Hillary Clinton’s Message About Europe’s Security

For the first time since Barack Obama’s election, the Unites States has solemnly signaled its intention to weigh in on Europe’s affairs in matters of security. This message was delivered in Paris on January 29 in a speech from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Following Mr. Obama’s absence from the ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin wall in November 2009, it was not an easy matter of recovery.

One year after France’s return to the integrated command of NATO, Paris’s choice was not innocent. France wants to establish itself as a primary contact for Russia in Europe, as it is the cross-cultural year in which Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitri Medvedev will visit each other. Paris is multiplying the signs, small and large, of a French reset. Sarkozy thus welcomes Medvedev’s plan of reforming “Europe’s security architecture” with prudent good-will.

Since Obama’s administration is hoping for Moscow’s cooperation on many subjects — Iran, nuclear disarmament, Afghanistan — it would have been difficult for Mrs. Clinton to express reservations regarding the diplomatic solo of the French ally. Even if, while visiting Paris ten days later, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates let slip in the New York Times that he was not thrilled by the plan to sell the French ship Mistral to Russia — the first transaction of this kind by a NATO country.

Mrs. Clinton prepared the ground. She communicated, for the first time, the official American response to President Medvedev’s proposition of a new “treaty” on Europe’s security: No. We must work “in the context of existing institutions, such as the OSCE and the NATO-Russia Council, rather than by negotiating new treaties, as Russia has suggested,” she said.

Picking up a recurring theme that has been used since the 1990s in American diplomacy, the secretary of state mentioned the eastward growth of Euro-Atlantic structures. If “for years, Russia has expressed a sense of insecurity as NATO and the E.U. have expanded” to the east, Mrs. Clinton considers this grievance to be groundless; these processes have “actually increased Russia’s security.”

In Europe, “the cornerstone of security is the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states,” she highlighted. The “new democracies” must be able to trace their choices, “free from external intimidation or aggression.” The United States “repeatedly called on Russia to honor the terms of its ceasefire agreement with Georgia,” negotiated in 2008 by France. In this regard, Mrs. Clinton announced measures to push aside the ghost of new armed confrontation in the European arena: to save from limbo the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, from which Russia pulled back a few months before the Georgia war, and to create, within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), efficient alert mechanisms against regional tension or energy disruption.

NATO, continued Hillary Clinton, must reaffirm the solidity of Article 5, which expresses solidarity between allies. This goes through the development of contingency plans to be prepared for every possibility, in Eastern Europe and the Baltic region, for example. The new Strategic Concept of NATO, which will be put together this year, must also take into account energy security, “a particularly pressing priority.”

“Russia is no longer our adversary, but often a partner on key global issues,” insisted Mrs. Clinton. Russia is invited to join the new version of the anti-missile shield project, which the Obama administration is preparing in Europe. There is no “Western and Eastern Europe, old and new Europe, NATO and non-NATO Europe, E.U. and non-E.U. Europe. There is only one Europe. And it is a Europe that includes the United States as its partner. And it is a Europe that includes Russia,” said the secretary of state. This was her way of expressing a will to maintain a peaceful yet honest dialogue, far from the acrimony of the George W. Bush era. This resolve is coupled with another equally strong one to frame the debate in Europe face to face with a Russia that plays on the divisions between states, that is a tight negotiator regarding nuclear disarmament and that is looking to take advantage of the various resets that are offered to it without offering anything in return.

Three days after this speech, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair made a few observations regarding Russia in the Annual Threat Assessment. The “most likely” cause of a new crisis on the European continent would be “unresolved conflicts in the Caucasus,” with a risk of “a return to fighting” in Georgia, where “Moscow spread its military presence in separatists regions,” he maintains.

Russia puts its relations with ex-Soviet neighbors in a “zero-sum game with regards to the U.S.,” while the Russian secret services continue to be “strengthened and directed against the American interests in the world.” Mr. Medvedev is expected in Paris in early March.