The Foreign Service Journal, November 2014

26 NOVEMBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Putin’s strategic objectives. He is positioning his nation so that it cannot truly be part of Europe in the sense of shared values and shared self-identification. Challenge to the Post–Cold War Order The question for the West is how to conduct order-building diplomacy in the midst of a major crisis stemming from Putin’s increasingly evident intent to separate eastern Ukraine from the rest of the nation. His “New Russia” rhetoric has a serious mean- ing to it. The order that is being challenged is enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which amounted to a surrogate peace treaty to end World War II. That document was strengthened by a series of agreements over the years negotiated within the frame- work of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (later the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). Other agreements that shaped post–Cold War Europe dealt with the emergence of new sovereign nations after the breakup of the Soviet Union. One of the most important of these agree- ments figured in a CSCE summit meeting held in Budapest in 1994. It was the Lisbon Protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and it changed the adherents to that agreement from just the Soviet Union and the United States to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia and the United States. At Budapest, the three new signatory states formally agreed to become non–nuclear weapon states and to join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in that status. A statement of assur- ance regarding its territorial integrity within existing frontiers was presented to Ukraine by the presidents of Russia and the United States and the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and also subscribed to separately by China and France. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council thus became parties to these assurances of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The provisions of the Helsinki Final Act that upheld territo- rial integrity and forbade changes in frontiers except by peace- ful means also applied to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. The Final Act begins with 10 principles, of which the first two deal with sovereign equality and refraining from the threat or use of force. The text of the second principle states: “No consideration may be invoked to serve to warrant resort to the threat or use of force in contravention of this prin- ciple.” This is the order that President Putin has challenged. There are really only two choices before the members of the Helsinki accords: accept that an all-European order with common under- standings no longer exists and act accordingly; or try to reverse what Putin has done and work to restore the Helsinki consensus. The former course means a division of the Euro-Atlantic region into Eastern and Western societies and is the course less likely to lead to conflict in the near term. This appears to be Putin’s strategic aim. The latter is the policy that the Western nations say they are pursuing. But to succeed, the West must be willing to impose stronger sanctions and provide military assistance to Ukraine and possibly other neighbors of Russia if it is to succeed. Clearly, this policy has its risks; but in an age of globalization, sustaining the order laid down in the Helsinki Final Act is fundamental to order-building diplomacy. If carefully calibrated as to the tools employed and seen as a long-term strategy, it has a very good chance of success. The division of Europe into opposing camps would have con- sequences for relations between the West and Russia long after Putin leaves the scene. Re-creating the polarized structure of the Cold War runs against the grain of history, in my view. Framing the Issues Correctly The first step in devising guidelines for future U.S. strategy is to frame the issues correctly. For example, it would be wrong to think that Russia is the origin of all the problems in the enor- mously complex mix of ethnic groups that inhabit the regions around its borders and also within the sprawling country. True, Moscow is an enabler of separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, and elsewhere, and seems to find that divide-and-con- quer policies suit its needs. But it would be simplistic to think that if Moscow suddenly became cooperative, all would be well. Because of the emotions and the long histories involved in all these disputes, it will take time before trust takes root between central governments and those ethnic groups inclined toward Putin’s efforts to turn back the clock seem unlikely to succeed, nomatter how fervently he evokes nostalgia for Russia’s historical borders.