Russia, NATO Enlargement, and “Regions of Privileged Interests”

The Russian Challenge to the European Security Environment

“…NATO additionally refrained from undertaking contingency planning for the defence of Poland's sensitive border with Kaliningrad (NATO 1997;Michta 2006: 88;Berryman 2009: 168-169). (For more detailed analyses of the prolonged NATO enlargement process see Berryman 1998Berryman , 2009Berryman , 2011Smith 2006;Stent 2015;Yost 2014: Chapter 8. 56).…”

“…Unlike the peaceful reincorporation of France into the Great Power Concert of Europe in the post-1815 decade, or the successful reintegration of Germany and Japan into the international community in the post-1945 decade, repeating the mistake of the 1919 post-World War I settlement which isolated Weimar, Germany, Russia was consigned to an isolated and peripheral position in post-Cold War Europe (Deudney andIkenberry 2009/2010: 42-44;Kanet 2010: 154-155, 160-166;Cohen 2011: Chapter 7;Rynning 2015: 541-543). Subsequently, it has been recognized that another opportunity may have been missed to establish a European security framework in which the Russian Federation could play a larger and more responsible role (Monaghan 2010;Mankoff 2010;Lomagin 2011;Berryman 2011;Yost 2014: 225-227, 266;Lo 2015). Open to all the states of the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian space from Vancouver to Vladivostok, as well as the international organizations of NATO, the EU, the OSCE, the CSTO and the CIS, Medvedev's proposals were seen to be a device to undermine NATO and consolidate Russia's 'spheres of privileged interest' and were therefore shunted into the deadlocked OSCE 'Corfu process'.…”

A new age of global security: The 'Ukrainian question' and 'Kosovo precedent'

“…36 Nonetheless, a new anti-Russian government in Kiev launched a brutal linguistic and cultural policy of Ukrainization directly endangering the rights of ethnolinguistic Russians, who represent a clear majority of the population of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of the East Ukraine, Crimean Peninsula respectively 37 and other non-Ukrainian population, as well, who supported a pro-Russian course of the country. 38…”