The author, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes that despite Western attempts to exclude Russia from Europe and its institutions, “Russia is a part of Europe and is simply too big, too powerful and too invested in its immediate neighborhood to be excluded from the European security order.” The author instead recommends a new, 21st-century version of the “Concert of Europe” an essential element of which would be “a traditional nonaggression treaty between NATO and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), by which both sides pledge not to attack the other militarily.” Fully established diplomatic relations “between NATO and the CSTO and between the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union” would be used to negotiate on “new arms control agreements in Europe, starting with nuclear missiles, and economic arrangements that would allow nonmembers of the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union to trade freely with both blocs, rather than forcing on them a mutually exclusive choice of trading partners.” Additionally, the author argues for “regular, frequent but much smaller and less formal meeting[s] ... for the countries that really count in European security” such as the U.S., France, Germany, Russia and the U.K., and that these meetings would work to avoid new conflicts, resolve existing ones, support democratic institutions and potentially establish “security cooperation outside Europe.” 

Read the full article at Foreign Policy.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by Kremlin.ru shared under a Creative Commons license.