Russia

On Friday, January 29, EWI will host a roundtable discussion on new NATO-Russia strategic concepts with Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin, Head of the Mission of the Russian Federation in Europe, and Ambassador Hans-Friedrich von Ploetz, former Ambassador of Germany to the Russian Federation.  The purpose of the roundtable is to identify ways to strengthen the NATO-Russia relationship.   Discussion topics will include NATO’s open-door policy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its limited decision-making power, the Treaty on Convernational Forces in Europe and Anti-Ballistic Missile defence in Europe.  EWI Vice President Greg Austin and Senior Associate Jacqueline McLaren Miller will moderate the discussion.

Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Ambassador to NATO.

From 2002 to 2004, Ambassador Rogozin was the Russian president’s special envoy dealing with relations between the European Union and the Kaliningrad exclave. He is a former leader of the Rodina (Motherland) party, the former Chairman of the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee and the former Vice-Chairman of Duma’s Committee for Security.

Ambassador Hans-Friedrich von Ploetz, Member of Experts’ Group on NATO’s new Strategic Concept.

Ambassador Ploetz retired from the German Foreign Service in 2005, following a long and distinguished career as a diplomat.  Between 2002 and 2005 he was Ambassador of Germany to the Russian Federation and, prior to this, he was German Ambassador to the United Kingdom.  In the early 1990s he was Permanent Representative of Germany on the North Atlantic Council, having been promoted from the position of Deputy Permanent Representative.  Ambassador von Ploetz has also occupied a number of senior positions at the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, heading departments dealing with transatlantic and European security issues. 

On Thursday, October 29th, EWI hosted a discussion on the future of missile defense systems in Europe.  The discussion focused on global defense from nuclear-armed terrorists and rogue states and included officials from Russian and NATO institutions, including the Russian Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control.

A cooperative missile defense system is essential for worldwide security, but discussions have often increased tensions between Russia and NATO. EWI’s seminar highlighted the role Europe can play in bridging the Russia-NATO divide and help build a cooperative missile defense system.

This seminar was the first in a series of events designed to catalyze new forms of cooperation between Russia and NATO. Future seminars will focus on other key security concerns including nuclear proliferation, arms control, terrorism, extremism and climate change.

The EastWest Institute, in collaboration with the governments of Switzerland and New Zealand, hosted a briefing at U.N. headquarters on the recent publication, Reframing Nuclear De-Alert: Reducing the Operational Readiness of U.S. and Russian Arsenals. The briefing, chaired by U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Sergio Duarte, featured comments from retired General Eugene E. Habiger and Sergey Rogov, both of whom contributed to the report.

The seminar provided an overview of the report’s recommendations to reduce alert levels of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, an essential step towards global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

On Thursday, 25 June, EWI, in cooperation with the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), convened an informal, off-the-record roundtable discussion of its Expert Working Group report Euro-Atlantic Security: One Vision, Three Paths.

Vladimir Baranovsky, Deputy Director of the IMEMO chaired the roundtable. Attendees included representatives of the Russian government, Russian academics and high-level diplomats from the U.S., the EU, Belgium, Romania, Sweden, Australia, Finland, Greece, Hungary and Turkey. EWI and IMEMO convened the event to give Russian colleagues an opportunity to respond to the report, which describes three possible paths towards revitalized security arrangements in the Euro-Atlantic region.

The Cold War ended two decades ago, but Russia and the U.S. still have thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at each other, ready to go off at a moment’s notice. EWI brought together leaders from Russia and the U.S. to produce new ideas that can build trust between the two countries and take these warheads off their high-alert status.

The objectives of this meeting were to:

1. Examine why past and current efforts to de-alert nuclear weapons have been unsuccessful;
2. Explore alternative ideas that have worked or might work; and
3. Build consensus among U.S. and Russian policymakers to bring these ideas into practice.

Some of the questions the participants considered:

• What is current state of operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems in the U.S. and Russia?
• What is the principal critique of current approaches to decrease operational readiness and increase decision-making time?
• What are the past experiences of nuclear-weapon states in de-alerting arsenals?
• What is the relationship between efforts to de-alert and ongoing disarmament efforts? Are they complementary?
• What de-alert approaches are acceptable to U.S. and Russia in the present context?
• How might we operationalize these approaches?

Dmitry Rogozin, Russian ambassador to NATO, proposed concrete steps to build trust and security between Europe, Russia, and the U.S. at an EWI seminar today. The seminar was the third and last in a series of seminars designed to temper tensions between the three powers in the aftermath of the crisis in Georgia. 

Proposals emerging from the discussion, which was conducted under Chatham House rules, included:

1. A summit of political leaders, including heads of state and heads of economic and regional security organizations, to determine concrete steps towards a new European security architecture, and to prevent bureaucratic systems from slowing down the process;
2. Establishment of a joint command structure of all relevant actors in Southeast Europe and the Caucasus.
3. Renovation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

High-level officials and energy experts from China and the United States engage participants in discussions on global energy security, the environment, climate change, and sharing technology that promotes energy efficiency.

Participants discussed the importance of improved bi-lateral relations and the formation of a common EU policy towards Russia. Peter Mandelson, the Commissioner of the European Union for Trade, stated that "both parties should seek to make these relations bigger than any individual issue". The conference was attended by more than 300 people.