Intended Collateral Damage
Russia’s “New Security Architecture”
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Russia would like a new security architecture for Europe. This, it is said, would overcome the Cold War and create a common security space. Moscow doesn’t even try to conceal its true goal: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe are to be replaced. Russia would like to see security understood only in military terms and to gain a veto over all European security issues. Those who hope that accommodation would facilitate security policy cooperation with Russia on other issues are wrong. Russia’s foreign policy functions according to a modus based purely on power; in Moscow, compromises are considered a sign of weakness.
(Osteuropa 2/2012, pp. 27–36)