How effective will it be, and how far can Russia and the United States go in ensuring global security?
Russia and the United States announced their intention to create a new joint bilateral structure for international security.
This was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 8, 2021. There is an agreement on the creation of such an organization, the parties have begun to develop proposals on its structure and functions. Russia should prepare its proposals within 7-10 days and give them to the American side for review.
A natural question arises: what will such an organization do? What will it look like? How effective will it be, and how far can Russia and the United States go in ensuring global security? More precisely, in the area of preventing the risk of direct military collisions everywhere, from the underwater kingdom to space orbits.
Before guessing about the structure of such an organization, you need to understand what its functions will be. What tasks will it solve for its founders? How to help (or hinder) the pursuit of their national interests?
Offhand, it can be assumed that the first function that such an organization should have should be monitoring. The structure should rely on data from various special services and departments, but it must somehow come to a common denominator in the interpretation of these data. That is, the structure will outline the circle of organizations, the data of which is either recognized by it immediately, or after verification by its own structures, which should arise and receive their own analytical and methodological apparatus.
If this is not done, the structure will turn into another negotiating platform, duplicating existing analogs. Then it will be possible to say: its creators do not need it as a real security tool and was created solely for pressure on each other. But this is irrational – one can exchange accusations and ultimatums anywhere, from the UN rostrum to the recently killed Russia-NATO format. That is, it is logical to assume that such an organization will not be solely a platform for negotiations.
Consequently, negotiations should turn from periodic events to a permanent process, and for this one cannot do without monitoring and expertise. This means that it is necessary to create a joint apparatus, at least at the level of secretaries, and allocate a budget for this. At least for the sake of determining the methods of calculating and analyzing the data of national intelligence.
In addition to monitoring and analysis, the structure should have functions for predicting and assessing risks. This, too, must be done by someone. It is not enough to collect the conclusions of secret intelligence reports. This data still needs to be somehow legalized, that is, to show your knowledge without highlighting the sources and methods of obtaining information. This is another problem, but a technical problem.
Much worse for the structure being created is that it is not created by allies, but by enemies. It’s not worth speaking more softly, we are not in sports and not in business. If Russia did not have nuclear weapons, the United States would not hesitate to destroy us like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we are not rivals, not competitors or partners, we are enemies. Existential and eternal.
And this means that in relation to each other we have a strategy of containment, rejection, harm as the main task of the survival of our own. The organization being created should not contradict the main strategy – harming the main strategic rival without the risk of developing an uncontrollable conflict. To what extent will a joint security structure help or hinder this primary strategic objective? Will there be a contradiction between the goals of the founding states and the goals of the organization?
It is only clear that there is a contradiction, but a mechanism is needed to transport it to a constructive channel, to equalize the potentials of the parties, otherwise the structure will undermine the security of one side and strengthen the other. Such an alignment will not be acceptable and will lead to an exit from the format. And if so, then the functions of the structure tend to be superficial – monitoring, negotiations. Bidding on how to interpret some data and how to ignore others.
Propaganda will get one more institution, but it will not add security. Do both sides need it now? Hardly. The mountain shouldn’t give birth to a mouse, or it won’t be a mountain anymore. Russia and the United States do not intend to create empty structures now.
It is absolutely clear that the structure being created will correspond with others and will have to involve the opposite side in its foreign policy course, not interfere with foreign policy. The temptation to turn the structure into another manipulative tool will be very great.
But any attempts by the parties to act behind each other’s backs will immediately kill the raison d’être of this structure. It will turn into a screen for guerrilla warfare and subversive actions of the founders against each other. The parties do not have confidence anyway, and caught by the hand, they will be even more filled with mutual suspicion and strive to work proactively on the principle of “you die today, and I will tomorrow”. Instead of safety, we get increased danger in more difficult conditions.
That is, the created structure has the potential of virality: in case of unsuccessful behavior, immunity will be undermined, and safety will decrease. Instead of trust, the security structure will feed mistrust, which will have nothing to cure. It’s not a new security structure to create. And there is no other way to protect yourself, except by creating a structure with many functions for this.
Thus, we can say that the structure being created must build up the potential for trust and reduce mistrust, otherwise it is harmful. Enemies create a structure, that is, by creating it, they both go to a contradictory step for themselves: they fall into the fork between changing their goals, which cannot be changed, and emasculating the meaning of the structure being created, which will worsen the state of relations in comparison with the present, and so useless. Or change your goals, or change the goals of the structure. How to be in this case?
If they only negotiate, then this is the weakest thing that can be created. Another platform for endless disputes, an analogue of the Minsk process. Nobody observes anything, and the war continues.
If we add monitoring to the negotiations, then the question of evaluating the initial data will arise. It should not be like in the case of the Ukrainian downed Boeing flight MH17: I see these data, but I don’t see these at point-blank range. Here it is necessary to agree that the data is accepted and verified by two parties. And in case of discrepancies, an expert group is created, coming to a common opinion. And only after that the heads of state make this or that decision.
What will be the decisions of this structure for the presidents of the United States and Russia? Required? Advisory? Recommendations? It is clear that the weaker the status, the lower the security. After all, the structure will directly affect the sovereignty of the founders. They will either have to make structure decisions or discard them. In this case, conciliation commissions should work, which should have an agreed regulation.
As already mentioned, monitoring will entail joint forecasting and planning. How will this affect the expansion plans of the two global states? It is clear that it will have a deterrent effect. Hence the desire to limit the scope of the structure’s competence to issues of preventing a nuclear or threatening escalation into a nuclear collision with issues.
But security is a broad, and most importantly, deep concept. Starting in ideology and economics, it moves into the military sphere. Where will the competencies of the newly created structure end, and how will they influence the policies of the founders?
The conclusion can be as follows: the structure will be created as the simplest and most flexible form, initially carrying a conflict of interests and contradictory functions. Hence, the structure will be blurred and the efficiency low. But this is a reason to use the situation to develop relations. If security becomes a real need, it will be necessary to build up the apparatus of the structure and load it with new regulations and functions.
It is possible to deepen the competence of the structure quite strongly, it would be the desire of the parties. Or you can limit delegations to sitting opposite each other once a month or a quarter. You can even transfer functions to the attached officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Department. They will use the data of the military and try to agree on the limits of what is permissible for each other.
The organization, in any case, will be somewhere in between the permanent mission and the anti-crisis commission. The coordination bar will float, and it is not yet clear who, where and how will set it. How will the one who replaces Biden behave in relation to the structure? Will the structure become multilateral? Or will it be an addition to existing institutions? How will US allies behave? Will the UK torpedo the structure, or will the US be able to keep the British lion on a leash on the sidelines?
The broader the tasks of the organization being created, the more difficult it will be for it to act in the general context of the conflicting policies of the founding countries. It is easy to solve small problems, but it is unlikely that this will suit Putin and Biden. Most likely, they will try to create on the basis of this structure some kind of permanent consultation and coordination mechanism bypassing the establishment.
Even if this succeeds, there will be more security. The structure will initially act on the principle of a fire brigade – extinguish where it burns. Then she will objectively move on to the prevention of fires. This will have far-reaching implications if implemented. Anything can be broken, but for now a certain structure can be built with the possibility of completion if the developers wish. Will there be such a desire, and in what case it can appear – that’s what is most important in this situation.
RUSSTRAT