Graef speech at 28 BSPC

Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference26.08.2019Dr. Alexander GraefInstitute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg(IFSH), GermanyBeyond Deterrence:Regional Stability through Confidence Building and Arms ControlAfter the end of the Cold War the Baltic Sea Region has been transformed froma highly militarized zone into a region of intensive cooperation. It has come to beperceived as the ‘island of stability’ on the European continent and as a possiblebridge between Russia and Europe. However, since 2014 there has been anobvious shift towards a more confrontational way of thinking about the regionalsecurity environment. In consequence, the Baltic Sea region has emerged as oneof the main areas of confrontation between Russia and NATO in the securityrealm.This begs the question: How can we design effective conflict managementinstruments to solve the increasingly tense security situation in the region? Whichtools are at our disposal to prevent (military) conflict and mitigate risks ofescalation?Historically speaking there have always been two basic approaches ininternational conflict management: The first one is deterrence, the second isreassurance. Although they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they stemfrom different perceptions of other state’s intentions and provide opposingrecommendations of how to deal with the resulting security risks.1In short, deterrence strategies take the perception of threat for granted. Theyassume that (potential) opponents want to change the status quo and, eventually,may attempt to achieve territorial expansion, regime change or the subversion ofsocietal cohesion. Given this judgment of intentions, increasing militarycapabilities are interpreted as evidence for aggressive behavior. In turn,defending the status quo requires military strength and resolve in order todiscourage the opponent from proceeding with its aggressive behavior.Reassurance strategies, by contrast, assume that states primarily seek securitywithin the anarchic setting of international relations. Increasing militarycapabilities of (potential) opponents are viewed as an expression of their ownsubjective ‘insecurity’ and the fear to lose out against others. Hence, thesestrategies attempt to reassure (potential) opponents of one’s own benignintentions, reducing miscommunication and misguided threat perceptions.How do these two conceptual prepositions play out in practice in the Baltic SeaRegion?Since 2014 the actors within the region, primarily Russia and NATO, but alsoFinland and Sweden, have increased their military engagement. Both the volumeof military expenditures, particularly in the three Baltic states, the number ofmilitary exercises and the quality of deployment have gone up. From theperspective of NATO and its partners, these measures have been necessary tocounter possible Russian aggression after the annexation of Crimea. In essence,Russia is predominantly seen as a power willing to change the status quo, eitherdue to conventional military deployment or what has been termed ‘hybrid or new-generation warfare’. Moreover, there are well- known national sensitivities,particularly in the Baltics, which lead to fears that the Russian intervention in2Ukraine could become a precedent to be repeated in Estonia or Latvia with itsnumerous Russian-speaking minorities.In this context at its Wales Summit in September 2014 NATO reaffirmed itscommitment to collective security, established the readiness action plan with thevery high readiness joint task force (VJTF) and integration units (NFIU) on theEastern flank, and expanded the NATO response force (NRF) from 13,000 to40,000 troops. NATO’s Warsaw Summit in July 2016 further strengthened theemphasis on deterrence and defense establishing an enhanced forwardpresence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian and Poland with four multinationalbattalions and a tailored forward presence with a multinational brigade in Craiova,Romania. The 2018 Brussels summit sought to further strengthen the level ofreadiness by initiating the so-called “four thirties” process, that is having 30mechanised battalions, 30 air squadrons and 30 combat vessels, ready to usewithin 30 days or less by 2020.This increasing move from intra-alliance assurance to emphasizing deterrence isalso visible in the re-naming and re-structuring of the European ReassuranceInitiative, initiated by President Obama in 2014. Since 2017 it has been known asthe European Deterrence Initiative with a significant increasing budget.Russia, on the other hand, sees itself as a status quo power and views NATO,and the United States above all, as a challenger to the status quo in the post-Soviet space. In the Baltic Sea region, Russia is primarily concerned with twoissues: free territorial access to the Baltic sea for maritime transport given itsenormous economic importance and the security of Kaliningrad and St.Petersburg. Russia’s military force posture in the region follows two logics thatare, however, difficult to distinguish for external observers:3First, modernization efforts in the context of the ongoing military reform since2008 and second, (particularly since 2014) a more specific deterrence strategytailored to the regional security environment. Another challenge concerns thelevel of uncertainty about the possible missions that is whether capabilities areoffensive and/or defensive in nature. Finally, one needs to admit that the level ofwhat is perceived as the ‘militarization’ of Kaliningrad depends very much on thechosen timeframe for comparison.Two examples to may suffice to illustrate these points:First, in 2016-2017 and again in March this year the Kaliningrad oblast receivedin total four battalions of S-400 Triumf Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (the samethat have been recently arrived in Turkey). They replaced four battalions of olderS-200V and S-300V SAM systems. Thus, in quantitative terms the facts on theground have not changed, although there is a definite qualitative improvement.Second, in summer 2018 Russia formed an armored tank battalion within the 11thArmy Corps stationed in the Kaliningrad oblast, which in 2018 received 30additional T-72 tanks. Hence, in total, the number of tanks in the region increased,yet one needs to keep in mind that in 2010-11 the force was drastically reduced.At the time more than 800 tanks were withdrawn from Kaliningrad. In addition,the force posture in the Pskov Oblast neighboring Estonia and Latvia hasremained stable for two decades.Nevertheless, Russia is indeed increasing its military capabilities in the region,particularly those that provide anti-access and anti-denial functions. Thisincludes, for example, now permanently deployed Iskander-M short-rangeballistic missiles (that replaced obsolete Tochka-M SRBM), Bastion coastal4missile system with Oniks anti-ship supersonic cruise missiles and the alreadymentioned S-400 Triumf systems.The main problem, however, concerns not these capabilities as such butdiverging attributions of mission and threat perceptions. Russia can point tostrategic deterrence and, for example, criticizes the purchasing of US Patriotmissiles and JASSM cruise missiles by Poland, the Aegis Ashore site inRedzikowo and temporarily deployment of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System(HIMARS) in Estonia (and their sale to Romania). In turn, the ultimate fear ofsome NATO member is that Russia may employ both its anti-access and anti-denial capabilities in Kaliningrad and the vulnerability created by the Suwalki Gap– the 100km stretch of land on Poland’s border with Lithuania dividing theRussian enclave on the Baltic Sea from Belarus – to prevent access to the North-Eastern flank of NATO, presenting the Alliance with a Crimea-style fait accompli.To sum up: The overall regional security situation in the Baltic Sea regionincreasingly appears to resemble a deterrence model of conflict management: Allparticipants are convinced that they are status quo powers that are potentiallyinsecure, because of the aggressive behavior of the other side. In consequence,the partners practice deterrence to show strength and resolve.Unfortunately, the chosen strategies entail problematic political consequences forall parties involved.First, there is amble space for misperceptions of motives, intentions and overallgoals, which is amplified by the obvious lack of trust between the partners. As aresult, the movement of military units but also encounters in the Baltic air spacecan lead to dangerous incidents based on miscommunication.5Second, the focus on deterrence, has the tendency to become a self-fulfillingprophecy: Based on a false definition of the situation states initiate deploymentsthat over time make the originally false conception come true. A status-quo powerwithout malign intentions may come to perceive deterrent measures as a threatto its security resulting in a security dilemma.Third, and this is a particular problem in Russia-NATO relations, deterrencerhetoric is sometimes pursued not for actual military purposes or to communicateresolve but to assure allies of intra-alliance solidarity or to strengthen bilateralrelations. NATO’s four multinational battalions and the more recent US-Polishdeclaration on defense cooperation regarding the US force posture are a case inpoint. This can create both wrong impressions on the target state and set inmotion a domestic political campaign that mistakes alliance assurance (which, nodoubt, is a very important aspect) for effective deterrence.Finally, the overall emphasis on deterrence has led to an increase of hazardousincidents on and above the Baltic Sea between Western and Russian aircraft andvessels that could easily run out of control.Given these inherent dangers, we need to ask ourselves, which political andmilitary alternatives are there to reduce risks of escalation? How can we eitherreplace or at least augment the present deterrence policies to ensure that aregional arms race (in terms of increasingly more deployments) does not takeplace?The larger aim of these alternative measures would be to deal with theconsequences of deterrence strategies (which are conducted in parallel), that isreducing the level of uncertainty about missions – whether they are offensiveand/or defensive – of present and planned deployments. More and better6information through confidence-building should relax the strategic need fordeterrence and brinkmanship. Because these measures work within a differentnormative framework, they may also lay the foundation for a return to widersecurity cooperation in the future by re-establishing trust between the partners.The key to both is transparency and verification.Unfortunately, existing mechanisms to provide confidence building and armscontrol in the region stem dominantly from the 1980s and 1990s. However, theyare increasingly dysfunctional and deteriorating. There are both geopolitical,operational and technological reasons for this development.First, the various NATO enlargement rounds, and the collapse of the WarsawTreaty Organization in summer 1991, have left the cornerstone for conventionalarms control in Europe, the CFE Treaty, politically outdated. As it is well knownthe treaty was aimed at the reduction of military deployments needed for rapidmobilization and surprise attack and indeed brought significant reductions ofcertain offensive capabilities. These concern the treaty-limited equipment (TLE):battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft and attackhelicopters. Today, however, the overall and national ceilings are way aboveexisting deployment levels, whereas important modern capabilities such as air-defense systems and naval forces, remain unregulated.Attempts to reform the CFE and adapt it to the new security environment (ACFE)ultimately failed due to NATO’s insistence on Russian compliance with the 1999Istanbul Commitments, whose provisions, however, were unrelated to the treatyas such. In December 2007 Russia finally suspended the implementation of thetreaty and withdrew from it altogether in March 2015. Since 2007 there have been7no CFE-related inspections on Russian territory, whereas in 2012 NATO(November 2011) likewise ceased to carry out its treaty-obligations in relation toRussia. However, treaty obligations, including inspections, notifications andinformation exchange, with Belarus continue.On the other hand, the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, havenever been members of the CFE, nor have Finland and Sweden. This situationis amplified by the suspension of former bilateral agreements on confidence- andsecurity building measures between them and Russia which were terminated byMoscow in 2008 after the CFE suspension and in 2014. Hence, this particulararea of the Baltic Sea region, which, however, is at the center of contention, lacksa legally binding limitation of national or foreign stationed forces and suffers fromminimal transparency.Besides deployments, military activities in the OSCE area are regulated by theVienna Document on Confidence and Security Building Measures. Here the mainpoint of contention for several years have been the quotas for military exercises.Currently, military activities with 9,000 or more troops require notification inadvance, whereas exercises with 13,000 or more troops are subject to obligatoryobservations. Given the trend to smaller exercises almost no military exercise inEurope is subject to these formal mechanisms. Instead member states notifypartners about one major military exercise or military activity below the thresholdsfollowing the Vienna Document Plus 9/12 from October 2012.In addition, Russia with is nominally larger exercises often evades notificationand inspection measures by splitting up larger exercises into smaller units withseveral operational commands or by conducting numerous large-scale snap-8exercises without the prior announcement to the troops involved, which do notrequire notification. Moreover, as in the case of the CFE, certain importantcapabilities such as drones and naval forces, remain unregulated by the ViennaDocument. Whereas different proposals to reform the Document along theselines have been on the table for some time, Russia currently argues that a reformcan be realized only if the overall security situation changes, that is: NATO wouldneed to renounce its deterrence posture towards Moscow.Given this difficult political situation, how can we move forward in strengtheningreassurance strategies?The best option would clearly be to engage in a political dialogue with the aim ofa complete redesign of regional conventional arms control and militaryconfidence-building in Europe, that is creating an entirely new continent-widesecurity regime. Given the overall lack of trust, severe disagreements andgeopolitical contentions in protracted territorial conflicts, ranging from Transnistriato Abkhazia, such a development is highly unlikely, if not, right-away impossible.Yet, as I have tried to argue greater military-to-military dialogue and transparencymeasures, but also diplomatic-political signals, can still play an important role.For example, Russia could agree to provide notification and invite NATO officersto military exercises unregulated by the OSCE’s Vienna Document. Moscowcould also reiterate the commitment it made in 1999 in the Annex to the CFEFinal Act to show due restraint with regard to conventional deployments in theKaliningrad and Pskov oblasts. Bilateral agreements on Vienna Document-likeevaluation visits — could be revised or even expanded following Chapter X“Regional Measures” of the Vienna Document.9In turn, NATO could publicly announce that it is willing to uphold the threshold of“substantial combat forces” on the Eastern flank implied by the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and propose to clarify the exact meaning of this term innegotiations with Moscow. At the moment, NATO deployments remain below thethreshold, but more and more voices are calling for the termination of theFounding Act which would destroy a highly important starting point for futureconventional arms control in Europe.Given the deterioration of the CFE in combination with the diverging threatperceptions, the Baltic Sea region should in the long-term strive to construct itsown sub-regional stability regime. This would probably include the mutualacceptance of present level of forces with a clear commitment to the compatibilityof arms control and national defense. In order to prevent the isolation of singlestates (or to establish different zone of security), but also to provide for sufficientoperational depth (given the diverging ability to relocate forces between NATOand Russia), the geographic zone of such a stability regime should be wide,including besides Russia and the three Baltic states, Poland, Belarus and evenEastern Germany.If it would be possible to exert the necessary leadership and political will to movetowards such a concept, then there can be no doubt that the Baltic Sea area couldonce again become that ‘island of stability’ with possible spillover effects for theentire OSCE area.10