By
Finian Cunningham
October 22, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House -
"Strategic
Culture Foundation
"-
Russia is
right to end the illusion of dialogue and
partnership when the reality is the other
party is cynically offering to shake hands
while trying to piss down your leg.
Russia told the U.S.-led North Atlantic
Treaty Organization to shove its faux
diplomacy, thus ending about 30 years of
post-Cold War talks and delegations which
have achieved little to nothing in terms of
normalizing relations.
Moscow may have slammed the door, but
it’s not locked. Russia said that from now
on it is up to NATO to take the first step
in improving relations, thereby implying
that sometime in the future Moscow would be
open to pursuing a new relationship.
NATO expressed “regret” over Russia’s
decision to cut diplomatic channels. German
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
asserted Russia was making
already-fraught relations worse, plunging
communications back into the icy recesses of
the Cold War.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
announced this week that Russia was
closing down its representative mission to
NATO in the Belgian capital, Brussels, where
the U.S.-led military alliance is
headquartered. Russia also gave notice to
NATO to close its information bureau in
Moscow. Any further communication that is
required can be conducted through the office
of the Russian ambassador to Belgium.
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Such paring down of communication links
may seem a reckless move at a time of
heightened tensions between NATO and Russia.
Surely, it might be better to keep as many
communication lines open as possible in
order to prevent misunderstandings and
miscalculations?
The truth is, however, that NATO’s ties
with Russia have degenerated a long time ago
to the abject level of an abusive
relationship. Moscow is thus right to walk
away, given the circumstances. To stick
around only invites more contempt from the
NATO side. That would be more dangerous.
Following the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991, Russia and NATO agreed to set
up dialogue and partnership. That culminated
in the Russia-NATO Founding Act of 1997.
Delegations were hosted in the respective
capitals.
But in contravention of earlier promises,
the NATO alliance has expanded eastwards to
include in its memberships several former
Warsaw Pact countries that border Russian
territory. NATO is eyeing former Soviet
Republics Georgia and Ukraine to join the
30-member bloc which Moscow has denounced as
a “red line” endangering its national
security.
The relentless expansion of NATO around
Russia’s western borders has greatly
disturbed the strategic balance deterring
nuclear war. Arguably, the situation is even
more precarious than at the height of the
former Cold War.
In addition, the United States has, in
tandem, ditched nuclear arms controls
treaties during its encroachment on Russian
territory. The Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty
was unilaterally abrogated by the U.S. in
2002, likewise the Intermediate-range
Nuclear Forces treaty in 2019 and the Open
Skies Treaty in 2020.
This all amounts to a gross repudiation
by the United States and its allies of the
Russia-NATO Founding Act.
To add insult to injury, all the while
NATO has reduced communications with Russia
to one-sided accusations of alleged Russian
malign conduct. Moscow is accused of
“threatening” Europe and Western
democracies, of “invading Ukraine” and of
“annexing Crimea” among other substantiated
allegations, such as “shooting down” a
Malaysian airliner, “assassinating”
opponents with chemical weapons and blowing
up ammo dumps in the Czech Republic. The
evident pattern here is to pump out
propaganda to antagonize.
If NATO conducted its relations with
Russia as a proper partnership, the
representative missions would be able to
discuss allegations in reasoned debate with
evidence and counter-evidence. As it is,
NATO has not engaged even minimally with
Russian representatives in recent years.
Accusations are presented as a fait accompli
without any due process for Russia to rebut.
NATO’s communications with Russia are more
akin to a medieval inquisition where the
accused is forbidden from having due process
and recourse to cross-examine the accusers.
The last straw for Russia was the
expulsion earlier this month of eight
Russian diplomats from its Brussels mission
to NATO. Without any substantiation, NATO
accused the Russian officials of being
“undeclared spies” and promptly blackballed
them.
The complete shutdown this week by Russia
of its NATO mission in Brussels as well as
of NATO’s bureau in Moscow was described by
the Russian foreign ministry as “just
retaliation”. Germany’s Heiko Maas would do
well to take his head out of the sand and do
some reflection on historical reality
instead of absurdly blaming Russia for
“making relations worse”. Was it Russia that
backed the coup d’état in Kiev in 2014, for
instance, that set off the Ukraine conflict?
Is Russia installing missile systems on the
Mexican border with the U.S.?
Blaming Russia for freezing the
relationship is classic getting things back
to front. Washington and its NATO allies are
the ones who have been turning the dial on
the thermostat always downwards, and
arrogantly presuming there would be no icy
consequences.
There has been no reciprocal
communication from NATO for years, but
rather only relentless Russophobia and
baseless allegations. In addition to
psychological warfare, the U.S./NATO hybrid
war has involved
mounting nuclear threats to Russia’s
national security from the installation of
new missile systems in Poland and Romania.
As Russian Defense Minister Sergei
Shoigui pointed out this week, the flights
of NATO warplanes near Russia’s borders have
increased by 30 percent compared with
last year. This week Russian jets were
scrambled to ward off two U.S. B-1B nuclear
capable bombers from Russia’s airspace in
the Black Sea.
The reality is that Washington and its
NATO allies have increasingly treated Russia
with disrespectful, irrational attitude. For
Russia to maintain a fake dialogue with an
organization that has gone from supposed
partnership to adversarial, and indeed
overtly hostile – that in itself only
invites further contempt. It is more
dangerous to stay in such a relationship
than to be out of it.
Far from jeopardizing security, Russia’s
decision to walk away from NATO is the right
one. It is right to end the illusion of
dialogue and partnership when the reality is
the other party is cynically offering to
shake hands while trying to piss down your
leg.