Russia seeks Czech troop limit

Demands from Russia that NATO limit troop deployments in former Soviet bloc countries, including the Czech Republic, are framing relations in the lead-up to a Nov. 19-20 summit in Lisbon.

NATO is slated to unveil its once-in-a-decade strategy document that orients the military alliance's priorities for the following 10 years. Russian officials were invited to attend this year's summit in particular as NATO leaders are expected to include plans for a controversial European missile-defense system in the strategic planning document.

However, just days before the meeting, a Russian draft of a potential NATO cooperation agreement emerged in which Russia demanded troop levels be limited in former Warsaw Pact nations, including Poland and the Czech Republic, in exchange for its increased cooperation with NATO missions in Afghanistan. The draft document was dated December, but has only just come to light in Russian press reports.

"It doesn't make any security sense," Nik Hynek, a researcher for the Institute of International Relations Prague, told The Prague Post. He said Russia was motivated by the wane in their political dominance in the region after a number of former Soviet-bloc countries joined the trans-Atlantic military alliance. "They are trying to exploit NATO differences. They are obviously well aware of the different tensions in NATO related to the strategic concept."

Increased cooperation with Russia has been touted by NATO as a major priority in the months before unveiling their new security strategy.

"The time has come for a fresh start for NATO-Russia relations," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a consultation meeting in Moscow Nov. 3. "NATO does not see Russia as an enemy. We see Russia as a partner of strategic importance."

However, that cooperation has also been the greatest source of contention between alliance members, according to Hall Gardner, who has written on the subject as chair of the International and Comparative Politics Department at the American University in Paris.

"NATO is presently split between those who seek a closer relationship with Russia, such as France and Germany, versus those who are opposed, most Eastern European states," he said. "NATO is involved in a delicate balancing act between protecting new NATO members while seeking out ways to cooperate with Russia. ... The dilemma is that the idea of cooperative or overlapping security guarantees tends to upset those hardliners who argue for more traditional U.S. and NATO security guarantees that do not depend upon Russia."

The countries implicated in Russia's demands have remained tight-lipped. The Czech government has not commented publicly on the request and maintains one of its priorities in contributions to the strategic plan is helping to generate a new partnership with Russia. A spokesman for the Defense Ministry seemed doubtful that the proposed limits on troop levels had been connected with operations in Afghanistan.

"Limitations of troop levels generally fall into the context of a debate on the update of the existing conventional arms control regime in Europe," said Oto Weniger, a Defense Ministry spokesman. "This issue is therefore absolutely unrelated to the NATO-Russia cooperation in Afghanistan."

But Russian daily Kommersant reported the demand was contained in a draft given to Rasmussen by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Nov. 3, who then commented to the paper about the draft.

"We want to secure a situation in which the level of predictability of military activities in countries that recently joined NATO be higher than it is now," Lavrov said.

No one expects NATO to accept the proposal, or that Russia will try to see the agreement through, according to experts, and an unidentified NATO official quoted in the Kommersant report implied that acceptance of the agreement was unrealistic.

"I think the way it will work is it will be rejected, and the Russians are not going to be happy about that, but if you give them procedurally the space to make the argument, they will get into a situation that will be palatable to them," Hynek said.

By allowing Russia to influence talks and negotiations, NATO is actually giving the country wiggle room to accept upcoming NATO decisions - mostly, the establishment of a missile-defense system in Europe - without losing the appearance of strength, Hynek said. The plan was originally conceived under former U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, but was then scrapped by President Barack Obama. Now, missile defense has been co-opted by NATO during the drafting of a new security strategy.

Russia and NATO have overlapping interests in other areas that would also make any serious break in their relationship detrimental.

"NATO needs to treat Russia as an equal; this is particularly true as NATO needs Russian assistance in Afghanistan and in countering Iranian missile capabilities," Gardner said, also citing common issues like combating the drug trade, countering terrorism, piracy and disaster response.

"With regards to Afghanistan, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the United States and NATO cannot 'win' in Afghanistan by themselves. ... Concurrently, if the United States and NATO should lose in Afghanistan to the Taliban and aligned groups, it will probably hurt Russian interests in Central Asia as much [as], if not more than, it will hurt U.S. interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan," he added.

Cat Contiguglia can be reached at
ccontiguglia@praguepost.com