Chapter 12

GLOBAL SECURITY CONFLICTS - ALLIANCES

Victor A. Kremenyuk, Russian Academy of Sciences

Negotiating conflict prevention, or prevention of conflict escalation, has acquired an urgent dimension. In the current international practices, such negotiation is regarded as both a necessary and standard practice which should be promoted, supported, and perfected. Alliance spirals, like arms races, have been identified as one of the major causes of war, through their contribution to states' security dilemmas.⁽¹⁾

However, these operations need to be kept under control, and the security of the opposing side--as well as the initiating side--assured, by parallel negotiations to prevent escalation and confrontation. Alliances, like arms, are critical elements in the operation of the balance of power, itself the product of security negotiations.⁽²⁾

The NATO-Russian negotiations ending in May 1997 with the conclusion of the Founding Act which has established some ground rules between the two sides is an example of such an approach.

Some Basic Facts on the Conflict Between Russia and NATO.

Russia and NATO are the two major military entities in Europe. In the years of the Cold War, there was a rough military balance between the two major military blocs - NATO led by the US and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) led by the Soviet Union. After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia emerged as the largest - in the military as well as in other terms - successor of the Soviet Union. The ratio in arms and military personnel between the two sides has changed significantly, however: in some areas it has become 3:1 and in others 4:1 in favor of NATO. ⁽³⁾

Even with that unequal ratio a possibility of war between the two sides cannot be excluded completely.⁽⁴⁾

The two sides have indicated many times that they do not regard each other as enemies.⁽⁵⁾

On the contrary, there have been both declarations and concrete actions where they acted if not as allies, at least definitely as partners. Peace-keeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and other parts of former Yugoslavia may be cited as the most evident case. Besides, the two sides cooperate closely within the North Atlantic Cooperation Council; they have signed an agreement on cooperation within the Partnership for Peace program and have established some embryonic organs for managing bilateral cooperation.

But it would be wrong to perceive these developments as the only and guaranteed perspective. Attempts on both sides to emphasize their desire to live in peace and cooperation are counterbalanced by rather widespread hard feelings and memories. For the majority of Russians, NATO is not simply a strong residue of the Cold War, but also a current military threat because of its military capabilities, its orientation towards use of military force, and its deployment and structure essentially directed to the East. Without feeling that they have already become an integral part of Europe, understanding that the West has bared a cool cheek to almost all their initiatives, the Russians regard NATO as essentially anti-Russian (because there is no other similarly strong argument for the continuation of the Alliance) and do not accept the assurances of the Western leaders that NATO is not a threat.

This feeling is paralleled by rather wide-spread anti-Russian sentiment in the West shared by the majority of the Western military, some well-known political writers (Z. Brzezinski, H. Kissinger), and by significant parts of the public opinion. In any case, both NATO's military doctrine and its nuclear planing still continue to contemplate a possibility of a military conflict with Russia.⁽⁶⁾

This quasi-symmetry of views was significantly strengthened by the whole process of rhetoric around the problems of NATO's enlargement. It is clear that the three Central European nations which opted for membership in NATO in 1993 did so because of their fears of Russia. The dominant feelings in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were and still are essentially anti-Russian. They have suffered from Soviet forays in 1950s and 1960s, they have accepted the end of the Cold War and of the Soviet Union as a good opportunity to change the sides; and, finally, they regard the current developments in Russia with concern and suspicion because they do not believe that democracy will prevail in that country.

There is little ground to believe that all NATO countries and trans-national mechanisms shared the same anti-Russian views in early 1990s. On the contrary, many of them were ready to give a serious consideration to the ideas of a "New World Order" where US-Soviet (Russian) cooperation might have played a central role.⁽⁷⁾

^{But with the fading of these ideas because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the major interest in some Western quarters has become to save NATO despite the fact that the danger of a new war in Europe has ceased to exist. In this regard, the concerns of the Central European nations about Russia and the anxieties of those in the West who wanted to preserve NATO have merged and to a significant degree have changed the whole political climate in Europe.}

The Russian attitude toward NATO also changed. As of the early 1990s Russia was ready to agree with NATO's stabilizing role in Europe and was looking ahead towards rapprochement with the purpose of establishing a close military cooperation under the aegis of the Organization of European Security and Cooperation (OSCE). But, of course, one of the conditions for such a relationship was for NATO not to take advantage of the period when Russian (former Soviet) troops were leaving their bases in Eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and the Baltic states. It was not to be filled with the NATO structure in order to avoid the impression that the Soviet (Russian) troops were not withdraw voluntarily, as was the case, but were instead forced out in the way Iraqi troops were driven out from Kuwait during the Desert Storm war. This principle, laid down as one of the cornerstones of Soviet agreement to German re-unification in 1989, as discussed in a previous chapter by Choi, was unequivocally accepted at the time by the West and solemnly endorsed both in the German State Treaty and in NATO's pledge in its Copenhagen statement following the NATO summit of 1990.⁽⁸⁾

Russians assumed that security arrangements for the Eastern countries, both former WTO members and former Soviet republics, would be negotiated under the OSCE umbrella and until then the situation had to be frozen. From this point of view, the pursuit of NATO enlargement has simply exploded this vision of future European security and, instead, has raised the prospect of a new division in Europe: NATO nations versus non-NATO nations. The new arrangement simply has destroyed the backbone of the Yalta-Postdam agreements, which, poorly or not, have served as the only negotiated legal basis for the European settlement since 1945. In short, the Russian government felt it had all the grounds to feel that its security and other legitimate interests were impaired and that in perspective it had to prepare for a new sharp confrontation in Europe.

Possible Responses

From any point of view Russia had to take NATO actions with high sense of concern and an indication of imminent danger. The major threat, maybe not the immediate one, was the growing possibility of a new war with the West. It is deeply entrenched in the Russian mind that the West can and will be a source of mortal danger. Several times in its past history, Russia was attacked from the West, and every time it took a tremendous effort and sacrifice to recover. Be it in Napoleon's or Hitler's times, it was always a coalition of European powers which invaded Russia, and in this sense NATO simply stands as another acronym for a European coalition against Russia. So, even understanding that currently NATO cannot be regarded as an immediate military threat, the Russian collective memory tells that advancement of a strong military alliance to its borders may one day turn into an open risk of another surprise attack.

The conclusion ppen to any Russian ruler or government is the need to prepare for a long and radical confrontation, maybe for another war, on its Western borders. This becomes a shared goal for Russian politicians, not because of a possibility of new dictatorship in Russia or due to advancement of some aggressive parties and groups to power, but because of its widespread resonance in a country that has lost its superpower status but retains its historic memory. In the event of an authoritarian turn of politics, which this perception feeds, this conclusion will be simply forced on Russia. But even in the case of democracy, regular interests of Russian development, economic, social, cultural, and technological, and its legitimate desire to have an assured and unlimited access to European markets and spiritual treasures will inevitably lead it to demand and fight for another "window" as it was done by Peter the Great in early 18th century. Now, when and if the period of the current transformation in Russia comes to an end, whenever that may happen, when the needs of its economic and social advancement will become dominant in its foreign and security policies (as it has happened in the past with all the developed nations), Russian government will have to raise the issue of revision of all the European arrangements, and be ready to use force if necessary, if its legitimate demands are not reciprocated. This, as it seems, is one of the possible scenarios for the future due to NATO's expansion to the East. And this adds much to the attempts at building a national consensus in Russia for its future development.

Currently Russia cannot meet the challenge as it might have done when it was in a better shape. Any attempt to respond to NATO enlargement with force now, in its condition of weakness, would be suicidal for Russia, and no reciprocal enlargement of any alliance of its own is possible. This understanding is widespread in the Russian policy-making community, though there is a significant group of those who would prefer the danger of another confrontation even now. But the majority in Russia does not regard a possibility of a new showdown with the West right now as appropriate and desirable. On the contrary, the views that this time there is nothing left but to swallow this humiliation and prepare for revenge sometime in the future are much more widespread and popular.

Strong and heated public debate in Russia over NATO enlargement and the Russian response has ended in a consensus that a conflict in present conditions is not in the Russian interest and should be avoided. This has encouraged those in the Russian government and, especially, in the Foreign Ministry who were thinking about the need to seek a compromise with NATO and to disregard the fact that the leaders of the alliance completely ignored Russian pleas to reconsider the idea of enlargement or to delay it to some later time. Thus a consistent and productive process of negotiation between Russia and NATO to prevent confrontation and to craft some alternative to hostility or submission became possible.⁽¹⁰⁾

The Process of Russia - NATO Negotiation

It is hard to establish strictly when this negotiation started. The first contacts between the two sides already took place in 1992 during a European trip of the then Russian State Secretary Gennady Burbulis. Since then Russia supported permanent dialogue with NATO, although this dialogue can hardly be labeled "negotiation" and was aimed at various subjects. It was only when two things became evident in late 1994 - a consensus among the members of the alliance to expand to the East, incorporating the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, and strong Russian opposition to it - that the idea of special Russia-NATO negotiations was formulated as a policy goal. In Russia only a few minor political figures risked speaking about the necessity of this negotiation at that time. In the West, one of the strongest partisan of the idea was the then US Secretary of Defense William Perry. Strange as it may seem, some important military leaders in the West were either strongly against the idea of enlargement or strongly for the idea that this enlargement should be coupled with negotiations with Russia, while diplomats usually were much more "hawkish".

The first stage of Russia-NATO negotiations over whether to have a special NATO-Russia agreement took place on by two levels: direct official negotiation and indirect diplomatic exchangesthrough public statements by each sides. By the end of the year 1994 the ball was in the Russian court because the West publicly admitted the importance of some kind of NATO-Russia Treaty and indicated its willingness to start discussing it without specifying the type of treaty it sought or the specific items that should be included. This lack of clearness of purpose permitted those in the Russian leadership who were against immediate talks (but supported the idea in general) to insist that Russian response to the proposal should be delayed. In the meantime, Russian leaders continued their harsh propagandistic campaign against the perspective of NATO enlargement, threatening "countermeasures" and other retaliatory moves if the decision were to be taken.

The essence of the bargaining in the first stage was clear: Western nations hoped that Russia would buy a deal by which Russia would give its blessing to the idea of enlargement and NATO would pay for it by a treaty which would, first, give Russia a completely unique status of NATO's only strategic partner in Europe, and, second, establish working mechanisms between the two sides. Russia, in turn, hoped that its opposition would eventually force the West to dismiss the idea of enlargement and agree to a treaty which would guarantee Russian participation in the process of NATO's decision-making. This period of indirect exchanges continued to late 1996 when Russian President Boris Yeltsin decided to replace pro-Western Andrey Kozyrev by middle-of-road Yevgeny Primakov as Foreign Minister.

By the end of 1996 it became clear for Moscow that this strategy largely authored by Kozyrev did not work. The West was firm in its intention to go ahead with enlargement and there was no way to reverse its intent. The change of personalities in the Russian Foreign Ministry was not linked only to the NATO business; it was a change of a much larger context connected with the general revision of the Russian foreign policy. Russia was not going to open hostilities with the West immediately but the ideas of "strategic partnership" were definitely replaced by an approach in which Russia was taking its distance fromd the West and putting in question all the elements of cooperation with the West that had been achieved up til then.

But the change was also reflected in the Russian attitude toward negotiations with NATO. It was not considered appropriate to start direct talks immediately, although indirect exchanges were still considered useful and relevant. But the essence of the dialogue had changed: Russian leadership understood that the decision on enlargement was imminent and there was no sense in insisting again on its dismissal or delay. The official attitude had not changed : publicly Russia continued to protest. But in reality the focus of discussion had shifted toward the conditions under which Russia would agree not to retaliate against this decision.

A unilateral pledge by NATO not to deploy nuclear forces and foreign troops on the territories of new members, another pledge to limit the decision on enlargement to the three above-mentioned Central European nations, and a promise to make Russian participation in NATO's decision-making on issues of European security an indispensable part were major items sought by the Russian side. Russia also wanted to get Western promises on these topics before official negotiations between the two sides started. NATO's position was both firm and cautions: it was to stand firm on enlargement but agree to discuss other Russian demands at the negotiations without making any preliminary commitments.

The second period of negotiations ended in early 1997. At the US-Russian summit in Helsinki, in March 1997, NATO enlargement was finally discussed between the Russian and US presidents. President Clinton did not accept the idea that Russia needed compensation for the NATO enlargement in the form of preliminary guarantees and a NATO-Russia agreement. He simply reiterated his administration's position that a decision on NATO enlargement would be taken in Madrid at the summit meeting of the alliance, disregarding Russia's anxieties and expressing the hope that the NATO-Russia dialogue, which by that time was elevated to the level of NATO Secretary General Solana and Russian Minister Yevgeny Primakov, would work out an "acceptable" agreement. Unhappy with the results of these talks, Russian President Yeltsin has addressed his friends in the West, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Jaques Chirac, in order to push the negotiation to a decisive stage. They responded with a much better understanding of the Russian position and used their influence to bring the NATO side to a much more conciliatory and cooperative position. The French President even announced the deadline by which the negotiation had to be ended, May 27,1997.

At the third, direct and decisive, stage of negotiation, which was conducted within a short period of time between March and May 1997, a last effort was made to reach an agreement. Both sides agreed that a treaty orchestrating NATO-Russia relations had to be concluded, and that it should be signed before the Madrid summit of NATO leaders, otherwise there would be no need for an agreement at all. They also agreed that it would not be a full-size detailed agreement, on one hand, nor a brief symbolic charter, on the other. A direct meeting of the two negotiating teams would discuss both the final format of the agreement (and the Russian proposal of a "Founding Act" was accepted) and the major items of its content: relationship, institutions, mutual guarantees, etc. This was the most intensive and effort-consuming stage. Both teams worked almost day and night under strict supervision. The controversial issues which arose from time to time were immediately discussed and solved by Solana and Primakov who were pressing the negotiations because of the officially accepted date of signature. Finally, by May 27, 1997 the treaty was negotiated and the Founding Act signed on that day.⁽¹¹⁾

It is unnecessary to give a detailedanalysis of the document here because it is the process that is important. Sufficient to say that those, both in Russia and in the West, who wanted an agreement considered it a success. At least it solved the main task - to prevent a possible crisis in NATO-Russia relations when in Madrid, in early July, the NATO summit decided positively on enlargement. From this point of view, negotiations between Russia and NATO proved fruitful and relevant. What is left to analyze is how this outcome became possible and what processes worked to bring it about.

Avoidance of Crisis: Changing Stakes

When the first signs of a possible crisis between Russia and NATO became visible, the issue of stakes acquired ominous significance. From a distance, the issue seems of no great strategic importance: Whether Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became members of NATO or not will not have any decisive impact either on the future of the alliance or on the security of Russia. The change, as it seems, will not be of a strategic magnitude. Indeed, even some in the West think that inclusion of these three nations into NATO structure may lead to its growing weakness. If making the three Central European nations members of the alliance only symbolically increases the power of the West, that cannot be regarded as a major threat to Russia.

But the issue, from the very beginning, was never approached in realistic terms. It acquired dimensions of symbolic value, particularly on such sensitive problems as post-Cold War policy and its rules, East-West relations, concepts of European security, alliance politics, partnership, national interest and national ambition. Behind what on the surface seemed as a rather simple question of two overlapping desires of the three Central European nations to join NATO and of the alliance to invite them as members, there was a complicated web of mutually irreconcilable interests which has produced real sources of international conflict of potentially global dimension.

To begin with, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic worked out a policy to join NATO with a double purpose: first, to change sides in a typically dissident manner of Cold War times and thus punish Russia for the past Soviet misdeeds, and, second, to get closer to Europe proper and to identify themselves as a part of the West. This, as was argued, would strengthen democracy in these countries and direct their drift toward a liberal economy. In a way, it was a political response to some failures in economic reforms in those countries which have brought a real or imagined specter of a possible Communist come-back. But the foreign policy dimensions of this intention had a value in themselves: by initiating the prospect of joining NATO, the Central Europeans managed not simply to attract attention of the major powers to their needs but also to contribute to the new situation which emerged in early 1990s from the ruins of the Cold War - a unified Germany, collapsed WTO, disintegrated Soviet Union, divorced Yugoslavia, etc.

In Russia, these pleas of the Central European governments were largely underestimated. The Russian government was engaged in a lively dialogue with the West, experiencing something like honeymoon and hoping that magic formula of "strategic partnership" would help it to freeze the situation on the continent and give it adequate time to complete negotiation on troop withdrawals from the Baltic states and work out a blueprint for a new European security structure. These aspirations were largely supported by some Western powers, USA and Germany first of all, who were eager to see to it both that Russian troops leave all the "foreign' territories and that Russia join the West in controlling the conflict in former Yugoslavia. The impression was that the desires of the Central Europeans would be largely ignored and the development of security schemes would go not along the lines of NATO's unilateral expansion but primarily along the lines of Russia-NATO cooperation.

In this sense, the shift in NATO's position after the Brussels summit, in January 1994 where the Partnership for Peace and US direct involvement in Bosnia were proclaimed, played a crucial role in pricing the stakes. For the West, it was a serious change in policy priorities where Russia's role was shifted to a secondary, "regional" level, while for Russia it was a signal that the West was ready to revise its position on European security and turn NATO into its major security mechanism. This change played a crucial role in raising the stakes in the relationship and bringing them to the principled level. Having changed its policy, the West could not avoid being caught in its contradiction, insisting that NATO's expansion is something not to be discussed with Russia but not to be regarded as anti-Russian.⁽¹²⁾

All the attempts of the Russian diplomacy at that time to get a clear answer to the legitimate question: "If it is not against Russia, then what is the reason for enlargement?" were brushed out with arrogance: "This is no business of yours". The stakes almost overnight reached the ceiling of a zero-sum game.

For Russia, any changes in Europe connected with NATO expansion seemed like a loss in a war, like a policy of diktat from the West,like an unacceptable change in the European balance. Both official statements and policy analyses in Russia were filled with harsh rhetoric and efforts to work out an appropriate response: from changes in strategic and conventional arms control policies to new alliances with former Soviet republics, China, Iran. The Russians indicated their readiness to go rather far in retaliating for NATO's expansion. A host of measures was suggested: reversal of tactical and intermediate nuclear weapons deployment, abrogation of conventional arms limits, harassment of Baltic states, complete review of the Balkans policies including strong support to Serbia and to Serb nationalists in Bosnia. Credibility of these threats was heightened by the rhetoric of the Russian President who considered US policy on NATO enlargement "treacherous" and "challenging", and bringing a "Cold Peace."⁽¹³⁾

The West, on its part, also heightened stakes, indicating that Russia "wanted too much" ("veto on NATO's decisions'), that there should be no "great power diktat," that "European nations were free to opt for alliances," and that the West will defend those freedoms.

As a result, a prospect of imminent crisis became evident. Strong second thoughts had to be applied before the sides went too far in the escalation of their rhetoric and then of their action. The West came to realize that while aiming at a more secure objective it may, by its clumsiness and arrogance, have undermined its own security and provoke a crisis. Russia, as has been already mentioned, came to understand that the poor state of its economy, the shaky position of the new regime both in the center and in the regions, coupled with growing opposition both from the Communists and nationalists, could bring an end to President Yeltsin's rule. Comparing real risks of enlargement with possible risks of new confrontation, both sides agreed that a compromise should be looked for. This was immediately reflected at the negotiation and a joint effort in crisis avoidance became possible, brought about by a reevaluation of the stakes and an effort to create new ones.

Changing Attitudes

It is clear that there is a long distance from changing stakes to changing attitudes. One may cite, as an example, the length of the period during the war in Vietnam between the moment when US administration changed stakes (President Johnson's speech in March 1968) and the moment when the change of attitudes permitted negotiations to start under President Nixon's administration in February, 1969. The Vietnasm case may be regarded as one which permitted the parties, first of all, to avoid further escalation of war and only after that to stop it. This example simply sheds additional light on the problem that there is no automatic and guaranteed transition from changing stakes to changing attitudes in the negotiation process of crisis prevention. Changing stakes is the necessary element to begin the process, while changing attitudes is the next necessary step which may lead to success, though without full guarantee.

While changing stakes is often a unilateral process which develops within the thinking of one or both sides under the influence of primarily domestic, internal considerations, and may or may not be paralleled by the same process on the other side, changing attitudes combine both internal and external, domestic and foreign, considerations. Once a decision-maker on one side comes to the conclusion that it is in his own interest to take a course towards conflict prevention or crisis avoidance and then tries to probe the other side on this subject, he needs to reconsider his attitude both toward the other side and toward the subject of the conflict, but this time with the necessary parallel steps from other actors. This is not negotiation proper on the subject of prevention but a part of the whole negotiation process mainly covering the pre-negotiation stage.

All this was part of the Russia-NATO preventive negotiation process. Maybe in this case the issue of changing attitudes was not as painful and dramatic as in some other cases because contacts between the two, as was mentioned, started long before the issue of enlargement became a focus of debate. Generally, contracts between Russia and NATO which developed since 1992 involved other issues: confidence-building, mutual learning, joint and individual studies of possibilities for cooperation, identification of joint interests and areas for cooperation, building first fragile elements of infrastructure (communications, liaison officers, training of personnel). Tangible elements of discord first appeared when Russia, instead of being treated as a privileged partner of NATO, was invited among others to join the Partnership for Peace program. Russian unhappiness in this case was translated into a delayed and slow process of Russian adhesion to the program activities. But the news on enlargement played a decisive role in changing the attitudes for the worse.

The first phase in changing attitudes had rather dramatic nature. From the Russian side, attitudes changed profoundly. The period between 1992 (appearance of Russia as an independent state) and 1994 was filled with deep euphoria, largely similar to that in the West, when most promising and fantastic schemes of cooperation and partnership were widespread among both policy-makers and observers. It was assumed that the end of the Cold War not only brought a full stop to ideological hostilities, but also opened a totally new era of cooperation based on common values, shared interests, and joint goals. Western support for President Yeltsin and Russian reciprocity embodied in Kozyrev's foreign policy seemed to have opened a direct way into an alliance relationship between the East and the West.

In this regard, news on NATO enlargement, being regarded as a policy goal of the West, had the effect of a cold shower. It was a shock, followed by political disaster for the Russian "pro-Westerners," it gave a major boost to Russian nationalists, and it greatly helped the Communists to resurrect after several years of political lethargy. All in all, it contributed to deep emotional stress among the foreign policy community and almost overnight changed attitudes towards the West. But then a second reversal of attitudes began. Strange as it may seem, the reversal of this trend started while propagandistic campaign against NATO enlargement continued. The change of leadership in the Foreign Ministry made it possible to soften the impact of the Western "stab in the back' decision by changing priorities. Now, the Western decision to enlarge NATO was not seen as a break up of the on-going process of partnership formation, but as a more or less natural egoistic move which freed Russia from many of the commitments that Kozyrev had made previously. Besides, understanding of the imminence of the decision on enlargement buried all hopes for a reversal of the decision and encouraged Russian foreign policy to look for a realistic solution. Finally, it was understood that without some sort of cooperation with NATO, it would be difficult for Russia to "save face" if the decision on enlargement were finally taken disregarding Russia's protests and threats.

Something similar happened on the other side. It is hard at this point to give a grounded evaluation of the views on Russia which existed in the West prior to 1994 developments. Of course, there were friendly feelings and attitudes magnified by the desire to help Russian people to overcome consequences of the Communist rule. Some Western political leaders and writers also shared a conviction that somewhere in the future Russia will grow, as a democratic nation with a market economy, into an entity acceptable as a partner and ally of the West. But the majority preferred to demonstrate caution and restraint. Quick transformations rarely deserve confidence, and the transformation of Russia, yesterday's headquarters of Communism where many former Communists were still in power or played a central role in changes, was regarded as an opportunity but not as a fact. All that permitted the US Administration and the governments of some other NATO countries to agree that "strategic partnership" with Russia outside of NATOmight be a good goal for the future but definitely not a part of the current reality.

From this point, after early l994, it was assumed that while Russia was completely engaged in its domestic quarrels and could not play a significant and sustainable foreign role, NATO could afford to listen favorably to the pleas of the Central Europeans and to agree to make them members of the alliance. Understanding that this would infuriate Russia, the West still considered inclusion of the three Central European nations into the alliance as a necessary step in consolidating NATO in the conditions of "no war' in Europe and in expanding the area of NATO's responsibility, which by that time included not only traditional spheres but also former Yugoslavia. As for Russia's concerns, they could be largely ignored. Besides, there was a strong hope that President Yeltsin, surrounded on one side by Kozyrev and on the other side by pro-Western Anatoly Chubais, would finally surrender and agree to NATO's policy.

When it became clear that Mr. Yeltsin with all his pro-Western sympathies had changed his foreign policy priorities and was not inclined in any way to accept what was qualified in Russian society as a matter of ultimate danger, Western attitudes also changed. It was clear that the whole matter of NATO enlargement could become counter-productive. To exchange an alliance with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for hostility with weak but still nuclearly overarmed Russia capable of stirring problems for the West not only in Europe (Balkans, Baltic area, Transcaucasia) but also in such sensitive areas as the Persian Gulf and Korean peninsula, was more than a mistake; it could be labeled as "fateful error".⁽¹⁴⁾

Something should be done in this area to avoid, if not a crisis, at least hard and grounded domestic criticism.

Somewhere toward the end of the first phrase of the negotiation in l996 (the pre-negotiation in formal terms), the change in attitudes occurred. In the process of dialog it may be identified with the moment when both sides agreed that negotiation to conclude a NATO-Russia treaty was needed and the focus of the debates shifted to the exact contents of this treaty, points of future agreements, and other technical details. This transition did not take long, but appeared important because it has incorporated changes in mutual attitudes of both sides, their attitudes toward the idea of enlargement, and, as a result, toward the idea of a treaty which could help both sides avoid a crisis and continue to live together after the decision on enlargement.

Working Out Relevant Tactics

One of good lessons for theory and practice of negotiations from the study of the Arab-Israeli conflict (and some others) is that even when actors reassess their stakes and manage to change attitudes this does not automatically bring success in conflict prevention or crisis avoidance negotiation.⁽¹⁵⁾

The heart of the problem here is that internally, for themselves, both sides may rather painlessly come to conclusion on the necessity of changing stakes and attitudes, but when it comes to real negotiation, especially one which is attentively observed by outside parties, questions of appropriate conduct, of mutual restraint, and of mutually acceptable rules sometimes acquire crucial importance. Even when a negotiation is carried out between close friends or allies, as analysed by Hampson in an earlier chapter, when the issue discussed bears no conflict in itself, still inadequacies in the conduct of the parties or underestimation of some important, though less visible, elements may completely block the path to agreement. In other words, change of stakes and change of attitudes need to be crowned with appropriate tactics in order to bring negotiation to success.

In cases such as the NATO-Russia negotiation, the issue of appropriate tactics and conduct acquire special significance. In any negotiation on crisis prevention, a certain vulnerability to criticism from radical groups is an inevitable element. The parties to such a negotiation want to demonstrate both flexibility, restraint, and understanding of the need to ease tensions, but at the same time that they do not "sell" the subject and they do not want to appear to negotiate because of weakness or indecision. That makes them a good object for demagoguery and propagandistic attacks. And it means that in each case they have to work out a line of behavior which will protect the process of negotiation from undesirable interference and from public debate, and will help both to save face and to arrange something like a common propagandistic cover for the negotiation.

This was the case in the NATO-Russia negotiations. In the West, there were voices which accused the governments of "capitulation" to Russian demands and of policy inconsistency in both enlarging the alliance and sweetening it for Moscow. Those who were against enlargement accused the governments of hypocrisy" and of "double-standards", labeling the incorporation of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic "propagandistic gains" which the NATO governments wanted to sell it to the public as a "realistic" achievement by means of negotiations with Russia. In Russia, the public attacks came mainly from the nationalist and Communist extremists who accused the government of "surrender" and incapability to stand "firm" against Western "provocations". But the partisans of NATO in Russia were equally unhappy. They considered that the government was doing "too little too late" and "too clumsily" instead of openly supporting the idea of enlargement. The process of negotiation had to be coordinated between the public and private diplomacies, each of which had its own purposes: public speeches and statements addressed the large audiences with the main purpose o f demonstrating toughness and ruggedness of the policy, while actual negotiation was concentrated on looking for realistic solutions. This condition was highly risky and it was possible to cross the two tracks and undermine the negotiation. So, an important task for both parties was to see to it that the two tracks remained separate and did not interfere with one another.

The other important element of tactics chosen by both sides was to avoid formal, direct negotiation (this was primarily the Russian position but it was understood and agreed by the West) until the idea was ripe for an agreement. Emphasis on public debate in the first two stages of exchanges helped to clear out and to facilitate agreement in several major things : first, there should be a direct NATO-Russia agreement prior to NATO's decision on enlargement; second, the conditions were not ready for negotiations over a full-size detailed treaty which would put all the issues in their appropriate places; but third, at the same time, there should be no empty declarations which would produce only an appearance of agreement, leaving behind an amount of unsettled issues which could later blow up the accord; fourth, the treaty between both sides should only lay down some ground rules of their relationship, opening a way towards a series of further agreements and understandings: fifth, that both sides would conduct themselves in a way which would not put either of them into a difficult and confusing position. And only after all these necessary pre-actions were completed could direct talks between closed groups of experts take place.

Conclusion: From Avoiding Crisis to Building Relationship

Too often crisis avoidance negotiation is regarded as a one-shot self-fulfilling act. Once the crisis is avoided by a negotiated agreement, the situation is considered ended. This happens because this type of negotiation has a highly specific and identifiable purpose. But to give a balanced judgment, a much larger count should be taken.

It is well known among those who are engaged in the studies of international relations that a relationship between each pair of states or each dyad is a certain combination of "conflict-cooperation" attitudes. Depending on the type and nature of the parties' relationship, elements of "conflict"or elements of "cooperation" may prevail, thus creating allied or adversarial types of relations. The real difference between alliance and hostile relations is not that in one case (alliance) elements of "conflict" do not exist while on the other (hostility) they prevail. The difference is in existing mechanisms and regimes of conflict resolution which are an integral part of alliance relationship designed to help actors jointly identify possible conflicts, work out means to deal with them, and then agree on solutions. Understandably, in case of hostile relations there is no such mechanism.

In this respect, partnership of the type defined in the Founding Act may be regarded as both an intermediate stage between alliance and hostility and as a process of evolution of hostile relations in the direction of an alliance regime. In both capacities it means that a certain mechanism of conflict resolution is in the process of being built in relations between former adversaries. And here comes the significance of crisis avoidance negotiation, which usually becomes a first step in creating a durable and longstanding conflict resolution regime.

The NATO-Russia Founding Act may be treated as the first step where both sides agreed that conflict still may happen in their relations though they have decided that they were no longer adversaries, Still, even after an ideological split has ceased to exist , both entities may very easily be drawn into conflicts of potentially high risk. The fact that they have found much in common in trying to avoid crisis is extremely important as such. But it may happen very easily that after the Act was signed they will feel that the worst was behind and they can look more enthusiastically into the future. These aspirations may be founded only if there is a mutual understanding that both sides should go ahead in building up a conflict resolution mechanism which will help them to deal adequately with new crises when and if they come up as a result of their activities. If not, if the effort from both sides stops at this stage, then they will have to prepare for new conflicts in the future with no guarantee that they will be settled peacefully each time.

1. ^{Robert Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," World Politics XXX 3 (l978); Glenn Snyder, "The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics," World Politics XXXVI 4 (l984).}

2. . ^{Walt, "Alliance Formation and the Balance of Power, International Security IX 4 (l985); Ernest Haas, "The Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept or Propaganda?" World Politics (July l953).}

3. C Bertman, Europe in the Balance: Security the Peace Won in the Cold War, Washington,1995.

4. "Kontseptsia natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossii" (Concept of National security of Russia) - "Rossiyskaya gazeta" Dec. 26, 1997

5. "Nato-Russia Relations: A Key Feature of European Security", - "NATO Review" #3, May-June, 1997

6. Angelakis T. Russian Elite's Perceptions of NATO Expansion: The military, Foreign Ministry, and Duma. "International Security Intormation Service" Briefing Paper #11, Brussels, May 1997

7. ^{I William Zartman & Victor Kremenyuk, eds., Cooperative Security: Reducing Third World Wars. Syracuse University Press, l995.}

8. Konovalov A., S.Kortunov, S.Oznobishchev. Rossia i NATO; vremia diskussiy Konchilos (Russia and NATO: Time of Debate is Ended). -- " Nezavisimaya gazeta", September, 27, 1996.

9. Rogov S. Nas vytalkivayut iz Yevropy (We are pushed out from Europe) - "Vek" (Age), Oct 25-31, 1997

10. Angelakis T. Op. Eit.

11. "NATO review" #4, July-August, 1997

12. Sbid, #5, Sept-Oct, 1997

13. Kennan G. A Fateful Error. - New York Times" April 15, 1997

14. Kennan G. A Fateful Error. - "New York Times" April 15, 1997

15. Dean Pruitt, ed, Negotiations between Israel and Palestine, special issue, International Negotiation, II 2 (April 1997)