Damage Limitation and Decline in Institutional Powers

Under Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, Russia has engaged in a comprehensive policy debate on the relationship to the EU, including the EU's emerging foreign and security policy dimension. During the biannual meetings held between the EU troika and the Russian President and through bilateral dialogues with central European powers, the Russian government has probed the possibilities for a more committing cooperation between the EU and Russia within crisis management and peacekeeping. Moreover, the Russian research environment has engaged in a debate on the Western security architecture in which the EU has been framed as a preferable partner for Russia in the security field.

This report seeks to highlight the main points of this debate and to analyze Russia's approach to the Western security architecture with regard to two overriding priorities for Russia: damage limitation and decline in institutional powers. The former approach suggests that the main motif behind this policy strategy is to halt the formation of an unfavorable security system in Europe and to avoid so-called «NATO centrism» on the European continent. This implies to play on inherent transatlantic differences in the security field and promote the EU as a preferred partner for Russia, albeit with strict limitations on the level of integration with the EU in the security sector. The latter approach suggests that Russia has sculpted a more offensive foreign policy vis-à-vis the EU in order to compensate for lacking influence on Western security institutions in the wake of the Kosovo crisis. Russia has increasingly seen the OSCE as not meeting central foreign and security policy priorities of Russia, and has engaged the EU in this field in order to gain access to Western security institutions. This approach departs from the assertion that Russia first and foremost seeks integration with the EU in this field.

The report analyzes Russia's security and foreign policy concepts, various research reports on the Western security architecture and policy statements from Russian officials. It concludes that both approaches may explain elements of Russia?s behavior in the field of foreign and security policies, but that the integrationist approach has been more visible in the research environment than in Russia's official policies.