The lack of progress made during this week's meeting in Washington regarding peace, in my view, stems from the participants' inability to fully grasp the security dilemma they are dealing with.
Instead of pursuing security for everyone, Europe continues to focus on limited security, specifically for Ukraine. This narrow perspective arises from the intent to penalize Russia, which claims it is solely protecting its national interests.
It's significant that, near the conclusion of their joint press conference, Putin stated he agreed with Trump's assertion that this war might have been avoided if Trump had been in office. Some viewed this as a casual comment meant to curry favor with Trump, but I think Putin was highlighting how Trump's perspective on the conflict differs from that of his predecessor. While Biden regarded NATO as purely a positive force, Trump seems to recognize that it can also be perceived as a threat, particularly by those who are not part of it.
The case for NATO's expansion revolves around how the world "should" be. To grasp why NATO might be perceived as a threat, though, we need to differentiate between how things "should" be and how they actually are.
In the idealistic realm of "how things should be," NATO's expansion is always viewed as harmless since its members are democratic nations. Opposing NATO expansion, therefore, is equivalent to opposing the spread of democracy. NATO thus serves as the Tool of Democracy, perceived as thesummum bonum.
That is why Russia has always considered NATO's continuous expansion a fundamental security concern. Regardless of other aspects, NATO remains, above all, a military alliance, one that should now be getting ready, as stated by the head of NATO's Military Committee, for a "wartime scenario.”
The military role of NATO, along with the long-standing exclusion of Russia from potential membership, despite its request to joinconsidered no fewer than four times, makes its expansion a danger. And the same would apply to any nation whose security situation is significantly changed.
Therefore, when Putin states that a genuine peace agreement must tackle "the root causesRegarding the conflict, he is not merely discussing particular complaints. He is also pointing to the West's long-standing feeling of moral superiority that forms the basis of these issues.
Grasping this is essential, as it implies that genuine and enduring peace in Europe cannot be achieved until various moral systems find a way to live together. A significant move toward this goal would involve both Russia and Ukraine joining a broader, pan-European security system.
For Russia, this implies that the West would need to abandon the belief that security can be attained by strengthening defenses against all its perceived adversaries, and instead adopt the concept that peace can only be realized through collaboration with these same adversaries, via communication. At times, the West has appeared to concur with this idea (in both the1999 Istanbul Summit and 2010 Astana Summit), but in reality, it often resorts to coercion and physical force to obtain outcomes that align more with its own interests.
This kind of conversation was Mikhail Gorbachev's goal, even prior to the Soviet Union's dissolution. The choice, taken by Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, to increase NATO's membership while keeping Russia out, is the primary cause the Cold War never genuinely concluded, and has now led to conflict. At that time,Boris YeltsinInformed Clinton that NATO expansion was not an issue, but stated, "Russia must be the first country to join NATO."
The answer to this security challenge is just as clear now as it was back then — a comprehensive European security system that includes Russia and its neighboring countries, instead of leaving some out. The hesitation of European leaders to address this openly implies that they are still considering ways to limit Russia's influence, along the lines ofJohn Foster Dulles envisioned in the 1950s.
They have forgotten that it was not rollback and liberation that brought about the end of communism, but détente, rapprochement, and theHelsinki Processfrom the 1970s. Western leaders, nevertheless, only recognized the importance of living together following the Cuban Missile Crisis. Do we truly require another such event today to bring this to our attention?
It might appear simplistic to consider a European security system that encompasses both Russia and Ukraine at this moment. However, if the goal is to conclude the conflict and ensure a stable peace across Europe, it is the sole practical solution.
This storyoriginally published on Responsible Statecraft
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