Putin vs NATO/U.S.: Will Demands Be Met? If Not, Then What?

Russia’s Putin to NATO: Commit Suicide or Face All-Out War

Soeren Kern

Gatestone Institute.

Russia has threatened war if the United States and its NATO allies fail to comply — unconditionally — with sweeping demands for a new security arrangement in Europe.

The demands, issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry, require the United States to remove its nuclear umbrella from Europe and allow Russia to reestablish its Soviet-era sphere of influence over Eastern Europe.

The Russian demands, which effectively require NATO to commit suicide, are so obviously outrageous and unmeetable that Western analysts are split over interpreting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motives. Some say he is using the impossible list of demands as a pretext to invade Ukraine. Others think he is playing a weak hand to try to divide the West and reorder Europe’s security architecture in Russia’s favor.

Nearly all Western analysts agree: Putin is taking advantage of the weakness of U.S. President Joe Biden, divisions between the United States and Europe, disagreements within the European Union, and the fecklessness of the leaders of Europe’s largest countries, particularly France and Germany.

On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry published two draft treaties: one between Russia and the United States, and the other between Russia and NATO.

Russia’s draft “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees” listed more than a dozen demands, including:

– NATO membership must be denied to all states of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have been members of the alliance since 2004.

– NATO is prohibited from expanding further eastward, including to countries such as Sweden and Finland.

– The United States is prohibited from flying bombers or deploying warships, including within the framework of NATO, in areas outside of its national airspace and national territorial waters, respectively.

– The United States is prohibited from deploying its armed forces or armaments, including within the framework of NATO, in any area where such deployment could be perceived by Russia as a threat to its national security.

– The United States must remove all its nuclear weapons from Europe.

– The United States is prohibited from deploying ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside of its territory.

Russia’s draft “Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” put forward additional demands:

– NATO member states are prohibited from deploying military forces to any country that became a member of the alliance after May 27, 1997, when NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations. This includes 14 countries that have become NATO members during the past 25 years: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

– NATO is prohibited from deploying land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles to anywhere where such missiles can reach Russia.

– NATO is prohibited from any further enlargement, including the accession of Ukraine as well as any other state.

– NATO is prohibited from military cooperation with Ukraine as well as other states in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and in Central Asia.

While Russia expects NATO and the United States to comply with its demands, Moscow, in return, has offered only a vague commitment to “not create conditions or situations that threaten the national security of the other parties.” The draft treaty imposes no requirements for Moscow to redeploy Russian forces.

On December 20, Konstantin Gavrilov, a Russian diplomat in Vienna, said that relations between Moscow and NATO had reached a “moment of truth.” He added:

“The conversation needs to be serious and everyone in NATO understands perfectly well despite their strength and power that concrete political action needs to be taken, otherwise the alternative is a military-technical and military response from Russia.”

On December 23, Putin, during a four-hour press conference, repeated his stance that “any further NATO movement to the east is unacceptable.” A few days later, the Kremlin described NATO expansion as “a matter of life and death” for Russia.

On December 26, Russia warned Finland and Sweden against joining NATO. “It is quite obvious that the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO would have serious military and political consequences that would require an adequate response from Russia,” said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Russia hopes to obtain new security guarantees during a series of upcoming meetings with American and European officials. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman are scheduled to lead bilateral security talks in Geneva on January 10.

Russia is set to hold talks with NATO in Brussels on January 12, before a broader meeting in Vienna on January 13 involving the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which includes the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

Meanwhile, Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s eastern border amid fears of an imminent invasion.

Veteran geopolitical analyst Andrew Michta, writing for the inestimable blog 19fourtyfive, argued that Putin is trying to divide NATO, humiliate the West and eject the United States from Europe:

“Judging by the scope of the demands presented by Russia in the two so-called ‘draft treaties’ with NATO and the United States, respectively, Moscow must have no illusions that these would be accepted, for they would remake Euro-Atlantic security, creating conditions that would undermine NATO and America’s ability to work with its allies. 

Putin may have already decided to move militarily, and calls for the West to negotiate could create a ‘maskirovka’ [Russian military deception] and in doing so provide a casus belli for Moscow, which would try to claim that Washington had refused to consider its terms.

“If the demands to negotiate have a larger aim it is to divide the alliance. Most importantly, the idea that Russia would need a written treaty guarantee to forestall Ukraine or Georgia’s accession to NATO is absurd. Putin knows that so long as he occupies Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, the countries have no chance of making it into NATO, for a vote to enlarge the alliance would mean in effect a vote to go to war with Russia. Moscow’s demand that the effective status quo be confirmed by treaty is thus nothing short of an attempt to humiliate the West.

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