Will Nato’s warmer words prevent a new cold war?

11.07.2016 13:13

Will Nato’s warmer words prevent a new cold war?

After years of tension, the west has struck a new conciliatory note – and Russia’s tone has changed

The past month or so has been one of the most perilous periods in European security since the collapse of communism and the end of the original cold war. This has little to do with the UK’s referendum vote – although it undoubtedly added to the overall uncertainty. It is because, in the runup to thesummit meeting of Nato members in Warsaw this past weekend, both the Atlantic alliance and post-Soviet Russia were probing each other’s intentions as rarely before, and without a reliable rulebook to constrain them.

Moscow was always going to take a dim view of this year’s gathering, not least because of the historical vibes. It was held in the Polish capital almost 25 years to the day from the official dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. The greater danger, though, stemmed from the military operations on both sides, with both political and defence leaders upping the rhetoric as they played to their galleries at home.

The most extensive of these manoeuvres was Nato’s Anaconda-2016. Involving 31,000 troops from 24 countries, it took place in Poland and the Baltic states, ending just days before the Nato summit began. It proceeded from what has become the classic post-cold war scenario for Europe: that Russia would provoke an incident on the border with Estonia that would escalate into war.

Even inside the western alliance, not everyone thought this prudent. Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, for instance, described it in a newspaper interview as provocative and war-mongering. The west has also held training exercises in Georgia and – simultaneously with Anaconda – in western Ukraine; not badged as Nato training, they nonetheless involved many Nato members.

Nor has Russia been passive. Scarcely a month has passed this year that Russiahas not held either planned or “snap” manoeuvres close to its western or southern borders. The most recent, on the eve of Anaconda, were held jointly with Belarus and demonstrated Russia’s considerable new air power.

To these mutual shows of force must be added the repeated Nato claims of Russian violations of its airspace or territorial waters. In the weeks before the Nato summit, the UK was reported to have intercepted a Russian submarine in the English Channel; a month before came the footage of a Russian plane buzzing a US warship in the Baltic. Russian planes have been accused of regularly switching off their transponders.

Such violations – or near-violations, as most of them are – are not the preserve of one side. To an extent, they go on all the time; the choice is whether and how to report them. Journalists, whether western or Russian, tend not to stand on the shore with binoculars, spotting transgressions. The information is passed on by defence or intelligence services when they have an interest in exposing the malevolence or irresponsibility of the other side. This does not, however, make them any less dangerous; a direct clash can never be excluded.

Given the tensions and real military risks attending the runup to this Nato summit, specifically with regard to relations with Russia, the actual meeting seems to have passed off with gratifyingly few sparks. Could the climate be changing? Will the forecasts of a new cold war, so prolific since Russia’s annexation of Crimea two years ago, prove misplaced? Might there even be an opportunity here?

One reason Nato might have seemed less single-mindedly Russia-focused in Warsaw was the unforeseen dominance of Brexit. Both the alliance and David Cameron were concerned to show that the UK’s rejection of the EU was not a rejection of Nato too. Thus the UK will be committing 500 troops to Estonia and another 150 to Poland as part of the allied effort to beef up its eastern flank. There was an attempt, too, to present Nato and the EU as partners in security rather than competitors. This could in time soften Nato’s cold-warrior edge.

Another reason is what could be seen as the generally restrained rhetoric from Russia. It seemed almost as though the Kremlin had decided to treat the Warsaw summit as a trial it just had to get through. A month ago, Vladimir Putin and other officials attacked Nato’s Anaconda-2016 as provocative. They have made no secret over the years of their hostility to Nato expansion or of their view that Russia was always the intended target of missile defence and talk of Iran merely a distraction.

But just before the Warsaw summit the tone seemed to change. Putin went to Finland – a rare venture into the EU since Ukraine-related sanctions – where he talked about Baltic security and measures to de-escalate tensions, including a proposal that both Russian and Nato planes obey the rules on transponders. There was none of the fire and brimstone of yore.

Something similar could be said of the Nato side. The language seemed muted. The alliance decided not to establish permanent bases in the east; additional troops will be rotated. And in an answer at his post-summit press conference, the secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, expressly denied that Russia presented “any imminent threat to any Nato ally” – note the word “any” – insisting strong defence should be accompanied by “constructive dialogue”. “The cold war,” he said, “is history, and should remain history.”

Which is why the final consideration may lie in a growing recognition on both sides that all the talk of a new cold war risks being father to the fact. There are still, just about, enough officials in Russia and the west who know what the cold war really entailed: huge standing armies on both sides; large quantities of weapons; ballooning military budgets; and an “iron curtain” that excluded one half of Europe from the global mainstream. It meant a perpetual state of high tension, where any misjudgment held the threat of a nuclear war – the only real deterrent being mutually assured destruction.

This is a long way from where we are today, thank goodness. But those same officials doubtless also remember the rules, structures and back-channels that helped keep the uneasy peace in those days, ensuring war games, big or small, were not mistaken for the real thing. We are in a different world now, but if theNato secretary general is prepared to call for constructive dialogue, perhaps, just perhaps, the Kremlin can too.