Agreement on the use of site materials
We ask you to use the works published on the site exclusively for personal purposes. Publishing materials on other sites is prohibited.
This work (and all others) is available for download completely free of charge. You can mentally thank its author and the site team.
Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below
Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.
Similar documents
Creation of NATO based on the North Atlantic Treaty. Changes in the activities of the alliance with the end of the Cold War. Setting a course for contacts and interaction with non-NATO countries. Features of relations between the Russian Federation and NATO.
abstract, added 12/12/2012
International relations in the post-war period. Prerequisites for the creation of NATO for Great Britain. "Truman Doctrine" and "Marshall Plan". Formalization of the NATO Treaty. West Germany joins NATO. The first years of NATO's existence.
abstract, added 07/26/2003
Formation of the North Atlantic Alliance, its objectives and strategy. The US desire to consolidate Western efforts to contain the Soviet Union. NATO actions after the collapse of the USSR. Transformation of NATO into a closed structure. Russia's policy towards NATO.
abstract, added 05/13/2011
The collapse of the biopolar system of international relations and its consequences for the Euro-Atlantic region. Three-level expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance as the basis for its transformation. The evolution of relations between Russia and NATO in a post-biopolar world.
thesis, added 08/05/2013
The essence, concept, purpose and structure of NATO. Its development after the fall of the Warsaw Pact. Features and prospects of relations between Russia and NATO are general development issues. NATO's expansion to the east is a threat to us. Structure of the Partnership for Peace program.
course work, added 02/24/2009
Russia and NATO in modern international conditions. Evolution of relationships. NATO: factors for revising strategic priorities. NATO's eastward expansion as a problem for Russian security. Searching for a strategy for Russia during NATO expansion.
course work, added 10/04/2006
NATO is a military-political bloc that unites most European countries, the USA and Canada. NATO Operating Principles. Washington Treaty of 1949 and the purposes of its signing. NATO member countries. Key events during the existence of the North Atlantic Alliance.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded on April 4, 1949 as a military-political bloc. One of its goals is to provide deterrence or protection against any form of aggression against the territory of any NATO member state. In contrast to NATO, the Warsaw Pact Organization (WTO) was created in 1955 as a military-political union of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe with the leading role of the Soviet Union. The confrontation between the two blocs continued until the cessation of the existence of the Department of Internal Affairs and the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
The beginning of perestroika in the USSR and the emergence of new political thinking in Moscow's foreign policy marked the end of bloc confrontation in Europe. The end of the Cold War posed certain problems for NATO, since after the dissolution of the Warsaw Department and the collapse of the USSR, there was no longer any sense in the existence of a military-political alliance in the absence of a threat from the East. Having lost its main functional mission, the North Atlantic Alliance began the process of adaptation to new international conditions.
After the dissolution of the Warsaw Department and the USSR, in conditions when Russia’s interests in the field of national security were not realized and clearly defined, Russian politicians and experts expressed the opinion that after the liquidation of the Warsaw Department and the USSR, the North Atlantic Alliance should either dissolve itself or turn into a political organization. However, despite the end of the Cold War, relations between the Russian Federation and NATO developed quite unstable.
At the beginning of the 1990s. The Russian leadership was aimed at rapprochement with the West and integration into Western international organizations, and no significant problems arose in relations between the Russian Federation and NATO.
In general, during this period there was an optimistic mood in Russia, suggesting that there had been a significant turn in Russia’s relations with NATO, and there were illusory hopes that NATO would transform due to the absence of obvious external threats.
However, it gradually became clear that this would not happen, especially after the start of the process of NATO expansion to the East.
In 1994, the leadership of the bloc decided to admit new members to NATO, and the North Atlantic Alliance began interacting with partner countries within the framework of the Partnership for Peace and Mediterranean Dialogue cooperation programs. The Russian Federation itself became a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program in 1994, which was subsequently joined by many other former Soviet republics.
In May 1995, an individual partnership plan was developed for Russia within NATO, and the Russian Federation moved to a more in-depth level of cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance. Although at first Moscow believed that the Partnership for Peace program would only provide for cooperation between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and NATO, and not their membership in the organization. Russian experts and military personnel perceived the alliance’s partnership programs as a kind of “hallway” or “waiting room” where candidate countries would remain indefinitely.
However, later the opinion prevailed among the American political elite that NATO expansion should occur even if the Russian side opposed it. This position was explained by the fact that the sovereign states of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have the right to decide independently which military-political organizations they should join. It is not surprising that after such statements, Russia’s position on the expansion of the alliance to the East became tougher. Naturally, the Russian Federation began to perceive NATO’s advance towards Russia’s borders exclusively negatively. It should be noted that neither the United States, nor other NATO members, nor candidate countries have shown adequate attention to Russia's concerns. Of particular concern in Russia were the prospects for NATO membership of the republics of the former USSR. Moreover, it is believed that it was the leaders of Eastern European countries who managed to convince then US President Bill Clinton of the advisability of NATO expansion to the East.
At the first stage, it was about the accession of the countries of the so-called Visegrad Group of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the North Atlantic Alliance (the latter failed to enter NATO during the first wave of expansion), which took place in 1999.
With the appointment of E.M. to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Primakov in 1996, the national interests of Russia were more clearly defined, the post-Soviet space was declared a priority direction of foreign policy, the official concept of multipolarity appeared, and the approach of the military-political bloc to the borders of the Russian Federation was assessed as a potential threat. Thus, Russia made it clear that NATO expansion in the post-Soviet space is an absolutely unacceptable scenario for Moscow.
At the same time, Russia put forward the idea that the basis of European security should be not NATO, but the OSCE. Such proposals began to acquire particular relevance after the Budapest Summit, at which it was decided to transform the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, founded in 1975) into a permanent international organization. However, such an initiative from Moscow remained unrealized.
Relations between the Russian Federation and NATO stabilized somewhat in 1997 after the conclusion of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which became the legal basis for interaction between the parties. This document contained an important statement today (which is constantly recalled by both sides): “NATO and Russia do not consider each other as opponents. The common goal of NATO and Russia remains to overcome the remnants of previous confrontations and rivalries and strengthen mutual trust and cooperation.”
During the same period of time, the first advisory body, the Permanent Joint Council (PJC) Russia NATO, was created to provide "a mechanism for consultation, coordination to the maximum extent possible, as necessary, for joint decisions and joint actions regarding security issues of common concern" . The Founding Act sets out the main areas of interaction (in total, 18 aspects of interaction were identified in the document): European security, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, resolution of regional conflicts and peacekeeping.
An important component of the Founding Act was a set of mutual obligations of the parties to exercise restraint in the military field. Such obligations include the alliance's guarantees, recorded in the document, not to deploy nuclear weapons or large groupings of troops on the territory of new NATO members and not to use former military bases of the Warsaw Department for their own purposes.
Some liberal Russian experts criticized this document, pointing out that the Russian leadership, by signing the Founding Act, tried to minimize the damage from the process of NATO expansion to the East, opposing this process with all its might. Instead, in their opinion, it was necessary to build a model of cooperation with the alliance, as well as to fully use the potential of those sections of the document that deal with Russia’s interaction with NATO. However, subsequently the alliance’s relations with Russia began to deteriorate. Two years later, in 1999, the 50th anniversary summit of NATO member countries took place in Washington, at which a new Strategic Concept of the bloc was adopted, which actually legitimized “humanitarian intervention” and NATO’s withdrawal from the limits of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. The alliance has now secured the right to use force beyond its borders. In Russia, these decisions were received with serious concern. In addition, at this summit, three countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic) formally became members of the North Atlantic Alliance.
A memorable episode of this period was the U-turn of the plane of Russian Foreign Minister E.M. Primakov over the Atlantic Ocean, after he learned about the start of the NATO operation against Yugoslavia. Thus, by the end of the 1990s. It became obvious to the Russian political elites that the unilateral actions and policies of the United States and NATO negatively affect Russia’s foreign policy position. The actions of NATO countries under US leadership in the Balkans without seriously involving Russia in resolving this crisis have raised many questions about NATO's true plans and intentions, especially its intervention in the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, violating its sovereignty.
Thus, 1999 became an important milestone in NATO relations in the Russian Federation, since after that anti-NATO and anti-Western rhetoric began to dominate Russian foreign policy.
The events of September 11, 2001 in the United States and the emergence of international terrorism as a unifying threat caused a significant warming of first Russian-American and then Russian-NATO relations, which was formally enshrined in the Rome Agreements signed between Russia and NATO in 2002.
The Declaration “Russia-NATO Relations: New Quality” was signed in Rome, and thus began a new stage of interaction between Moscow and Brussels. This document identified nine areas of cooperation in which Russia and NATO agreed to work together in the G20 format as equal partners on the basis of the NATO Russia Council (NRC), which replaced the PCA. In the new council, Russia had the opportunity to participate in discussions about decisions made at an early stage, if they concern its interests.
It was stated that instead of the previously existing 19+1 formula, the G20 format is being used, and the difference between them lies not in the mathematical formula, but in the special relationship between Russia and NATO.
Quite indicative in this regard is the response of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin “Why not?” to the question of British journalist David Frost: “Will Russia join NATO?”, which indicated a softening of the Russian position towards the military bloc.
After the start of the NATO operation in Afghanistan in August 2003, the Russian Federation began to assist the alliance in ensuring the transit of non-military cargo to this country. Of course, after the events of September 11, 2001, in the wake of rapprochement with the United States, the Russian leadership did not object to the American and then NATO operations in Afghanistan. In those years, it was perceived as a fight against terrorists who had received refuge in this country, and as a factor preventing the spread of religious extremism in Central Asia. However, as Russian-American relations deteriorated, the actions of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan began to be viewed increasingly ambiguously.
The deterioration of relations between the Russian Federation and NATO was due to the second stage of expansion to the East, which took place in 2004. Seven more new states were admitted to the organization: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. With the inclusion of the Baltic countries, NATO secured access to the borders of Russia, which itself gave the military the right to call this bridgehead a direct confirmation of the alliance’s aggressive intentions.
In 2007-2008 The deterioration of Russia-NATO relations continued. Thus, in a speech delivered by Russian President V.V. At a security conference in Munich in 2007, Putin outlined all of Russia’s claims to the West in general and to the North Atlantic Alliance in particular. In his speech, V.V. Putin criticized the continued approach of NATO's military infrastructure to the borders of the Russian Federation, the refusal of the organization's member countries to ratify the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and the North Atlantic Alliance's attempts to use force in circumvention of UN Security Council resolutions.
In 2008, the Russian leadership made efforts to relieve tensions in relations with the United States and the West in general, proposing to conclude a new agreement on European security issues. The draft of this agreement, proposed by the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev, provided for the consolidation in international law of the principle of indivisibility of security. The introduction of the principle of indivisibility of security, in Russia's opinion, would prevent the strengthening of the security of some states or international organizations at the expense of deteriorating the security of other members of the international community.
Not wanting to bind themselves to any written obligations, NATO countries rejected the draft European security treaty as Russia’s attempt to reduce the influence of Western international structures (primarily NATO) and cause a split in the Euro-Atlantic community. Therefore, Russia did not receive a positive response to this initiative. This contributed to a further deterioration in Russia-NATO relations, and after the outbreak of hostilities in the Caucasus in August 2008, they completely deteriorated.
After the start of the war in South Ossetia, NATO leadership made a number of harsh statements addressed to Moscow and decided to suspend cooperation with the Russian Federation. NATO Secretary General J.H. Schaefer said that interaction with Russia cannot continue in its previous form. Thus, Russia-NATO relations were frozen in 2008 for the second time since the Kosovo crisis, but this time on the initiative of Brussels.
Nevertheless, Russia did not refuse cooperation with the alliance. After some time, Russian leaders demonstrated a desire to ensure the resumption of the NRC. In the summer of 2009, Russia-NATO relations were restored after the island. Corfu hosted the first informal meeting of the NRC since the conflict in the Caucasus.
The third wave of alliance expansion, when Croatia and Albania joined the organization, no longer aroused such negative emotions in Moscow as the first two. This was probably due to the fact that the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, where these countries are located, is located quite far from the Russian borders. At the same time, the accession to NATO of Georgia and Ukraine, which caused the greatest concern in Moscow, was postponed indefinitely at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008.
During the “reset” of Russian-American relations, Russia’s relations with NATO continued to improve. At the Lisbon Summit at the end of 2010, the Alliance's third post-Cold War Strategic Concept was adopted, which stated that NATO does not pose a threat to Russia.
The last major military operation, launched by the North Atlantic Alliance in 2011 in Libya, again demonstrated the instability of Russian-NATO relations, expressing negative Russian assessments of NATO's actions.
The situation in Syria caused even greater controversy. Moscow expressed dissatisfaction with the assistance that Western countries began to provide to the rebels and categorically opposed NATO’s military operation in Syria.
Now about Ukraine. Ukraine's foreign policy since the collapse of the USSR in 1991 has been an alternation of periods of rapprochement with Euro-Atlantic structures and periods of balancing between Russia and Western countries. After President L. Kuchma came to power in the country in 1994, Kyiv began to increasingly gravitate towards a multi-vector foreign policy. In 1997, Ukraine, following Russia, established formal relations with NATO by signing the Partnership Charter with Brussels. During this period, the question of the country’s entry into the organization had not yet been raised, and a number of foreign policy documents enshrined Ukraine’s non-aligned status.
As a permanent body of cooperation between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Alliance, the NATO Ukraine Commission was created, which appeared together with the NATO Russia Council in 1997. Military interaction gradually expanded: certain agreements were reached in the field of strategic air transportation, as well as the possibility of using territory of Ukraine to conduct alliance operations. Nevertheless, the desire of the country's leadership to join NATO under President L. Kuchma was not recorded in official documents.
After the “Orange Revolution” of 2004, pro-Western tendencies in Ukrainian politics intensified many times over. During this period, official Kyiv was no longer aimed only at rapprochement with Euro-Atlantic institutions, but also sought to lead the process of integration of the CIS countries into NATO and the EU. At that moment, Ukraine wanted to distance itself as much as possible from Russia. President V. Yushchenko made an attempt to intensify cooperation within the framework of the regional international organization GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova), which cannot in any way be classified as a friendly association for Russia.
Thus, V. Yushchenko in 2005 sought to ensure the fastest possible entry of Ukraine into the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union, and corresponding changes were made to the Ukrainian military doctrine. During these years, Kyiv joined NATO's Intensive Dialogue program, which is an intermediate step between providing the country with an individual partnership program and an action plan to prepare for NATO membership. In addition, the possibility of Ukraine's participation in some military operations of the alliance began to be widely discussed: in Kosovo, Iraq and the Mediterranean Sea.
A new change occurred after the 2010 presidential elections, when Ukrainian President V. Yanukovych declared the country’s main foreign policy goal to join not NATO, but the European Union. In Russia, many experts characterized the coming to power of a new president (apparently incorrectly) as a pro-Russian turn in Ukrainian foreign policy.
However, in essence, this meant a return to the previous policy of balancing between Russia and the West, which the country followed until 2005 and which remained so until 2014. In fact, V. Yanukovych’s policy could be characterized as a gradual drift towards Euro-Atlantic institutions, which was carried out not as hastily as during the years of V. Yushchenko’s presidency.
It should be noted that during these years in Ukraine there was no consensus both at the level of society and at the level of political elites regarding foreign policy priorities and goals that the Ukrainian state should pursue. For quite a long time, Ukraine tried to sit on two chairs, which in a certain historical period was justified in principle, since it made it possible to receive significant advantages from both Russia and Western countries, balancing between them. This policy is often pursued by small and medium-sized states, which, due to their geographical location, are located relatively close to larger centers of power.
According to the President of Russia V.V. Putin, the decision to incorporate the Crimean Peninsula into the Russian Federation was made partly in order to prevent the emergence of NATO bases in Sevastopol and to prevent Russia from being squeezed out of the Black Sea region. As the president stated during a direct line on April 17, 2014, there was a danger that after a certain time Western countries would “drag Ukraine into NATO... and NATO ships would end up in the city of Russian naval glory in Sevastopol.”
Of course, the events in Crimea in 2014 could become one of the serious obstacles to Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. Even before these events, some Ukrainian politicians sought to get rid of the Russian base in Sevastopol by any means, since they considered it impossible for Ukraine to join NATO in such conditions. Indeed, it was quite difficult to imagine the existence of a Russian base on the territory of a NATO member country. Although officially there are no prohibitions regarding military facilities of third countries in the founding documents of the North Atlantic Alliance.
With the annexation of Crimea to Russia officially completed, Ukraine's entry into NATO looks even less realistic than before. Official Kyiv will never accept the separation of this territory, and, as is known, only those countries that do not have territorial claims against their neighbors can join the North Atlantic Alliance. Accordingly, the Ukrainian authorities have only two mutually exclusive options: either renounce Crimea and join NATO, or, conversely, refuse to join NATO and demand the return of the peninsula to Ukraine.
At the same time, the North Atlantic Alliance is not yet ready to enter into a direct military conflict with Russia over Ukraine. All these years, Western countries, and primarily the United States, have been trying to prevent Ukraine from rapprochement with Russia.
In general, Russian-NATO relations remain cool at the moment. The fact is that among the member countries of the alliance there are states (we are talking mainly about CEE countries) that were not ready to “reset” relations between NATO and the Russian Federation to the same extent as was done between the United States and Russia. Eastern European countries are more concerned than Western European countries about the hostile policies they perceive to be coming from Russia.
Despite the fact that the scenario of an open military conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation is not seriously considered in either Russian or NATO official documents (including the latest version of the NATO Strategic Concept), some Eastern European countries continue to treat the Russian Federation with suspicion and are not ready for a full-fledged cooperation with Moscow.
This is likely related to their desire to expand the alliance’s sphere of competence, to include topics such as energy security and cyber terrorism on the NATO agenda, and to use Article 5 of the Washington Treaty in relation to these threats.
Another potential source of disagreement between Russia and NATO could be Arctic issues. Among the member countries of the bloc, the presence in the Arctic region of states such as the USA and Norway is most noticeable; Canada and Iceland have their own interests here. If Finland and Sweden join NATO (and such scenarios are already being discussed), all states, except Russia, located near the Arctic region will be members of the North Atlantic Alliance. There is a threat of militarization of the Arctic, which is due to the strategic importance of this region. Firstly, the Arctic represents the shortest route for intercontinental ballistic missiles, and secondly, mining on the Arctic shelf is possible in the future.
A variety of opinions are being expressed today about the prospects for Russia-NATO relations, both positive and diametrically opposed. Some experts believe that today is a turning point and a transition is taking place from a policy of confrontation to dialogue. Others, on the contrary, believe that such a rapprochement in the foreseeable future is extremely unrealistic, since there are currently too many obstacles and contradictions in its way. Only their successful overcoming will make it possible to determine how ready the parties are for mutual dialogue.
The Ukrainian crisis has updated the role and importance of NATO and raised questions about the possibility of Ukraine and other countries joining the bloc.
On the one hand, NATO realizes that in a situation where Russia’s interests are directly affected, the alliance is not suitable. Russia is not an enemy; it does not pose a real security threat to NATO. On the other hand, “I want to, but I can’t”: Russia is a sovereign state, capable of defending its interests by force if necessary, and at the same time clearly defining its “red lines”, and NATO generals do not want to really fight in such conditions and are unlikely to agree. At the same time, the leading position in determining NATO policy is occupied by the United States, and without it NATO is not NATO. There are also conflicting statements coming from the United States. Thus, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Warmuth said in February 2015 at a hearing in the US House of Representatives that the United States fears “destabilizing actions” on the part of Russia towards NATO members and their partners: “We have concerns about countries which are not part of NATO, for example, Montenegro and other small states" in the event that Russia "takes destabilizing actions." According to her, the United States is “working to provide assistance to such countries so that they can counter such activity.” “In addition, we fear that Russia will try to destabilize the situation in NATO member countries, especially in the Baltic states, where large numbers of Russians live.” She confirmed Washington’s readiness to “comply with its obligations under Article 5” of the NATO collective defense charter. At the same time, the Pentagon representative admitted that she currently has “no information about serious active actions” by Russia in this direction.
Such “horror stories” do not bring any benefit and do not contribute to the normalization of relations between the United States and Russia and Russia and NATO.
Based on an analysis of the relationship between Russia and NATO over the past twenty years, we can conclude that they are developing unstably and there is no stable trend in them. Periods of cooperation give way to confrontation quite often (the most acute crisis phenomena in Russian-NATO relations were observed in 1999, 2008 and 2014-2015). This is due to the fact that Russia and NATO have a number of contradictions. At the same time, the parties also cannot ignore each other, and cooperation on issues where their interests coincide can yield positive results.
Oleg KHLOPOV,
Candidate of Political Sciences, Associate Professor of the Russian
state
humanitarian
University (RGGU)
“The essence of the Cuban missile crisis” is the Cuban Revolution. Noon. Crucial moment. Tropical storm. Confrontation between two superpowers. US reaction. Permission. Airplane engine. Exacerbation of the crisis. Accommodation. Letter from Khrushchev. Most Soviet diplomats. Caribbean crisis. Historical meaning. Tense confrontation.
“The Cold War between the USA and the USSR” - Communists of Eastern European countries. Causes of the Cold War. The creation of the Western European Union by the United States. Conditions. Korean War. Foreign policy of the USSR and the beginning of the Cold War. Dynamics of GDP and the USSR during the Second World War (billion). Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties. The purpose of the lesson.
“Cold War Politics” - USA and USSR. The scandal with the American spy plane. Creation of NATO. US forward-deployed assets. The threat of world war. US President Harry Truman. Exacerbation. Operation plan. The beginning of the Cold War. Socialist pluralism. Cold War. Ideological confrontation. General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
“The Cold War Years” - The Cuban Missile Crisis. Paradoxes. Iron curtain. Tension in the confrontation between blocs. Restraining factor. Research results. Creation of a thermonuclear bomb. Presentation of the main participants in the war. Creation of a bipolar world. Analysis of the circumstances of the beginning of the Cold War. Cold War. Confrontation between the USSR and the USA.
“The times of the Cold War” - Soviet radio stations. American leaders. Diagram. Construction of the Tagansky bunker. Cold War. Cold War Museum. The scale of the bunker. "Cold War": origins and lessons. Bunker area. Warming. The extreme severity of the confrontation. Lessons from the Cold War. End of detente. Students. Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia.
"Cubbie Crisis" - 34th US President from 1953 to 1961. The temperature inside the ship's holds often reached 50 degrees. The passage of the ships took place in extremely difficult conditions. The servicemen were buried according to naval custom - they were sewn up in a tarpaulin and lowered into the sea. The Cuban armed forces were brought to full combat readiness and general mobilization was carried out.
Once on the Internet, a friend wrote that the United States and Russia are pushing the world towards World War III. I was amazed by this statement.
Modern Russia is a raw materials appendage of highly developed Western countries. Oil, gas, timber, diamonds, metal, etc. are supplied by Russia to the world market and enable Russian oligarchs to get fabulously rich by plundering the country's natural resources. The armed forces of Russia serve the oligarchic ruling regime, in fact they protect the interests of the same oligarchs, big capital as a whole, providing it with the opportunity to continue to plunder Russia and mercilessly exploit the working people; protect against attacks by American and Western transnational corporations and banks that want to place Russia’s natural resources under their direct control. That is, the Russian armed forces perform a defensive function in the interests of the ruling oligarchic class.
In the world economic table of ranks, Russia belongs to the so-called developing countries. The Putin regime sleeps and sees that they, the rulers of Russia, are recognized as their own in the West, brothers in class, the bourgeois class. But this will never happen.
Almost two centuries ago, in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed, which became a weapon of US expansion in Latin America. Monroe Doctrine- a declaration of principles of US foreign policy, included in the message of US President J. Monroe on December 2, 1823. The doctrine expressed the decisive protest of the United States against attempts by European powers to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. At the same time, the doctrine was expansionist in nature and the formula “America for Americans,” which expressed the main content of the doctrine, actually meant “America for the USA.” In the 19th century The United States used the Monroe Doctrine for seizures and interventions in Latin American and other countries.
It was from the beginning of the 19th century. and the expansionist policy of the United States began to be pursued. At the beginning of the century, the territory of the United States was significantly expanded. In 1803, the United States bought Louisiana from France, and in 1819, Florida from Spain, which was actually captured by the United States. As a result of the war of conquest against Mexico (1846-48), the United States captured almost half of the territory of this country. In 1867, the United States bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million.
With the beginning of the era of imperialism, US expansionist policies intensified. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States captured the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam; in 1900-01 participated in the suppression of the popular uprising in China. In 1903, the American imperialists seized the Panama Canal zone and established their dominance there, then occupied Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.
But US expansionist policies did not only apply to Latin America. Back in the second half of the 19th century. The US geopolitical doctrine took shape. One of its ideologists, Joshua Strong, in his work published in 1885, set the goal - US achievement of world domination. Then the most famous geopolitician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Admiral Alfred Mayhan developed this theory, clarifying that the territory of Eurasia, primarily Russia, is the middle, the core of the globe. And without establishing control over this territory, it is impossible to rule the world. It was Mahan who put forward the plan "Anaconda Loop". A chain of bases is being created around Russia in order to deprive it of geopolitical and strategic maneuver, to exert constant influence, to squeeze, to suffocate.
The United States was one of the initiators and organizers of the blockade against the young Soviet Republic and developed a plan for the dismemberment of Soviet Russia.
After the end of World War II, the United States and Great Britain unleashed cold war, directed against the USSR, and then the countries of the socialist community. One of the instruments of this war was created in 1949. North Atlantic bloc NATO(North Atlantic Treaty Organization - NATO).
The Cold War began with the famous speech of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Fulton, USA, in 1946. In his speech, he burst into angry accusations against the Soviet Union, accusing our country of aggressive aspirations and military claims on the entire “free Europe”. All these accusations were false from beginning to end. The Soviet Union, which made the main contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany, saving the peoples of Europe and the whole world from the brown plague of fascism, suffered the greatest losses and lay in ruins. And the main task of the country’s leadership, led by Stalin, was to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the war as soon as possible, restore the national economy and continue the successful development of the country. The Soviet Union, the most peace-loving country in the world, did not need war. The war was needed by the new contenders for world domination - the imperialist circles of the USA and Great Britain. In addition, the imperialists were afraid of the highest authority of the Soviet Army, the victorious army and its generalissimo I.V. Stalin.
In April 1949, in Washington, 12 imperialist states - the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Italy and Portugal announced the creation of a single military-political organization that was supposed to coordinate the actions of the military the political leadership of these countries in the fight against the Soviet Union. Legally, on April 4, 1949, a military bloc was created to ensure the collective defense of its member countries. In fact, an aggressive offensive bloc of imperialist states was born. This is evidenced by the North Atlantic Pact, signed when NATO was created. This document developed a plan for offensive operations against the Soviet Union, including the use of nuclear weapons. The initiator and organizer of this military bloc was the United States, they were supported by their closest ally Great Britain and other Western European countries.
The NATO bloc has undergone seven expansions and currently includes 29 countries. The first expansion occurred in 1952, when Greece and Turkey joined NATO. The second expansion - 1955, West Germany (FRG) became part of the bloc. Third expansion - 1982, Spain joined the bloc.
The size of the bloc at the time of the destruction of the USSR was 16 countries.
With the disappearance of the USSR from the political map of the world and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the main geopolitical opponent of the NATO bloc disappeared. However, the North Atlantic Alliance did not cease to exist, but, on the contrary, continued to expand, including the former socialist countries and republics of the USSR, reaching the borders of Russia and surrounding it with a ring of its military bases and facilities.
The fourth expansion of NATO occurred in 1999, when it included Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The fifth expansion of the bloc took place in 2004. NATO included 7 more Eastern European and Baltic countries - Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia. The bloc's sixth expansion took place in 2009, when Albania and Croatia were added. And finally, last year Montenegro was admitted to the bloc.
At the NATO summit in Brussels in July, Macedonia was officially invited to join the alliance. After its entry, the number of NATO members will increase to 30 participating countries.
NATO consists of dozens and hundreds of committees and departments, divisions and groups, which include both military and civilians, as well as numerous training centers for the training of specialists. The apparatus of the alliance itself, with headquarters in Brussels, consists of about 12 thousand civilian and military personnel. The bulk of NATO employees are based in national governments and diplomatic missions, and this is already hundreds of thousands of people. The highest military apparatus is led, as a rule, by Americans.
The main governing body of the bloc is NATO Council. Its composition consists of permanent representatives of all NATO countries - ambassadors of states. The Council has a clear structure of meetings: at the ambassadorial level, meetings are held once a week, foreign ministers of the alliance meet once every six months, defense ministers and heads of state participate in meetings of the NATO Council solely on occasion. Leads the Council Secretary General alliance. It is this body that has real political power and the right to make decisions: determine NATO strategy and tactics, sign declarations, publish communiqués. It was the NATO Council that announced the start of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, which claimed millions of lives, gave the go-ahead for the invasion of Iraq, Yugoslavia and Libya by alliance forces, and approved the occupation of Afghanistan. All members of the alliance are recognized as equal in rights and decisions at Council meetings are made by a majority, although it is clear that the United States has the main political influence.
NATO's highest military authority is Military Committee. Consists of the chiefs of general staffs of the armies of the states that are members of the alliance. Only an American general can be the supreme commander of the bloc in Europe.
Supreme Commander is responsible for all military operations of the bloc in a certain region. Has the right to make recommendations to NATO politicians and military personnel. Has direct access to army headquarters, as well as to the leaders of the alliance countries on whose territory military operations are taking place.
NATO Secretary General. He oversees all NATO units and is also a co-chairman of many alliance structures. The NATO Secretary General is the face of the alliance in all external contacts of the bloc, as well as the main speaker and responsible for the actions of the bloc. It has a huge international staff of employees.
NATO's highest decision-making bodies also include the Defense Planning Committee, the General Staff, the NATO Nuclear Deterrence Group, the Rapid Reaction Group, the International Military Staff, the Economic Committee, etc.
The Alliance is conducting a systematic “military development” of the territory of the newcomers, primarily the Baltic states, where many military installations remain from the time of the Warsaw Pact.
Seven European countries - Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey - have infrastructure for basing tactical aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. The total grouping of such aircraft in peacetime amounts to more than 400 units, and in a period of threat it can be increased by one and a half times due to the additional transfer of aircraft from US territory.
General number of American nuclear bombs in Europe, according to a number of sources, there are 400-480 units. Countries on whose territory tactical nuclear weapons are located allocate tactical aviation units from their armed forces that are preparing for a possible mission with American nuclear weapons. The fact that these weapons are aimed mainly and primarily against Russia is quite obvious, despite all the loud statements to the contrary by NATO and American politicians and military personnel. The expansion of NATO makes the territory of Russia up to Moscow and Leningrad accessible to the threat of front-line aviation with both conventional and nuclear weapons.
At the Prague NATO meeting in 2002, a decision was made that actually legitimized the alliance’s conduct of any operations outside the territories of the bloc’s member countries and at a significant geographical distance. The main thesis - the alliance must be "able and willing to carry out operations wherever required". At the same time, the UN Security Council mandate to authorize NATO’s military actions is optional.
In fact, thereby NATO openly declared the aggressive nature of its military-political bloc, which is manifested in practice in the participation of many of its members under the leadership of the United States in armed aggressions against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria (under the guise of multinational forces that entered the country no one invited), etc.
In the mid-1990s, debates in Russia on problems of national security and relations with European countries concerned mainly two problems: NATO's expansion to the East and the construction of special relations between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.
When assessing the situation, it should be remembered that at first Russia showed a very tolerant attitude towards Poland’s desire to join NATO, when this issue was discussed in August 1993 during the official visit of President Boris Yeltsin to Warsaw, as well as towards the NATO Partnership for Peace program "(PIM). At the time, the Russian military and political establishment was confident that the program would be something of a “waiting room” in which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Russia, could remain for an indefinite period of time, and then “...or The Shah will die, or the donkey will die...”
The situation remained this way until NATO published the framework document for the Partnership for Peace program in January 1994. Then the first massive anti-NATO campaign began in the Russian press. Many provisions of the framework document ran counter to the traditional guidelines of the Russian military and political elite. Particularly unacceptable to her were the demands formulated in paragraph 3 of the document, which called for transparency in the organization and planning of national defense, military budgets and in ensuring democratic and civilian control over the armed forces.
In general, the issue of NATO expansion gave rise to many myths and illusions in Russian society, which were actively used by the political elite.
Nevertheless, in 1994, Russia and NATO cooperated quite fruitfully within the framework of the IFOR in resolving the Balkan crisis (in Bosnia and Herzegovina). At that time, Russia voted at the UN together with Western countries for a resolution condemning the policies of S. Milosevic. However, after the NATO bombing of Serbian positions in Bosnia, the then Russian Foreign Minister A. Kozyrev was sharply criticized in Russia; he was accused of pursuing a pro-Western policy, and “national patriots” called him a traitor to national interests.
In May 1995, Russia signed an individual partnership program with NATO. It is characteristic that during the preparation of the document, Russian officials constantly insisted on the special status of the country, repeating over and over again that Russia cannot even be compared with other Eastern European states, which, however, NATO representatives ignored.
However, Russia did not actively participate in this program. This is explained primarily by the fact that the Russian military leadership was not ready to cooperate as a “regular” and not a “great” military power, especially since now Russia inevitably had to deal with representatives of the former Warsaw Pact countries, and now candidates for NATO membership. Thus, Russian representatives again and again raised the issue of command and regarded as a humiliation the fact that Russian troops were in Bosnia and Herzegovina under NATO control. Of course, problems in the financing of the Russia-NATO cooperation program by the Russian side also played a role.
At the end of 1996, when Russian politicians realized that the process of NATO’s advance into the East of Europe was irreversible, they began negotiations on signing a document between Russia and NATO, which would, to a certain extent, regulate the rights and responsibilities of the parties in the “enlargement” process. The “Fundamental Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between Russia and NATO” was signed in Paris in May 1997. According to the text of the document, both sides were declared partners and Russia was given some, however, quite declarative guarantees. The French researcher wrote that this document “represents a compromise between the impossibility of recognizing Russia’s right of veto on NATO policy towards CEE countries and the need to take into account Russia’s geostrategic interests in the process of NATO expansion... It also talks about the creation of a mechanism in the event of a crisis automatic consultations between the North Atlantic Alliance and Russia. While unable to prevent NATO's expansion, Russia still believes that it has succeeded in establishing itself as a recognized European power and has received significant political and military compensation: a ban on the deployment of conventional and nuclear weapons on the territory of new NATO members. The Americans are trying to minimize the significance of the signed act for Russian power. In fact, the obligations of the North Atlantic Alliance remain declarative, being neither contractual nor legally binding.”
As Russian experts note today:
“Out of its weakness, Moscow made a mistake by signing the Russia-NATO Founding Act in 1997. This document politically legitimized the further expansion of the bloc. In exchange, Russia received the still empty Russia-NATO Council and a handful of promises - meaningless or already broken.”
In addition, the significance of the Founding Act was immediately weakened by the signing at the Madrid NATO summit of the Charter of a Special Partnership with Ukraine, establishing the development of closer bilateral cooperation in the military sphere.
As a result, Russia and NATO appear to have never truly become partners. Moreover, both sides are responsible for this.
The West is responsible for:
· supported democratic reforms in Russia mainly in words, without providing it with any serious economic assistance. Conditional political support was received only by Russian leaders who created the illusion in the West that political and economic reforms in Russia were progressing successfully and in the “right direction”;
· when deciding on a radical expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance, Western leaders did not want to take into account the psychological characteristics of Russians’ attitude towards NATO and Russia’s eastern neighbors, pragmatically using the difficult economic situation of Russian post-Soviet society to “advance to the East”.
The Russian ruling elite is responsible for the fact that it has taken the path of “minimizing damage” from the NATO expansion process, without creating working and not using existing institutions for cooperation with the alliance:
· when she practically refused to participate in the Partnership for Peace (PPP) program;
· when it did not make full use of the NATO-Russia Founding Act.
In 1998, a new Balkan crisis began around Kosovo, which contributed to the fact that the “crisis of mutual understanding” that took place in Russia-NATO relations in the previous period developed into a “crisis of confidence.” During the negotiations in Rambouillet, Russian politicians and diplomats supported the Serbs and, moreover, contributed to the formation of the illusion on the Serbian side that Russia would certainly support Yugoslavia in the event of a “hard” confrontation with NATO.
Indeed, having approved UN Security Council resolutions 1199 and 1244, Russia nevertheless exercised its veto power when the UN discussed the issue of granting NATO a mandate for a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo, thereby raising hopes among the Yugoslav leadership. At the same time, in Russia, the official media did not provide any information about ethnic cleansing directed against Kosovo Albanians, which contributed to the formation of an inadequate understanding of the “Kosovo problem” in Russian public opinion.
After the start of air strikes on Yugoslavia, Russian officials “took on the bombing of Belgrade” and did not hesitate to freeze relations with NATO, explaining this by the fact that it was the Atlantic Alliance that violated the NATO-Russia Founding Act, that it was committing aggression against a sovereign state, that the leadership NATO did not take into account the Russian position.
“A major psychological turning point has occurred in Russia’s attitude towards the West. A process began that led to deep alienation between Russia and NATO. For the first time since World War II in Europe, one country or group of countries attacked another,” Russian researchers note.
However, despite the validity of most of Russia's claims, it still seemed that some representatives of the Russian political and military elite were just waiting for a pretext to destroy relations between Russia and NATO.
It seems that the main reason for the Russia-NATO confrontation is that in the second half of the 1990s the Russian political class was forced to seek overcompensation for failures in the process of reforming the country, especially after the default of 1998. To this end, its representatives during the war in Yugoslavia tried to use the traditional fears of the population regarding the West and revive the “image of an external enemy” to achieve their own political goals and strengthen the legitimacy of the Russian government. There were, and still are today, certain favorable opportunities for this. According to sociological surveys in Russia, since the second half of the 1990s, the majority of respondents share the opinion that developed Western countries are not interested in the economic rise of Russia, its entry into the circle of developed countries (63%, according to 2002 data) and more than a third ( 36% in 2002) that Western states do not trust our country and are hostile towards it.
In general, the revival of anti-Westernism during this period and the turn to Great Russian nationalism was the result of the inability of political elites and institutions to identify and implement measures that would meet the interests of Russia’s security and the fruitful development of its relations with Europe in the economic, political, military and cultural fields. However, this did not lead to the consequences that the authorities expected.
The overall result of the Russian “Balkan policy” during the Kosovo crisis was negative:
1. The development of Russia's relations with the West suffered very serious damage.
2. China and India, with which some Russian politicians intended to create a so-called “strategic triangle,” avoided building a military-political alliance with Russia.
3. The countries of Eastern Europe, which have not yet managed to join NATO, have become much stronger in “knocking on the door” of the alliance. The so-called “second wave of enlargement” of NATO has become more real than ever, as Eastern European countries now have much more to justify their persistence.
4. Russian economic interests in the Balkans also suffered serious damage. The 1990s saw an economization of foreign and security policy around the world, largely in the interests of big business and transnational campaigns. It is also known that the fuel and energy complex of the Balkans is closed to Russia. It can be assumed that the Russian oil monopolies hoped that the Milosevic regime would protect their interests in Yugoslavia, so they pushed the Russian political elite to act in support of him - the result was the loss of even existing economic positions.
5. The CIS countries demonstrated during the anniversary NATO Washington summit in the spring of 1999, to which Russia did not even send its representatives, that they distanced themselves from the Russian position, did not want to create a so-called anti-Western front and, on the contrary, were ready to further develop cooperation with NATO within the framework of the PIM program.