The problem with this any many similar contributions to the "security dialogue" since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis is that it is based on false premises. If one examines the documents and statements which led to the so-called post-cold-war settlement, one soon discovers a common thread. This thread is individual freedom, civil society and respect for national sovereignty. There is no mention of the sort of mutual security apparatus which Russia first proposed in 1954 as a counter to German membership in NATO. the Helsinki Final Act, which Gorbachev praises marked the final breath of a system, which would be guided by the great powers in the sort of European Security Council championed by Gorbachev in this article. Thus, false premise number one: there was no agreement to take account of "legitimate" security interests of nations which violated the principles of the Helsinki Final Act. There was also no ban on former members of the Warsaw Pact or former republics of the Soviet Union from joining a democratic organization such as NATO or the EU.



The West understood that Russia would feel left out of the leadership group. Thus, the NATO-Russia Founding Act and Council. Thus also the special structures between Russia and the EU. But what Western countries could not do for Russia was to undermine their existing institutions or forbid others from joining them. In those days, we all assumed that Russia understood that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a victory and not a defeat for the Russian people.



Twenty five years later, we seem to have been overly optimistic or even naive in this belief. First efforts at civil society drowned in corruption and economic collapse. As the internal situation grew more difficult, new Russia leaders revoked a sense of integration with the West for a democratic future in favor of authoritarian solutions fed by Russian nationalism. Gorbachev criticizes the Wet in the Balkans, but the Dayton Agreement was a joint project between Russia and the West. He forgets also our joint agreement to help Ukraine give up nuclear weapons by guaranteeing its sovereignty.



Neither NATO nor the EU were expanded against Russia. Rather, they were widened in order to bring to Central and Eastern Europe exactly the democratic futures which Russia claimed also to support. It now galls Putin that no one wishes to join his economic union and that prospective members are looking West. But one look at the relative situations in Russia and the West is more than enough to explain why.



Now we are supposed to engage Putin again, promise him that we will again take him seriously so that he will stop the war he is conducting against a sovereign country, a country which has long considered itself to be of the same blood line as Russia. Are we to apologize for our support of democracy? Are we to join the Kissingers and Genschers who tut tut and our demand that Russia actually support the principles it signed on to a quarter of a century ago?



In the end, the answer will not come from Washington or Berlin or any other capital. the answer is already to be seen in the economic collapse Russia is experiencing. This is caused not by sanctions but by Putin's refusal to modernize either Russian society or its economy. Russia's most important capital is its people. They are leaving the country even faster than the rubles which go to Western banks. There is no new security dialogue which can right the tragic social and economic wrongs of recent decade. We can hope only that the Russian people will finally install better leadership, as they did in 1992. In the meantime, we must treat Russia as a threat. Not a global menace, but certainly a threat to civilization in the Eurasian world.











