Center for Study of Europe Hosts Amb. Vershbow
The Center for the Study of Europe, a regional center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, hosted Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, the former Deputy Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for an April 14, 2017 panel discussion on the evolving relationship between NATO, the EU, the United States and Russia.
Amb. Vershbow was joined on the panel, entitled” NATO, the EU, and Russia – the Quest for a New European Security,” by Igor Lukes, Pardee School Professor of International Relations and History. The panel was moderated by Amb. Vesko Garcevic, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School and former Ambassador of Montenegro in Brussels (NATO) and Vienna (OSCE).
Prior to his post at NATO, Amb. Vershbow served for three years as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. In that position, he was responsible for coordinating U.S. security and defense policies relating to the nations and international organizations of Europe (including NATO), the Middle East, and Africa. He has also served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO (1998-2001); to the Russian Federation (2001-05); and to the Republic of Korea (2005-08). Presently, he is a distinguished fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security.
Amb. Vershbow began by discussing the developing policies and rhetoric of U.S. President Donald Trump toward Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Clearly it’s not an unhealthy impulse on the part of President Trump to improve the relationship, but you can’t do so by sweeping what are truly fundamental differences between the West and Russia under the rug,” Amb. Vershbow said. “You certainly can’t do it by pretending the U.S. and Russia are morally equivalent. The U.S. and its allies are the main stakeholders and the main guardians of the international, rules-based order that we painstakingly put together — with Russia one should stress — from the end of World War II to the present time. Putin’s Russia, on the other hand, has torn up the international rule book, and become a revisionist, even a revanchist, power undermining the basis for meaningful and sustainable cooperation.”
Lukes discussed his views on the enlargement of NATO as well as the contention by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the addition of NATO member states in Eastern Europe is an act of Western aggression against Russia.
“NATO enlargement into this area as far as I’m concerned stabilized it, made very clear that the line is drawn and therefore not only stabilized the new member states but also in my view, even Russia itself,” Lukes said. “Being surrounded by democratic countries who have no aggressive intentions toward Russia cannot be conceivably interpreted as an attempt an aggression against the Russian state.”
Amb. Garcevic discussed how current tensions between Russia and the West differ from the tensions and conflicts that took place during the Cold War.
“In my view today’s Russia is more like Tsarist Russia than the U.S.S.R,” Amb. Garcevic said. “It’s driven by old ideas, how to revive an empire in Europe, and therefore it’s more dangerous because it’s less predictable. It’s a revisionist power, not a status quo power anymore. The Soviet Union was a status quo power in a bipolar world, there were certain rules to be respected and both sides respected those rules. There was a channel of communication between the two sides. Here, I don’t see those rules. I actually see rules changed by Russia to create new rules.”
Amb. Vershbow said in order to improve relations between Russia and the West, the current U.S. administration will need to be self-critical, and understand the Russian perspective as well as the consequences of their words and actions. He stressed that it’s also important to take Russian rhetoric portraying NATO in a negative light with a “hefty grain of salt.”
“Being understanding is one thing, we also have to understand that a lot of the current Russian narrative about NATO’s alleged betrayal, humiliation and encirclement of Russia since the end of the Cold War should really be taken with a very hefty grain of salt,” Amb. Vershbow said. “It should be viewed in the context of their ongoing information campaign aimed at dividing NATO and the EU, fueling transatlantic differences, stirring up public opposition in Western countries to the relatively modest measures that are being taken by the alliance to bolster our defense and our deterrence posture in the wake of their brazen aggression against Ukraine.”