Russia’s Designs for NATO

The Wall Street Journal, 28 September 1995

Talking to Boris Yeltsin on the phone yesterday, President Clinton
said the U.S. would welcome Russia’s participation in a NATO force for
monitoring any peace agreement in Bosnia. Russia’s long-term role in the
international community is among the reasons some of us have been
arguing that the West has to think clearly about the broader
implications of policy toward Bosnia. Given Russia’s size, power and
inchoate development as a democratic state, the goal of bringing Russia
in is a plausible one. But now consider Russia’s notions of monitoring a
peace.

This week, after visiting President Boris Yeltsin at a Black Sea
resort, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev announced that Mr.
Yeltsin will propose a military force commanded by Russia and NATO to
oversee the implementation of the peace settlement in Bosnia. According
to Mr. Grachev’s analysis, such a force would ensure that “anyone who
violates agreements is punished, not just the Bosnian Serbs.”

Assuming that Mr. Grachev wasn’t simply free-lancing, as many of his
subordinates have done in recent years, what might Mr. Yeltsin have had
in mind? As is made clear by the Grachev statement about spreading
around the punishment, Mr. Yeltsin envisions having control over the use
of coercive military force by a NATO acting on U.N. mandates.

Perhaps what Mr. Yeltsin has in mind is scaring the U.S. away from
involvement in the Balkans. Given that U.S. public opinion won’t
tolerate sharing command of the U.S. armed forces with the United
Nations, it’s not likely that Americans would be willing to subordinate
U.S. troops to Russian commanders. So the proposal may be intended to
chill any U.S. interest in supplying a peace-implementation force for
Bosnia.

Similarly, Mr. Yeltsin’s proposal might be aimed at securing a
military toehold for Russia in Bosnia, along the warm waters of the
Adriatic. It would be ironic and disastrous if a byproduct of any
Balkans peace-monitoring force was the satisfaction of Russia’s
long-term goal of having a base, if not a port, in this region. (The
notion is not so far-fetched: Last year two deputies in the Russian
State Duma claimed Belgrade had made Russia offers of port facilities
along the Montenegrin coast.)

Finally, what Mr. Yeltsin might have had in mind is Russia’s
long-standing goal of gaining legitimacy for its own “peacekeeping”
efforts around the former Soviet empire. That “peacekeeping” in fact has
consisted largely of Russia inciting inter-ethnic conflict to gain
influence in places like Georgia and Moldova. It’s hardly comforting to
imagine that Russia would seek a precedent for repeating that scenario
in other parts of the world that it considers necessary for its sphere
of influence. Central Europe and the Baltics come to mind.

Russia can and should play a role in the peace settlement in the
Balkans, but at the moment, not a military one. This is hardly a
tragedy. Many international tasks remain in the postwar period
(something that may admittedly be very far off), and Russia might
contribute usefully in several areas. Among them are assistance in
reconstruction efforts, help with the war crimes tribunal, development
and implementation of an arms control regime and long-term efforts to
eliminate the traces of hatred left by the war.

Perhaps the most valuable role Russia could play in the peace
settlement and reconstruction efforts, though, would be to get its own
house in order. If even a start were made in this direction, Russia
could show people in the Balkans still tempted into land grabs and
bloody nationalism that there are better ways to become a powerful and
prosperous state. For now, NATO would be prudent to place Russia’s
suggestions for Balkans peace in a very large context.