Convinced that the Western objective is to keep Russia down, President Putin is attempting a third reordering of Europe and Ukraine is the catalyst that has triggered the crisis.The second reordering of Europe was peaceful and triggered by the coming down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed by the unification of Germany, East European and Baltic states coming out the Soviet shadow and finally, the break-up of USSR into Russia and 14 other independent countries in end-1991. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved. However, in Putin’s Russia, there is growing resentment that the second reordering exploited a weakened Russia. Convinced that the Western objective is to keep Russia down, President Putin is attempting a third reordering of Europe and Ukraine is the catalyst that has triggered the crisis. At its heart lies the question: Has the West reneged on its promise not to expand NATO? In 1989, NATO consisted of 16 countries. After the Berlin Wall came down, US Secretary of State James Baker met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990, urging him to let East Germany go. Gorbachev declared that an eastward expansion of NATO was unacceptable. Baker suggested that in return for letting East Germany go, NATO’s military jurisdiction would not be expanded eastwards, an assurance reiterated by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl the following day. Months later, on September 12, 1990, the two Germanys and the four occupying powers of Berlin – France, the UK, the USA and the USSR signed the 2+4 agreement that no foreign forces or nuclear weapons would be stationed in Berlin or East Germany. This agreement cleared the way for German unification on October 3 and Germany has adhered to it. During following months, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in East Europe, and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the Baltics raised independent flags one after another. By December-1991, even Ukraine and Belarus had exited the Soviet embrace. Russia became the successor state under President Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev faded into history. Unable to forget the heavy yoke of the USSR, the newly independent states now wanted the West to guarantee their sovereignty against future Russian interventions. During early 1990s, US remained conscious of the Baker-Gorbachev understanding. President Bill Clinton famously stated that the US would not draw a new line in Europe. He initiated a Partnership for Peace programme for all former Warsaw Pact countries. Even Russia joined and in 1997, a NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.
The first warning signs came over a decade ago. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, President Putin raised the issue of security guarantees from the US and NATO.Two years later, flush with victory in the Balkans with NATO now undertaking “out of area operations”, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic were admitted to NATO, followed by seven more erstwhile Soviet bloc members in 2004 during George Bush years and two each during Obama and Trump periods, taking NATO membership to 30. The cautionary principle that had guided President Bush and his Secretary of State Baker that “the cost of expansion goes up as NATO moves closer to Russia” was forgotten in the intoxicating hubris of the US’ unipolar moment. The first warning signs came over a decade ago. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, President Putin raised the issue of security guarantees from the US and NATO. However, the 2008 NATO Summit Declaration opened the doors for Georgia and Ukraine. Months later, citing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s actions in South Ossetia as a grave provocation, Russia intervened and took over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In 2013, protests against the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich led to the Russian annexation of Crimean Peninsula in 2014; here, Sevastopol hosts the Russian Black Sea naval fleet, providing it access to the Mediterranean Sea and Russian bases at Latakia and Tartus in Syria. The fact is that Ukraine is not just any other East European nation; it has been part of Russia for over 600 years and last July, Mr. Putin authored an article, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, drawing very clear red lines. Neither the US nor Russia wants a conflict. Europe is struggling for economic recovery. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing domestic challenges, French President Emmanuel Macron has a difficult re-election in April and German Chancellor Olaf Schulz is yet to make his presence felt. The frenetic diplomacy is proof that all key players are seeking a way out. Putin has succeeded in focussing Western attention and laid down a set of demands for security guarantees from both the US and NATO. But he has also rejuvenated NATO. A reordering of the European security map is underway; the diplomatic challenge is to achieve it without a destructive war.
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Ambassador Rakesh Sood was a Distinguished Fellow at ORF. He has over 38 years of experience in the field of foreign affairs economic diplomacy and ...
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