Western diplomats have a long-established rule: when Soviet diplomats in the past, and Russian diplomats today, start talking about a "new architecture of European security," it means that the Kremlin is once again trying to weaken, divide or even completely destroy NATO.
Molotov’s Ghost in Abu Dhabi
The fact that both Russia’s envoy Vladimir Medinsky and US representatives Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff spoke after the meeting in Abu Dhabi about the need to conclude some kind of "new treaty on European security" is a clear sign that the Russian regime wants to take advantage of the current favorable circumstances for a new attack on the North Atlantic Alliance.
The idea of creating a pan-European security system – one that would, in practice, give Moscow the right to veto actions undertaken by other countries on the continent to guarantee their own security – is not new. It was first proposed in 1954 by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, at a time when the Soviet leadership was trying to prevent West Germany from joining NATO.
On behalf of the USSR, Molotov proposed a pan-European agreement with mutual security guarantees, envisaging that the United States would not be a party to it but rather an "observer." When the West rejected this, the Soviets agreed to US participation. What is more, the "Molotov Plan" even included the possibility of discussing the Soviet Union itself joining the Alliance. The Allies rejected this proposal as well, since the USSR was not a democracy and its policies were incompatible with NATO’s goals and tasks. In 1955, West Germany became a NATO member.
Since then, however, the Soviet and later Russian leadership has never stopped trying to impose itself on the West not merely as a partner but as a full-fledged participant in some new alliance or organization that would replace, or at least weaken, NATO’s role in Europe. Since the mid-1990s, Moscow has also tried to prevent the admission of new members to the Alliance, especially countries that were once part of the USSR – above all Ukraine and Georgia.
Putin made his latest such attempt in December 2021: he massed troops on the border with Ukraine and demanded not only that any possibility of Kyiv and Tbilisi joining the Alliance be blocked, but also guarantees that all military activity on the territory of Russia’s neighboring states would cease, including in the long-standing NATO member states of Central Europe and the Baltic states. The West rejected this ultimatum, and Putin responded with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
How Witkoff and Kushner Encouraged Putin
This war has now been going on for almost five years. Putin once again sees an opportunity to strike at the Alliance’s unity – a prospect undoubtedly encouraged by the Trump administration. The US president is clearly pressuring President Volodymyr Zelensky to conclude a peace treaty with Moscow as soon as possible. In practice, the White House is assigning equal responsibility for the war to both sides. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner openly flatter Putin and often repeat his arguments about the need for some sweeping security guarantees – for the world’s second-largest nuclear power!
According to Axios, the Kremlin is closer than ever to achieving its goal. A source in the US administration told the outlet’s journalists that the White House is ready to begin discussing some new agreement on European security, but only after a peace treaty has been signed and with the participation of the Europeans.
These two conditions are unacceptable to Putin. He has no intention of signing any peace treaty – he wants Ukraine’s capitulation and unconditional consent from President Zelensky to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia. What is more, the participation of European countries in such discussions is, in essence, equally unacceptable to the Russian dictator – especially after 39 European countries adopted a document at the summit in Dublin defining NATO as one of the unshakable pillars of the continent’s security.
Ukraine’s Future in NATO – A Bargaining Chip?
The Kremlin, however, will not abandon the idea of weakening the Alliance. Next week, it will probably promote the idea of resolving the "Ukraine problem" without the participation of the Europeans and – yes, indeed! – also that of a "new architecture of European security" to Trump and Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China. Beijing would also welcome a weakening of NATO, and Xi will most likely support Putin’s idea. But as always, very cautiously, so as not to appear to Europeans as an enemy at the same time.
Incidentally, according to a November 14 report by The New York Times, at the talks in Abu Dhabi the Russian representatives demanded that NATO return to its 1997 positions, stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, and that France and the United Kingdom renounce the use of their nuclear weapons to protect other countries. The outlet cited sources and an unofficial document circulated by the negotiators.
Although there will most likely be no new European security treaty involving Moscow, the current US administration’s policy has already dealt a blow to transatlantic unity. The fact that the White House agreed to seriously discuss Moscow’s paranoid fears is a bad signal. It is difficult for the US’s European allies to maintain unity without Washington’s active involvement in European affairs. Trump’s policy is once again providing arguments to those who, like Alternative for Germany and Germany’s Left Party, as well as France’s National Rally and France Unbowed, oppose support for Ukraine and a compromise with Moscow. "The Americans are not with us, so we must save ourselves!" – that is their argument.
Nothing will happen to NATO. But against this backdrop, the allies abandoning the prospect of Ukraine joining the Alliance looks like an entirely realistic option in exchange for concluding a peace treaty. Sooner or later, this will probably once again confront the allies with Churchill’s old choice: between disgrace and war.