Sunday, November 23, 2014

Lavrov's October 20, 2014 Speech. XVII.

"As former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock said recently, the participants in the talks on the end of the Cold War realised that if they keep moving a tool such as NATO to a spot where barriers are crumbling, new barriers will appear in Europe. In subsequent years, they tried to talk Russia into believing that such a policy does not threaten its security, and even feigned offence when we insisted that in military policy, military capabilities speak louder than intentions and assurances. 

This is a continuation of Russia-think. They never take the next step: Action speaks louder than capabilities. Did "capabilities" result in action? No. Invasion? No. Nuclear attack? No.

Back then, political declarations on the need for a single Euro-Atlantic security space at the level of the OSCE and the Russia-NATO Council were adopted. Our suggestions to put these political declarations on paper and make them legally binding to ensure European security were rejected. The arguments included (perhaps this was a Freudian slip) one that legal security guarantees can be provided only by NATO. That preserved the irritant in issues pertaining to providing equal levels of security to all Euro-Atlantic countries without exception."

Why did we, the West, America, not put those declarations in writing and make them legally binding? Russia was a party--or something, a partner, "stakeholder," whatever--to those "declarations." Since the declarations were not made legally binding, since only NATO, of which Russia is not a member, could enforce the new European order, there is not an equal level of security provided Russia. It seems to me Lavrov is right, here.