This understanding of multilateralism has shaped Russia’s involvement in multilateral security cooperation throughout the post-Soviet years. As multilateralism is seen exclusively in the context of multipolarity, cooperation has often been informal and with specific partners when joint security interests demanded it (Wilson Rowe and Torjesen 2009: 2). The Kremlin’s support of the US-led global war on terrorism is an example of such informal cooperation, as discussed in more detail in chapter 4. However, Russia has also engaged in multilateral security cooperation within the framework of permanent structures. Russian contributions to UN efforts to deal with ‘new’ security challenges, such as natural or man-made disasters, have been numerous and successful. Russia’s most sizeable contribution to UN peacekeeping was in the Balkans from the 1990s until 2003. This cooperation was in many ways successful, as discussed in chapter 4. However, as a result of tensions with NATO over Operation Allied Force, Russia’s subsequent involvement in ‘traditional’ peacekeeping has been limited. There has been a particular reluctance to engage in operations led by Western institutions, and by NATO in particular, because the loss of independence of Russian troops within such a framework was not deemed acceptable (Adomeit 2009: 102).
Having said this, Russia has engaged in multilateral security cooperation with NATO under the auspices of the NATO–Russia Council. Although Moscow’s view that it was not being treated by NATO as an equal partner meant that such cooperation was never free from friction, Russian military personnel have worked alongside the alliance in the areas of emergency response, disaster management and counterdrug operations. Following the annexation of Crimea, military-to-military cooperation involving Russian personnel was suspended. Russian cooperation both with the UN and with NATO to counter ‘new security challenges’, often involving the force structures, rather than the regular armed forces, is assessed in more detail in chapters 3 and 4.
Russia has also pursued multilateral security cooperation within formal settings under the aegis of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The CIS was created in 1991 as a framework for dealing with the multitude of challenges arising from the division of the Soviet Union into 15 newly independent states. By 1993, all former Soviet republics, with the exception of the Baltic States, had joined as members. However, views on the purpose of the organization quickly started to diverge. Some of its members, including Russia, hoped that it would lead to integration and close cooperation, including in the security realm. Others saw it merely as a means for ‘civilized divorce’ and were suspicious that it could turn into an instrument of Russian domination. A number of Russian ‘peacekeeping’ operations in the CIS region during the 1990s were conducted under a CIS mandate. In 1993, Russia also tried to formalize peacekeeping and conflict resolution as functions of the CIS permanent structures. However, this initiative did not receive much support from other members. As the commonwealth countries’ foreign policy priorities started to diverge, and many were wary of Russia’s intentions, the organization’s potential as a multilateral institution to provide security in the region was never realized (Kubicek 2009).
Membership in the CSTO, which was established in 2002 on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty signed in 1994, includes, in addition to Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.[1] As the latter states are all broadly allied to Russia, security cooperation within this framework has been more successful. The CSTO has been holding regular military exercises and maintains a Joint Rapid Reaction Force. An important area of security cooperation within the CSTO are ‘new security challenges’, such as drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism. The CSTO officially proposed the establishment of inter-institutional cooperation on similar issues to NATO at various points since the mid-2000s, but was never successful with this request (Nikitina 2012: 46). Owing to the relative weakness of the other CSTO members, Russia’s position within the organization resembles that of the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact. The CSTO secures the military allegiance of its members to Russia and contributes to the maintenance of its dominant position in the region (Torjesen 2009: 182). In this sense, it serves as an ‘institutional framework for “balance of power multilateralism”’, as Andrey Makarychev and Viatcheslav Morozov have argued (2011: 363).
The SCO was established in 2001 on the basis of the Shanghai Forum – regular meetings held between Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan since 1996. Uzbekistan joined in 2001 and both Pakistan and India were admitted as members in 2017. Initially intended as a framework for confidence-building in the region, the SCO subsequently developed into the most important security organization in Central Asia (Aris 2009: 457). Although security cooperation within this framework has focused predominantly on issues like counter-terrorism and border security, various military exercises have also been held since 2002 (Torjesen 2009: 188). The SCO serves as an important forum for Russia and China – two major powers with a stake in Central Asia – to address common security issues and deconflict potentially competing interests in the region. It has been noted that Russian efforts to engage in multilateral security and military cooperation within the framework of the CSTO and SCO were stepped up as Russia’s opposition to NATO eastwards enlargement grew, especially following the stationing of US troops in Central Asia in support of the war in Afghanistan (Legvold 2009: 35). This is consistent with Russia’s close association of multilateralism with multipolarity. As Makarychev and Morozov wrote, Russian security and military multilateralism in the former Soviet region ‘can be described as strategic use of Russia’s influence as the former imperial centre with a view toward creating a counterbalance to the West’ (2011: 362).
The case of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) differs from the clearly ‘harder’ security-focused frameworks discussed above. It has also been a framework where Russia and the West have generally failed to find common ground, even if it is seen by Moscow as the best multilateral format for dealing with common European security concerns (Godzimirski 2009: 123). Russia sought to cooperate with the OSCE since the early 1990s and has made efforts to promote it as a multilateral security framework for the whole of Europe. Moscow was also keen to involve the OSCE in finding a solution to the conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Chechnya (Gorzimirski 2009: 129–30). However, dissonant views on multilateralism, where the OSCE emphasizes equality and Russia insists on the primacy of great powers, has created tensions and stalemate in many cases in the past. That said, in spite of Russia’s much more critical view of the OSCE today, it was still willing to allow a place for the OSCE in the war in Donbas and has argued strongly for multilateral conflict resolution in the ‘Normandy format’ – negotiations involving Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia.
1
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan were also signatories of the treaty, but later left the organization.