parts of the continent that are presently neutral.
­There is no guarantee, of course, that President Putin or
other key Rus­sian leaders w
­ ill prove interested in negotiating an East Eu­ro­pean Security Architecture. They may not
want a resolution of the hegemonic competition now underway between Rus­sia and the West in the countries of eastern Eu­rope. Moscow may feel t­ here is no realistic prospect
of Ukraine or Georgia in par­tic­u ­lar being offered membership in NATO, or the EU, anytime soon—­weakening the
incentive that it might other­wise perceive to create a new
and durable security architecture. Putin may be as troubled
by the prospect of EU enlargement as NATO enlargement,
in which case my proposal would likely do ­little to assuage
his concerns. He may also prefer to keep t­ oday’s simmering
conflicts simmering, with an ultimate goal of further territorial aggrandizement or at least the retention of leverage
against smaller countries he sees as within Russia’s natu­ral
sphere of influence. Putin may further conclude that the
sanctions imposed on Rus­sia over the Crimea and Donbas
aggressions w
­ ill weaken or dissipate without any Rus­sian
action being necessary, as po­liti­cal forces and leaders change

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in the West. Putin might well even welcome an ongoing
standoff with the West for the additional excuses it provides
him for his strongman be­hav­ior at home and his pursuit of
grandeur abroad.52 Yet at the same time, if he can claim to be
the Rus­sian leader who stabilized the country’s economy, rebuilt its military, and halted NATO’s further expansion on
his watch, he may conclude that the advantages of this kind of
deal—­along with the lifting of sanctions and greater opportunity for economic interaction with the West that it would
include—­are in his interest. A
­ fter all, he has collaborated before with Washington and other western capitals on m
­ atters
ranging from Iran sanctions to North ­Korea sanctions to the
war in Af­ghan­i­stan (at least for a stretch). Provided that no
accord is proposed without means of verification, and without means of redress in the event of f­uture noncompliance,
Putin’s pos­si­ble willingness to do a deal with the West should
be explored.
The outcome of any attempt to create a new security architecture is, thus, of course, uncertain. That is all the more
reason that Western leaders should pursue it confidently and
unapologetically, and not portray it as some compensation to
Moscow that Rus­sian leaders might believe to be only an
opening bid or an admission of previous wrongdoing. Nonetheless, the negotiation should be attempted. Th
­ ere is l­ittle to
be lost by trying, provided the West stays true to its princi­ples
and consults closely with the neutral states at issue throughout the pro­cess. If Rus­sia refuses to negotiate in good faith, or
fails to live up to any deal it might initially support (an issue
that is revisited in chapter 4), l­ ittle w
­ ill be lost, and options for
a toughening of ­future policy against Rus­sia w
­ ill remain.

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CHAPTER 4

Constructing an East Eu­ro­pean
Security Architecture

I

t is time to pursue an East Eu­ro­pean security architecture
as a durable means of stabilizing the currently neutral
countries of eastern Eu­rope, thereby helping to place the
West’s relations with Rus­sia on a more solid and predictable
foundation.
The mechanisms and security systems that involve Rus­sia
and the West t­ oday are inadequate to the tasks at hand. Sometimes Rus­sia and the West cooperate on prob­lems, as with the
Ira­nian nuclear challenge and Af­ghan­i­stan at certain times
in the recent past, but sometimes their dealings outside of
Eu­rope only intensify animosities, as with the Syrian war to
date. Within Eu­rope, the situation is worse, and the available
means of addressing the crisis seem demonstrably inadequate to the task at hand. The Organ­ization for Security and
Cooperation in Eu­rope (OSCE) has been deeply engaged in
Ukraine, but it lacks the po­liti­cal mandate or the operational
capacities to address, let alone resolve, core issues. The NATO-­
Russia Council, set up to create a more equal and effective
89

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partnership, has been recently suspended—­just when it is
needed most.1 In light of the ­causes and circumstances of
the Ukraine crisis, a bigger idea is needed than simply arming the Ukrainian military, slapping additional sanctions
on Rus­sia, or hoping against hope that the current Minsk II
diplomatic pro­cess ­will succeed.
The big idea proposed h
­ ere is this: NATO should not
expand further into eastern Eu­rope, along a long arc stretching from Finland and Sweden down to Cyprus and Serbia,
including Kosovo. NATO and the United States should work
with the neutral states of the region and Rus­sia to develop
a permanent alternative security architecture for ­those countries that would verifiably guarantee their sovereignty and
security without NATO membership. It should also ensure
complete freedom for their diplomatic and economic activities; they should not somehow be part of the sphere of influence of Rus­sia or any other country or group.
C H I E F E L E ­M E N T S O F T H E E A S T E U ­R O ­P E A N
SECURIT Y ARCHITECTURE

A new security architecture for the neutral countries of
eastern Eu­rope would be founded on the concept of sustained neutrality for ­those countries not now in NATO.
That is, they would not join NATO in the f­ uture. Nor would
any of them not currently in the Eu­ro­pean Union be granted
the security guarantees of the EU, should they eventually
join that latter body. The only way this could change, assuming full and proper implementation of the new security
architecture and continued compliance with it by Moscow,
would be if Rus­sia chose not to raise any objections to the
idea of expansion in the f­uture—­perhaps in a situation
where it, too, had elected to seek membership in the North

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Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization. Clearly such a day is a long
way off.2
Ideally, this architecture could be codified in treaty
form. The treaty could be ­simple ­because the architecture
would not create a new organ­ization, though it would formalize certain types of monitoring and verification practices. It would, then, be ratified by key legislative bodies in
the relevant countries. In the case of the United States that
would, of course, mean the U.S. Senate. ­Because ratification
could prove controversial and could fail, it would be wise to
acknowledge the possibility throughout the negotiation pro­
cess and consider adopting the concept through executive
agreement as a fallback alternative. This approach would be
less satisfactory, since it would be less binding on ­future governments in the respective countries. That said, even treaties
can be annulled by f­uture presidents (as with the ABM
Treaty ­under President George W. Bush), and even executive
agreements can prove durable if in the mutual interests of
the respective parties or other­wise difficult to overturn (as
with the recent Iran nuclear deal). Moreover, treaties that fail
to achieve ratification are often observed for considerable
stretches, as with SALT II and the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty.
As noted, the neutral states would also agree not to be
covered by the security provisions of the Eu­ro­pean Union
Treaty, even if they did join the EU in its other dimensions.
This idea of separating out “security membership” in the EU
from economic and po­liti­cal membership was broached by
the Dutch prime minister in 2016, though in a less comprehensive and more tactical way than envisioned ­here.3 The
reason for making this distinction is that, while the Eu­ro­
pean Union is primarily a po­liti­cal and economic entity, it
has security dimensions as well.4 Specifically, ­under the

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2009 Lisbon Treaty, which updated the Treaty on the Eu­
ro­pean Union, EU member states make a commitment of
mutual defense and assistance. Article 42.7 states that “if a
Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States s­ hall have t­owards it an
obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their
power, in accordance with Article 51 [the right to self-­defense]
of the United Nations Charter.”5 This phrasing is in some
ways even more sweeping and unconditional than Article V
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization, which implies
that military force would and should be considered in response to an attack on any member state, but does not oblige
­every other member to an armed action, and invites each to
exercise its own judgment. The EU does not require members
to forgo formal neutrality or join any alliance. Thus, Austria,
Finland, and Sweden are covered by the Eu­ro­pean Union’s
security umbrella (and share in its obligations) yet are also
still neutral countries. Nonetheless, I believe the EU’s territorial security pledges should not be extended to new countries,
lest they confuse and complicate the basic logic of the new security architecture proposed h
­ ere.6 New EU members could
still participate in security-­related activities of the EU in areas
such as counterterrorism and maritime security, however.7
They would also be understood to have ­every right to participate in multilateral security operations on a scale comparable
to what has been the case in the past—­even ­those operations
that might be led by NATO—­provided they w
­ ere authorized
through the United Nations Security Council (where Rus­sia,
of course, enjoys veto rights).
The Crimea issue could be finessed separately in vari­ous
ways. Rus­sia’s transgression ­there could effectively be forgiven,
as a show of good faith by the West, and in recognition of the
unusual history and character of that Russian-­majority re-

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gion. More realistically, it could simply be put aside, with the
United States and other Western nations choosing not to recognize the annexation (and limiting their willingness to participate in certain types of activities or meetings ­there), but
other­wise not treating it as an impediment to relations. Alternatively, some modest number of sanctions could be retained
to sustain the objection to Rus­sia’s annexation, not necessarily
in the expectation that Moscow would someday reverse course
but more as a ­matter of princi­ple. This might be a situation,
however, where it could be counterproductive to stand too
forcefully on princi­ple, especially if a new security order beckoned and offered the expectation that the Crimea experience
would not be repeated elsewhere in Eu­rope.
The Ukrainian civil war would be resolved and Rus­sian
presence in the Donbas verifiably reversed ­u nder this plan.
Minsk II would, in effect, be implemented, and the Donbas
region would receive some autonomy within Ukraine as hostilities w
­ ere ended. Current Ukrainian politics might make
the autonomy arrangements difficult to negotiate, but in the
context of a broader pact that ended the war, one would
hope for flexibility from Kiev.
The “frozen conflicts” in Transnistria in Moldova, as well
as South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, would also have to
be resolved as part of this negotiation; so would the status of
Kosovo, ideally. In princi­ple, internationally supervised referenda on in­de­pen­dence or accession could be conducted in the
Transnistria or the autonomous parts of Georgia, provided
the mechanisms ­were transparent and the outcomes verifiable. Th
­ ere would be an understanding that no new “frozen
conflicts” would be created on the territories of sovereign
states in the f­ uture, as well.
By this proposal, Armenia and Belarus could retain their
current po­liti­cal and security associations with Rus­sia,

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notably ­under the Collective Security Treaty Organ­ization
(CSTO), since it seems fair to say that this is not seen as
threatening by Western countries. As part of the new security paradigm, Rus­sia should agree, however, not to dramatically expand its own forward military presence in CSTO
countries, as a s­ imple ­matter of reciprocity and fairness.
­Under the plan, NATO would not offer new Membership Action Plans to any currently neutral and non­a ligned
countries. Technically, ­these MAPs do not constitute a formal plan for eventual membership, and the alliance reserves
the right to make an a­ ctual invitation at a l­ater date. Practically speaking, they are designed for countries seeking membership, as reflected in the alliance’s own official depiction
of the program: “The Membership Action Plan (MAP) is a
NATO programme of advice, assistance and practical support tailored to the individual needs of countries wishing to
join the Alliance.” The official language goes on to say: “Participation in the MAP does not prejudge any decision by the
Alliance on ­future membership.”8 But as a practical ­matter,
MAPs have led to membership, and as such, they should no
longer be employed.
At pres­ent, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former
Yugo­slav Republic of Macedonia have MAPs. U
­ nder my
proposal, MAPS that had not yet resulted in alliance membership by the time of the negotiations would, ideally, be
transformed into mechanisms to help usher ­these Balkan
states into a new security architecture rather than NATO
itself. Were Kosovo’s in­de­pen­dence to be fully established at
some f­ uture point, it, too, would be given the opportunity to
be part of the new security architecture, remaining neutral
rather than seeking to join NATO.
Preferably, Finland and Sweden would also remain outside
of NATO, despite their Western sensibilities and associations.

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Historically and practically, they have long traditions of finessing their security relationships as neutral countries outside of any alliance. The fact that this longstanding aspect of
their strategic cultures is being called into question, especially
in Sweden, at pres­ent is a reflection of the acute tensions in
Western relations with Rus­sia. It is hard to believe that NATO
membership reflects the genuinely preferred outcome among
most Swedes or Finns. If forced to choose between East and
West, they ­will likely choose the latter—­indeed, by most definitions, they are already part of the latter—­but more likely,
they would prefer to avoid a stark choice about their f­uture
security associations. As such, a new security architecture that
offered the promise of a much improved and more stable relationship between the Western world and Rus­sia would likely
reduce the newfound openness to the NATO option in t­hese
two proudly self-­reliant countries. Should Rus­sia e­ ither reject
the idea of a new security architecture outright or fail to uphold its commitments ­under such a new security system at
some f­uture date, Sweden and Finland, like the other countries considered h
­ ere, could, of course, reconsider, in consultation with existing NATO states.
While my proposal could, in theory, go forward even if
some or all the existing MAPs with Balkans states went
forward—­and, indeed, even if Sweden and Finland joined
NATO, as well—­this would not be the preferred course of
action. Especially if the latter sought to join the Western alliance, that decision would implicitly reflect a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of any new security architecture. As
the strongest states among the group considered ­here, and
the two with arguably the strongest traditions of neutrality,
Finland and Sweden would do much to set the tone for
every­one e­lse’s consideration of a new paradigm for the
broader region. Moreover, it is unlikely that Moscow would

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trust the intentions of the West, or be favorably inclined to
negotiate a new security architecture if NATO expansion
was si­mul­ta­neously proceeding apace, even if in a limited
way. Sweden and Finland, certainly, could stay within the
Eu­ro­pean Union, of course, and they could continue to be
part of its security pacts and mechanisms, too. Indeed, the
mutual defense clause of the Eu­ro­pean Treaty provides a
compromise of sorts for t­ hese two Nordic countries, allowing them at least an impor­tant symbol of association with
the West in security terms without extending all the way to
NATO membership.
Most impor­tant, as part of the new architecture, NATO’s
signals to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 that they would
someday be invited into the alliance would have to be walked
back. They would be superseded by the new East Eu­ro­pean
Security Architecture (EESA), which would reliably ensure
their sovereignty and might prove negotiable far more
quickly than NATO membership could ever have been
achieved, given current strategic conditions. It is impor­tant
to underscore that if the new architecture works as I believe
it could, and likely ­will, it ­will be preferable to NATO membership for the ­simple reason that it is a far more credible and
attainable arrangement, on a much shorter time horizon.9
Some might argue that Rus­sia’s violation of the Budapest
Memorandum of 1994, which had guaranteed Ukrainian
sovereignty, suggests that Moscow would not uphold its obligations u
­ nder any new security arrangement. That is pos­si­
ble, and means of verification as well as mea­sures of pos­si­ble
response to Rus­sian transgressions must be developed, as
discussed ­later. It is also worth noting that since 1994 NATO
has added thirteen new members, mostly former Warsaw
Pact members or former Soviet republics. D
­ oing so did not
amount to an explicit violation of any promise ever made to

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Moscow, but as  has been argued h
­ ere, it did dramatically
change the Eu­ro­pean security landscape in Rus­sian eyes. By
contrast, the new security order would be intended to create
a permanent arrangement that covered the w
­ hole continent.
This would create a much dif­fer­ent situation than what followed the Budapest Memorandum.
Of course no one can guarantee it ­will prove pos­si­ble to
negotiate an East Eu­ro­pean Security Architecture. Certain
neutral states may reject the concept in the hope that NATO
would someday reconsider and offer them membership instead. At one level, their acquiescence is not strictly needed,
since they are not being asked to take any active steps or
join any new organ­ization. On another level it could prove difficult to negotiate this arrangement, designed as it is to enhance their security, over their adamant objections. Their
active cooperation would be needed to end the “frozen conflicts”; for example, as noted, Ukraine would need to do its
part to implement Minsk II. Ideally, they would take the public step of inviting this new security order ­a fter a certain
period of consultation.
In fact, t­here is a good chance the idea w
­ ill, ultimately,
prove appealing to the neutral states, once discussed and
explained and refined. Countries like Ukraine and Georgia
surely know that, what­ever their long-­term prospects, t­ here
is virtually no chance of near-­
term NATO membership
being offered them, due to their simmering conflicts with
Rus­sia and the lack of consensus about further alliance expansion among current NATO members. Yet Rus­sia knows
that NATO has had a tendency ­toward expansion, even when
it has gone through lull periods, and bases current policies
on that expectation. This current state of affairs is, thus, in
many ways the worst of all worlds. An EESA would not create the same perverse incentives or profound uncertainties.

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Of course, Rus­sia may very well reject this proposal. President Putin may believe that a state of semi-­permanent conflict, or at least severe tension, with the West is in his domestic
po­liti­cal interest. He has squelched virtually all domestic opposition and f­ ree media, using the notion of a Rus­sia besieged
by outsiders to justify his crackdowns.10 He may also thrive
on geostrategic competition with the West, and on the general reassertion of Rus­sian power throughout much of Eastern Eu­rope and the ­Middle East. Put simply, he may enjoy
this latest incarnation of the “­great game” more than he lets
on. His expectations about Georgia, Ukraine, and other
Soviet republics may also extend beyond a desire for their
­simple strategic neutrality; he may well not rest u
­ ntil they are
again within some Rus­sian “sphere of influence” or “zone of
privileged interests.”11
­Whether Rus­sia accepted the idea or not, this proposal
for a new security architecture ­will strike some in the West
as distasteful or worse. It would allow Vladimir Putin—­who
has squashed Rus­sian po­liti­cal and civil society and provoked violent conflicts near his own borders—to claim that
he was the Rus­sian leader who stopped NATO in its tracks,
preventing any further expansion. But we need to keep our
eye on the ball. NATO membership for Ukraine and other
nearby countries is not a ­viable means of settling the current
crisis in any event; not even the most hawkish voices within
NATO are calling for near-­term alliance membership for
Ukraine or any other central Eu­ro­pean state. Moreover,
NATO expansion was never designed as a way to pressure
or punish Rus­sia (except in the eyes of certain Rus­sians, of
course), so a decision not to expand is also not a reward. Allowing Putin to claim some degree of vindication is a far less
injurious outcome than ­running an unnecessarily heightened risk of war—­and perpetuating a period of poor relations

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between Rus­sia and the West that impedes cooperative action
against other prob­lems of mutual concern in the M
­ iddle East
and Asia.
Indeed, a negotiated settlement could substantially reduce
the risks of direct NATO-­Russia conflict—­which, while still
small, have grown significantly over the last three years. Efforts to assign blame for how we got to this point must not be
allowed to stand in the way of addressing prob­lems that could
impose enormous costs and risks if left unresolved. For example, a 2015 report by the Eu­ro­pean Leadership Network
details how the intensity and gravity of incidents involving
Rus­sian and Western military forces have increased, raising
the risk of an accident or military escalation between nuclear
superpowers.12 Such incidents and activities have hardly
relented since then. Military-­to-­military contacts have also
been inadequate. They should expand even before a new
security order can be constructed, as U.S. Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford has been wisely
promoting.13 But they w
­ ill almost surely be piecemeal absent
a broader strategic understanding between the ­great powers.
A deal could also substantially improve the prospects
that Ukraine can find peace and begin to refocus on po­liti­
cal reform and economic recovery. It would also lower the
chances of escalation of the current war. Similar considerations would apply to the case of Georgia.
A new security architecture could not be negotiated overnight. In theory the plan is ­simple enough to be achievable
within months, but more likely one to two years might be
required to work through vari­ous dimensions of the idea. In
addition, implementation of a deal once negotiated could take
some time—­though it should not be a multi-­year pro­cess.
While negotiations to devise and formalize the new security architecture w
­ ere ongoing, most aspects of current West-

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ern policy should not change. Notably, sanctions should be
sustained but, ­unless Rus­sia escalates its military activities
further, they should not be expanded.
Once the EESA was signed, ratified, and at least partially
implemented, sanctions on Rus­sia could be lifted.14 They
could be removed step-­by-­step, in synchronization with the
verified withdrawal of Rus­sian forces from the Donbas region of Ukraine and from Abkhazia and South Ossetia in
Georgia. Alternatively, once Rus­sia’s withdrawal had begun,
they could all be quickly lifted as a show of good faith.
Of course if Rus­sia suspended its withdrawal or other­wise
­violated its commitments, consequences would ensue. Sanctions could and should be reimposed with the same kind of
“snapback” automaticity that was worked out through UN
channels in regard to Iran’s compliance with the 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action. Similarly, it is difficult to
imagine a new security architecture coming into being, or
surviving long, if Rus­sia sustained or intensified its covert
and nefarious meddling in Western elections.15 More is said
on this ­later.
RESOLUTENESS AND RESILIENCE

While a new security regime is being negotiated, and even
­after it is implemented, NATO must, of course, stay resolute
in vari­ous dimensions of security policy. A new architecture
for the neutral states of eastern Eu­rope would likely be stabilizing. But it would not end all prob­lems between Rus­sia
and the West anytime soon, so it should not lead to a lowering of NATO’s collective guard.16
To begin, the United States and NATO allies would not
have had to dismantle any existing weapons or bases ­under

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an EESA regime. In that sense, the physical steps of creating
the new security architecture, and the associated costs and
risks, would be quite modest. Nor would NATO denigrate
the standing of any existing members, or weaken its commitment to their security, as it attempted to negotiate a new
security regime. Even ­those, like myself, who ­were NATO
expansion skeptics can, and should, acknowledge that its rationale was not crazy—­and that it would be dangerous to
reconsider the m
­ atter. One can argue that it was risky for
NATO to expand all the way to the Baltics. But one can also
argue that Rus­sia, given the Soviet history of aggressively
annexing ­those countries during World War II, should have
been quick to acknowledge that it now owed them ­every
right to determine their ­future without interference. In any
case, what is done is done. ­There is no undoing Baltic state
membership or that of other eastern Eu­ro­pean states already
in NATO. To reopen that debate would risk deterrence failure and war.
­Under the proposed EESA, therefore, the United States
and other NATO member states should continue to implement their plans to station modest amounts of equipment in
the easternmost NATO countries ­under the Eu­ro­pean Reassurance Initiative and Operation Atlantic Resolve. This is a
modest effort involving some 5,000 military personnel, the
main effects of which are not to create substantial forward-­
deployed combat power but to signal resolve and to create,
in effect, a robust tripwire force. It is not objectionable
and should continue. Indeed, the four-­battalion presence in
NATO’s east might be expanded modestly, at least ­until the
current crisis in relations can be eased and a new security
architecture ­adopted. The additional U.S. brigade presence
now intended as a temporary expedient for 2017 could be

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sustained in­def­initely, for example. It is at pres­ent a complement to NATO’s other very modest recent initiatives—­notably,
the NATO Response Force (NRF) formed at the 2014 Wales
summit and its newest incarnation as a Very High Readiness
Joint Task Force. Another  U.S. Army brigade could be stationed in Germany; the American drawdown ­there prob­ably
went too far in recent years, anyway.
I do not, however, support ­those voices arguing for additional U.S. and other NATO brigades, anywhere from two to
six or more in the alliance’s east, that some reputable individuals and organ­izations have proposed. It seems excessive
relative to the likely conventional threat to NATO and, most
of all, more likely to do net harm to U.S.-­Russian and NATO-­
Russian relations. That action should only be considered if
the Rus­sian threat to the Baltics or Poland substantially intensifies and if the effort to develop a new security architecture for eastern Eu­rope also fails.17
Arms sales within NATO can and should continue. Particularly impor­tant, and also unthreatening to Moscow, are
systems to improve cyber and command/control resiliency,
to maintain air defense capacities, and to deploy antitank
weapons.18 Internal NATO dialogues intended to foster
greater defense collaboration and efficiency among key
subgroups of states, such as the Visegrad Group of Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, should be unapologetically continued, as well. NATO’s modest efforts to
increase presence in the Black Sea are worthy of sustainment, too, with an eye t­oward shoring up the credibility of
commitments to NATO member states bordering that body
of w
­ ater—­Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey—­rather than signaling any intention to bring Ukraine and Georgia into the
alliance.

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Capabilities for operating in the Arctic should be modestly
expanded, too. Augmentation of U.S. Coast Guard and Navy
presence in Arctic ­waters should not be viewed principally as a
­matter of rivalry with Rus­sia (or China or anyone ­else); indeed, climate change and the gradual melting of polar ice,
­together with changing travel routes, should be seen as the
primary impetus. In par­tic­u­lar, new conditions argue strongly
for an expansion of capabilities such as icebreaking fleets,
where the United States has allowed its assets to atrophy.19
On missile defense, the Iran nuclear deal may remove the
imminent threat of an Ira­nian nuclear weapon for a de­cade
or more, assuming the deal holds. But the East Eu­ro­pean
Security Architecture is not a near-­term tactical adjustment
in policy; it is designed as a permanent, or at least long-­term,
security framework for Eu­rope. As such, Moscow should not
be given false impressions that the current relatively relaxed
concern in Western capitals about Iran’s capabilities ­w ill
remain relaxed. NATO must keep open its missile-­defense
options while maximizing collaboration on them with Rus­
sia to the extent pos­si­ble. ­After the Obama administration
did an impressive job of adjusting American missile-­defense
plans for Eu­rope to create a design that was even less hypothetically capable against Rus­sian nuclear forces than the
Bush plan had been, Moscow remained adamantly against it
and excoriated NATO for the idea. Rather than kowtow to
such pressure, NATO must stand firm in insisting it w
­ ill protect itself to the extent any f­ uture threat may require. To be
sure, such systems should be designed to mitigate what­ever
reasonable Rus­sian objections might be anticipated. They
could even be constrained in some way in a ­future arms control accord. But they should not be precluded by any kind of
a deal on a new security system for Eu­rope.

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On ­matters of cybersecurity, information warfare, and
asymmetric warfare, NATO must actually step up its game.
Rus­sia’s be­hav­ior in regard to the American elections of
2016 was sufficiently egregious that it cannot be allowed to
recur. This means being ready, as in the Cold War, to fight
fire with fire. Putin already believes the United States was
­behind the Rose, Orange, Tulip, and Maydan revolutions.
But Washington’s efforts in t­hose places w
­ ere transparent
and innocuous, featuring the work of organ­izations like the
International Republican Institute and the National Demo­
cratic Institute. Covert and far more calculated efforts akin
to what Rus­sia did in the United States, and is attempting in
vari­ous Eu­ro­pean countries now as well, should be carried
out proportionately if need be. ­These methods can include
not only help for reformist po­liti­cal movements and politicians but also, if necessary, disinformation efforts against
the Rus­sian Federation and its top leaders. One hopes that
­will not be needed.
Then t­ here is the cyber front. Western states need better
cybersecurity practices at home. Additionally, ­there needs to
be the development of a set of pos­si­ble reprisal options should
Rus­sian misbehavior continue. The better practices at home
have been discussed, for example, in the 2017 Defense Science Board study on cybersecurity and should prioritize, in
the first instance, U.S. nuclear forces and central command
and control, but extend to key domestic infrastructure, as
well.20 Clearly Rus­sia is not the only potential threat of concern in this regard. As for reprisal capacities, the idea of creating a Cyber Command distinct from the National Security
Agency that focuses more on prompt and effective offensive
operations makes sense for the United States at this juncture
and should not be slowed or stymied ­because of any attempt
to negotiate a new security order.

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Responses to the next incident might not be entirely within
the cyber realm, given Amer­i­ca’s relatively greater dependence
on cyber infrastructure and, thus, greater vulnerability to an
escalating conflict in cyberspace. They could include targeted
and proportionate economic responses; for example, prohibitions on the sale of specific American high-­tech products to
Rus­sia. Cooperation with Rus­sia on space launch, on production of key components of advanced commercial aircraft,
and on other advanced technical ­matters could be curtailed—­
and once interrupted, a number of t­ hese supply-­chain arrangements could be very difficult to restore, upping the stakes
for Rus­sia. Targeted sanctions against individuals or organ­
izations of the type imposed by President Obama late in 2016
are also useful options.
I need not set out a detailed agenda h
­ ere. The key point is
that nothing about negotiation of a new security pact should
blind the West to the potential for other ongoing prob­lems
with Rus­sia and the need for mea­sures to protect ourselves
against them and also to retaliate—­even while attempting
to negotiate or preserve a new EESA.
Staying resolute does not, however, mean unnecessarily
raising the temperature in Western-­Russian relations. As one
key domain where restraint is still appropriate, for example,
the United States and other NATO countries should not
send weapons to Ukraine’s military at this juncture. Such
shipments may be morally justifiable in some sense, but
the most likely consequence would be a Rus­sian counterreaction, including additional buildup of arms in eastern
Ukraine, followed by even more deadly fighting for all sides
­there, and damaged prospects for successful negotiation
and implementation of the proposed EESA. Modest training and provision of some non-lethal arms to Ukraine can
continue but should not be expanded while a broader peace

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deal is pursued—­unless, that is, Rus­sia escalates its own involvement in the war.
­F U T U R E S E C U R I T Y C O O P E R AT I O N W I T H
N E U T R A L S TAT E S A N D N AT O

Another key set of issues concerns ongoing security collaboration of vari­ous types that, even ­today, neutral countries
that might be part of a ­future EESA share with NATO. ­These
activities are legitimate and nonthreatening and, often,
impor­tant to the security of the participating states. Thus, it
­will be essential not to interrupt or end them, even with an
EESA in place.
Consider first the issue of security assistance. The United
States and other Western states already provide limited
amounts of security assistance to most of the neutral countries at issue. Much of this support is for helping ensure civilian control of the armed forces and developing means to
collaborate with NATO, through the Partnership for Peace
program as well as other activities, on security tasks of
mutual interest. For example, the Partnership for Peace
effort, overseen by the Euro-­Atlantic Partnership Council,
has recently included twenty-­two countries—­Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ireland,
Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Malta, the Republic of
Moldova, Montenegro, Rus­sia, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland,
Tajikistan, the former Yugo­slav Republic of Macedonia,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.21 Sixteen of ­t hese
receive some financial support through Warsaw Initiative
Funds—­all but Austria, Ireland, Malta (with a small exception), Rus­sia, Sweden, and Switzerland.22
Take one example of recent activity involving NATO
and several Partnership for Peace nations that occurred in

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Ukraine in the summer of 2016. Known as Rapid Trident, it
was an exercise involving command and field training dimensions, with an emphasis on peacekeeping and stability
operations but with potential applicability to other activities, as well. Some 2,000 personnel took part, from a total
of fourteen countries—­including Ukraine, the United States,
Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, ­Great Britain, Moldova,
Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Turkey.
The exercise emphasized key tasks such as countering improvised explosive devices, convoy operations, and patrolling.23
Another impor­tant example concerns Georgia. That nation has been involved in Partnership for Peace association
with NATO since the 1990s. PfP helped provide a framework ­under which Georgia could send somewhat more than
a company-­sized unit (typically a ­couple hundred soldiers) to
the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo from 1999 to 2008.
Georgia has also been a key contributor to the NATO-­led International Security Assistance Force mission, and now the
Resolute Support mission, in Af­ghan­i­stan. It deployed nearly
1,000 soldiers at the peak of the mission in early 2011; at that
time, it was the second largest non-­NATO troop contributor
to the operation, ­after Australia. It also has a mountain training site, accredited as a Partnership Training and Education
Center by the alliance, which offers courses and training to
NATO members and other partner countries.24
­There have also been maritime exercises involving non-­
NATO countries. Some are tailored to par­tic­u­lar purposes,
such as cold-­weather training involving several allied states
plus Finland and Sweden. The Cold Response exercise of
March 2016 is one such example. ­These kinds of activities
should also be allowed to continue u
­ nder a new security
architecture—as should maritime exercises emphasizing
search and rescue, or environmental surveillance and

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monitoring, or interdiction of international criminal or terrorist operations.25 It would make sense to conduct them at a
modest scale, however, since large-­scale exercises would represent an escalation of security cooperation and could imply
an intended focus against Rus­sia.
However, other types of military preparations with the
neutral nations motivated by a poor relationship with Rus­sia
might be phased out over time. Training on tasks such as antisubmarine warfare, or coordination of contingency planning for pos­si­ble conflicts against Rus­sia involving the Baltic
Sea, should not be continued in­def­initely once the relationship with Rus­sia is stabilized—­and once the frequent provocations that Rus­sian forces have carried out in recent years
have presumably come to an end, a situation that can be
monitored and verified.26 During the negotiation and early
implementation phase of the new security order, t­ hese activities might be continued but would, presumably, not increase
in scale or frequency.
The United States sells very few arms to the group of
twenty-­two nations that participate in the Partnership for
Peace. In 2015, for example, only Sweden, Ukraine, and
Uzbekistan received any weapons shipments, for a combined
­grand total of only about $50 million in value.27 Similar levels of defense trade should be acceptable in the ­future, or
even modestly more (as the economies of the affected countries begin to grow faster, perhaps).
NATO’s Mediterranean initiatives and dialogues, which
include a number of Arab and North African states and
focus on issues such as refugee flows and Mideastern security, are also impor­tant. The threats they address are sufficiently acute that more effective collaboration would be highly
desirable.28 Thus, one would not wish to cap, in any quanti-

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tative sense, pos­si­ble f­uture joint security activities. Most
such efforts should involve Rus­sia, too, in some way.
Then ­there is the ­matter of Syria. I am not proposing
some global “­grand bargain” by which all ­matters over which
Moscow and the West quarrel are somehow si­mul­ta­neously
resolved. It is pos­si­ble, moreover, that the Syrian civil war may
be addressed more quickly than an EESA could be created.
But it is, nonetheless, worth noting that t­ here is a power­ful
logic in ­favor of Washington and Moscow working together in
Syria; it is hard to imagine a solution without such cooperation, given the military and po­liti­cal influence Rus­sia now
commands ­there. American and Rus­sian interests in Syria,
while in some tension, may not be diametrically opposed.29
Thus, a new security arrangement for Eu­rope may help grease
the skids t­oward more effective collaboration in Syria (and
elsewhere). But, again, I am proposing neither a g­ rand bargain
nor linkage, per se.
In summary, ongoing channels of contact and cooperation involving NATO or the EU with the neutral states of
eastern Eu­rope should not be precluded u
­ nder a new security order. But they could be loosely capped in scale and
character. The neutral states must not be deprived of the
ability to work with the world’s best military alliance, or its
individual members, on issues of common concern.
What if new circumstances arose? For example, what
if the be­hav­ior of a country such as China or Iran gave
NATO states and the likes of Sweden or Finland or Ukraine
or Georgia common reasons for concern? That could, in turn,
lead to a desire for larger-­scale and more combat-­oriented
exercises or deployments. A logical corollary of the framework proposed h
­ ere, however, is that any such activities
should be conducted only ­after close and careful consultation

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with Moscow—­a nd, ideally, perhaps even with Rus­sian
participation.
How does one “loosely cap cooperation” in a way that ­will
not produce inevitable disputes over what types of collaboration are allowable and which are not? It would, admittedly, be
difficult, and prob­ably undesirable, to be overly precise about
exactly what limits to place on security assistance, arms sales,
and exercises. But ­there is still value in the idea of agreeing
that ­future activities would not generally exceed the scale of
past and ongoing efforts in t­ hese domains. A useful analogy
is the U.S.-­China agreement in 1982 that the United States
would cap (and gradually reduce) its arms sales to Taiwan.30
China has argued for years that the agreement, in fact, committed Washington to wind down t­ hese arms transfers more
quickly than has been the case; the two countries argue over
the interpretation of that accord to this day. But the arguments, while sometimes even acrimonious, occur within certain par­a meters defined by that 1982 agreement that limit
the degree to which this issue has infected the broader
relationship.
V E R I F I C AT I O N A N D C O M P L I A N C E

Even if it ­were successfully negotiated and implemented, a
new East Eu­ro­pean Security Architecture might not be the
end of the story, of course. One would need to take the same
“distrust but verify” approach to the creation of any new
order, as Ronald Reagan famously articulated when negotiating with Soviet leaders.
It is entirely pos­si­ble that Rus­sia ­under Putin, or another
leader like Putin, is not simply an aggrieved state acting in
response to a sense of embitterment and encirclement, but
also now fundamentally a revanchist or revisionist power.

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(The terms revanchist and revisionist are often used interchangeably, along with the word irredentist—­and while ­there
may be subtle differences, all three words imply a desire to
reclaim what was once viewed as a nation’s rightful possessions or areas of influence.) In that event, most likely Moscow
would simply not be willing to negotiate the security framework proposed ­here. But even if it did, it might do so cynically. It might see the architecture as just a temporary truce
and reject it ­later. Or, it might view it as a means of constraining the West, and lulling it into a false sense of complacency
while allowing Rus­sia to carry out surreptitious activities in
the states in question. Moscow might also seek to create a climate of intimidation that would produce a ring of partially
subservient states near Rus­sia’s borders despite Moscow’s
promise to allow full diplomatic and economic freedoms as
endorsed in this proposal.
As such, in addition to sustaining prudent defensive mea­
sures like the Eu­ro­pean Reassurance Initiative and improving preparation against Rus­sian cyber attacks or po­liti­cal
tomfoolery, Washington and other Western capitals need to
devise a rigorous system of verification and a framework for
responding to pos­si­ble acts of noncompliance or even aggression by Moscow.
The ultimate recourse if the security architecture failed
would be to reopen the possibility of further NATO expansion. Indeed, NATO could indicate to Moscow that, should it
blatantly violate the terms of the EESA, NATO expansion
might actually accelerate in the f­ uture—­not being constrained
any longer by the expectation that candidate nations would
first resolve their territorial disputes with neighbors before
being considered for membership. But that would be a last and
least desirable resort. More modest steps need to be conceptualized, in advance, as well.

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The first challenge is monitoring and verification. A neutral organ­ization like the Organ­ization for Security and Cooperation in Eu­rope would need to have the capacity and the
formal responsibility to monitor compliance with the agreement, to ­handle any ­future disputes about security challenges
faced by any of the eastern Eu­ro­pean countries covered by the
accord and to investigate and adjudicate complaints. With 700
monitors in Ukraine, the OSCE has been key in observing ongoing fighting and tracking the involvement of vari­ous parties. This kind of capability, at least on a roving basis, should
be sustained u
­ nder the new EESA. This concept plays to the
strengths of an organ­ization like OSCE—­which is inherently
more about promoting certain norms of be­hav­ior and enhancing confidence-­building activities than about physically guaranteeing security.
Certain ele­ments of verification could be expected to
be relatively straightforward. Monitoring the locations and
movements of large amounts of conventional weaponry, as
was done for years u
­ nder the Conventional Armed Forces
in Eu­rope treaty (CFE), is not difficult. That treaty involved
hundreds of inspections a year at declared sites, with stipulations requiring notification if equipment was moved or
repositioned. Aircraft-flying missions through the Open
Skies arrangement—­which has typically involved some 100
flights per year over vari­ous parts of Eurasian and North
American territory—­can also contribute usefully to the effort.31 Indeed, in the course of 2014, U.S. intelligence was
capable of tracking the movements of Rus­sian equipment
so well that, at times, it provided exact counts on the number of heavy military vehicles that had crossed the border
with Ukraine. Observers from the OSCE w
­ ere also capable
of careful monitoring of such movements. Journalistic

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a­ ccounts, including interviews with captured fighters, commercially available imagery, and social media are among
the available tools that, together, are increasingly likely to
notice any clandestine foreign military presence as its scale
grows.32
Of course addressing the issue of who owns given pieces of
equipment can be complex, as demonstrated by the Donbas
experience in eastern Ukraine since 2014. So-­called Rus­sian
volunteers operated in that region, bringing weaponry with
them and, at times, transferring it to Ukrainian separatists.
Determining who was who required, among other ­things, sophisticated American signals intelligence—­including sources
and methods that the United States was not willing to share in
all cases.33 Moreover, Rus­sia retained some degree of deniability for the actions of t­ hese so-­called volunteers, at least in
its own mind, even if most o
­ thers w
­ ere not fooled for long.
Rus­sia’s Maskirovka policies can employ a range of tactics—­
special forces deployed in small numbers and embedded
within locally friendly populations, the hiding of military capabilities and supplies within humanitarian supply convoys,
and so forth.34 Fortunately, as the scale and frequency of such
activities increase, their deniability tends to decline. In addition to national technical means, and OSCE inspectors, a few
other capabilities and methods could be authorized within the
EESA, as well. For example, the current observation provisions in the OSCE’s Vienna Document should be improved to
allow “snap inspections,” when countries conduct snap exercises, as suggested by the Netherlands’ special envoy for conventional arms control, Lucien Kleinjan.35
For modest-­scale violations, some form of redress would
be needed short of immediate annulment of the entire
­security architecture. One option, stipulated in the formal

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document establishing the new Eu­ro­pean zone of neutrality, might be that in such a situation, other interested parties
could temporarily and proportionately offer to step up their
own security activities within the same state as desired.
A second option could employ sanctions. Several high-­tech
sectors where cooperation occurs t­oday could be targeted,
for example. Individuals close to Putin could be, too. Greater
efforts could be made—­perhaps even using NATO infrastructure dollars to leverage public-­private investment options—to
further harden Eu­rope against the possibility of Rus­sian retaliatory gas export cutoffs. Eu­rope has many more options for
its energy supplies now than it used to. ­Because of its improved
pipeline system, as well as options for importing liquefied
natu­ral gas, among other possibilities, it is far less vulnerable
to Rus­sian embargo than it once was. A concerted Western
plan to improve resilience further could be undertaken should
Rus­sian be­hav­ior become unacceptable again.36
If a violation ­were sufficiently serious, however, and redress could not be achieved, the entire deal could be declared dead. In other words, if, for example, Rus­sia again
invaded Ukraine, the United States and other NATO states,
as well as the Eu­ro­pean Union more broadly, would retain
the right to respond. Appropriate steps could include reimposing economic sanctions, providing lethal arms to
Ukraine’s military, or considering NATO membership for
Ukraine, even in the absence of a settlement of its disputes
with Rus­sia. The United States might, along with other allies,
pledge to rapidly establish a military presence in Ukraine
with operational units ­under such circumstances. The terms
of the security order should explic­itly allow such an option
in the event of blatant noncompliance or treaty violation.
Washington should not overemphasize ­these issues in any

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negotiations, lest the entire purpose of the effort to negotiate a new security architecture be lost in worst-­case discussions that could be interpreted as threats or expressions
of bad faith. But the United States, along with allies, should
make clear that t­here would likely be significant consequences to any breach of a new security order.
A related issue concerns crises or direct military conflicts.
For example, what if two of the neutral states wound up at war
with each other, or one of them fought a NATO member state,
and Rus­sia used the opportunity to intervene—­perhaps purely
cynically, perhaps with some degree of reasonable strategic
logic? For example, if Armenia and Azerbaijan started to fight
again, how might Rus­sia respond—­and how should the United
States and NATO react to any pos­si­ble Rus­sian military activity? In other words, if Rus­sia did not start the fight, and seemed
to have a defensible argument about the wisdom of intervening to help one party or the other, would that be a serious
violation of the new security architecture?
It would be a ­mistake to think that one could find a single binding answer to this question in advance. Just as the
United States would never forswear any pos­si­ble interest or
role in a conflict near its own shores, it would be unrealistic
to expect Rus­sia to do so. That said, t­ here would have to be
mechanisms to improve the odds of promptly detecting intervention done ­under false pretenses. In general, in­de­pen­
dent investigation of the c­ auses of any conflict would be the
proper response. And, of course, once the immediate issue
was resolved (even if Rus­sia’s role ­were legitimate), Rus­sian
forces would have to withdraw, perhaps in f­ avor of an international peacekeeping force. Moscow could reasonably insist on the same arrangements in regard to pos­si­ble NATO
intervention in a neutral state of Europe.

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C O N C L U S I O N : ­T O WA R D A L O N G -­T E R M V I S I O N
F O R U . S .- ­R U S S I A R E L AT I O N S

If a new security arrangement w
­ ere well designed and successfully brought into existence, it could do much to transform NATO-­Russian relations. Clearly, it would not be the
only determinant of their ­future interactions. Events in other
theaters of mutual concern, like the M
­ iddle East, would influence politics and policymaking in Rus­sia and the West.
The specific characters and motivations of f­uture leaders in
key countries would have a major impact, as well. Rus­sia’s
own ability to build a healthy population and healthy economy would be crucial in shaping the federation’s own f­ uture
and, thus, the nature of its interactions with the world writ
large. The China f­actor could be significant in vari­ous ways
for every­one, as well, of course.
All that said, ­there is reason to think that a new security
arrangement for the currently neutral and strategically contested countries of eastern Eu­rope could go far t­oward defusing hegemonic competition in Eu­rope between NATO
and Rus­sia. It is quite likely the most impor­tant single issue
affecting broader U.S.-­Russian relations and NATO-­Russian
relations in general. Two world wars and the Cold War centered on the Eu­ro­pean theater; Eu­rope is the geographic
space that Rus­sia and the West collectively share.
None of this is to say that creation of an EESA would
make every­thing easy in ­future NATO-­Russia relations.
Rus­sia seems likely to think of itself differently than do most
Western nations for many years into the ­future. It is doubtful that Moscow w
­ ill want to join the Eu­ro­pean Union, for
example (and doubtful that the EU would want Rus­sia any
time soon). Rus­sia’s po­liti­cal culture is likely to remain, in

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impor­tant ways, non-­Western and fiercely nationalistic for a
long time to come.
Rus­sians are proud of their history and their nation and
their state. They also tend to think it is still relevant for ensuring their security. They see a rising China to their east, a highly
assertive Amer­i­ca and its allies to their west, and trou­ble to
their south. They also have felt embarrassed and anxious over
the decline in their nation’s cohesion and power a­ fter the Cold
War. They are not a p
­ eople who w
­ ill quickly dismiss the importance of the state; nor do they have many natu­ral partners
in building any post–­Westphalian system, since they do not
feel par­tic­u­lar kinship to any other large bloc of nations. Putin
may exemplify this attitude most poignantly, but his 90 ­percent
popularity at vari­ous points during the Ukraine crisis, the
generally favorable reaction of normal Rus­sians to his assertiveness in the Crimea, and the general weakness of civil society and in­de­pen­dent media within the country as a ­whole
suggest it w
­ ill not quickly fade away.
It does not seem realistic to imagine Rus­sia joining NATO
in any reasonably short timeframe, e­ ither, even a­ fter Putin
passes from the scene. A Rus­sia within NATO might have
been an option soon a­ fter the Cold War,37 but that day is gone
and w
­ ill not easily or quickly return. Most Rus­sians see the
alliance as largely anti-­Russian in membership, character,
and purpose; even ­after creation of an EESA, such attitudes
­will not rapidly dis­appear.38
Even if it is incredulous that a ­future Rus­sia would seek to
join NATO, it is not beyond belief that a post–­Putin Rus­sian
state could look to mend fences and develop a modus vivendi
with the Western world. Several motivations could drive Rus­
sians ­toward such an outcome. Rus­sia could seek to improve
its economic growth and prosperity through more robust

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

trade. It could also see a strong association with the EU or
NATO as a useful hedge against Islamist extremism and China’s rise. To reach this mindset, Rus­sia would not necessarily
have to abandon all security fears, real or ­imagined, but would
have to conclude that the greater dangers came from the south
or east (or within) and could be more effectively checked with
Western help.
The effect of this kind of policy could be something of a
return to the calmer days of NATO-­Russian relations of the
1990s—­but in the context of a confident and stable Rus­sia.
New institutional mechanisms might be created to address
­matters of common concern; alternatively, existing vehicles
such as the OSCE, NATO-­Russia Council, restored G8, and
UN Security Council might be strengthened. Nuclear arms
control might resume, missile defense issues could become
less acrimonious, and strategic cooperation on counterterrorism, Iran, North K
­ orea, Af­ghan­i­stan, Iraq, and Syria could
become more standard.
Perhaps more realistic in the foreseeable ­future, however,
is a more modest goal, what Clifford Gaddy and I coined as
a “Reaganov Rus­sia.” This vision would assume a proud, nationalistic state with a strong military. If the Rus­sian Federation could take pride in reestablishing itself as a successful status-­quo power, it might not see the need for revanchism
or other aggression.39 It could pragmatically weigh its own
interests across a wide range of policy options, often concluding that it should cooperate with the West on key
strategic issues for its own well-­being. Freed by greater self-­
confidence from the kind of anger and embitterment that
has characterized recent years, it could cooperate with the
West when interests aligned—­prob­ably most of the time—­
and contain the fallout from ­those situations where interests
diverged.

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This framework for the f­ uture Rus­sian state might envision the defense sector providing technological innovations
that could be spun off to help revive the Rus­sian scientific
and manufacturing sectors more broadly. Such spinoffs
happened often in the United States ­under Reagan and other
Cold War presidents, and in the Soviet Union, too. It is also
an idea advanced by ­people such as defense official Dmitry
Rogozin in the modern Rus­sian context.40
Of ­
these two categories of possibilities—­
a generally
friendly or pro-­Western Rus­sia of some type, and a “Reaganov
Russia”—­the latter may be the most realistic aspiration we
should hold in the West. It may not fit the model of a liberal,
genuinely Western Rus­sia that many in the West (and many
intellectuals and reformers in Rus­sia itself) might prefer, but
a  Reaganov Rus­sia could be a more self-­confident and self-­
satisfied and, therefore, less truculent, nation than what we see
today.
This outcome could be good news, and a desirable result, for Washington. The West and Rus­sia would appear,
in objective terms, to share most global interests on
­matters ranging from nuclear nonproliferation to counterterrorism to shaping China’s rise in benign ways. A Rus­
sian strategic perspective that cleared away emotional baggage and allowed a relatively clear-­
eyed assessment of
when and where to cooperate with outside powers should
produce a Rus­sia that is easier to deal with. If the highly
sensitive issue of NATO can be managed, this could lead
to a world in which the Rus­sian state retained a distinctly
dif­fer­ent character than Western nations, but one with
which core interests could be mutually pursued and the
threat of direct conflict virtually eliminated. It may be the
best we can hope for, and it would be a major improvement
over ­today.

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Michael E. O’Hanlon

At some point, the Rus­sian polity may change to the point
where history, even if not ending, can enter a fundamentally
new era. At that point, a new and more inclusive security
order might become pos­si­ble, with Rus­sia as well as many or
all of t­ oday’s neutral states and NATO nations allied in true
partnership, w
­ hether ­under the auspices of something still
called the North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization or something
­else. But that day is clearly far off, and ­until it arrives the
world w
­ ill be safer and more stable with a neutral zone in
eastern Eu­rope.

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Notes

CHAPTER ONE
1. Gareth Jennings, “NATO Fighter Scrambles on the Rise in
Response to Growing Rus­sian Air Activity,” Jane’s Defence Weekly,
April  5, 2017, p.  9; and Eric Schmitt, “Two Rus­sian Bombers Fly
Near Alaska, and U.S. Scrambles Jets,” New York Times, April 18,
2017 (https://­nyti​.­ms​/­2pzXBhp).
2. Daniel Wasserbly, “Rus­sia’s Inventory of Non-­Strategic Nuclear Weapons Worries EUCOM,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, April 5,
2017, p.  5; and Alexey Arbatov, “Understanding the U.S.-­Russia
Nuclear Schism,” Survival, vol. 59, no. 2 (April-­May 2017), p. 61.
3. Jacob Pramuk, “Declassified: Read the Intelligence Report
on Rus­sia Interfering with U.S. Election,” CNBC​.­com, January 6,
2017 (www​.­cnbc​.­com​/­2017​/­01​/­06​/­intelligence​-­community​-­says​
-­p utin​ -­o rdered​ -­c ampaign​ -­t o​ -­i nf luence​ -­e lection​ -­d enigrate​
-­clinton​.­htm).
4. Much of this section benefits from Fiona Hill and Clifford
Gaddy, Mr.  Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, rev. ed. (Brookings
Institution Press, 2015), pp. 285–311.
121

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Notes to Pages 11–15

5. Ibid.
6. See Körber Stiftung, “Europa—­aber wo liegen seine Grenzen?” [Europe—­but where do its frontiers lie?], 104th Bergedorfer
Gesprächskreis [104th Bergedorf Roundtable], Warsaw, Königsschloss, 1995 (www​.­koerber​-­stiftung​.­de​/­fileadmin​/­bg​/­PDFs/bnd_104­
_­de​.­pdf).
7. President William Jefferson Clinton, A National Security
Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: February 1995), p. ii.
8. James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and Pur­
pose: U.S. Policy t­oward Rus­sia ­after the Cold War (Brookings
Institution Press, 2003), pp. 208–10.
9. Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly:
NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Brookings Institution Press, 2000).
10. NATO’s intervention also shook the Rus­sian public. Polls
conducted by VTsIOM, the pre­de­ces­sor polling agency to the
Levada Center, showed that the share of Rus­sians polled who had
a negative view of the United States r­ ose from barely 20 ­percent to
well over 50 ­percent in the first half of 1999. Levada Center data as
reported in Sberbank Investment Research, Rus­sia Economic
Monthly, July 2014.
11. See Vladimir Putin, “Obrashcheniye Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii” [Address by the President of the Rus­sian Federation], March 18, 2014 (news.kremlin.ru/news/20603). An En­glish
translation is available (eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/6889).
12. Goldgeier and McFaul, Power and Purpose, p. 249. For an
American diplomat’s side of the story, see Strobe Talbott, The Rus­
sia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 298–331.
13. Ibid.
14. See Goldgeier and McFaul, Power and Purpose, pp. 261–62.
15. Ibid., p. 263.
16. Ibid., p. 264.
17. For a personal account by someone who interacted with
Putin during the Kosovo events, see Strobe Talbott, “Vladimir
Putin’s Role, Yesterday and ­Today,” Washington Post, March 21,
2014. Talbott, former deputy secretary of state in the Clinton

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Notes to Pages 16–18

123

administration, described his meeting with Putin in the latter’s
capacity as head of the Rus­sian Security Council. Putin’s role
in  Rus­sia’s intervention in Kosovo, notes Talbott, “remains a
mystery.”
18. See “Terror Strikes—­and Putin Proposes an Antiterrorist
Alliance,” in Angela E. Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-­Russian
Relations in the Twenty-­First C
­ entury (Prince­ton University Press,
2014), pp. 62–66. Rus­sian military commanders also tried to draw
direct comparisons between Chechnya and the NATO bombing
campaign in Yugo­slavia in a dif­fer­ent way, explaining that they
­were simply emulating NATO’s strategy in trying to deal with the
terrorist operations in Chechnya. See Michael Gordon, “Imitating
NATO: A Script Is Adapted for Chechnya,” New York Times,
November 28, 1999.
19. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, pp. 62–63.
20. Ibid., p. 67.
21. Ariel Cohen, Rus­sia’s Counterinsurgency in North Cauca­
sus: Per­for­mance and Consequences (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, March 2014), pp. 20–52.
22. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, p. 69. This is a quote from
an interview that Stent conducted with former Rus­sian foreign
minister Igor Ivanov.
23. See the section “Chechnya, Again” in Goldgeier and
­McFaul, Power and Purpose, pp. 267–86.
24. See Vladimir Putin, “Vstrechi s predstavitelyami razlichnikh soobshchestv” [Meetings with representatives of dif­fer­ent
communities], September  15, 2001 (archive.kremlin.ru/appears​
/2001/09/15/0003_type63376type63377_28632.shtml).
25. For a detailed discussion of Rus­sian attitudes ­toward U.S.
ballistic missile defense, including extensive interviews with
Rus­sian officials, see Bilyana Lilly, Rus­sian Foreign Policy ­toward
Missile Defense: Actors, Motivations and Influence (New York:
Lexington Books, 2014).
26. The Baltic states secured in­de­pen­dence from Rus­sia ­a fter
World War I. The United States and other countries did not recognize the Soviet Union’s reincorporation of the states ­a fter World
War II.

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Notes to Pages 19–22

27. Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in
the Kremlin, rev. ed. (Brookings Institution Press, 2015), p. 304.
28. As an example, see Putin’s televised speech to the Rus­sian
­people given a­ fter the tragedy at Beslan. Vladimir Putin, “Obrashcheniye Prezidenta Vladimira Putina” [Message from the President of Rus­sia, Vladimir Putin], September 4, 2004 (http://­archive​
.­k remlin​ .­r u​ /­a ppears​ /­2 004​ /­0 9​ /­0 4​ /­1752 ​ _­t ype63374type82634​
_­76320​.­shtml).
29. See Stent, The Limits of Partnership, pp. 97–123, for a detailed discussion of Rus­sian responses to the color revolutions and
Rus­sian government interpretations of events. See also Condoleezza
Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (New York:
Twelve, 2017), pp. 166–201.
30. For more information on the policies related to the Bush
administration’s Freedom Agenda, see the George  W. Bush
­archives (georgewbush​-­whitehouse​.­archives​.­gov​/­infocus​/­freedom​
agenda); and Paulette Chu Miniter, “Why George Bush’s Freedom
Agenda Is ­Here to Stay,” Foreign Policy, August  21, 2007 (www​
.­f oreignpolicy​ .­c om​ /­a rticles​ /­2 007​ /­0 8​ /­2 0​ /­w hy​ _ ­g eorge ​ _­b ushs​
_­ldquofreedom​_ ­agendardquo​_­is​_ ­here​_­to​_ ­stay​_­).
31. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, p. 10.
32. See, for example, the text of “Cheney’s Speech in Lithuania,” New York Times, May 4, 2006.
33. Vladimir Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at
the Munich Security Conference on Security Policy,” February 10,
2007 (http://­archive​.­k remlin​.­ru​/­eng​/­speeches​/­2007​/­02​/­10​/­0138 ​_­t
ype82912type82914type82917type84779​_­118123​.­shtml); and Stent,
The Limits of Partnership, pp. 147–49.
34. Vladimir Putin, “Press Statement and Answers to Journalists’ Questions Following a Meeting of the Russia-­NATO Council,” April  4, 2008 (archive.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2008​
/04/04/1949​_type82915_163150.shtml).
35. Cited in Stent, The Limits of Partnership, p. 161.
36. Ibid., pp. 238–39.
37. Bobo Lo, “Medvedev and the New Eu­ro­pean Security
­Architecture,” Centre for Eu­ro­pean Reform, London, July  2009

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Notes to Pages 22–25

125

(www​.­cer​.­org​.­u k ​/­sites​/­default​/­fi les​/­publications​/­attachments​/­pdf​
/­2011​/­pbrief​_­medvedev​_­july09​-­741​.­pdf).
38. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, pp. 168–76.
39. Ibid., pp. 211–34.
40. Putin declared Qaddafi’s death an “outrage” (bezobraziye)
in his November  11, 2011, meeting with the Valdai Discussion
group, which also covered many of ­t hese same issues.
41. “Vladimir Putin’s Unshakeable Popularity,” The Econo­
mist, February 4, 2016.
42. Paul Saunder, “Sergey Lavrov: The Interview,” National In­
terest​, March  29, 2017 (http://­nationalinterest​.­org​/­feature​/­sergey​
-­lavrov​-­t he​-­interview​-­19940).
43. Vladimir Putin, “A Plea for Caution from Rus­sia: What
Vladimir Putin Has to Say to Americans about Syria,” New York
Times, September 11, 2013. (The op-ed was published on September 11 but is listed on the website as September 12.)
44. See Vladimir Putin, “Obrashcheniye Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii” [Address by the President of the Rus­sian Federation], March 18, 2014, available on the Kremlin’s website archive
in Rus­sian (news.kremlin.ru/news/20603). An En­glish translation
is available (eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/6889).
45. On the cyber dimensions, see Ben Buchanan and Michael
Sulmeyer, “Rus­sia and Cyber Operations: Challenges and Opportunities for the Next U.S. Administration,” Car­ne­gie Endowment
for International Peace, Washington, D.C., December  13, 2016
(http://­c arnegieendowment​.­org ​/­2 016​ /­12​ /­13​ /­r ussia​ -­a nd​ -­c yber​
-­o perations​-­c ha llenges​-­a nd​-­o pportunities​-­f or​-­n ext​-­u​.­s​.­​
-­administration​-­pub​- ­66433).
46. Adriana Lins de Albuquerque and Jakob Hedenskog,
“Ukraine: A Defense Sector Reform Assessment,” FOI Report R4157-­SE, FOI, Stockholm, Sweden, December 2015 (file:///C:/Users/
MOHAN ​ L ON/Downloads/http—­w ebbrapp.ptn.foi.se-­p df78b12d4c-19d6-4727-­b96b-7faa5ba088dc%20(5).pdf).
47. See, for example, Julianne Smith and Jerry Hendrix,
­“Assured Resolve: Testing Pos­si­ble Challenges to Baltic Security,”
Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C., 2016, p. 2.

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126

Notes to Pages 29–39

48. In their early analy­sis of Putin, Herspring and Kipp noted:
“Watching Putin deal with Moscow’s foreign debt is especially
in­ter­est­ing. He wants nothing more than to pay it.” Dale  R.
Herspring and Jacob Kipp, “Understanding the Elusive Mr. Putin,”
Prob­lems of Post-­Communism, vol. 48, no.  5 (September/October
2001), p. 15.
49. See Mikhail Barabanov, “Hard Lessons Learned: Rus­sian
Military Reform up to the Georgian Conflict,” and “Changing the
Force and Moving Forward a­ fter Georgia,” in ­Brothers Armed:
Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine, edited by Colby Howard
and Ruslan Pukhov (Minneapolis: East View Press, 2014), pp. 74–
90, 91–123. France suspended the Mistral contract in late 2014,
pending further developments in Ukraine.
50. See Jim Nichol, “Rus­sian Military Reform and Defense
Policy,” Congressional Research Ser­
v ice, Washington, D.C.,
August 24, 2011.
51. Christian Le Miere and Jeffrey Mazo, Arctic Opening: Inse­
curity and Opportunity (London: International Institute for
Strategic Studies, 2013), p. 84.
52. Tomas Malmlof, Roger Roffey, and Carolina Vendil Pallin,
“The Defence Industry,” in Rus­sian Military Capability in a Ten-­
Year Perspective–2013, edited by Jakob Hedenskog and Carolina
Vendil Pallin (Stockholm, Sweden: FOI, 2013), pp. 128–29.
CHAPTER T WO
1. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military
Balance 2016 (Oxfordshire, ­England: Routledge, 2016), pp. 85–207,
486–90.
2. Bo Ljung, Tomas Malmlof, Karlis Neretnieks, and Michael
Winnerstig, eds., The Security and Defensibility of the Baltic States:
A Comprehensive Analy­sis of a Security Complex in the Making
(Stockholm, Sweden: FOI, 2012) (www​.­foi​.­se).
3. Luke Coffey and Daniel Kochis, “The Role of Sweden and
Finland in NATO’s Defense of the Baltic States,” Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., April 2016 (www​.­heritage​.­org​/­research​
/­r eports​ /­2 016​ /­0 4​ /­t he​ -­r ole​ -­o f​ -­s weden​ -­a nd​ -­f inland​ -­i n​ -­n atos​
-­defense​-­of​-­t he​-­baltic​-­states).

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Notes to Pages 39–41

127

4. Edward Lucas, “Why NATO Needs Finland and Sweden,”
Center for Eu­ro­pean Policy Analy­sis, Washington, D.C., May 2016
(http://­cepa​.­org​/­W hy​-­NATO​-­needs​-­Finland​-­and​-­Sweden).
5. See Gordon F. Sander, The 100-­Day Winter War: Finland’s
Gallant Stand against the Soviet Army (University Press of Kansas, 2013).
6. Alyson J. K. Bailes, Gunilla Herolf, and Bengt Sundelius, The
Nordic Countries and the Eu­ro­pean Security and Defense Policy
(Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Oxford University Press, 2006), pp.  1–11; and Toivo
Martikainen, Katri Pynnöniemi, and Sinikukka Saari, Neighbour­
ing an Unpredictable Rus­sia: Implications for Finland (Helsinki,
Finland: Finnish Institute of International Affairs, October 2016)
(www​.­fiia​.­fi​/­en​/­publication​/­629​/­neighbouring​_ ­a n​_­unpredictable​
_­russia).
7. Carl Bergovist, “Determined by History: Why Sweden and
Finland W
­ ill Not Be More Than NATO Partners,” War on the Rocks,
July  13, 2016 (https://­warontherocks​.­com​/­2016​/­07​/­determined​-­by​
-­h istory​-­why​-­sweden​-­a nd​-­f inland​-­w ill​-­not​-­be​-­more​-­t han​-­nato​
-­partners).
8. Russell Goldman, “Rus­sian Violations of Airspace Seen as
Unwelcome Test by the West,” New York Times, October 6, 2015
(www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2015​/­10​/­07​/­world​/­europe​/­r ussian​-­v iolations​
-­of​-­airspace​-­seen​-­as​-­unwelcome​-­test​-­by​-­t he​-­west​.­html).
9. For an exception, see Ingemar Dorfer, The Nordic Nations in
the New Western Security Regime (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, 1997).
10. See, for example, Carl Hvenmark Nilsson, “Sweden’s Evolving Relationship with NATO and Its Consequences for the Baltic Sea
Region,” Commentary blog, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, Washington, D.C., October 7, 2015 (www.csis.org/analysis/
sweden%E2%80%99s-evolving-relationship-nato-and-its-consequences-baltic-sea-region); and Barbara Kunz, “Sweden’s NATO
Workaround: Swedish Security and Defense Policy against the
Backdrop of Rus­sian Revisionism,” Focus Strategique No. 64 (Paris:
IFRI, November  2015), pp.  34–37 (www​.­ifri​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­files​
/­atoms​/­files​/­fs64kunz​_­0​.­pdf).

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128

Notes to Pages 41–44

11. Gabriela Baczynska, “Wary of Rus­sia, Sweden and Finland
Sit at NATO Top ­Table,” ­Reuters, July  8, 2016 (www.reuters.com/
article/us-nato-summit-nordics-idUSKCN0ZO1EO); and Richard
Milne, “Swedes Ponder Joining NATO as Trump Presidency Focuses Minds,” Financial Times, November 21, 2016 (www​.­ft​.­com​
/­content​/­8b83d6e2​-­a ff9​-­11e6​-­a37c​-­f4a01f1b0fa1).
12. Pauli Jarvenpaa, “Finnish White Paper on Foreign and Security Policy,” June  2016 (www.icds.ee/blog/article/finnish-white-paper-on-foreign-and-security-policy); and Prime Minister’s Office,
“Government Report on Finnish Foreign and Security Policy,”
Prime Minister’s Office Publications 9/2016 (Helsinki, Finland, June
2016), pp. 23–24 (http://­valtioneuvosto​.­fi​/­documents​/­10616​/­1986338​
/­VNKJ092016+en​.­pdf​/­b33c3703​-­29f4​-­4cce​-­a910​-­b05e32b​676b9).
13. Hannah Thoburn, “Border Security in Eastern Eu­rope:
Lessons for NATO and Partners,” Policy Brief No.  46, German
Marshal Fund of the United States, January  2017, p.  3 (https://­
hudson​.­org​/­research​/­13239​-­border​-­security​-­i n​-­eastern​-­europe​
-­lessons​-­for​-­nato​-­and​-­partners).
14. See James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolu­
tion, War and Peace, 1989–­1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1995), p. 667.
15. See, for example, Angela  E. Stent, The Limits of Partner­
ship: U.S.-­Russian Relations in the Twenty-­First ­Century (Prince­
ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 2014), pp. 103–05.
16. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, pp. 99–110; and “Bucharest Summit Declaration,” Bucharest, Romania, April 3, 2008 (www​
.­nato​.­int​/­cps​/­en​/­natolive​/­official​_­texts​_ ­8443​.­htm).
17. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hard Choices (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 2014), p. 239.
18. Center for Insights in Survey Research, “Public Opinion
Survey, Residents of Georgia, March-­April  2016,” International
Republican Institute, April  2016 (www​.­iri​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­fi les​
/­w ysiwyg​/­georgia​_­2016​.­pdf).
19. Neil Melvin and Giulia Prelz Oltramonti, “Managing Conflict and Integration in the South Caucasus: A Challenge for the
Eu­ro­pean Union,” SIPRI-­CASCADE Policy Brief, November 2015,
p. 4 (www​.­cascade​-­caucasus​.­eu​/­en​_­GB​/­827).

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Notes to Pages 44–47

129

20. See, for example, Maciej Falkowski, “Georgian Drift: The
Crisis of Georgia’s Way Westwards,” Centre for Eastern Studies, Osrodek Studiow Wschodnich, Warsaw, Poland, February 2016 (www.
osw.waw.pl/sites/default/files/pw_57_ang_georgian_drift_net.pdf);
Giorgi Areshidze, “Georgia’s Election Was about More Than Rus­sia,”
National Interest, December  20, 2016 (http://nationalinterest.org/
feature/georgias-election-was-about-more-russia-18799?page=2);
and Orysia Lutsevych, “How to Finish a Revolution: Civil Society
and Democracy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine,” Chatham
House Briefing Paper, Chatham House, London, January 2013 (www​
.­chathamhouse​.­org​/­publications​/­papers​/­view​/­188407).
21. See Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine (University
of Toronto Press, 1996); and Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History
(University of Toronto Press, 1988).
22. See Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Eu­rope between Hitler
and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010) for an account of the
tragic 1930s and 1940s.
23. Fiona Hill and Steven Pifer, “Dealing with a Simmering
Ukraine-­Russia Conflict,” Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.,
October  2016 (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­research​/­dealing​-­with​-­a​-­simm​
ering​-­u kraine​-­russia​-­conflict).
24. See also, for example, Adrian Karatnycky, “Ukraine: Into
and Out of the Abyss,” Politico, February 17, 2016 (www.politico.eu/
article/ukraine-heads-into-the-abyss-petro-poroshenko-arseniyyatsenyuk); and Wojciech Kononczuk, “Oligarchs a­ fter the Maidan:
The Old System in a ‘New’ Ukraine,” Centre for Eastern Studies,
Osrodek Studiow Wschodnich, Warsaw, Poland, February 16, 2015
(www​.­osw​.­waw​.­pl​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­commentary​_­162​_­0​.­pdf).
25. Clifford G. Gaddy, The Price of the Past: Rus­sia’s Strug­gle
with the Legacy of a Militarized Economy (Brookings Institution
Press, 1996); see also International Institute for Strategic Studies,
Strategic Survey 2016: The Annual Review of World Affairs (Oxfordshire, E
­ ngland: Routledge, 2016), p. 216.
26. Pifer, The Ea­gle and the Trident (Brookings Institution
Press, 2017), pp. 1–20.
27. Mikhail Alexseev, “The Tale of the Three Legitimacies: The
Shifting Tone and Enduring Substance of Moscow’s Ukraine

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130

Notes to Pages 47–49

Policy,” PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 431, June 2016 (www​
.­ponarseurasia​.­org ​/­memo​/­t ale​-­t hree​-­legitimacies​-­shifting​-­tone​
-­and​-­enduring​-­substance​-­moscows​-­u kraine​-­policy).
28. See International Crisis Group, “Ukraine: Military Deadlock, Po­liti­cal Crisis,” Briefing No. 85, Brussels, Belgium, December
2016, pp.  5–7 (www​.­crisisgroup​.­org​/­Europe​-­central​-­asia​/­eastern​
-­europe​/­Ukraine​/­b85​-­ukraine​-­military​-­deadlock​-­political​-­crisis);
David J. Kramer, “The Ukraine Invasion: One Year ­Later,” Journal of
World Affairs, March/April  2015 (www​.­worldaffairsjournal​.­org​
/­article​/­ukraine​-­invasion​-­one​-­year​-­later); and Diane Francis,
“Ukraine’s Survivor: Yulia Tymoshenko,” National Post, October 7,
2016 (http://­news​.­nationalpost​.­com​/­f ull​-­comment​/­diane​-­f rancis​
-­ukraines​-­survivor​-­yulia​-­tymoshenko).
29. Center for Insights in Survey Research, “Public Opinion Survey, Residents of Ukraine, May-­June 2016,” International Republican
Institute, June  2016 (www​.­iri​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­w ysiwyg​/­2016​
-­07​-­08​_­ukraine​_­poll​_­show​_­skepticism​_­glimmer​_­of​_­hope​.­pdf).
30. Fiona Hill and Steven Pifer, “Dealing with a Simmering
Ukraine-­Russia Conflict,” in Brookings Big Ideas for Amer­i­ca, edited
by Michael  E. O’Hanlon (Brookings Institution Press, 2017),
pp. 349–56; and Daniel Szeligowski, “NATO-­Ukraine Cooperation
­after the Warsaw Summit,” PISM Bulletin No. 49, Polish Institute of
International Affairs, Warsaw, Poland, August 4, 2016 (www​.­pism​.­pl​
/­files​/­​?­id​_­plik​=­22273).
31. Serhii Plokhy, “The ‘New Eastern Eu­rope’: What to Do with
the Histories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova?” East Eu­ro­pean
Politics and Socie­ties vol. 25, no. 4 (November 2011), pp. 763–69; see
also Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2016 (www.
cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/md.html and
www​.­cia​ .­gov​/­l ibrary​ /­publications​ /­t he​ -­world​ -­factbook ​ /­geos​ / ­bo​
.­html).
32. BBC, “Belarus Country Profile,” June 24, 2016 (www​.­bbc​
.­com​/­news​/­world​-­europe​-­17941131).
33. See Sonia Liang, “A View from Moldova: Moldova’s Rapprochement with NATO,” NATO Association of Canada, Toronto,
Canada, May  4, 2016 (http://­natoassociation​.­c a​/­a​-­v iew​-­f rom​
-­moldova).

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Notes to Pages 49–52

131

34. Orysia Lutsevych, “How to Finish a Revolution: Civil Society and Democracy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine,” Chatham
House Briefing Paper, Chatham House, London, January  2013
(www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/188407); International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 2016: The
Annual Review of World Affairs (Oxfordshire, E
­ ngland: Routledge,
2016), p.  216; and John Lowenhardt, Ronald  J. Hill, and Margot
Light, “A Wider Eu­rope: The View from Minsk and Chisinau,”
International Affairs, vol. 77, no. 3 (2001), pp. 605–20.
35. Center for Insights in Survey Research, “Public Opinion
Survey, Residents of Moldova, September  2016,” International
Republican Institute, April  2016 (www​.­iri​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­fi les​
/­w ysiwyg ​ /­i ri ​ _ ­m oldova ​ _ ­s eptember​ _ ­2 016 ​ _ ­m oldova ​ _­p oll ​ _ ­f or​
_­review​.­pdf).
36. Alexander Clapp, “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” National
Interest, no. 148 (March/April 2017), pp. 43–53.
37. See GlobalSecurity​.­org, “Collective Security Treaty Organ­
ization,” March 2014 (www​.­globalsecurity​.­org​/­military​/­world​/­int​
/­csto​.­htm).
38. See BBC, “Armenia Country Profile,” June 2, 2016 (www.bbc.
com/news/world-europe-17398605); and International Institute for
Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 2016: The Annual Review of World
Affairs (Oxfordshire, E
­ ngland: Routledge, 2016), pp. 215–16.
39. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2016
(www​.­cia​.­gov​/­library​/­publications​/­t he​-­world​-­factbook).
40. BBC, “Azerbaijan Country Profile,” October  16, 2016
(www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­europe​-­17043424).
41. Yegor Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern
Rus­sia (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), p. 74.
42. International Crisis Group, “Nagorno-­Karabakh: New
Opening, or More Peril?” Report No.  239, July  4, 2016 (www​
.­c risisgroup​.­org​/­europe​-­c entral​-­a sia​/­c aucasus​/­a zerbaijan/nago​
rno​-­k arabakh​-­new​-­opening​-­or​-­more​-­peril).
43. Laurence Broers, “The Nagorny Karabakh Conflict: Defaulting to War,” Chatham House, London, July 2016, p. 2 (www​
.­c hathamhouse​ .­o rg ​ /­p ublication​ /­n agorny​ -­k arabakh​ -­c onf lict​
-­defaulting​-­war).

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132

Notes to Pages 53–58

44. John Pike, “Armenia—­Relations with Rus­sia,” GlobalSecurity​.­org, 2017 (www​.­g lobalsecurity​.­org ​/­m ilitary​/­world​/­a rmenia​
/­foreign​-­relations​-­ru​.­htm).
45. See Melvin and Oltramonti, “Managing Conflict and Integration in the South Caucasus,” p. 7.
46. Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugo­slavia: The Third Balkan
War (New York: Penguin Books, 1992); and Susan L. Woodward,
Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution a­ fter the Cold War (Brookings Institution Press, 1995), pp. 21–45.
47. Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly:
NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Brookings Institution Press, 2000),
p. 176.
48. Euractiv and Agence France-­Presse, “NATO and Rus­sia’s
Influence Dominate Montenegro Vote,” Euractiv​
.­
com, October 14, 2016 (www​.­euractiv​.­com​/­section​/­enlargement​/­news​/­nato​
-­a nd​-­r ussias​-­i nfluence​-­dominate​-­montenegro​-­vote).
49. Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), pp.  58–80; and Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and
Revenge (Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 4–8.
50. Neil Clark, “Milosevic Exonerated, as the NATO War
Machine Moves On,” Rus­sia ­Today, August 2, 2016 (www​.­r t​.­com​
/­op​-­edge​/­354362​-­slobodan​-­milosevic​-­exonerated​-­us​-­nato).
51. International Crisis Group, “Divided Cyprus: Coming to
Terms on an Imperfect Real­ity,” Eu­rope Report No. 229, Brussels,
Belgium, March  2014 (www​.­crisisgroup​.­org​/­europe​-­central​-­asia​
/­western​-­europemediterranean​/­c yprus​/­d ivided​-­c yprus​-­coming​
-­terms​-­imperfect​-­reality).
52. See Agnieszka Bienczyk-­Missala, “Poland’s Foreign and
Security Policy: Main Directions,” UNISCI Journal, no.  40
(January  2016), pp.  101–18 (www.ucm.es/data/cont/media/www/
­
pag-78913/UNISCIDP40-6ABienczyk-Missala1.pdf); Jerzy  M.
Nowak, “Poland’s Security Policy in an Unstable World,” Nacao e
Defesa, no.  125-4 (Spring 2010), pp.  33–48 (https://comum.rcaap.
pt/bitstream/10400.26/3071/1/NeD125_JerzyMNowak.pdf); Margarita Seselgyte, “Security Culture of Lithuania,” Lithuanian Policy
Review, 2015, pp. 23–40 (http://lfpr.lt/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/
LFPR-24-Seselgyte.pdf); Simon Schofield, interview with Linda

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Notes to Pages 58–65

133

Eicheler, vice president of YEPP, “The Rus­sian Resurgence: A View
from Estonia,” Security and Defence, issue 2, no.  1 (April  2014)
(www.hscentre.org/russia-and-eurasia/russian-resurgence-viewestonia); and Luke Coffey, “The Baltic States: Why the United States
Must Strengthen Security Cooperation,” Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder, no.  2851 (October  2013) (http://­thf​_­media​.­s3​
.­amazonaws​.­com​/­2013​/­pdf​/­BG2851​.­pdf).
53. Ali Tuygan and Kemal Kirisci, “U.S.-­Turkey Relations ­under
Trump May Hinge More on Turkey Than on Trump,” Order from
Chaos blog, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., November 30,
2016 (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­blog​/­order​-­from​-­chaos​/­2016​/­11​/­30​/­u​-­s​
-­turkey​-­relations​-­under​-­trump​-­may​-­hinge​-­more​-­on​-­turkey​-­t han​
-­on​-­trump); and Omer Taspinar, “Foreign Policy a­ fter the Failed
Coup: The Rise of Turkish Gaullism,” Lobelog Foreign Policy, September 2, 2016 (https://­lobelog​.­com​/­foreign​-­policy​-­after​-­the​-­failed​
-­coup​-­the​-­rise​-­of​-­turkish​-­gaullism).
54. Katie Simmons, Bruce Stokes, and Jacob Poushter, “NATO
Publics Blame Rus­sia for Ukrainian Crisis, but Reluctant to Provide
Military Aid,” Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, D.C., June 10,
2015 (www​.­pewglobal​.­org​/­2015​/­06​/­10​/­nato​-­publics​-­blame​-­russia​
-­for​-­u krainian​-­crisis​-­but​-­reluctant​-­to​-­provide​-­military​-­a id); see
also Joshua Shifrinson, “Time to Consolidate NATO?” Washington
Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 109–123.
55. William  A. Galston, “How the President Can Reassure
Eu­rope,” Wall Street Journal, February  21, 2017 (www​.­wsj​.­com​
/­articles​/­how​-­t he​-­president​-­can​-­reassure​-­europe​-­1487722974).
56. Danielle Cuddington, “Support for NATO Is Widespread
Among Member Nations,” Pew Research Center, July  6, 2016
(www​.­pewresearch​.­org​/­fact​-­tank​/­2016​/­07​/­06​/­support​-­for​-­nato​-­is​
-­w idespread​-­among​-­member​-­nations).
CHAPTER THREE
1. Not every­one agrees that disputes over ­future security architectures are at the heart of the current prob­lems in U.S.-­Russia
relations, but many do. See, for example, International Institute
for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 2016 (Abingdon, ­England:
Routledge, 2016), p. 211.

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134

Notes to Pages 66–68

2. Arianna Rowberry, “The Vienna Document, the Open Skies
Treaty, and the Ukraine Crisis,” Up Front blog, April 10, 2014 (www​
.­brookings​.­edu​/ ­blog ​/­up​-­f ront​/­2014​/­04​/­10​/­t he​-­v ienna​-­document​
-­the​-­open​-­skies​-­treaty​-­and​-­the​-­ukraine​-­crisis); Ralph  S. Clem, “Is
This the Right Time to Relieve the Building Pressure in the Baltics?,”
War on the Rocks, December  20, 2016 (https://­warontherocks​
.­c om​ /­2 016​ /­12​ /­i s​ -­t his​ -­t he​ -­r ight​ -­t ime​ -­t o​ -­relieve​ -­t he​ -­building​
-­pressure​-­in​-­the​-­baltics); Bruce Jones, “Lithuania Sheds Light on
‘Information Battlefield’ Facing NATO Troops in Baltic,” Jane’s De­
fence Weekly, March 22, 2017, p. 10; Joanna Hyndle-­Hussein, “The
Baltic States on the Conflict in Ukraine,” OSW Commentary, Centre
for Eastern Studies, Warsaw, Poland, January 2015 (www​.­osw​.­waw​
.­pl​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­commentary​_­158​.­pdf); Michael  R. Gordon,
“Rus­sia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty and Challenging Trump,”
New York Times, February 14, 2017; and Ash Car­ter, “A Strong and
Balanced Approach to Rus­sia,” Survival, vol. 58, no. 6 (December 2016–­January 2017), pp. 52–55.
3. On such concerns, see the Federal Government of Germany,
“White Paper 2016 on German Security Policy and the F
­ uture
of the Bundeswehr,” Berlin, 2016, pp.  38, 65 (www​.­gmfus​.­org​
/­publications​/­white​-­paper​-­german​-­s ecurity​-­p olicy​-­a nd​-­f uture​
-­bundeswehr).
4. On why even such a discreet conventional operation might
entail nuclear risks, see the discussion of “the threat that leaves
something to chance” in Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Con­
flict (Harvard University Press, 1960); Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of
Safety: Organ­izations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Prince­ton
University Press, 1993); Barry  R. Posen, Inadvertent Escalation:
Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Cornell University Press,
1991); and Bruce G. Blair, Strategic Command and Control: Rede­
fining the Nuclear Threat (Brookings Institution Press, 1985).
5. On the nuclear dimension, see, for example, Alexey
­Arbatov, “The Hidden Side of the U.S.-­Russian Strategic Confrontation,” Arms Control ­Today, vol. 46, no.  7 (September  2016),
pp. 20–24.
6. Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, Nickolas Roth, and William H. Tobey, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Continuous Improve­

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Notes to Pages 68–72

135

ment or Dangerous Decline? (Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy
School, 2016), pp. i–­xi.
7. Marta Carlsson and Mike Winnerstig, Irreconcilable Differ­
ences: Analysing the Deteriorating Russian-­U.S. Relations (Stockholm, Sweden: FOI, 2016).
8. Samuel Charap and Timothy J. Colton, Every­one Loses: The
Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post–­Soviet Eurasia
(London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2017); on
Ukraine and Georgia, see Kimberly Marten, Reducing Tensions
between Russia and NATO (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2017), p. 12.
9. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Eu­rope, “Helsinki Final Act,” Helsinki, Finland, August  1975 (www​.­osce​.­org​
/­helsinki​-­final​-­act​?­download​= ­true).
10. Robert Kagan, “The Twilight of the Liberal World Order,”
in Brookings Big Ideas for Amer­i­ca, edited by Michael E. O’Hanlon
(Brookings Institution Press, 2017).
11. Th
­ ere are six countries within the EU that are not in NATO:
Finland, Sweden, Austria, Malta, Cyprus, and Ireland. Th
­ ere are,
likewise, six countries within NATO and not the EU: Norway, Albania, Iceland, Turkey, the United States, and Canada, plus now
Montenegro. Other­wise, each organ­ization has the same twenty-­
two other members (including, for the moment, the United Kingdom, plus Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Denmark,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, and Slovenia).
12. See Matthew Rojansky, “The Ukraine-­Russia Conflict: A
Way Forward,” in A New Direction in U.S.-­Russia Relations? Amer­
i­ca’s Challenges and Opportunities in Dealing with Rus­sia, edited by
Paul J. Saunders (Washington, D.C.: Center for the National Interest, 2017), p. 31.
13. On this general subject, see, for example, Ernst  B.
Haas,  Beyond the Nation-­
State: Functionalism and Interna­
tional Organ­ization (Stanford University Press, 1964); Hedley
Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics
(Columbia University Press, 1977); and Strobe Talbott, The

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136

Notes to Pages 72–76

­ reat Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States,
G
and the Quest for a Global Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008).
14. For an argument that seeks to rethink many existing
American security obligations, see Barry  R. Posen, Restraint: A
New Foundation for U.S. ­Grand Strategy (Cornell University Press,
2014).
15. Heather A. Conley and Kathleen H. Hicks, “­There Is No
Alternative to Sovereign Choice,” Commentary, Center for Strategic and International Studies, April  27, 2017 (www​
.­
csis​
.­
org​
/­analysis​/­t here​-­no​-­a lternative​-­soverign​-­choice​/­​?­block3).
16. Barton Gellman, Contending with Kennan: ­Toward a Phi­
losophy of American Power (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 40.
17. See, for example, Richard  H. Ullman, Securing Eu­rope
(Prince­ton University Press, 1991), pp. 53–82; Ashton B. Car­ter,
William  J. Perry, and John  D. Steinbruner, A New Concept of
Cooperative Security (Brookings Institution Press, 1992); and Robert J. Art, “Creating a Disaster: NATO’s Open Door Policy,” Po­liti­
cal Science Quarterly, vol. 113, no. 3 (Autumn 1998), pp. 383–403
(www​.­jstor​.­org​/­stable​/­2658073​?­seq​=­1#page​_ ­scan​_­tab​_­contents).
For another recent idea on a f­ uture Eu­ro­pean security architecture,
see Simon Saradzhyan, “Eu­ro­pean Security Reform Holds Key to
Breaking Stalemate in Ukraine,” Rus­sia ­Matters, Harvard University, October  27, 2016 (www​.­russiamatters​.­org​/­analysis​/­european​
-­security​-­reform​-­holds​-­key​-­breaking​-­stalemate​-­ukraine).
18. See, for example, Michael  E. O’Hanlon, The $650 Billion
Bargain: The Case for Modest Growth in Amer­i­ca’s Defense Bud­get
(Brookings Institution Press, 2016), p. 15. See also, Colonel Lars S.
Lervik, Norwegian Army, “Deterrence and Engagement,” U.S.
Army War College Paper, Carlisle, PA, 2017, p. 23.
19. Strobe Talbott, “Why NATO Should Grow,” New York Re­
view of Books, August 10, 1995 (www​.­nybooks​.­com​/­articles​/­1995​
/­08​/­10​/­why​-­nato​-­should​-­grow).
20. See Rachel Epstein, “Why NATO Enlargement Was a Good
Idea,” Po­liti­cal Vio­lence at a Glance, University of Denver, Denver,
Colorado, September  13, 2016 (https://­politicalviolenceataglance​
.­org​/­2016​/­09​/­13​/­why​-­nato​-­enlargement​-­was​-­a​-­good​-­idea).

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Notes to Pages 77–80

137

21. See, for example, Henry Kissinger, World Order (New York:
Penguin Press, 2014), pp.  86–95; and Strobe Talbott, The Rus­sia
Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random
House, 2002), pp. 92–101.
22. James Kirchick, The End of Eu­rope: Dictators, Demagogues,
and the Coming Dark Age (University Press, 2017), p. 219.
23. On Bush and Putin, see, for example, Ivo H. Daalder and
James M. Lindsay, Amer­i­ca Unbound: The Bush Revolution in For­
eign Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 2003), p. 64.
24. See “U.S.-­Russia Relations: Beyond the Crisis in Ukraine,”
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., October 20, 2014 (www​
.­brookings​.­edu​/­events​/­u​-­s​-­r ussia​-­relations​-­beyond​-­t he​-­crisis​-­i n​
-­ukraine).
25. See, for example, Donald Kagan, On the Origins of War
and the Preservation of Peace (New York: Anchor Books, 1995);
and John  J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of G
­ reat Power Politics
(New York: W. W. Norton and Com­pany, 2001).
26. Richard K. Betts, American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and
Dilemmas in National Security (Columbia University Press, 2012),
p. 194.
27. See, for example, John M. Owen, Liberal Peace, Liberal War:
American Politics and International Security (Cornell University
Press, 1997).
28. Thomas Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learn­
ing Curve (Washington, D.C.: Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace, 1999), p. 15.
29. Jaroslaw Adamowski, “NATO Agrees on E. Eu­ro­pean Rotational Troops at Warsaw Summit,” Defense News, July  8, 2016
(www​.­defensenews​.­com​/­story​/­defense​/­omr​/­roadtowarsaw​/­2016​
/­0 7​ /­0 8​ /­n ato​ -­a grees​ -­e astern​ -­e uropean​ -­r otational​ -­b attalions​
-­warsaw​-­summit​/­86863516).
30. General Sir Richard Shirreff, War with Rus­sia: An Urgent
Warning from Se­nior Military Command (New York: Quercus,
2016), pp. xiii–­x xix; and North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization,
“Founding Act—on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security
between NATO and the Rus­sian Federation,” Paris, May 27, 1997
(www​.­nato​.­int​/­cps​/­en​/­natohq​/­official ​_­texts ​_ ­25468​.­htm).

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138

Notes to Pages 80–82

31. Jackson Diehl, “Risking His Life to Hold Putin Accountable,” Washington Post, March 20, 2017.
32. See Robert Kagan, “Backing into World War III,” ForeignPolicy​.­com, February  6, 2017 (http://­foreignpolicy​.­com​/­2017​/­02​
/­06​/ ­backing​-­into​-­world​-­war​-­iii​-­r ussia​-­china​-­t rump​-­obama).
33. For a very good discussion of this perspective, see Raymond L. Garthoff, A Journey through the Cold War: A Memoir of
Containment and Coexistence (Brookings Institution Press, 2001),
p. 377.
34. See James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolu­
tion, War and Peace, 1989–­1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1995), pp. 230–59.
35. Steven Pifer, “Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge? Gorbachev Says No,” Up Front blog, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., November  6, 2014 (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­blog​/­up​
-­f ront ​/­2 014​/­11​/­0 6​/­d id​-­nato​-­promise​-­not​-­to​-­enlarge​-­gorbachev​
-­says​-­no).
36. William J. Perry, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink (Stanford University, 2015), pp. 127–29.
37. Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in
the Kremlin, new and expanded ed. (Brookings Institution Press,
2015), p. 308.
38. Pifer, “Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge?”; and Andrei
Kozyrev, “Partnership or Cold Peace?” Foreign Policy (Summer
1995), pp. 3–14 (www​.­jstor​.­org​/­stable​/­1149002).
39. See Robert Kagan, The World Amer­i­ca Made (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).
40. A classic discussion of this frequent contradiction between
American ideals and American practice is Reinhold Niebuhr, The
Irony of American History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1952).
41. Angela E. Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-­Russian Re­
lations in the Twenty-­First ­Century (Prince­ton University Press,
2014), pp. 167–68, 264–65.
42. Stephen R. Covington, “The Culture of Strategic Thought
­Behind Rus­sia’s Modern Approaches to Warfare,” Belfer Center
Paper, Harvard Kennedy School, October  2016; and Eugene

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Notes to Pages 82–87

139

Rumer, “Rus­sia and the Security of Eu­rope,” Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., June 2016, p. 1
(http://­c arnegieendowment​.­org ​/­2016​/­0 6​/­30​/­r ussia​-­a nd​-­security​
-­of​-­europe​-­pub​- ­63990).
43. Anne Witkowsky, Sherman Garnett, and Jeff MacCausland,
“Salvaging the Conventional Armed Forces in Eu­rope Treaty Regime: Options for Washington,” Brookings Arms Control Paper Series, Washington, D.C., March 2010, p. 8 (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­wp​
-­content​/­uploads​/­2016​/­06​/­03​_­armed​_­forces​_­europe​_­treaty​.­pdf).
44. Alexander Velez-­Green, “The Unsettling View from Moscow:
Rus­sia’s Strategic Debate on a Doctrine of Pre-­emption,” Center for a
New American Security, Washington, D.C., April 2017 (https://­www​
.­cnas​.­org​/­publications​/­reports​/­the​-­unsettling​-­view​-­from​-­moscow).
45. See Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes, Rus­sia’s Virtual
Economy (Brookings Institution Press, 2002); and Fiona Hill and
Clifford Gaddy, The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left
Rus­sia Out in the Cold (Brookings Institution Press, 2003).
46. A classic is Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Poli­
tics (Cambridge University Press, 1981).
47. Witkowsky and others, Salvaging the Conventional Armed
Forces in Eu­rope Treaty Regime,” p. 2.
48. See, for example, “Moldova: No Support for NATO Involvement in Transnistria Dispute,” EurasiaNet​.­org, July 28, 2016 (www​
.­eurasianet​.­org​/­node​/­79901).
49. George  F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times,
February 5, 1997 (www​.­netwargamingitalia​.­net​/­forum​/­resources​
/­george​-­f​-­kennan​-­a​-­fateful​-­error​.­35).
50. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Cornell University Press, 1987); Geoffrey Blainey, The ­Causes of War (New York:
­Free Press, 1973), pp. 245–49.
51. On this agenda, see, for example, Alexander Mattelaer, “The
NATO Warsaw Summit: How to Strengthen Alliance Cohesion,”
Strategic Forum No. 296 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for National
Strategic Studies, National Defense University, June  2016) (ndupress​.­ndu​.­edu); see also Karl-­Heinz Kamp, “Why NATO Needs a
New Strategic Concept,” NATO Defense College Report (Rome,
Italy: NATO Defense College, 2016).

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140

Notes to Pages 88–92

52. See, for example, David Sattar, “The Character of Rus­sia,”
Montreal Review, January  2012 (www​.­t hemontrealreview​.­com​
/­2009​/­The​-­Character​-­of​-­Russia​-­by​-­David​-­Satter​.­php).
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Des Browne, Igor S. Ivanov, and Sam Nunn, “Securing the
Euro-­Atlantic Community,” Proj­ect Syndicate, February  3, 2015
(www​.­project​-­s yndicate​.­org ​/­commentary​/­u kraine​-­r ussia​-­crisis​
-­european​-­leadership​-­by​-­des​-­ browne-­et-­a l-2015-02).
2. For a related view, see Terry Atlas, “Brzezinski Sees Finlandization of Ukraine as Deal Maker,” Bloomberg​.­com, April  12,
2014 (www​.­bloomberg​.­com​/­news​/­articles​/­2014​-­04​-­11​/­brzezinski​
-­sees​-­finlandization​-­of​-­u kraine​-­as​-­deal​-­maker); and Henry  A.
Kissinger, “To ­Settle the Ukraine Crisis, Start at the End,” Wash­
ington Post, March 5, 2014.
3. Laurence Norman and Maarten van Tartwijk, “Dutch Premier’s Demands Cast New Doubt over EU-­Ukraine Pact,” Wall
Street Journal, October 20, 2016.
4. For a good concise history of the Eu­ro­pean Union, which
highlights that security and foreign policy have typically not been
the central issues driving its creation or operations, see William I.
Hitchcock, The Strug­gle for Eu­rope: The Turbulent History of a
Divided Continent, 1945–2002 (New York: Doubleday, 2002),
pp.  435–­6 4; and Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Eu­rope since
1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), pp. 732–­36.
5. Eu­ro­pean Union External Action, “Shaping of a Common
Security and Defense Policy,” Brussels, Belgium, July 2016 (https://­
eeas​.­europa​.­eu​/­topics​/­nuclear​-­safety​/­5388​/­shaping​-­of​-­a​-­common​
-­security​-­and​-­defence​-­policy​-­​_­en). By contrast, Article V of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization reads: “The Parties agree that
an armed attack against one or more of them in Eu­rope or North
Amer­i­ca s­ hall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of
them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-­
defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, w
­ ill assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such

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Notes to Pages 92–98

141

action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to
restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” See
North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization, “The North Atlantic Treaty,”
Washington, D.C., April  4, 1949 (www​.­nato​.­i nt​/­c ps​/­en​/­natohq​
/­official ​_­texts ​_­17120​.­htm).
6. The Vienna-­based Organ­ization for Security and Cooperation in Eu­rope is yet another organ­ization with a number of
impor­tant security missions but no standing military capability, a
$150 million annual bud­get, and an inclusive membership. Thus,
­there should be no issue in sustaining it and including as many
Eu­ro­pean states as wish to participate in its dialogues, oversight
activities for certain purposes such as arms control or confidence
building, and occasional small field missions with a combined
personnel tally today of some 3,000 across seventeen countries.
See Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Organ­ization for Security and Cooperation in Eu­rope,” Washington, D.C., April 2015 (www​.­nti​.­org​
/­l earn​ /­t reaties​ -­a nd​ -­r egimes​ /­o rganization​ -­c ooperation​ -­a nd​
-­security​-­europe​-­osce); and Organ­ization for Security and Cooperation in Eu­rope, “What Is the OSCE?” Vienna, Austria, March 2016
(www​.­osce​.­org​/­whatistheosce​/­factsheet​?­download​=­true).
7. Nicole Gnesotto, “Strategie de securite de l’UE: pourquoi et
comment renouveler notre approche,” Les Carnets du Caps, no. 23
(Summer-­Autumn 2016), pp. 67–­82.
8. North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization, “Membership Action
Plan (MAP),” Brussels, Belgium, December 4, 2015 (www​.­nato​.­int​
/­cps​/­en​/­natohq​/­topics​_ ­37356​.­htm).
9. For a related view, see comments of General Sir Richard
Shirreff, former deputy supreme allied commander/Eu­rope, at the
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., October 19, 2016 (www​
.­brookings​.­edu).
10. Julianne Smith and Adam Twardowski, “The ­Future of U.S.-­
Russia Relations,” Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C., January  2017, p.  8 (www​.­cnas​.­org​/­publications​/­reports​
/­the​-­future​-­of​-­u​-­s​-­russia​-­relations).
11. See, for example, Taras Kuzio, “Why Vladimir Putin Is
Angry with the West: Understanding the D
­ rivers of Rus­sia’s
­Information, Cyber and Hybrid War,” Security Policy Working

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142

Notes to Pages 99–103

Paper No.  7/2017, Federal Acad­emy for Security Policy, Berlin,
Germany, February  2017 (www​.­baks​.­bund​.­de​/­sites​/­baks010​/­fi les​
/­working​_­paper​_ ­2017​_­07​.­pdf).
12. Ian Kearns, Lukasz Kulesa, and Thomas Frear, “Preparing
for the Worst: Are Rus­sian and NATO Military Exercises Making
War in Eu­rope More Likely?,” Eu­ro­pean Leadership Network,
London, August  12, 2015 (www​.­europeanleadershipnetwork​.­org​
/­p reparing​-­f or​-­t he​-­w orst​-­a re​-­r ussian​-­a nd​-­n ato​-­m ilitar y​
-­exercises​-­making​-­war​-­in​-­europe​-­more​-­likely​_­2997​.­html).
13. Eugene Rumer, Richard Sokolsky, and Andrew  S. Weiss,
“Trump and Rus­sia: The Right Way to Manage Relations,” Foreign
Affairs, vol. 96, no. 2 (March/April 2017), p. 16.
14. See Michael O’Hanlon and Jeremy Shapiro, “Crafting a Win-­
Win-­Win for Rus­sia, Ukraine, and the West,” Washington Post, December  7, 2015 (http://­w ww​.­brookings​.­edu​/­research​/­opinions​/­2014​
/­12​/­07​-­russia​-­ukraine​-­ohanlon​-­shapiro).
15. For a compelling argument about the significance of Rus­
sian efforts to interfere with Western democracy, see address of
Senator Christopher Coons, Brookings Institution, Washington,
D.C., April  6, 2017 (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­blog​/­brookings​-­now​
/­2017​/­04​/­06​/­putin​-­undeclared​-­war​-­on​-­international​-­order).
16. For an argument about the importance of resoluteness, see
Derek Chollet, Eric S. Edelman, Michèle Flournoy, Stephen J. Hadley, Martin S. Indyk, Bruce Jones, Robert Kagan, Kristen Silverberg,
Jake S­ ullivan, and Thomas Wright, “Building Situations of Strength:
A National Security Strategy for the United States” (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings, 2017) (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­research​/ ­building​
-­situations​-­of​-­strength).
17. See, for example, Philip M. Breedlove, “NATO’s Next Act:
How to H
­ andle Rus­sia and Other Threats,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 95,
no. 4 (July/August 2016), p. 104.
18. See Robert Beckhusen, “The Only Way to Beat Rus­sia in a
War over the Baltics,” National Interest blog, February  6, 2017
(http://­n ationalinterest​.­org ​/ ­blog ​/­t he​-­buzz​/­t he​-­only​-­w ay​-­b eat​
-­russia​-­war​-­over​-­t he​-­baltics​-­19336).
19. See “A Conversation with Commandant of the U.S. Coast
Guard Admiral Paul F. Zukunft,” Brookings Institution, Washing-

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Notes to Pages 104–108

143

ton, D.C., November  29, 2016 (www.brookings.edu/events/a​-conversation​-with-commandant-of-the-u-s-coast-guard-admiralpaul-f-zukunft); and Niklas Granholm, Marta Carlsson, and Kaan
Korkmaz, The Big Three in the Arctic: China’s, Rus­sia’s and the
United States’ Strategies for the New Arctic (Stockholm, Sweden:
FOI, 2016).
20. Defense Science Board, “Task Force on Cyberdeterrence,”
Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., February 2017 (www​
.­acq​.­osd​.­mil​/­dsb​/­reports​/­2010s​/­DSB​-­CyberDeterrenceReport​_­02​
-­28​-­17​_­Final​.­pdf).
21. North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization, “Euro-­Atlantic Partnership Council,” Brussels, Belgium, April 7, 2016 (www​.­nato​.­int​
/­cps​/­en​/­natolive​/­topics​_­49276​.­htm).
22. See U.S. Government, “ForeignAssistance​.­gov,” Washington, D.C., 2016 (http://­beta​.­foreignassistance​.­gov​/­explore#).
23. U​.­S. Army Eu­rope, “Army Strong, Strong Eu­rope! Exercise Rapid Trident,” U.S. Army Eu­rope Headquarters, Weisbaden,
Germany, 2016 (www​.­eur​.­army​.­mil​/­RapidTrident).
24. North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization, “Relations with Georgia,” Brussels, Belgium, June 7, 2016 (www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/
topics_38988.htm); and Ian S. Livingston, Heather L. Messera,
and Michael  E. O’Hanlon, “Af­g han­i­stan Index,” Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., February 28, 2011 (www​.­brookings​
.­edu​/­w p​-­content​/­uploads​/­2016​/­07​/­i ndex20110228​.­pdf).
25. Stefan Forss and Pekka Holopainen, Breaking the Nordic De­
fense Deadlock (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army
War College, 2015), pp.  57–­58; and North Atlantic Treaty Organ­
ization, “Key NATO and Allied Exercises,” Brussels, Belgium,
July 2016 (www​.­nato​.­int​/­nato​_­static​_­fl2014​/­assets​/­pdf​/­pdf​_­2016​_­07​
/­20160704​_­1607​-­factsheet​_­exercises​_­en​.­pdf).
26. For background, see Eoin Micheal McNamara, “Securing
the Nordic-­Baltic Region,” NATO Review, 2016 (www​.­nato​.­int​
/­docu​/­Review​/­2 016​/­A lso​-­i n​-­2 016​/­s ecurity​-­baltic​-­defense​-­nato​
/­EN​/­index​.­htm).
27. Statista, “U.S. Arms Exports, 2015, by Country,” Hamburg,
Germany, 2016 (www​.­statista​.­com​/­statistics​/­248552​/­u s​-­a rms​
-­exports​-­by​-­country).

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144

Notes to Pages 109–113

28. See, for example, F. Stephen Larrabee and Peter A. Wilson,
“NATO Needs a Southern Strategy,” National Interest blog, January  27, 2014 (http://­nationalinterest​.­org​/­commentary​/­nato​-­needs​
-­southern​-­strategy​-­9769​?­page​=­3).
29. On the Syria issue, see, for example, Michael O’Hanlon, “A
Trump Strategy to End Syria’s Nightmare,” Wall Street Journal,
December  15, 2016 (www​.­wsj​.­com​/­a rticles​/­a​-­t rump​-­strategy​-­to​
-­end​-­syrias​-­nightmare​-­1481847575); and Michael O’Hanlon, “Deconstructing Syria: A Confederal Approach,” Washington, D.C.,
Brookings Institution, January 2017 (www​.­brookings​.­edu​/­research​
/­deconstructing​-­syria​-­a​-­confederal​-­approach).
30. Richard  C. Bush, Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the
Taiwan Strait (Brookings Institution Press, 2005), pp. 23–24.
31. Department of State, “Key Facts about the Open Skies
Treaty,” Washington, D.C., June 2016 (www​.­state​.­gov​/­t​/­avc​/­rls​/­2016​
/­258061​.­htm); Daryl Kimball, “The Conventional Armed Forces in
Eu­rope (CFE) Treaty and the Adapted CFE Treaty at a Glance,”
Arms Control Association, Washington, D.C., August 2012 (www​
.­armscontrol​.­org​/­factsheet​/­cfe).
32. David  M. Herszenhorn, “Fears Rise as Rus­sian Military
Units Pour into Ukraine,” New York Times, November  12, 2014
(www​.­nytimes​ .­c om​ /­2 014​/­11​/­13​ /­world​/­e urope​/­u kraine​ -­r ussia​
-­military​-­border​-­nato​.­html); and Mark Urban, “How Many Rus­
sians Are Fighting in Ukraine?,” BBC, March 10, 2015 (www​.­bbc​
.­com​/­news​/­world​-­europe​-­31794523).
33. Joe Gould, “Electronic Warfare: What U.S. Army Can Learn
from Ukraine,” Defense News, August 2, 2015 (www​.­defensenews​
.­com​/­story​/­defense​/­policy​-­budget ​/­warfare​/­2015​/­08​/­02​/­us​-­a rmy​
-­ukraine​-­russia​-­electronic​-­warfare​/­30913397).
34. Colonel J. B. Vowell, “Maskirovka: From Rus­sia, with Deception,” RealClear Defense, October 31, 2016 (www​.­realcleardefense​
.­c om​/­a rticles​/­2 016​/­10​/­31​/­m askirovka​_­f rom​_­r ussia​_­w ith​
_­deception​_­110282​.­html​?­utm​_­source​=­RealClearDefense+Mornin
g+Recon&utm​ _­c ampaign​=­2 db8be085d​ -­E MAIL ​ _­C AMPAIGN​
_­2016​_­10​_­30&utm​_­medium​= ­email&utm ​_­term​= ­0 ​_ ­694f73a8dc​
-­2db8be085d​-­81835773#!).

06-3257-0 bm.indd 144

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Notes to Pages 113–119

145

35. Lucien Kleinjan, “Conventional Arms Control in Eu­rope:
Decline, Disarray, and the Need for Reinvention,” Arms Control
­Today, vol. 46, no. 5 (June 2016), p. 24.
36. Tim Boersma and Michael  E. O’Hanlon, “Why Eu­rope’s
Energy Policy Has Been a Strategic Success Story,” Order from
Chaos blog, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., May 2, 2016
(www​.­brookings​.­e du ​/ ­blog ​/­order​-­f rom​-­c haos​/­2 016​/­05​/­02​/­w hy​
-­europes​-­energy​-­policy​-­has​-­been​-­a​-­strategic​-­success​-­story).
37. Angela  E. Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-­Russian
Relations in the Twenty-­First ­Century (University Press, 2014),
pp. 264–­65.
38. For one perspective on Rus­sia and Kosovo, see Strobe Talbott, “To Understand Putin, Look to the Past,” Washington Post,
March  21, 2014. For some of Putin’s views on missile defense,
American conventional force modernization concepts, like prompt
global strike, and the broader correlation of forces, see Vladimir
Putin, State of the Union speech, December 12, 2013.
39. See James Sherr, Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion: Rus­
sia’s Influence Abroad (London: Royal Institute of International
Affairs, 2013), p. 57.
40. Dmitry Adamsky, “Defense Innovation in Rus­sia: The Current State and Prospects for Revival,” IGCC Defense Innovation
Briefs, University of California Institute on Global Conflict and
Cooperation, January 2014.

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Index

and compliance, 110–115. See also
East European Security
Architecture
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty
(1972), 17
Arab Spring, 23, 25
Arab Winter, 25
Arctic travel, 103
Armenia, 50–52; Collective Security
Treaty Organization and, 50;
economy of, 50–51; Eurasian
Economic Union and, 50; history
of, 51–52; national security politics
in, 49–53; population of, 36, 51;
Russia and, 52, 93–94; Turkey and,
52–53
Arms sales: between NATO nations,
102; between PfP nations, 108; of
U.S. to Taiwan, 110
al-Assad, Bashar, 33–34, 58
Austria: EU security and, 92;
neutrality of, 4, 73
Axis of evil, 17
Azerbaijan, 50–52; economy of, 51;
military expenditures of, 36, 51;
national security politics in, 49–53;
population of, 36

ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty,
1972), 17
Adapted CFE Treaty accord (1999), 85
Afghanistan: NATO mission in, 1, 4,
76; Northern Distribution Network
and, 22–23; peacekeeping
operations in, 107; Russian
assistance in, 88, 89; U.S. conflict
with, 16–17
Aliyev, Ilham, 51
al Qaeda, 16
Alternative security architecture:
conflict resolutions as requirement
of, 92–94; elements of, 90–100;
foundational concepts for, 69–75;
future climate for, 3–6, 116–120;
NATO cooperation and, 8–10,
106–110; NATO legacy and future
and, 75–86; NATO membership
and, 96–98; need for, 89–90; neutral
states and NATO, security
cooperation between, 106–110;
potential countries for, 8, 65;
resoluteness and resilience, 100–06;
Russia and, 3–6, 9–10, 65–69,
87–88, 98–100, 110–112, 116–120;
timeframe for, 99–100; verification

147

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148 Index
Baker, James, 80
Balkans region: national security
politics in, 53–56; NATO membership and, 95; NATO operations in,
14. See also specific states
Baltic Sea, 38–40, 108
Baltic states. See specific states
Belarus: Collective Security Treaty
Organization and, 50; Eurasian
Economic Union and, 50; national
security politics in, 41–42, 48–49;
population of, 36; Russia and,
93–94
Belgium, neutrality of, 4, 73
Beria, Lavrenti, 42
Beslan terrorist attack (Russia, 2004), 19
Betts, Richard, 78
Black Sea: NATO presence in, 102–03;
Russian presence in, 45
Bolshevik Revolution (Russia, 1917),
39, 45, 52
Bosnia and Herzegovina: conflict in,
14; national security politics in,
53–56; NATO intervention in, 4, 54,
76; NATO Membership Action Plan
for, 53, 94; population of, 53; Russia
and, 14
Bucharest NATO summit (2008), 2,
20, 43
Budapest Memorandum (1994), 8, 46,
79–80, 83–84, 96–97
Bulgaria: NATO membership of, 18;
Russia and, 14
Burden sharing of NATO nations,
74–75
Bush, George H. W., 77, 80
Bush, George W., 77, 81
Canada: NATO troops from, 79;
poll on NATO use of force,
58–61
CFE treaty, 85, 112
Charap, Samuel, 69
Chechnya, Russian intervention in,
15–16
China: hypothetical threat from,
109–110, 117–119; U.S. weapons
sales to Taiwan and, 110
Churchill, Winston, 69
Clark, Wesley, 14–15
Clinton, Bill: Kosovo peacekeeping
force and, 14; NATO expansion and,

07-3257-0 idx.indd 148

81; U.S.-Russian relations and,
10–11, 13, 77
Clinton, Hillary, 23–24
Cold peace, 11
Cold Response maritime exercises
(2016), 107–08
Cold War: end of, 10–11, 80; Finland
and, 39–40; NATO and, 1, 4;
security architecture following, 73,
78; Sweden and, 40
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), 50, 93–94
Color revolutions: in Georgia, 17, 43;
in Kyrgyzstan, 17; in Ukraine, 17,
19, 24, 46; United States and, 17, 19,
24–25, 81, 104
Colton, Timothy, 69
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
treaty (CFE, 1990), 85, 112
Corruption, 43, 46, 84
Counterterrorism: Chechnya
intervention, 15–16; collaboration
on, 119; U.S. intervention in Middle
East, 16–19
Crimea: alternative security
architecture and, 92–93; conflict
in, 33–34, 66–67; sanctions from
Russian aggression in, 87;
Ukraine and, 45; Yalta Conference
(1945), 69
CSTO (Collective Security Treaty
Organization), 50, 93–94
Cyberattacks: of Russia, 8, 25, 66, 111;
U.S. vulnerability to, 105
Cybersecurity, 102, 104–05
Cyprus: history of, 56, 75–76; national
security politics in, 53, 56;
population of, 36; Russia and, 56
Czech Republic: NATO membership
of, 13, 18; Visegrad Group, 102
Defense Science Board, 104
Democracy: NATO promotion of, 76,
78; in Russia, 78; U.S. promotion of,
17, 19–20, 23–25, 81–82
Department of Defense (U.S.), priority
concerns of, 7–8
Donbas aggressions, 6, 25, 29, 34, 47,
87, 93, 100, 113
Dubrovka Theater attack (Russia,
2002), 19
Dunford, Joseph, 7, 99

6/21/17 11:12 PM



Index

The Eagle and the Trident (Pifer), 44
Eastern Europe. See Color revolutions;
specific countries
East European Security Architecture
(EESA), 89–120; elements of,
90–100; future climate for, 116–120;
NATO cooperation and, 106–110;
NATO membership and, 96–98;
resoluteness and resilience, 100–06;
Russian sanctions and, 100;
timeframe for, 99–100; verification
and compliance, 110–115. See also
Alternative security architecture
Economy: of Armenia, 50–51; of
Azerbaijan, 51; of collective NATO
nations, 5, 26, 83; global financial
crisis (2008), 26–27; national security
and, 70–71; of Poland, 46; of Russia,
5, 18, 26, 29, 83–84, 118–119; of
Ukraine, 46; virtual economy, 84
EESA. See East European Security
Architecture
Egypt, U.S. intervention in, 23
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, 58
Estonia: NATO forces in, 76–77, 79;
NATO membership of, 18, 57–58,
101; Russia and, 8, 67
Eurasian Economic Union, 50
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council,
106–07
European Leadership Network, 99
European Reassurance Initiative, 5–6,
57, 60, 101, 111
European Union (EU): Georgia and,
44; membership in, 4, 70–71;
migration and, 71; Moldova and, 49;
Russia and, 71, 116; security pledge
of, 38, 71, 91–92; Serbia and, 55–56
Finland: alternative security
architecture and, 95–96; EU
membership of, 38; EU security and,
92; maritime exercises in, 107–08;
national security politics in, 37–41;
NATO membership and, 40–41, 66,
94–95; population of, 36–37; Russia
and, 39–41; Sweden, ties to, 39–40
Founding Act (1997), 13, 79–80
France, poll on NATO use of force,
58–61
Freedom Agenda of Bush administration, 19, 81

07-3257-0 idx.indd 149

149

G-7 (Group of 7), 77
G-8 (Group of 8), 79
Gaddy, Clifford, 20, 26, 84, 118
Georgia: alternative security
architecture and, 93, 96–100; EU,
Association Agreement with, 44;
internal conflict in, 21–22; military
size in, 37; national security politics
in, 41–44; NATO Membership
Action Plan for, 22, 66; NATO
membership and, 2–3, 9, 19–20,
68–69, 87, 96; peacekeeping
operations of, 107; population of, 36;
Rose Revolution (2003), 17, 43, 104;
Russia and, 2–3, 22, 42–44, 66,
68–69, 85
Germany: NATO troops from, 79; poll
on NATO use of force, 58–61;
reunification of, 80–81; Russian
views on, 80–81
Global financial crisis (2008), 26–27
Gorbachev, Mikhail: German
reunification and, 80; NATO
expansion and, 81; Russian
economy and, 26; U.S.-Russian
relations and, 10, 77
Great Recession (2008), 26–27
Greece, Cyprus conflict and, 75–76
Helsinki Final Act (1975), 70
Hill, Fiona, 20, 26
Holland, neutrality of, 4, 73
Hungary: NATO membership of, 13,
18; Romania and, 76; Russia and, 14;
Slovakia and, 76; Visegrad Group,
102
Hussein, Saddam, 18–19
Immigration. See Migration
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
treaty (1987), 67
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 26
International Republican Institute, 43,
104
International Security Assistance
Force, 107
Iran: nuclear weapons and, 89, 103;
sanctions on, 22, 88, 100; threat of,
17, 109–110
Iraq: U.S. conflict with, 16–18;
weapons of mass destruction in,
18–19

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150 Index
ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria), 58
Islamist extremism, 16, 58, 118.
See also Terrorist attacks
Italy: NATO summit in (2002), 17–18;
poll on NATO use of force, 58–61
Ivashov, Leonid, 14
Jackson, Michael, 14–15
Japan, U.S. defense of, 72–73
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(2016), 100
Kagan, Bob, 79
Kazakhstan: Collective Security
Treaty Organization and, 50;
Eurasian Economic Union and, 50
Kennan, George, 72–73, 85
KFOR (Kosovo peacekeeping force),
14–15, 107
Khrushchev, Nikita, 45
Kleinjan, Lucien, 113
Kokoshin, Andrei, 10
Kosovo: alternative security
architecture and, 93–95; conflict in,
13–15, 54; independence of, 21, 53,
55; national security politics in,
53–56; peacekeeping operations in,
14–15, 107; population of, 54; Russia
and, 13–15, 54
Kosovo peacekeeping force (KFOR),
14–15, 107
Kozyrev, Andrei, 81
Kyrgyzstan: Collective Security Treaty
Organization and, 50; Tulip
Revolution (2005), 17, 104
Latvia: NATO forces in, 76–77, 79;
NATO membership of, 18, 57–58,
101; Russia and, 67
Lavrov, Sergey, 23–24
Libya: NATO intervention in, 23; U.S.
conflict with, 16–17
Lisbon Treaty (2009), 91–92
Lithuania: NATO forces in, 76–77, 79;
NATO membership of, 18, 57–58,
101
Little green men of Russia, 32, 60, 67
Lukashenko, Alexander, 48–49
Macedonia: national security politics
in, 53–56; NATO Membership

07-3257-0 idx.indd 150

Action Plan for, 53, 94; population
of, 54
Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 crash
(2014), 25
Maritime exercises, 107–08
Maskirovka policies of Russia, 113
Maydan Revolution (Ukraine,
2013–14), 17, 24, 46, 104
Medvedev, Dmitry, 22, 81
Membership Action Plans (MAPs) of
NATO: alternative security
architecture and, 94; for Bosnia and
Herzegovina, 53; defined, 94; for
Georgia, 22, 66; for Macedonia, 53;
for Montenegro, 94; for Ukraine, 22,
66
Middle East: Arab Spring in, 23, 25;
Arab Winter in, 25; NATO
Mediterranean initiatives and,
108–09; Russian collaboration in,
88, 89; U.S. defense of, 72–73; U.S.
intervention in, 16–19, 23
Migration: European Union and, 71;
NATO’s Mediterranean initiatives
and, 108–09; refugee crisis and, 57
Military exercises: cold-water
maritime exercises, 107–08; of
NATO and neutral states, 107–08; of
Russia, 8, 66–67
Military expenditures: of Armenia, 51;
of Azerbaijan, 36, 51; of NATO
countries, 75, 83; poll on, 64; of
Sweden, 36; of Ukraine, 36–37; of
United States, 75
Military incidents, 8, 25, 66–67, 99
Milosevic, Slobodan, 14, 54–55
Minsk I and II, 48, 90, 93, 97
Missile defense systems, 17, 22, 77, 83,
103–04; Russian anti-aircraft
missiles, 25
Moldova: alternative security
architecture and, 93; EU,
Association Agreement with, 49;
national security politics in, 41–42,
48–49; population of, 36; Russia
and, 66, 85
Montenegro: national security politics
in, 53–56; NATO and, 53; NATO
Membership Action Plan for, 94;
population of, 53–54
Munich Security Conference
(2007), 20

6/21/17 11:12 PM



Index

Mutual defense commitment of EU
countries, 38, 71, 91–92
Mutual-defense pact of NATO.
See NATO, Article V
National Democratic Institute, 43,
104
Nationalism, 80, 85, 117–119
National Security Agency, 104–05
National security politics, 35–64; of
Armenia, 49–53; of Azerbaijan,
49–53; of Balkan states, 53–56; of
Belarus, 41–49; of Cyprus, 53–56;
economy and, 70; of Finland, 37–41;
of Georgia, 41–49; of Moldova,
41–49; of Serbia, 53–56; of Sweden,
37–41; of Ukraine, 41–49
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization): achievements of, 1,
4–5, 75–76, 86–87; Article V, 57–59,
62–63, 65–66, 68–69, 73, 92; Article
X, 74–75; Bosnian membership and,
53; Bucharest summit (2008), 2, 20,
43; burden sharing within, 74–75;
creation of, 1; democracy promotion
of, 76, 78; economy and collective
population of, 5, 26, 83; expansion
in 1990s, 10–13, 76, 81–83;
expansion in early 2000s, 18–22,
85–87; Georgian membership and,
2–3, 9, 19–20, 22, 66, 68–69, 96;
German reunification and, 80–81;
Macedonian membership and, 53;
Mediterranean initiatives of,
108–09; membership right, 71–75;
military expenditures of member
countries, 75, 83; Montenegro
membership and, 53; Operation
Atlantic Resolve, 5–6, 60, 76–77,
101; overextension of, 65–66, 73;
Partnership for Peace (PfP)
program, 5, 10, 77, 106–08; poll on
popularity of, 64; poll on use of
force by, 58–61; purpose of, 63;
Rome summit (2002), 17–18;
Russian deterrence of membership
in, 66, 68–69; slander against, 67;
troop locations of, 5, 20, 76–77,
79–80, 101–02; Ukraine membership and, 2–3, 9, 22, 61, 66, 68–69,
82, 96, 98; Very High Readiness
Joint Task Force, 102; Wales summit

07-3257-0 idx.indd 151

151

(2014), 102. See also Alternative
security architecture; Membership
Action Plans; NATO-Russian
relations; Peacekeeping operations;
specific countries and interventions
NATO Response Force (NRF), 102
NATO-Russia Council, 5, 17–18, 79,
89–90
NATO-Russian Founding Act on
Mutual Relations (1997), 13, 79–80
NATO-Russian relations: alternative
security architecture and, 98–99,
116–118; breakdown of, 25;
Founding Act and, 13, 79–80;
mechanisms for peace, 77, 118;
military exercises and, 8; NATO
expansion and, 10–11, 18–22, 81–83,
86, 98–99; NATO-Russia Council, 5,
17–18, 79, 89–90; nuclear weapons
and, 8, 67–68, 79, 118; oil embargo
and, 114; troop locations and, 5,
76–77, 79–80, 101–02; Western vs.
Russian view on, 5
Netherlands, neutrality of, 4, 73
Neutrality of states: defined, 74;
Eastern European states and, 73; EU
security pledge and, 92; Finland and
Sweden and, 40–41; NATO
cooperation and, 106–110; as
security architecture, 4, 73. See also
Alternative security architecture
New security architecture. See
Alternative security architecture
New START Treaty (2010), 22
9/11 terrorist attacks, 1, 16, 81
North Atlantic Cooperation Council,
5, 77
North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
See NATO
Northern Distribution Network,
22–23
North Korea: sanctions on, 22, 88;
threats from, countering, 17
Norway, NATO membership of,
57–58
NRF (NATO Response Force), 102
Nuclear weapons: Iran and, 89, 103;
missile defense systems and, 17;
NATO-Russian relations and, 8,
67–68, 79, 118; nonproliferation
efforts and, 15, 79, 119; of Russia, 84;
Russian weapons procurement plan

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152 Index
Nuclear weapons (cont.)
and, 29, 32; threat of use, 83;
Ukraine and, 46; U.S.-Russian
relations and, 68
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat
Reduction program, 15
Obama, Barack: missile defense
system and, 103; sanctions imposed
by, 105; Ukraine and, 61;
U.S.-Russian relations and, 22–25,
43, 77
Open Skies arrangement, 112
Operation Atlantic Resolve, 5–6, 60,
76–77, 101
Orange Revolution (Ukraine,
2004–05), 17, 19, 46, 104
Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 67,
83–84, 89, 112–113
Panova, Victoria, 77
Paris Club, 26
Partnership for Peace (PfP) program,
5, 10, 77, 106–08
Partnership Training and Education
Center, 107
Peacekeeping operations: in
Afghanistan, 107; of Georgia, 107; in
Kosovo, 14–15, 106–7; of NATO,
106–07; in Ukraine, 107
Perry, William, 81
Pew Research Center poll on NATO
use of force against Russia, 58–61,
63–64
PfP program. See Partnership for
Peace
Pifer, Steven, 44, 46
Poland: economy of, 46; NATO forces
in, 5, 76–77, 79; NATO membership
of, 13, 18, 57–58; poll on NATO use
of force, 58–61; Visegrad Group, 102
Poroshenko, Petro, 3
Putin, Vladimir: alternative security
architecture and, 87–88, 98; on
Chechnya intervention, 15–16;
internal popularity of, 4–5, 23, 61,
117; on Kosovo conflict, 13–14;
NATO actions, anger toward,
80–81; NATO expansion and, 2–3,
20–21, 81; rise to power, 15; Russian
economy and, 26, 29, 84; on U.S.

07-3257-0 idx.indd 152

international policy, 16–19, 24–25;
U.S.-Russian relations and, 2, 68, 77;
weapons procurement plan of, 29,
32; worldview of, 32–33, 77–78, 87
RAND Corporation, 79
Rapid Trident (2016), 107
Reagan, Ronald, 17, 110
Refugee crisis, 57, 108–09
Resolute Support mission in
Afghanistan, 107
Rogozin, Dmitry, 119
Romania: Hungary and, 76; NATO
membership of, 18; NATO summit
in (2008), 20; Russia and, 14
Rome NATO summit (2002), 17–18
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 69
Rose Revolution (Georgia, 2003), 17,
43, 104
Russia: alternative security architecture and, 3–6, 9–10, 65–69, 86–87,
98–100, 110–112, 116–120; anger
toward NATO actions, 80–83;
Bolshevik Revolution (1917), 39, 45,
52; Collective Security Treaty
Organization and, 50, 93–94;
Crimea conflict and, 33–34, 66–67,
92–93; cyberattacks of, 8, 25, 66,
111; democracy in, 78; economy of,
5, 18, 26, 29, 83–84, 118–119;
Eurasian Economic Union and, 50;
G-8 and, 77, 79; hypothetical threat
of, 114–115; internal dissent in, 23;
Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 crash
and, 25; Maskirovka policies of, 113;
Middle East-U.S. conflict and,
16–19, 23, 88, 89; military exercises
of, 8, 66–67; military reforms of, 29,
32; nationalism and pride in, 80, 85,
117–119; navy of, 39, 45; negative
western views in, 5, 32–33, 83–85;
opposing NATO membership,
66–69; poll on NATO use of force
against, 58–61; population of, 5, 83;
post–WWII security order and, 69;
public perception of NATO, 77–78;
recent offenses of, 66–67, 83–85; as
revisionist power, 110–111;
sanctions imposed on, 6, 26, 29, 48,
61, 87, 100, 105; terrorist attacks in,
16, 19; as threat to U.S., 7–8; U.S.
2016 elections and, 2, 9, 34, 67–68,

6/21/17 11:12 PM

Index



104; weapons modernization and, 7,
17, 29, 32, 83. See also Cold War;
NATO-Russian relations;
Ukraine-Russian conflict; United
States-Russian relations; names of
other countries for relations with
Russia
Saakashvili, Mikheil, 19, 22, 43–44
Sanctions: alternative security
architecture and, 99–100; on Iran,
22, 88, 100; on North Korea, 22, 88;
on Russia, 6, 26, 29, 48, 61, 87, 100,
105; targeted, 105
Sargsian, Serzh, 51
Security architecture. See Alternative
security architecture; East
European Security Architecture
(EESA)
Security Council, 62–63
Self-defense, 59, 62, 76. See also United
Nations
Self-determination. See Sovereignty
and self-determination
Self-reliance, 41, 95
Serbia: EU membership and, 55–56;
Kosovo conflict and, 13–15, 54;
national security politics in, 53–56;
population of, 36, 53
Serdyukov, Anatoliy, 29
Sergei Magnitsky Act (2012), 23
Shevardnadze, Eduard, 42–43
Shirreff, Richard, 79
Slovakia: Hungaria and, 76; NATO
membership of, 18; Visegrad Group,
102
Slovenia, NATO membership of, 18
Sobchak, Anatoly, 10
Sochi Winter Olympics (2014), 60
Sovereignty and self-determination:
alternative security architecture
and, 3, 69–75, 90; of Eastern
European nations, 37; Helsinki
Final Act and, 70; neutrality and, 4,
73; of Ukraine, 44, 47
Soviet Union: Armenia and, 52;
Azerbaijan and, 52; Crimea and, 45;
former states joining NATO, 1–2,
18, 82; German reunification and,
80; Helsinki Final Act and, 70;
Ukraine and, 42, 45–46; Winter
War with Finland, 39–40

07-3257-0 idx.indd 153

153

Spain, poll on NATO use of force,
58–61
Stalin, Joseph, 42, 45, 69
Star Wars program, 17
Stent, Angela, 82
Strategic Defense Initiative, 17
Sweden: alternative security
architecture and, 95–96; EU
membership of, 38; EU security and,
92; Finland, ties to, 39–40; maritime
exercises in, 107–08; military
expenditures of, 36; national
security politics in, 37–41; NATO
membership and, 40–41, 66, 94–95;
population of, 36–37; Russia and,
40; weapons sales to, 108
Switzerland, neutrality of, 4, 73
Syria: Russian support for al-Assad,
33–34, 89; Russian tactics in, 25;
Turkey and, 58; U.S. intervention in,
23; U.S.-Russian collaboration on,
109
Taiwan, U.S. weapons sales to, 110
Tajikistan, Collective Security Treaty
Organization and, 50
Terrorist attacks: NATO’s response
to, 1; in Russia, 16, 19; in United
States, 1, 16, 81. See also
Counterterrorism
Tito, Josip Broz, 54
Treaty on the European Union (1992),
91–92
Trump, Donald: 2016 elections and
Russia, 2, 9, 34, 67–68, 104;
European Reassurance Initiative
and, 5–6; on NATO, 63;
U.S.-Russian relations and, 2, 8,
34, 68
Tulip Revolution (Kyrgyzstan, 2005),
17, 104
Turkey: Armenia and, 52–53;
Azerbaijan and, 50–51; Cyprus
conflict and, 75–76; NATO and, 58;
Russia and, 58; Syria and, 58
Ukraine: alternative security
architecture and, 93, 96–100,
114–115; Crimea and, 45; economy
of, 46; history of, 45; identity and
nationalism of, 47; Maydan
Revolution (2013–14), 17, 24, 46, 104;

6/21/17 11:12 PM

154 Index
Ukraine (cont.)
migration and, 71; military size
and expenditures of, 36–37;
national security politics in, 41–42,
44–48; NATO Membership Action
Plan for, 22, 66; NATO membership and, 2–3, 9, 61, 68–69, 82, 87,
96, 98; Orange Revolution
(2004–05), 17, 19, 46, 104; OSCE in,
112; poll on international aid to, 61;
population of, 36; public support
for NATO membership, 47; Rapid
Trident peacekeeping operation,
107; Russia and, 2–3, 44–46;
sovereignty of, 44; United Kingdom
and, 8, 46, 79–80; weapons for, 61,
105–06, 108; weapons monitoring
in, 112–113. See also Donbas
aggressions
Ukraine-Russian conflict: alternative
security architecture and, 85, 93,
99–100; Budapest Memorandum
and, 8, 46, 79–80, 83–84, 96–97;
casualties of, 25, 47, 66; to deter
NATO membership, 66, 68–69;
equipment monitoring during,
112–113; EU assistance in, 47–48;
G-8 status for Russia and, 77; NATO
assistance in, 25, 47–48, 61; Putin’s
worldview and, 32–34; sanctions
resulting from, 6, 26, 29, 48, 87;
U.S.-Russian relations and, 8;
weapons for, 61, 105–06, 108
United Kingdom: Kosovo conflict and,
14–15, 54; NATO summit in (2014),
102; NATO troops from, 79; poll on
NATO use of force, 58–61; Ukraine
and, 8, 46, 79–80; U.S. defense of,
72–73
United Nations (UN): Charter,
Article 51 (right to self-defense),
59, 62, 70, 83–84, 92; Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action,
100; Kosovo conflict and, 13–14;
Libya conflict and, 23; Russian
violation of Charter, 83–84;
Security Council, 62–63; on
sovereignty and independence, 70
United States: alternative security
architecture and, 3–6, 101; Arab
spring and, 23; Arctic travel and,
103; cybersecurity of, 104–05;

07-3257-0 idx.indd 154

defense alliances of, 72–73;
democracy promotion efforts of, 17,
19–20, 23–25, 81–82; Eastern
European revolutions and, 17, 19,
24–25, 81, 104; European
Reassurance Initiative of, 5–6, 57,
60, 101; Kosovo independence and,
55; Libya and, 16–17; Middle East
counterterrorism conflict, 16–19,
23; military expenditures of, 75;
missile defense systems of, 17, 22,
77, 103; NATO troops from, 79,
101–02; neutral states, defense of,
106; poll on NATO use of force,
58–61, 63; Russia as major threat to,
7–8; Syrian conflict and, 109;
terrorist attacks in, 1, 16, 81;
Ukraine and, 8, 25, 32, 46, 79–80,
82; weapons modernization and, 7,
17, 83; weapons monitoring of,
112–113; weapons sales of, 108, 110
United States-Russian relations: in
1980s and 1990s, 10–13, 77–78;
2016 U.S. elections and, 2, 9, 34,
67–68, 104; alternative security
architecture and, 116–117; Arctic
travel and, 103; color revolutions in
Eastern Europe and, 17, 19, 24–25,
81, 104; counterterrorism and,
15–17; future vision for, 116–120;
NATO troop locations and, 101–2;
nuclear weapons and, 68; Obama
and, 22–25, 43, 77; Putin and, 2, 68,
77; Trump and, 8, 34; weapons
modernization and, 7, 17. See also
Cold War
Uzbekistan, weapons sales to, 108
Very High Readiness Joint Task Force
of NATO, 102
Vienna Document (1990), 67
Visegrad Group, 102
Wales summit (2014), 102
Warsaw Initiative Funds, 106–07
Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw
Pact), 10–11, 77, 96–97
Washington Treaty (1949), 59
Weapons: inspections of, 112–113; of
Iraq, 18–19; modernization of, 7,
17, 29, 32, 82–83, 102; monitoring
in Ukraine, 112–113; Russian

6/21/17 11:12 PM


military exercises, 8, 66–67;
Russian reforms and, 29, 32; for
Ukraine, 61, 105–06, 108. See also
Arms sales; Missile defense
systems; Nuclear weapons
Weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) and Saddam Hussein,
18–19
World War I: Armenians and, 52;
Balkan region and, 54

07-3257-0 idx.indd 155

Index

155

World War II: Finland and, 39–40;
neutrality of states and, 4; postwar
security order, 69; Ukraine and, 45
Yalta Conference (1945), 69
Yanukovych, Viktor, 32, 60
Yeltsin, Boris, 10–11, 13, 26, 77, 84
Yugoslavia: dissolution of, 55;
formation of, 54; Kosovo conflict
and, 13–15

6/21/17 11:12 PM

N AT O E X PA N S ION H A S GONE FA R E NOUGH
Western nations should negotiate a new security architecture for eastern Europe
to stabilize the region and reduce the risks of war with Russia. This new security
approach would revolve around permanent neutrality for Finland and Sweden;
Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and finally
Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly several other Balkan states. These countries
could still join economic and political groups as desired. Russia would have to
settle “frozen” and “simmering” conflicts as part of the arrangement. Discussion
on the new framework should begin within NATO, followed by deliberation with the
neutral countries themselves, and then formal negotiations with Russia.
Advance praise for BE Y O ND

N AT O

“Mike O’Hanlon’s book addresses one of the most consequential security issues
of our day––the increasing hostility between the United States and Russia.
Indeed, if we do not address it successfully, we may very well blunder into a
military conflict with Russia, one that could all too easily escalate into a nuclear
conflict that would threaten our very civilization. And he argues, correctly
I believe, that the conflict over what Russia calls the “near abroad” is one
fundamental cause of that hostility. He proposes a concrete step to lower the
tensions that continue to stoke that hostility; basically setting up those nations
as neutral nations, not aligned with either Russia or the West; and in particular,
excluded from NATO membership. This is a controversial proposal, and one
with real drawbacks for the nations involved. But the problem has eluded
other solutions, and the consequences of not solving it could be catastrophic.
O’Hanlon makes a thoughtful and well-argued case for his proposal and it
deserves serious consideration.”
—W I L L I A M J . P E R R Y , 19th U.S. Secretary of Defense
M I C H A E L E . O ’ H A N L O N is senior fellow and research director for

the Foreign Policy program at Brookings.

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.brookings.edu/press
COVER DESIGN BY PHILIP PASCUZZO
ILLUSTRATION BY PIO3/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM