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Метаморфоза региональной структуры безопасности в Восточной Европе 1991 - 2004 Metamorphosis of the Regional Security Structure in Eastern Europe 1991 - 2004
Кадеров Адель Хамисович
Студент 4 курса
Факультет мировой экономики и мировой политики
НИУ ВШЭ МАЛАЯ ОРДЫНКА, 17 e-mail: [email protected]
Kaderov Adel Khamisovich
Student 4 term
Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs
NRU HSE Malaya Ordynka, 17 e-mail: [email protected]
Аннотация.
Статья рассматривает кейс приднестровского конфликта в условиях оформления нового порядка реализации международной безопасности в Восточной Европе на рубеже 20 и 21 веков. Автор проводит анализ изменений, произведенных распадом ОВД на территории бывшего социалистического лагеря. В работе также изучается актуализированная роль НАТО в условиях распада СССР, внутри структуры региональной безопасности.
Annotation.
The article examines the case of the Transnistrian conflict in the context of the formation of a new order for the implementation of international security in Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. The author analyzes the changes made by the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact organization on the territory of the former socialist camp. The paper also examines the updated role of NATO in the conditions of the collapse of the USSR, within the structure of regional security.
Ключевые слова: Восточная Европа, Молдова, ОВД, НАТО.
Key words: Eastern Europe, Moldova, Warsaw Pact organization, NATO.
The two processes that researchers observe in the period from the late eighties to 1991, namely the end of the Cold War and the depletion of the bipolar order, in particular on the European landscape of international relations, not only overlap historically, but also have a direct relationship. As described above, the development of the "Eastern bloc" towards cooperation with the West took place at the turn of the decades (1980-90), while the straight-line erosion of the socialist camp happened in 1988 (9) - 1991. One way or another, both events became generalising for the above-mentioned political and military phenomena in Eastern Europe. It, in turn, began to take on a "natural" appearance - full-fledged concepts of "central", "southern" and "eastern" Europe were recreated instead of generalisation with a political and ideological background. Acquiring its own separate form, the newly established order of international relations reshaped the security system in Eastern Europe in accordance with the following historical episodes.
The official end of the cold conflict on the European political landscape was due to the fact that all countries were entering a new level of intensification of [political and economic] relations, both multilateral and bilateral. As mentioned above, both the USSR and the satellites in Eastern Europe were looking for ways to ease tensions in the region, including to overcome their own economic backwardness caused by colossal spending on weapons. Against the backdrop of the fact that in 1988 a joint declaration was concluded between the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the EEC on the formation of official relations, as well as a similar document between the USSR and the so-called "European Communities", shifts began to be observed in the military-political field. The first stage in the renewal of relations between the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Alliance was the official visit to Brussels to the headquarters
of the Organization by Foreign Minister Shevardnadze in 1989. According to the memoirs of Yuri Deryabin, a diplomat who took part in the trip, the employees of the institution greeted the Soviet delegation with applause directly on the spot. Contacts are being established between the Department of Internal Affairs and NATO - for example, in the summer of 1990, Moscow negotiations on building relations between the two organisations are held respectively by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and the Secretary General of the alliance.
It is worth noting that an important area of discussion in those years was occupied by the topic of changing paradigms in the activities of these two military organisations, or rather, shifting priorities into the political space. Among other things, such an initiative was motivated by the fact that the soviet government was to promote "the Conference on Security and Cooperation", its work and the development of relevant institutions to the forefront of the regional agenda. From this, for example, the development of a plan for the revision of the goals and practices of the Warsaw Pact follows. A resolution was drawn up according to which the military structure of the organisation was abolished (Ilnitsky, 2021). In turn, the "Declaration on the Transformation of the North Atlantic Alliance" adopted in London secured, as indicated on the official website of the organisation, the birth of a modified NATO. In the meantime, it is very important to note the following wording from the text of the above document. Thus, according to the assembled delegates, the European region, especially its eastern part, was entering the era of a sovereign-based foreign policy. By emphasising the peaceful trend, the countries in question are based on the idea of a whole Europe, to which organisations need to adapt. As an auxiliary [to processes of geopolitical change] function, "... the Alliance must be even more of an agent of change." says the official text. Already at this stage, a course is clearly visible towards the expansion of the alliance, the modernization of its strategic component, which by no means implies any weakening of the alliance, and certainly not its voluntary dissolution. By strengthening bilateral relations with the former Soviet satellites, NATO was laying the foundation for a new military-political trend, which is to expand its zone of influence and responsibility, which will be discussed below.
In addition, it is also worth noting that, following the results of the London Conference, a decision was made to reduce the military contingent of the alliance in the corresponding territory (Dubinin, 2012). Further, speaking of the interaction between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, one cannot fail to mention the "strategic arms reduction treaty". Remaining a cornerstone, the negotiations in this area were held within the framework established by the results of the work of the CSCE Vienna meeting. The so-called "negotiations 23" (later, with the reunification of Germany - 22) ended in the autumn of 1990 with the "Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe". There was a structure of restrictions on the number of weapons for several separate groups - armoured vehicles, tanks, helicopters with a gun carrier, as well as similar aircraft - the total technical value could not exceed a figure close to 150 thousand. The offensive resource of countries was reduced, especially along the border line of two military organisations, where special restrictions were also established. The treaty extended to the territory from the Atlantic to the Urals and the Caspian Sea. Moreover, there is the so-called Budapest Agreement of November 3, 1990 within the framework of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Under its text were the signatures of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. It had a direct purpose -to rank those limited quantities of weapons that were established by the above CFE. Thus, one can say that, in actual military terms, security in Eastern Europe has changed qualitatively. Moreover, it is important to note individual precedents that reflect how the USSR actually softened the political situation in the region, reaching the signing of multi-component agreements "on the foundations of bilateral relations" with France, Germany and Italy. This is important insofar as, with the immediate collapse of the USSR, the real political legacy of its constituent parts, namely the Eastern European part - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - will become a kind of springboard for continuing activities along a peaceful, mutually beneficial democratic vector with Western Europe in the field of regional security. In addition, in November of the same year, the so-called "Vienna Document on Confidence-Building Measures" was formulated and signed. In order
to implement it, the participating states undertook to notify each other about the layout of the armed ground and air forces, the order of their deployment, as well as budgets in this area.
The event that took place in November 1990 should be mentioned separately. The special meeting of the heads of the CSCE participating countries, held in Paris, ends its work with the signing of several fateful documents, including the "Joint Declaration of Twenty-two States", as well as the "Paris Charter for a New Europe". The first asserted the expiration of the confrontational agenda between the states of the two military-political blocs, while at the same time fixing the desire of the states on both sides for partnerships and productive cooperation. The adherence to the UN Charter was also confirmed. The second potentially became life-determining not only for the countries on both sides - the Warsaw Treaty Organization and NATO - but also for all European actors. The approved text of the document indicated the principles according to which new interactions between the countries of the region were to take place. In particular, in the sphere of security, there was a desire to form updated principles in the conditions of an ended conflict state. In accordance with them, the participating states would have the right to choose in the method of building their own security, and would also respect the corresponding choice of others. The idea of indivisibility in the field of security was prescribed, according to which group security and stability depended on the same parameters at the "subject" level. The thesis about joint work on arms control, consolidation of mutual trust and transparency of political processes was also consolidated. There has been a decrease in the level of armaments on the European landscape - due to the consensus reflected in the "Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces". Together with the current methods of developing security policy within the structures of the CSCE, the emerging order of affairs would inevitably lead to qualitative changes in the [Eastern European] security system as a whole. The paramount importance of developing a democratic system within the region was emphasised, which would include securing various freedoms and rights for the individual, as well as economic openness, which would be regulated by market instruments. All this, one way or another, was an interpretation of the principles that the countries of Western Europe had been using. The USSR and the countries of the still formally existing ATS actively subscribed to such formulations. On the one hand, this was a kind of quintessence of Gorbachev's course towards the redistribution of political nature within the Soviet Union and, indirectly, the socialist bloc. On the other hand, the above points and positions were in conflict with the attempts of the Soviet government to maintain the internal socialist course.
At the same time, the charter under consideration made reference to those positions regarding the security system that were recorded in the Final Act of the Helsinki meeting of 1975. In order to continue the planned development in this area, within the framework of the CSCE, the delegates also took care of the process of its institutionalisation. This meant the formation of permanent bureaucratic bodies within the organisation. Among them, among other things, were: The Council of Foreign Ministers, the Secretariat and the "Advisory Center for Conflict Prevention". Thus, the development of the mechanisms of the work of this international organisation, its complication and giving it a certain form made it possible to talk about improving the multilateral format for implementing security policy, increasing the level of response to geopolitical challenges in [Eastern] Europe. However, it is worth paying attention to the following state of affairs. All of the above political initiatives and steps were taken by the parties precisely in the context of the actual division into two camps, albeit in a tense, non-conflict situation. The development of the situation in subsequent years will play a cruel joke on the countries of the "real" Eastern Europe, in particular with Russia, since the balance of power in real terms will be upset in favour of the North Atlantic bloc and the collective "collective Western community".
Taking into account the results of the Paris Conference of the CSCE, the capitalist and socialist blocs were reaching a plateau of potentially stable international cooperation with the preservation of the central structural core -bipolarity. Meanwhile, the processes that took place in the satellite countries of the USSR in the late eighties - the change of governments and the actual relegation of the communist theme in politics - undermined the structures and institutions that united these states from the inside - primarily the Department of Internal Affairs. The above-mentioned "Visegrad
Group" became a significant initiating factor in the revision of the Warsaw Treaty Organization as such. Between the lines, it should be noted that Hungary, for example, openly declared its intentions to leave the organisation in the coming years, as well as to improve relations with NATO - it was supported by Czechoslovakia and Poland. The irrevocable direction to terminate the activities of the ATS was provoked by the events in the capitals of Lithuania and Latvia. The armed suppression of the opposition forces in these cities, still by the Soviet units, created the impression of the "unpassed" Soviet militancy. The members of the "Visegrad Group" persisted in the direction of disbanding the ATS. In February, "meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs and defence" of the organisation in Hungary agreed on the dissolution of this military organisation. Already by the summer of 1991, this decision was re-negotiated and confirmed at the congress of the advisory committee in Czechoslovakia - the Warsaw Pact Organization ceased to exist. It is important to note that a year earlier, a negotiation process was initiated between the USSR and the satellites in Europe on the withdrawal of the Soviet armed contingent from the latter - the implementation took several years - by 1993, the Russian military had already completely left Poland. At the same time, the Western Pole of Power not only did not have similar tendencies - it was aimed at multiplying the obtained geopolitical advantage by expanding the network of interaction with the countries of the former socialist bloc through the aforementioned structures. Pushing transparent and multilateral platforms for international cooperation - the OSCE - to the periphery of European politics, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has concentrated on itself the process of restructuring the security system in Eastern Europe.
Accordingly, the geopolitical picture being built and its legal design began to meet the national interests and general security of countries that were not part of the military alliance or the European Union to a lesser extent. Thus, it transformed the security system in Eastern Europe under the conditions of a new bloc-free era with reference to one centre of relative power - NATO - and, importantly, to the least extent the OSCE, which in the period under review came close to a crisis state.
Crisis in the Transnistrian region and mechanisms of its regulation
The conflict within Moldova in the Transnistrian region falls into the field of study of this work not by chance. First, it is worth noting right away that this territory naturally belongs to the studied "Eastern Europe" - that is, in a geographical, and not political, sense. Secondly, the geopolitical collision that took place [and continues to this day] is one of those cases that developed directly at the peak moment - in a consolidating position - of those transformations in the Eastern European security system that were described above. Soviet structures ceased to exist, and NATO was increasing the volume of cooperation with the former socialist satellites. At the same time, the CSCE is undergoing a kind of test of strength in the conditions of the emerging unipolarity in post-communist Europe. Thus, the emerging sociopolitical contradictions in the territory under consideration not only demonstrate the direct effect of the process of disintegration of one of the two main centres of power during the Cold War. They also contribute to the strengthening and establishment of the mechanisms of the new order and the new system, according to which international security policy is shaped.
It is necessary to start with a description of the emerging historical and factual base for the case under study. As noted above, Mikhail Gorbachev's course of "perestroika" gives rise to social and political processes not only in the USSR, but also in the corresponding republics in Eastern Europe. These processes in the very near future take on metamorphoses that immediately structurally change the entire "socialist landscape". In the Moldavian SSR, by 1989, political guidelines in the government were shifting towards nationalist sentiments, and as a result, plans were emerging to separate from the Soviet Union. In addition, there were publicly expressed opinions about integration into Romania with working slogans in the newspapers - "We are Romanians - and that's it!". On the left bank of the Dniester, a social stratum was formed, identifying themselves as Romanians (Guboglo, 2016). In the current conditions, the discontent and counter-opposition opinion of the regions of Gagauzia and Transnistria is growing. Their population, ethnically forming three main groups -
Russians, Ukrainians and Moldavians - in general spoke from pro-Soviet positions, against secession from the USSR. The expression of disagreement with the ongoing reforms in the country is strengthened in connection with the following events. In 1989, several bills on the status of the state language were considered in the country, the adoption of which did not support the population of the above regions. For example, in February, a group of people from the so-called "Union of Writers" of the country promulgated the text of the law, according to which the initial language education of children was reduced only to Moldovan, and at the official level, for resorting to the use of another alternative language, responsibility was provided, both administrative and criminal. In addition, the Supreme Council of the Moldavian SSR in the spring of the same year issued a draft law, according to which the Moldavian language would remain the only official language in the country (Andruschak, Boyko, et al., 2002). All this is perceived by the residents of Transnistria as directed towards them discrimination (Kharitonova, 2008).
In turn, the situation gave rise to numerous demonstrations and protests in order to preserve the Russian language. By the end of the summer of 1989, the so-called OSTK, the United Council of Labor Collectives, was formed. Its goal is to sabotage the adoption by the Supreme Council of the law on the central role of the Moldovan language in any work or business process. According to the OSTK, the potential state of affairs in the conditions of the adoption of such a law could lead to destabilisation in the labour field among citizens of different nationalities. Already in the fall, this organisation sets appropriate strikes in the field, in which a large number of the working community takes part, and even more labour cells publicly show unanimity towards them (Andruschak, Boyko, et al., 2002). Already by the beginning of the 1990s, streams of people speaking from a position of disagreement with the current political course of the government rushed to the Transnistrian region (Grosul, 2001).
A kind of point of "no return" in the process under consideration is the adoption at the end of August 1989 by the Supreme Council of a resolution on securing the state position for the Moldavian language. The ensuing intensification of the conflict base did not cause any concrete reaction from the then leadership of the USSR. The protesters were not given any support, but only a proposal was made from Gorbachev about a possible temporary stop to the resistance movement. Under the circumstances, the next logical step for the OSTK is to hold referendums in Rybnitsa and Tiraspol during the winter of 1989-1990 on the question of whether a "Transnistrian Autonomous Socialist Republic" should be established. In both cases, the positive answer was chosen by more than 90 percent of the population participating in the vote.
At the same time, without gaining the required number of deputies and, accordingly, losing any influence in the Supreme Council of the MSSR, the Pridnestrovian representatives quickly leave the parliament, thereby bringing the escalation of the political and geographical conflict to the maximum level. Reacting to the growing rhetoric about the "illegal creation" of the Moldavian SSR by the official authorities, the people from the territories of Transnistria and Gagauzia, in response, point to the corresponding illegal inclusion of the entire region on the left side of the Dniester into Moldova, and thus are exempted from carrying out any or obligations and responsibilities towards "the centre" (Kozhokina, 2004). As a result of the referendum in the region under consideration, Moldovan, Russian and Ukrainian (Gagauz - in Gagauzia) languages were adopted as the "state". In the summer of 1990, Gagauzia declared its independence, and by September, during the work of an extraordinary parliamentary congress, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was created. This was followed by an immediate negative reaction from both Chisinau and Moscow. Thus, in accordance with the official text of the "Decree of the President of the USSR on measures to normalise the situation in the SSR Moldova", the above processes of the separation of Gagauzia and Transnistria from Moldova were regarded as legally without a basis, and therefore illegitimate.
With the collapse of the USSR, by December 1991, [illegal] presidential elections were held within the borders of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR, as well as a referendum on determining the status of the territories. The final
outcome was the independence of the already new Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic - with the turnout of more than 70 percent of the electors, nearly 100 percent voted in favour. It should be noted right away that the conflict itself, to a much lesser extent, if not at all, was based on ethno-national differences. On the contrary, in the first place, based on the foregoing, it turns out to be the political and ideological reason. There is a break with the dogmas that the Soviet Union for a long time forcibly supported in "Eastern" Europe. Also, there was a certain vacuum of alternative political strategies - in the case of the Moldovan government - or the impossibility of finding a compromise in the format of dialogue between the warring parties - in the case of the striking workers of Transnistria in 1989.
We can say that direct skirmishes with the use of weapons originate in the late summer of 1990. The reasons for this vary. Thus, in one of the interviews, Vasily Sova, the former Moldovan Minister for Reintegration, stated that during negotiations between the warring groups, both sides indicated "the struggle for the independence of the Moldovan state" as the reason. However, at the same time, it is impossible not to mention the fact that Tiraspol made attempts to bring law enforcement agencies under its own control - for example, parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the seceding territories. In addition, official Moldova also uses forceful methods in the process of trying to tilt the balance of power in its favour or, say, in helping those civil servants who ended up on the left bank of the Dniester and remained loyal to the "centre". Geographically, the points of contact were along the banks of the Dniester, in the areas of crossing and in some settlements that legally made the transition to the combatants of the newly formed "state". It is important to note that both sides are in the process of forming special military groups. On the one hand, in 1991 the Pridnestrovian Republic put into operation the so-called "Black Sea Cossack Army", in the arsenal of which there are various kinds of large-calibre weapons and armoured vehicles. On the other hand, "OPON" is formed in Moldova - these are police brigades to carry out emergency tasks. Later, by the end of 1991, a structural military organisation was formed, in other words, the armed forces available at the base of the former Soviet Armed Forces in the territory under consideration. It must also be emphasised that in both cases the actual "panoplia" came from the [past on the territory of Moldova] 14th "Guards Red Banner" Army.
The announcement of a state of emergency in the country in 1992 by Moldovan President Snegur became a vital milestone of the process under study. The accompanying order set the task of demilitarising the region of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. By the summer, the military clash is on the rise - the city of Bendery, retreating to the PMR, becomes a strategic outpost, for which intense battles were fought. More and more detachments were drawn to this point: in the period from June 19 to June 26, the above-mentioned OPON and state paramilitary units were observed from the side of official Moldova, and from the side of the unrecognised republic - the police, militia forces and guards' units. In this battle, the Pridnestrovian side wins as a result - the formations of the 14th Army of the Russian Federation under the command of General Lebed come to its aid.
By the spring of 1992, the CIS countries formulated an appeal that the territorial integrity of the Moldovan state must be respected, and that the mechanism of this process should remain exclusively political dialogue. These points are reaffirmed at the Helsinki meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Russia, where, among other things, the importance of stopping armed escalations, as well as disarming all militaries illegally carrying out their activities, is emphasised (Lavrenov & Gubar, 2022). It is worth noting that by the beginning of July, Moldovan President Snegur put on the agenda of the CIS conference a provision on the start of a peacekeeping mission in the country. Despite a number of provisions in his proposal, in particular on the composition of the peacekeeping contingent (Moldovan, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian - excluding the 14th Army - the military), in practice, only the military from Moldova, Russia and the PMR were included in the process, without general support from the CIS.
At the beginning of the same July, official delegates from the Kremlin paid a visit to the area in order to establish an agreement to stop hostilities, which they subsequently managed to do. At the end of July, between the presidents of
Russia and Moldova - the meeting was also attended by the President of the PMR Smirnov - a special document was signed. "Principles of resolving the armed conflict" becomes the legal basis for further steps in resolving the crisis in question. From the provisions of the text of the agreement followed: the creation of a tripartite "Control Commission" to monitor and prevent fire and escalation, especially in the city of "Bendery"; the creation of accompanying joint armed inspections from the parties participating in the agreement; the nature of the presence of the 14th Army in the crisis area was reduced to a neutral position. As a result, the situation along the line of contact in the region has stabilised. The Russian Federation, and more specifically, the paramilitary peacekeeping group, has become an official component in resolving the geo-political discord in the region in question. It should also be said that initially the military delegation from Russia consisted of several battalions, as well as tactical helicopter units, in total leading to a total of three thousand soldiers and officers. They, in turn, decreasing in number over time - by 2022 there are about four hundred military personnel in the region - nevertheless stayed as a part of the so-called "SMS", that is, joint peacekeeping forces in the territory of the freezed conflict. According to the above agreement, their deployment is carried out until the categorical solution of all political and geographical contradictions between Chisinau and Tiraspol.
"SMS" operates in the territory called "security zone", the perimeter of which to a greater extent - more than 50 percent - covers the PMR, and in Bendery, that is, on the right side of the Dniester, a state of increased security has been formed. It is safe to say the following. At this historical stage, the armed conflict in the region of Eastern Europe, involving Moldova and the Transnistrian Republic, remains an exceptional case in which a military clash through the deployment of combined peacekeeping forces was effectively frozen, and a potential "hot" prolongation of the conflict was not allowed.
In addition, it should be noted that the negotiation process between Tiraspol and Chisinau, as conflicting parties, in 1993 acquired a mediator - the OSCE. Its plenipotentiary, through the so-called shuttle diplomacy, turned out to be a link between Pridnestrovie and Moldova. At the same time, Russia and Ukraine became guarantors that the process under consideration would take place without the use of military force, as they say, on the ground. The process also involved observers - the US and EU countries. All this became institutionally possible in 2002 at a meeting of delegates of the OSCE, Ukraine, Transnistria and Russia in Slovakia, where a "Permanent Conference on Political Issues in the Framework of the Negotiation Process on the Transdniestrian Settlement" was formed. Later, Moldova, the US and the EU will join this body. This is what becomes the basis for the settlement mechanism according to the "5+2" format. Thus, we can say that the new mechanisms of the security system in Eastern Europe are producing an effective result.
Over the next decade, the conflicting parties signed a number of fundamental documents to normalise their relations. For example, the memorandum "On the Basics of Normalising Relations between the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria", drawn up in the summer of 1996, included a provision according to which the parties turned out to be mutually complementary defendants for bringing to life the agreements on improving their interaction. A logical offshoot of the negotiation process is the "Kozak memorandum" - a document prepared by the deputy head of the presidential administration. The document, among other things, prescribed the federalization of Moldova, which would include the subjects of Transnistria and Gagauzia, and thereby eliminate the root of the contradictions between the parties. However, the Kozak plan was sabotaged by the opposition forces of Moldova, and this happened for a number of reasons - not least because of the pan-European sentiments of the then elite of the Moldovan state. The international community, or rather Western countries under the auspices of the United States, in turn, did not support the Kozak memorandum, which was a key decision-making factor for the country, said Dmitry Voronin, the former president of Moldova. As Sergei Markedonov, a leading researcher at MGIMO, notes in an interview, this state of affairs was one of many reflections of the new security system in Eastern Europe that had undergone a qualitative transformation. The unrealized "Kozak Memorandum" showed that Russia's alternative dominant role in international regional relations in the territory of the
former Soviet influence for an indefinite period was receding into the past. Simultaneously, NATO structures' position (under the auspices of the US) and the one of the EU, as synchronised actors, in the East European landscape in shaping the security agenda has increased. Moldova became a part of the "Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council" and the "Partnership for Peace" program, despite the country's "permanent neutrality" provision in the constitution. In accordance with this, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former NATO Secretary General, publicly stated the need for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the conflict area, which was a complementary act in relation to Chisinau.
One way or another, the efficiency and effectiveness of the new international mechanisms within Eastern Europe was evident. The conflict between Moldova and Transnistria was transferred to a permanent non-conflict position with the help of political dialogue and the functioning of international peacekeeping forces, which was a demonstration of the qualitative transformation of the security system of the region in question. At the same time, Moldova was looking for ways to integrate and partner with the European Union and the North Atlantic bloc, which could not but introduce a factor of unpredictability and distrust into the relevant bilateral and multilateral relations with Russia as an integral part of the security structure under consideration.
NATO in a new era within "the East"
As one passes the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, and even more so throughout the subsequent decade, times of change come for the organisation of the North Atlantic Treaty. In many ways, this process is synchronised with what is happening inside the security system in Eastern Europe, but it is necessary to separate the following things. First, on the European landscape, with the disappearance of one pole of power and influence - the Soviet Union -, the relative authority of political structures and the overall role of the United States and those states and international institutions that acted during the Cold War under its auspices are increasing, NATO is one of such participants. A reflection of this state of affairs, for example, is that the vast majority of the former Soviet satellite countries in the Warsaw Bloc, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hastened to establish international relations and plans to increase cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance, as discussed above. Secondly, by increasing the volume of dominance in the region, the organisation in question had to adapt to the new emerging order. Since to a greater extent NATO carried out activities in the military (military-political, at least), and not in a purely political area, at first glance it might seem that the corresponding system of Eastern European security fell into direct dependence on it. Up to a certain point, this is true. Waves of NATO expansion to the east, which will be discussed below, contributed to the practical strengthening of this organisation in the region. They simultaneously promoted not only the military infrastructure of the alliance, but also political institutions and mechanisms, which, in turn, directly influenced the domestic political situation of the member states of the alliance in accordance with the foreign policy conjuncture of the so-called "collective West". And yet, that was only part of the picture. On the other side of the scale were alternative international organisations, such as the UN (SC), OSCE and even the CIS, as well as countries whose foreign policy vision and opinion over time began to increasingly run counter to the course and actions pursued by the North Atlantic Alliance. In particular, this is the Russian Federation. All of the above allows one to talk about a new round of interaction between the countries of the region in the context of the formation of a never-seen before - unipolar - order of international relations, the cornerstone of which is NATO and the contradictions associated with its activities in the post-Soviet space.
We should start by considering the Alliance's practical steps towards changing and adjusting to the new geopolitical context. The principle of "forward defence", adopted back in 1963, which implies the preparation and deployment of conventional weapons to the borders of the Warsaw Pact countries in the face of a potential outbreak of war in Europe, went into the archives. This was due to the fact that in the winter of 1991, at the "Italian" Congress of the North Atlantic Council, the participating countries adopted a new document - the Strategic Concept, which introduced fundamental changes in relation to previous similar texts. If in the period from the beginning of the Cold War to the
indicated date, the Alliance officially concentrated its attention and forces on protecting and deterring the "eastern neighbour", now the organisation's priorities have shifted and expanded in many respects to the development of cooperation [to a greater extent] with the countries of the former socialist bloc, and also working out and preventing the escalation of hot conflicts throughout the European Region. In addition, readiness for a military clash with the Warsaw Pact countries ceased to be the cornerstone. In accordance with this, a reduction in the total number of the so-called "Joint Armed Forces" was being prepared for execution, supported by the general situation of detente - the unification of Germany, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from most of the territory of Eastern European countries, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact (Mironova, 2016). It is worth noting here that in the following decade, the numbers reflecting the decline in the amount of equipment within the structure of the organisation speak for themselves: the air force alone was cut by more than 40 percent, and the nuclear spectrum was cut by more than 75 percent (Aleksandrov & Borovsky et al., 2021).
An important role in NATO's institutional advancement across the European landscape was played by the aforementioned "North Atlantic Cooperation Council", later transformed by 1997 into the "Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council". In essence, the structure met the objectives of developing and strengthening relations with the countries - the former republics of the USSR - in the context of the European integration processes taking place at that time. Moreover, several neutral countries, including Sweden and Finland, have acquired a "watchdog" position in this body. Thus, the institution in question stimulated the increase in relative geopolitical and strategic advantage, which was expressed in the distancing of the post-communist countries from Moscow (with formal cooperation with the latter), and with a significant economic and political weakening of the latter due to the collapse of the USSR. It is worth mentioning that processes that are symmetrical by analogy have also been observed since 1994 in the NATO bilateral program "Partnership for Peace", which is discussed in paragraph 1.3. The participants of the program were, among others, Albania, the Visegrad Group, Ukraine, Moldova and Russia with Belarus. In practical terms, the procedure for implementing the program meant the implementation of reforms in the field of armaments, as well as the preparation of the appropriate infrastructure, including the institutional one. An interesting aspect of the work of this program was that the countries participating in it had the right to apply to the bodies and to the NATO member states for advice in the event of destabilisation of their security level. This latent structure carried in embryo only part of that reform in the security system in the post-Soviet space, which was unfolding in place of the already dismantled, bipolar order.
Between the lines, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that in parallel with the creation and activities of the above-mentioned institute, one of the vital documents of the North Atlantic Alliance is being adopted "for service". In 1994, at the "summit" in Belgium, the concept of the so-called "Multinational Task Force" was adopted. It implied several fundamental positions. Firstly, the document under consideration established the organisation of the practical implementation of peacekeeping activities in the European region, which would include both the member countries of the organisation and international actors that formally remain outside the Alliance, but cooperate with it [on the above programs]. Secondly, based on the previous paragraph, the indirect consolidation of the US positions in Europe becomes obvious. Thus, the security system was now largely tuned to the political conjuncture - democratic principles and the primacy of the humanitarian dimension in politics - of the Western Community of Nations through NATO, which in turn absorbed alternative European organisations such as the WEU with its activities. All this took place with the involvement of a wide range of "new" states participating in the process, leaving, nevertheless, a significant place for American manoeuvre within the structure under consideration. Looking ahead, at this stage, in support of the above, it is worth citing the 1996 "National Security Engagement and Expansion Strategy" of the United States as an example. In it, the North Atlantic Alliance [and its advance to the East] was given the place of the "architect" of the democratic process with the corresponding maintenance of the security system and the withdrawal of crisis-conflict impulses (Ivanov, 2017). Thus,
a kind of competition from institutions such as the OSCE, on which hopes were placed for the multilateralism of political processes in Europe, was systematically eroded.
The next step in practice for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is Yugoslavia. The complex and sometimes unpredictable process of disintegration of the former "buffer" zone between the formal socialist bloc - the Warsaw Pact -and the "collective Western world" caused structural destabilisation in the south-eastern part of Europe. The overlapping armed conflicts throughout the Balkan lands, the influx of migrants, as well as the growth of potential "spreading fire" on the rest of the region led, among other things, to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution No. 836 in 1993. Its text indicated that the possibility of "tougher measures" was not excluded from the plan of action for a settlement in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In other words, they officially pointed to the prospect of deploying military operations to achieve stabilisation and peace in the territory under consideration. In accordance with this resolution, NATO forces, in which both the United States and the FRG and Spain took part, organised air raids in the second half of 1995 on Serb armed groups in BiH. This act entered the historiography under the name "Deliberate Power", implemented without any warning meeting with Russia as a regional [nuclear] power. In practical terms, it became the only large-scale activation of the forces of an international organisation at that time (Skvortsov, 2000).
In practice there were a number of restrictions that the Russian Federation had to reckon with. Between the lines, it is worth noting that Yeltsin, for example, in 1992 did not speak out against the so-called "Helsinki Declaration" - in accordance with it, the NATO Alliance acquired the right to conduct operations to maintain and form peace with direct support and in agreement with the OSCE and (or) by the United Nations. Actions against NATO by Russia at that moment largely implied the injection of serious resources from the latter into its own peacekeeping activities, which the Russian Federation could not yet afford. The costly processes in the post-Soviet space of the CIS to mitigate conflicts based on ethnicity left no room for manoeuvre for the then government, even with potential support from the OSCE or the UN (Fedorovich, 2006). In addition, Yevgeny Primakov noted in one of his books that the very next year after the bombings, the head of the US foreign policy department stated that the military-political structure of the Alliance would not stop growing, potentially involving the Ukrainian state in this process. It can be stated that while maintaining this order of affairs, the long-term tone of Russian foreign policy was set already in the 2000s, bearing in its embryo the echoes of the Cold War.
Returning to Yugoslavia, by the end of 1995, the document "The general framework agreement for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina" was formulated and adopted. It was the result of a strategic weakening of the Serbian side of the conflict, which led to negotiations based on diplomatic mechanisms. With reference to the text of this agreement and under the official mandate of the UN Security Council, NATO deployed on the territory of BiH the so-called "The implementation force" - more than fifty thousand military personnel. Thus, the military infrastructure of the North Atlantic Alliance consolidated its place in the region, which will not be reduced over time, but, on the contrary, will first go to the so-called "Peacekeeping Forces", albeit in a reduced composition, and later in 2004 to the EU in the context of peacekeeping mission "Althea" on the same territory.
At the same time, the North Atlantic Alliance begins its official move to the East - "from Spain." In the summer of 1997, during the Madrid meeting in the context of the activities of the main political body, the Alliance put forward a formal proposal for Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to join the organisation. Institutionally, this happens a few years later, when the aforementioned countries adopt and ratify the necessary documents, and already in the process of the Washington Summit in 1999, thus officially becoming part of NATO. In addition, at the same meeting, the North Atlantic Alliance formulates and adopts another revised Strategic Concept. In accordance with its text, the participating countries reaffirmed accountability to the principles' fulfilment of defensive quality and cooperation on a multilateral basis with the regional actors through the [above] built sub-institutions. At the same time, the Alliance has technically
pushed the boundaries of its actual responsibility. The logic behind this decision was as follows. Previously, the restrictive lines for NATO passed through the so-called "Euro-Atlantic region", which did not invade the lands of the socialist camp during the Cold War. Now the Alliance was allowing for potential unregulated military-political turbulence in the post-communist landscape. Therefore, the mission of maintaining stability throughout the entire territory fell on the "Joint Forces" of the organisation: from the Euro-Atlantic to Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. Also, in addition, NATO reserved the right to act globally - taking part in special peacekeeping programs of alternative international organisations, primarily the UN and the OSCE. In fact, the organisation occupied a niche that was shaped by the dismissal of socialist structures, as well as the respective laxity of the newly emerging CIS. It became a "fait accompli" that the organisation in question took on an offensive character with elements of active defence, demonstrated by the example of the same disorganisation of Yugoslavia. Acting in defiance of the international law tenets and in the absence of an appropriate sanction from the Security Council, in 1999 NATO carried out Operation "Allied Force". It is bombing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in response to the latter's military conflict in the Kosovo region. In the absence of a legal basis for such acts, Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, complemented the above events, saying that at the time of serious turbulence, resorting to armed interference in the process for the sake of achieving stability has the right to exist. The Russian Federation, on the contrary, came up with a resolution at the UN, where it censured the ongoing military acts of the Alliance - it was supported by a few, including China. The resolution was never adopted. On the one hand, this reflects in general terms the international geopolitical mood and conjuncture of that time, set by the Western community under the auspices of the United States.
Western European countries such as Germany or Belgium could not go against the winner of the Cold War for a number of reasons, including the Euro-Atlantic strategic solidarity that binds them and the impossibility of financial independence in matters of security. On the other hand, this state of affairs set a political trend that would have a destabilising character in the long run. Russia's categorical attitude towards the above events, expressed, for example, in the divergence of its national interests from the above process of establishing a unipolar world order, for more than half of the nineties affected the inter-institutional relations of regional forces in Europe. Thus, in the context of the CSCE (OSCE) Budapest Summit, Russia's proposal to develop this organisation into a central multilateral pillar of European security was sabotaged by America, as well as by Estonia and Germany. Such steps are easily explained. Western partners' reluctance [in the realistic tradition] to engage in sharing the relative benefits of potential multilateral cooperation has been reinforced by NATO's increasing role in the region's security architecture in practice, as discussed above. After the signing of the "Budapest Memorandum" at the end of 1994 between Russia, Ukraine, the United States and Great Britain, according to which the Soviet tactical nuclear arsenal passed from the Ukrainian side to the Russian side, the latter officially secured security guarantees in relation to Ukraine. Among other things, their list included recognition and political "reverence" for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. This event is important because already by 1997 NATO, under the auspices of the United States, concluded a special agreement with Ukraine - the "Charter on a Special Partnership". According to it, among other things, Ukraine pledged to maintain a high level of compatibility of its military area with the armed forces of the Alliance. Such, at first glance, for no particular reason, overlapping events are in fact a direct reflection of the so-called "NATO-centrism". The organisation in question, in defiance of those verbal promises that were given to the Soviet leadership at the end of the eighties about non-expansion, and which President Putin will often mention in the subsequent period, continued to increase the zone of its actual influence at the expense of the postSoviet area - the traditional zone of influence of Russia.
Meanwhile, the ranks of the Alliance countries were expecting an influx of new members. To join NATO in 2002, the applications of a number of countries were satisfied, including Slovenia, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Baltic region. In addition, the Alliance has activated as a new mechanism a program that provides for institutional
cooperation between countries that have signed a special package of documents with the North Atlantic Organization. According to it, the countries on both sides pledged to maintain a "most favoured nation" relationship. In accordance with this plan, the military and political institutions of the country cooperating in this direction were modified and adjusted -NATO technical standards, democratic mechanisms for the formation of power. The document was called "Individual partnership action plan", which was joined by Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Georgia, which in some classifications belongs to the European region. The design of the NATO "Reaction Forces" also became a logical offshoot. At a meeting in the Czech Republic in 2002, the leadership of the Alliance, in addition, documented the fact that NATO was strengthening due to a new stage of cooperation and participation in the activities of the organisation of states from the post-socialist territory. Thus, the North Atlantic alliance officially confirmed its passage through a structural transformation.
In turn, it is important to emphasise that the countries that expressed their desire and subsequently overwhelmingly joined NATO also sought close cooperation and partnership with the EU. So, in the spring of 2004, the Baltic countries, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Hungary, entered this institutional formation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization observed these trends—it could not fail to notice them. Under these conditions, the military Alliance is tactically and, as they say, in fact, in advance legally tying up the security system of [Eastern] Europe on its own, that is, including the American, armed contingents. A compilation of documents on NATO's consent to the transfer "for use" of some of its combat units in the event that the European Union conducts "own" peacekeeping missions was signed at the end of 2002 (Tuzovskaya, 2010). In practice, this state of affairs was demonstrated by activities in the post-Yugoslav territory. By 2004, when the official NATO troops left Bosnia and Herzegovina, they were replaced by forces under the auspices of the EU, in order to continue the implementation of the points of the Dayton agreements.
Within the time span established in this work from 1991 to 2004, another enlargement became the "final stage" for NATO. As mentioned above, the area of responsibility of the Alliance under the fifth article of the charter has expanded to include the countries of the Baltic region, as well as Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia - the largest since the existence of the organisation. Most of these countries have expanded public funding for the defence sector. For example, the Republic of Lithuania increased this figure by more than one percent. Regarding the "sixth wave", Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke negatively, emphasising in one of his statements that Russia does not support such a geopolitical trend. He also drew attention to the fact that the North Atlantic organisation does not pose a direct threat, and that the framework of the Russia-NATO program will stay active, since international regional security along the border line of the Alliance and the Russian Federation is a common matter that must be resolved through transparent diplomatic cooperation. Thus, over a period of more than a decade, NATO has advanced the former socialist camp's martial framework, systematically tying the European Community to the "service" it provided. At the same time, at the turn of the century, there was sufficient potential to ensure that the actions of the Alliance did not begin to contradict other powers' positions in the Eastern European region. In an interview with the BBC, Vladimir Putin even made the assumption that Russia could also join the organisation in question, because this would reflect the Russian desire for a multilateral, representative process of geopolitical and economic interaction within the so-called "civilised world". However, this was not destined to come true. The constant trend towards a decrease in positive coordination in relations between the Russian Federation and NATO predetermined a new round of transformations in the security system of Eastern Europe.
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