3.13: Russia

Combine reassurance for all Alliance members and constructive re-engagement with Russia.

Other Information:

Partnership with Russia. On the list of NATO partners, Russia is in its own category. The framework for partnership was spelled out in the 1997 Founding Act and the 2002 Declaration signed in Rome. Both documents express a commitment to identify and to pursue opportunities for joint action based on mutual interests and the understanding that security in the Euro-Atlantic region is indivisible. Cooperation is pledged in, among other areas, counter-terrorism, crisis management, arms control and non-proliferation, theatre missile defence, and responding to new threats. The NATO-Russia Council (NRC) provides the forum for consultation, transparency, consensus-building, and making and implementing decisions. NATO members, when asked, may vary in their descriptions of Russia while still seeing eye to eye on their prescriptions for engagement with that country. For reasons of history, geography, and recent events, some countries are more sceptical than others about the Russian government's commitment to a positive relationship. The fact that the NRC was not used to prevent the 2008 crisis in Georgia is unsettling, as is Moscow's oft-expressed wariness about NATO's intentions. Russia has sent conflicting signals about its openness to further cooperation with NATO, and its proposals for an alternative security order in Europe seem designed in part to constrain NATO's activities. Although NATO members view Russia from diverse perspectives, the Alliance is united in its desire to engage with the leaders of that country in order to prevent harmful misunderstandings and to identify and to pursue shared goals. The Alliance does not consider any country to be its enemy; however, no one should doubt NATO's resolve if the security of any of its member states were to be threatened. The fact that NATO is a defensive Alliance and that Russia's 2010 military doctrine is characterized by its authors as "strictly defensive" in nature provides a good starting point for cooperation. So, too, does the NATO-Russia joint commitment, expressed in the Founding Act, to create "in Europe a common space of security and stability, without dividing lines and spheres of influence limiting the sovereignty of any state." The new Strategic Concept should endorse a policy that combines reassurance for all Alliance members and constructive re-engagement with Russia.

Stakeholder(s):

• Russia

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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