Russia scraps a major arms treaty

last updated 8 January 2015

Europe

“Lobster diplomacy” seems to have caused some indigestion in Russia, said France’s Le Monde in an editorial. President Vladimir Putin was all politeness earlier this month, when he feasted with President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine. Once he returned home, though, Putin quickly resumed his belligerent stance toward the West. Putin has vehemently opposed the U.S. plan to put an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. His latest thrust, announced this week, is the formal suspension of Russian participation in the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. The CFE treaty, “an important symbol of the end of the Cold War,” limits the troops and weaponry Russia and NATO countries can station near their common borders. Its suspension means that Russia will no longer keep NATO informed about troop movements or allow inspections of its military bases. “It’s as if Putin is trying to force the West—above all, the Americans—into a grand negotiation on the division of power in Europe.”

That makes Europe once again a pawn in a U.S.-Russian power game, said Katja Tichomirowa in Germany’s Berliner Zeitung. The U.S. didn’t quite play by the rules when it bypassed NATO and made bilateral deals with Poland and the Czech Republic to house missile defenses. Russia’s claim that the deals threaten its security is, of course, a pose—the Russians know that missile defense is not aimed at them, but at Iran. Still, the U.S. action “gave Russia a plausible pretext to destroy the Europe-wide security system.” And now it is the Europeans who must deal with the repercussions. “They get a missile defense system of dubious worth and a Russia that won’t participate in any security system.”

Europe needn’t act so wounded, said Ivan Soloviev and Ivan Gordeyev in Russia’s Vremya Novostei. After the CFE treaty was modified in 1999, not one NATO country ever even bothered to ratify it. Russia alone took the treaty seriously enough to do so. NATO argued that it wouldn’t ratify the treaty until Russia complied with a separate agreement to withdraw troops from Moldova and Georgia. Yet that “invented condition” is “totally unrelated to the issue.” It’s simply not true that Russia is out to destroy European security structures. In fact, as Putin himself said, suspending compliance with the CFE is “intended to prompt Russia’s partners to engage in serious negotiations for the benefit of common security.” Anyway, no party can leave the treaty until five months after it announces suspension. There’s still plenty of time for negotiation.