The instability of Russian policy threatens Russia's
political transition to democracy and its neighbors' security,
especially that of the Baltic states. As a result of that instability and
the intense internal Russian struggle for power, Prime Minister
Gaidar's reform cabinet was replaced by a much more
conservative one in December 1992.
[1]
Russia's bitter domestic struggle has also led to a
situation where there is no consensus either about Russia's
national interests or the means by which they may be pursued.
Consequently, nobody is in control of security policy in
general, and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, not to
mention the right-wing Parliament, are fiercely competing for
direction of security policy. The ferocity of the internal crisis that
has led to the collapse of Gaidar's cabinet has also bred Swedish
and Finnish fears that either massive social unrest in Russia or the
Baltic states will create large numbers of refugees, or that they and
the Baltic states will have to face a resurgent, aggressive, Russian
nationalism comparable to that of the pre-World War I era--a
repressive force that galvanized Finland's struggle for
independence in 1917. [2]
Thus, the stalled negotiations on the interlinked military,
minority, economic, and border issues that are poisoning Russia's
relations with the post-Soviet Baltic successor states testify to the
fragility of Russia's government, the instability of its policies, and the
threat posed thereby to the Baltic and Scandinavian states.
As of mid-1993, Russia's democratization and
progress towards economic reform hang by a thread, due to
the tremendous pressure by right-wingers and ex-Communists to return to the status quo ante. They have
spurned President Yeltsin's many conciliatory gestures
toward them, including an offer for control over Russian
foreign and defense policies in return for support of
economic reforms.
Most dangerous is the fact that the impasse over
Baltic security and other crucial issues involving Russia and
her neighbors takes place in an environment where no
genuinely active European security system exists. Neither
the CIS nor NATO, not to mention the WEU, EC, or CSCE, can
yet function as a true security system. NATO has lost its old
raison d'etre and is searching for a new one; the other
institutions are riven by internal division or are debarred
from effective collective action.
The Baltic situation and other problems on Russia's
frontiers attest to the absence of a European-wide legitimate
security community that can command assent and pacific
behavior in the event of political disputes. For all the talk and
studies of new architectures that have become the favorite
pastime of officials and academics, that architecture's
buildings either do not exist or go unoccupied because the
tenants will neither pay the rent or the upkeep or accept the
prospective new tenants.
Nevertheless, crises are not only opportunities for
observers to throw up their hands in despair, they can also
stimulate decisive action. Today there are trends and forces
in Europe and the Baltic Sea region acting quietly behind the
scenes or beneath the surface that could, if properly
exploited, offer reasonable grounds for optimism about the
future. While it is true that no single policy or state can bring
about that optimistic resolution, it is also true that only the
United States can offer a new agenda, mobilize those forces
and trends to gain support for it, and lead the creation of a
new security order in Europe.
For example, the United States has begun military
cooperation with the Baltic states by sending training teams
from the New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania National
Guards to help train Baltic states' armed forces and assist in
civil defense, and environmental and ecological security, e.g.
nuclear and power plants' security. That commitment
indicates an interest in broadening security cooperation, as
does the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, affiliated with
NATO and of which the Baltic states are members.
And while it is true that there often are no easy answers
for thorny issues like national minorities in the Balkans, in
the Baltic states, and in the former Yugoslavia, it is also true
that sound policy decisions in one area create opportunities
for progress elsewhere. This opportunity for positive action
was demonstrated in the Middle East when the war against
Iraq helped open the way to the long hoped for Arab-Israeli
peace process. Similarly, solutions to urgent problems in one
part of Europe are available to the United States and they
would help build that broader European order that is so
desperately needed.
Constructive action in the Baltic can help shape a
new and legitimate European security system that both
hedges against the CIS' and Russia's reversion to
imperialism and aggression and offers positive inducements
to Russia to continue its reforms. Second, such action will
reassure Russia's neighbors about their own security. Third,
policies that build security will stimulate the economic growth
the region so desperately needs by stabilizing it against
threats of unrest or war. And fourth, steps to create a new
security community in Europe based on democracy,
legitimacy, and peaceful paths to conflict resolution can
provide either a model or useful working principles to end or
prevent other conflicts involving ethnic minorities in foreign
states. [3]
The actions called for below build on the fact that the
overall situation in the Baltic has changed substantially since
1989. Finland and Sweden have renounced their former
neutrality and are opting to join the EC. Sweden has revealed
past intelligence cooperation with NATO, Swedish officials
are seriously entertaining tough regional security systems,
and Finland is buying high-performance F-18 fighters from
the United States. Moreover, all the littoral states, including
Poland and Germany, are offering strong support for
integrating the new Baltic states into the West, and events in
Russia have stimulated Finland and Sweden to reconsider their
relationship to NATO now that they have decided to join the EC and
integrate with Europe. [4]
Thus, the old cold war regime, largely shaped by Soviet
conquests of Poland, Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly East Prussia),
the Baltic states, and East Germany, the Fenno-Soviet neutrality
treaty of 1948, and the ensuing security regime around Finland, is
now dead. The merging of regional security in the Baltic Sea area,
including Scandinavia, the new Baltic states, Poland, and
Germany, with broader European security issues, like EC
membership as an eventual prospect for all littoral states, allows all
these states to play a key role in Russian relations with the new
Baltic states. They do so by their support for the Baltic states
against Russian military and ethnic claims.
The multilateral nature of the solutions outlined below may
also help shape an international consensus that will move
European security organizations from their past emphasis on
collective defense toward making collective security a future reality.
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© Copyright 1993 by US Army War College.
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