How a Cold War 'settlement' unravelled
An article in the West’s foremost strategic studies journal blames American short-sightedness for the breakdown of a chance to consolidate Russia-West relations
The Unravelling of the Cold War Settlement, by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry. Survival Vol. 51, Number 6, December 2009-January 2010
The article is one of the best yet to appear about what went wrong with Russia-West relations, when, at the end of the Cold W, they looked like entering a new era of constructive co-operation.
The writers insist that the Cold War did not simply ‘end’; rather, it was settled. They compare the settlement with earlier historic settlements – Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles, Potsdam . As with these earlier settlements, the architects hoped they were creating the framework for a new international order.
Moreover, say the authors, the settlement was not the product of a single event. It unfolded in the form of a sequence of steps and agreements - the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the negotiated withdrawal of Soviet forces from Germany, mutual disarmament measures, and the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union.
All of this happened rapidly and peacefully, and was marked by a continuous process of negotiation’.
No punishment
At the time the United States leadership saw that its interest lay in a stable world order. There was no punitive element. And Moscow acted in the context of a wider Western system that made American power more restrained and less threatening.
‘The pivotal juncture was Moscow’s decision to withdraw from its extended ramparts in Central and Eastern Europe’. This was premised on the judgment of Soviet leaders that the West would not exploit Soviet vulnerability by encroaching on its historic defensive perimeter and sphere of influence.
And, for Moscow, the new security environment was not only less threatening; it also offered positive opportunities. It could become, as Gorbachev frequently articulated, a leader in co-operative global problem-solving and institution-building.
Soured
Much of the subsequent souring was the result of American policies, say Deudney and Ikenberry. American foreign policy, so successful at the moment of settlement, pursued goals contrary to the settlement’s principles. This occurred in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, when the United States pursued short-term goals at the expense of fundamental interests.
The US also undermined the settlement by exploiting its advantages without considering Russian interests. ‘An inflated sense of American unipolar prerogatives, combined with the ascent of an aggressive neo-conservative ideology [generated] an American foreign policy that has lost is sense of restraint and sensitivity to the interest of others.’
Deterioration
In the trajectory of deterioration, three specific issues loom particularly large, say the writers: NATO expansion and rivalries over former Soviet republics; termination of the ABM treaty and the deployment of anti-missile-defence systems; and controversies over oil-pipeline routes from the Caspian Basin.
‘Russians across the political spectrum vies NATO expansion as a major violation of their understanding of the settlement, and this has engendered fears of encirclement and encroachment.
‘Advocates of expansion point out that there was no explicit agreement not to expand NATO, but this is misleding because the idea of extensive NATO expansion was simply outside the realm of the thinkable at the time.’
How it happened
How did the NATO expansion come about? The writers recall that the most prominent critics of NATO expansion were ‘diplomatic historians, Russian specialists and moderate realists, such as George Kennan, who argued that it violated the principles of great-power restraint embodied in the settlement. It was therefore likely to trigger Russian antagonism.
In contrast, many East Europeans and hard-line realpolitik analysts viewed NATO expansion as a hedge against the inevitable reassertion of Russian power. ‘The appeal of charismatic Eastern leaders, most notably Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, combined with the mobilisation of ethnic Eastern European lobby groups in the United States, created powerful pressures for NATO expansion.
‘In contrast to the heady visions of the settlement period, the 1990s were marked by a steady atrophy of serious efforts to integrate Russia and to reconfigure Western institutions to accommodate it. And the fact that the Alliance was then fighting its first ‘hot’ war, against Serbia, reinforced the Russian perception that NATO was essentially anti-Russian in purpose.
Backsliding on nuclear arms control was another major cause of Russian grievance. The deterioration began in the 1990s with a loss of momentum downwards farther reductions, and culminated in the arms control roll-backs of the George W. Bush years. (Whereas President Reagan broke with his allies on the right by signing strategic agreements, George W. Bush was very much their captive.)
Obama
According to Deuden and Ikenberry, a major problem for American liberal thinking liberal grand strategy is the prevailing American an attitude towards historical legacies. ‘The Obama administration, wants to reset the relations with Moscow, but the metaphor of ‘resetting’ is itself revealing of the deep-seated American amnesia about history. …
‘This perspective under-appreciates the extent to which the legacies of the past – memories, grievances, identities – define the present. Successfully repairing the US-Russian relationship will require the US not just to ‘reset’ but to ‘rewind’ – [that is to say] to correct the legacies of the recent past that so heavily overshadow the [US-Russia] relationship
It will not be easy to achieve the restoration of the Cold War settlement and repair the relationship with Russia, they say. To do so, Americans will have to discipline themselves to abandon habits and mind-sets recently acquired, that are obsolete and counter-productive.
Global dominance
Firstly, it will be necessary for Americans to give up visions of global unipolar dominance. They will have to stop thinking of any concession to Russia as ‘appeasement’.
And they will have to abandon their ‘victory through strength’ narrative of the end of the Cold War. (What ended the Cold War was not an American victory but t recognition by both sides of the threat posed by nuclear destruction.)
‘Doing this will, in turn require the United States to stop letting the ‘tail wag the dog’, through the intrusion of narrow but highly mobilised domestic ethnic, corporate and bureaucratic groups into the political process.
‘Americans will need to cultivate a mindset that puts their interdependence and vulnerability at the centre of their understanding of world affairs.’
Daniel Deudney is Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. G. John Ikenberry is Albert G. Milbank Professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. ‘Survival’ is the bi-monthly journal of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (iiss@iiss.org).
An article in the West’s foremost strategic studies journal blames American short-sightedness for the breakdown of a chance to consolidate Russia-West relations
The Unravelling of the Cold War Settlement, by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry. Survival Vol. 51, Number 6, December 2009-January 2010
The article is one of the best yet to appear about what went wrong with Russia-West relations, when, at the end of the Cold W, they looked like entering a new era of constructive co-operation.
The writers insist that the Cold War did not simply ‘end’; rather, it was settled. They compare the settlement with earlier historic settlements – Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles, Potsdam . As with these earlier settlements, the architects hoped they were creating the framework for a new international order.
Moreover, say the authors, the settlement was not the product of a single event. It unfolded in the form of a sequence of steps and agreements - the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the negotiated withdrawal of Soviet forces from Germany, mutual disarmament measures, and the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union.
All of this happened rapidly and peacefully, and was marked by a continuous process of negotiation’.
No punishment
At the time the United States leadership saw that its interest lay in a stable world order. There was no punitive element. And Moscow acted in the context of a wider Western system that made American power more restrained and less threatening.
‘The pivotal juncture was Moscow’s decision to withdraw from its extended ramparts in Central and Eastern Europe’. This was premised on the judgment of Soviet leaders that the West would not exploit Soviet vulnerability by encroaching on its historic defensive perimeter and sphere of influence.
And, for Moscow, the new security environment was not only less threatening; it also offered positive opportunities. It could become, as Gorbachev frequently articulated, a leader in co-operative global problem-solving and institution-building.
Soured
Much of the subsequent souring was the result of American policies, say Deudney and Ikenberry. American foreign policy, so successful at the moment of settlement, pursued goals contrary to the settlement’s principles. This occurred in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, when the United States pursued short-term goals at the expense of fundamental interests.
The US also undermined the settlement by exploiting its advantages without considering Russian interests. ‘An inflated sense of American unipolar prerogatives, combined with the ascent of an aggressive neo-conservative ideology [generated] an American foreign policy that has lost is sense of restraint and sensitivity to the interest of others.’
Deterioration
In the trajectory of deterioration, three specific issues loom particularly large, say the writers: NATO expansion and rivalries over former Soviet republics; termination of the ABM treaty and the deployment of anti-missile-defence systems; and controversies over oil-pipeline routes from the Caspian Basin.
‘Russians across the political spectrum vies NATO expansion as a major violation of their understanding of the settlement, and this has engendered fears of encirclement and encroachment.
‘Advocates of expansion point out that there was no explicit agreement not to expand NATO, but this is misleding because the idea of extensive NATO expansion was simply outside the realm of the thinkable at the time.’
How it happened
How did the NATO expansion come about? The writers recall that the most prominent critics of NATO expansion were ‘diplomatic historians, Russian specialists and moderate realists, such as George Kennan, who argued that it violated the principles of great-power restraint embodied in the settlement. It was therefore likely to trigger Russian antagonism.
In contrast, many East Europeans and hard-line realpolitik analysts viewed NATO expansion as a hedge against the inevitable reassertion of Russian power. ‘The appeal of charismatic Eastern leaders, most notably Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, combined with the mobilisation of ethnic Eastern European lobby groups in the United States, created powerful pressures for NATO expansion.
‘In contrast to the heady visions of the settlement period, the 1990s were marked by a steady atrophy of serious efforts to integrate Russia and to reconfigure Western institutions to accommodate it. And the fact that the Alliance was then fighting its first ‘hot’ war, against Serbia, reinforced the Russian perception that NATO was essentially anti-Russian in purpose.
Backsliding on nuclear arms control was another major cause of Russian grievance. The deterioration began in the 1990s with a loss of momentum downwards farther reductions, and culminated in the arms control roll-backs of the George W. Bush years. (Whereas President Reagan broke with his allies on the right by signing strategic agreements, George W. Bush was very much their captive.)
Obama
According to Deuden and Ikenberry, a major problem for American liberal thinking liberal grand strategy is the prevailing American an attitude towards historical legacies. ‘The Obama administration, wants to reset the relations with Moscow, but the metaphor of ‘resetting’ is itself revealing of the deep-seated American amnesia about history. …
‘This perspective under-appreciates the extent to which the legacies of the past – memories, grievances, identities – define the present. Successfully repairing the US-Russian relationship will require the US not just to ‘reset’ but to ‘rewind’ – [that is to say] to correct the legacies of the recent past that so heavily overshadow the [US-Russia] relationship
It will not be easy to achieve the restoration of the Cold War settlement and repair the relationship with Russia, they say. To do so, Americans will have to discipline themselves to abandon habits and mind-sets recently acquired, that are obsolete and counter-productive.
Global dominance
Firstly, it will be necessary for Americans to give up visions of global unipolar dominance. They will have to stop thinking of any concession to Russia as ‘appeasement’.
And they will have to abandon their ‘victory through strength’ narrative of the end of the Cold War. (What ended the Cold War was not an American victory but t recognition by both sides of the threat posed by nuclear destruction.)
‘Doing this will, in turn require the United States to stop letting the ‘tail wag the dog’, through the intrusion of narrow but highly mobilised domestic ethnic, corporate and bureaucratic groups into the political process.
‘Americans will need to cultivate a mindset that puts their interdependence and vulnerability at the centre of their understanding of world affairs.’
Daniel Deudney is Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. G. John Ikenberry is Albert G. Milbank Professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. ‘Survival’ is the bi-monthly journal of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (iiss@iiss.org).
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