The head of NATO says Europe has misread Vladimir Putin for years and now must scramble to push back

By Sohrab Ahmari

 
Until recently, members of the Russian delegation to NATO were free to roam at will about the Western alliance's headquarters here on the outskirts of the Belgian capital. The Russians had an awkward habit of listening intently to others' conversations at the cafeteria, yet their presence was tolerated in the name of dialogue.

Not anymore. In response to Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea, NATO earlier this month suspended all practical cooperation with Moscow. Now most of the 70 or so Russian personnel enjoy about the same level of access to the alliance headquarters as journalists. It's a small but significant sign of what NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen calls "the new security environment" in Europe. 


With his salt-and-pepper hair, chiseled jaw and crisply pressed navy suit, Mr. Rasmussen, 61, cuts a handsome figure. The former Danish prime minister is also one of Europe's most serious thinkers on defense matters—a hawkish figure, by European standards, who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan despite considerable opposition at home. His term as NATO secretary-general, which began in 2009, was supposed to come to a close in December but was extended through September 2014 so he might oversee preparations for the alliance's September summit in Cardiff, Wales.

Mr. Rasmussen sits down with me in a meeting room decorated with solemn portraits of his predecessors—men who led NATO through the Cold War and helped usher in "a Europe whole and free," as then-President George H.W. Bush put it in a 1989 speech commemorating the alliance's triumphant 40th anniversary.

Now that vision of Europe is imperiled once more. "I see Ukraine and Crimea in a bigger context," Mr. Rasmussen says. "I see this as an element in a pattern, and it's driven by President Putin's strong desire to restore Russian greatness by re-establishing a sphere of influence in the former Soviet space."
Destabilizing Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus is a pillar of the Kremlin's strategy. "It's in Russia's interest to see frozen, protracted conflicts in the region, such as in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Crimea," Mr. Rasmussen says of regions where Moscow has asserted control. "If you look at a map, you will see why it's of strategic importance for Russia."

Moscow's interfering with states on the Continent's eastern periphery prevents them from joining NATO, Mr. Rasmussen says, since the alliance is reluctant to accept new members involved with border disputes. "At the same time," he says, "it plays a role in energy security. The possibility to establish alternative pipelines circumventing Russia—including through Azerbaijan and in the South Caucasus—is very much dependent on peace and stability in that region. All this is part of President Putin's geopolitical and strategic thinking."

The Kremlin needs modern weapons systems and well-trained forces to realize its vision, and Mr. Rasmussen is alarmed by the improvements he has seen in the Russian military during the past few years. Contrasting Russia's military action against Georgia in 2008 with its invasion of Crimea this year, he says, "we have seen an incredible development of the Russian ability to act determinedly and rapidly. We have seen better preparation, better organization and more rapid action. They have also invested in more modern capabilities. We shouldn't underestimate the strength of the Russian armed forces." Now 40,000 of those troops are massed on the border of eastern Ukraine.

Moscow boosted military spending by 79% in the past decade, according to a Brookings Institution estimate, and military spending amounted to 4.5% of Russian gross domestic product in 2012, according to the World Bank. Most Western European states, by contrast, began cutting defense long before the recession and have kept doing so even as their economies have stabilized. France spent 1.9% of its GDP on defense in 2013; Denmark spent 1.4%; Germany, 1.3%; and Spain, 0.9%.

"We in Europe have disarmed too much, for too long," Mr. Rasmussen says. "We can't continue to cut defense budgets deeply while Russia is increasing her defense budget. . . . It has created a growing gap across the Atlantic between the U.S. and Europe. Today the U.S. spends around 75% of the overall NATO defense investment. I'm concerned that in the long run it will weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance if this trend continues."

Then there is Europe's reliance on Russian oil and gas. Mr. Rasmussen thinks the dependency risks interfering with Western self-defense: "There's no doubt that Europe should reduce its dependency on imported energy from Russia," he says. So does the NATO secretary-general endorse shale-gas fracking? The drilling technique that has led to a U.S. energy boom has met much green resistance in Europe. He chuckles and declines to make specific recommendations: "It's a question of a more diversified energy supply, including the establishment of alternative pipelines."

Equally worrying is the West's drive to unilaterally disarm its nuclear arsenal just as the Russian expansionist tide rises. The U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday announced that it will disable 56 submarine-based nuclear-launch tubes, convert 30 B-52 bombers to conventional use, and remove 50 missiles from America's underground silos—all well ahead of the 2018 deadline set by the New Start Treaty with Russia and despite the crisis in Ukraine.

Reductions to Western nuclear forces "must take place in a balanced manner, based on more transparency" from Russia, Mr. Rasmussen says. "The fact is that since the end of the Cold War, NATO nuclear powers have reduced the number of nuclear weapons significantly, while you haven't seen the same on the Russian side." 

The result is that "today you have a clear imbalance between the NATO powers and Russia in that respect," Mr. Rasmussen says. "And in the light of ongoing events in Ukraine, I don't think there is the right climate for moving forward when it comes to nuclear disarmament or arms control. There's no sign whatsoever that Russia will provide more transparency." (Following the interview, a NATO spokesman said Mr. Rasmussen wanted to add this clarification: "Reductions in U.S. strategic forces under the New Start Treaty do not affect the significant U.S. commitments to NATO or the U.S. nuclear-force posture in Europe.")

Behind the NATO capability crisis lies a more fundamental problem of entrenched worldviews. In the years after the Cold War, Western leaders came to believe that European security depended not on confronting the Kremlin, but on engaging it. "We were all very enthusiastic after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the removal of the Iron Curtain, and the breakdown of communism and the Warsaw Pact," Mr. Rasmussen says. "It seemed that we could develop a new vision of Europe whole, free and at peace—in cooperation with Russia."

In 1997, the alliance and Russia adopted the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, resolving to "build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security." The NATO-Russia Council was formed five years later. The council opened NATO headquarters to Russian diplomats—a step that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War.

The Kremlin seemed to respond positively at the time. "In my previous capacity as prime minister of Denmark I have met President Putin on several occasions," Mr. Rasmussen recalls. "I still remember when we established the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. I remember a Putin who delivered what I would call a very pro-Western speech. I left with the impression that he felt strongly committed to delivering this relationship between Russia and NATO." 

So what changed? "I think he changed his worldview," Mr. Rasmussen says of the Russian leader. "We still remember his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, at which he stated that the breakdown of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy of the last century. That was the first indication that he had changed his worldview, and now we have seen it implemented in practice, first in Georgia in 2008 and now reaffirmed in Crimea." 

The Kremlin and its Western apologists attribute the shift in Russian behavior to NATO expansion in the early 2000s. Mr. Rasmussen rejects this line of thinking. "I hope that Mr. Putin doesn't believe his own words," he says. "He can't seriously consider NATO as an enemy, as a threat. We have never had an intention to attack Russia."

States on Europe's periphery are eager to join NATO, Mr. Rasmussen says, "because we represent basic values that people desire to see implemented in their countries, such as individual liberty, democracy, the rule of law and on top of that economic opportunities, because our community of nations also represents economic freedom. . . . So while Putin tries to establish his Eurasian Union using pressure, not to say oppression, people are queuing up to join our organization voluntarily."

NATO's outreach to Russia, meanwhile, didn't stop even after Mr. Putin bared his fangs in the South Caucasus. "Despite the setback in 2008—the Georgia crisis—in 2010 at the NATO-Russia Summit we decided to develop what we call a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia," he says. "We invited Russia to cooperate on missile defense. You will see during these post-Cold War years we have done a lot to promote NATO-Russia cooperation."

Has NATO's engagement and cooperation with Moscow paid any security dividends? "Obviously not," Mr. Rasmussen replies without hesitation. "We have seen a revisionist Russia trying to redraw the European map by force. That's a wake-up call. That's a completely new security environment and of course we have to adapt to that." He adds: "This goes far beyond Crimea."

Mr. Ahmari is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe. 

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