Are we witnessing a Russian campaign to avoid containment by the West?

It all began with Vladimir Putin’s speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy on 10 February last:⁽¹⁾ ‘NATO and the European Union must not replace the UN.’ ‘NATO is moving its front line nearer our frontiers, while we, who strictly respect the Treaty [on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the CFE], are not reacting to these moves.’ ‘The expansion of NATO has nothing to do with the modernisation of the Alliance, nor with security in Europe. On the contrary, it is a factor representing a serious provocation, reducing the level of mutual confidence.’ Commentators have certainly noted the criticisms of the anti-missile shield :⁽²⁾ ‘which means the launch of a new arms race’.

A Litany of Friction in the North

Russian diplomacy proceeded to skirmish on many fronts in Putin’s speeches (CFE Treaty, the OSCE and energy policy). On 19 February, General Nikolai Solotsov, commander of Russia’s Strategic Forces, claimed that once the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was abrogated, it would take five years to for Russia to re-start missile production. On 27 February, Sergei Ivanov announced the launch of a programme of new-generation anti-missile and space-defence weapons covering the period 2007-15. On 5 March, the Security Council of the Russian Federation declared that Russia was going to adopt a new military doctrine to respond to NATO’s ‘reinforcement’ of its forces. On 21 April, Ivanov rejected the Allied offer made during the NATO-Russia Council of 19 April, which would have allowed the Russians to inspect European ABM sites. On 26 April, Putin called the CFE Treaty into question, claiming that NATO was not respecting it. On the same day, violent demonstrations took place in Estonia at a monument to the Soviet soldier, which the authorities wanted to move. Estonia subsequently suffered ‘cyberattacks’, very probably from Russia, and Tallinn called on NATO for help.