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50 Beyond Ukraine. EU and Russia in Search of a New Relation Moscow’s engagement with the alliance remained half-hearted, while Russian leaders displayed little interest, or indeed capacity in undertaking defense reforms in accordance with NATO norms, or in developing interoperability with alliance’s forces 7 . The European Union, undermined by its inability to provide a concerted response to the Bosnian war in the aftermath of the signing of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, could also do little to bridge the gap in mutual perceptions. In light of persisting uncertainty about the post-Soviet space’s collocation in the new European security order cooperation was established in a number of areas, while fundamental strategic differences remained unresolved. The outcome was that throughout the 1990s NATO- Russia relations displayed a schizophrenic character: although Russian troops participated in the alliance’s peacekeeping involvement in Bosnia, the Kremlin feared that the main U.S. objective remained crippling Russia’s strategic potential and ensuring it could not recover quickly. As a result, Moscow questioned its partnership with the alliance – equating its association with the Western security community with a renunciation of its great power status – and attempted to promote OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) as an alternative to NATO’s premier role in Europe. Successive attempts to re-discuss the post-Cold War settlement, such as the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations and the creation of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC), failed to resolve mutual differences, continuing to leave un-clarified the former Soviet space’s collocation within the post-Cold War European security architecture 8 . The eruption of the Kosovo crisis in 1999 crudely exposed the limits of the settlement reached ten years earlier: the Kremlin opposed NATO’s military campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and, although the Rambouillet agreement that the alliance negotiated with the Serbian leadership 7 T. Forsberg, G. Herd, “Russia and NATO: From Windows of Opportunities to Closed Doors”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol. 23, no.1, 2015, p. 44. 8 The text of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act is available at http://www.nato.int/nrc-website/media/59451/1997_nato_russia_founding_act.pdf.
After Maidan: Re-Starting NATO-Russia Relations 51 allowed for the participation of Russian forces in the KFOR (Kosovo Force) mission, an escalation of the crisis was barely avoided when Russian troops suddenly gained control of Pristina airport in June 1999 ahead of the alliance 9 . While the airport standoff was emblematic of the schizophrenic character of NATO- Russia relations – with Moscow cooperating with the alliance after supporting the Milosevic regime – the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, shifting Western security concerns outside of the Euro-Atlantic area, temporarily strengthened NATO’s incentive to cooperate with Moscow and to give it an institutional character 10 . The Kremlin, too, had its own reasons for deepening relations with the alliance. Two costly counterinsurgency campaigns in Chechnya, continuing instability along its Caucasian and Central Asian borders, and Russia’s own experiences with Islamic terrorism – particularly the wave of attacks on major Russian cities that began in 2002 and culminated in the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004 – reinforced Moscow’s interest in cooperation with NATO 11 . While continuing to antagonize the alliance, Russia displayed a readiness to cooperate in areas of mutual interest and sought legitimacy for counter-insurgency operations in the Caucasus: although remaining wary of NATO’s open door policy, the Kremlin allowed American forces to use Russian air space for operations in Afghanistan and tolerated the creation of U.S. bases in Central Asia. In May 2002, following President Vladimir Putin’s visit in November 2001 to Washington and Crawford, Russia was rewarded with formal association with the alliance through the signing of the Pratica di Mare agreements, which established the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). The NRC replaced the PJC, envisaging a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision and action, where 9 R. Brannon, Russian Civil-Military Relations, Burlington, Ashgate, 2009, pp. 73-98. 10 L. Ratti, “NATO-Russia Relations after 9/11: New Challenges, Old Issues”, in E. Hallams, L. Ratti, B. Zyla (eds.), NATO beyond 9/11: The Transformation of the Atlantic Alliance, Basingstoke, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 259. 11 D. Lynch, “‘The enemy is at the gate’: Russia after Beslan”, International Affairs, vol. 81, no. 1, January 2005, p. 141.
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