‘War is the enemy of Europe’1

“We are all now called upon to design a new architecture for the European House. I have agreed with Secretary-General Gorbachev on the building blocks for a common European House.”²

(Chancellor Helmut Kohl, 1989)

The question, “How did it all begin?” helps us to realise that even a military status quo (“peaceful coexistence”) between adversaries can be more conducive to peace than relying exclusively on military power, “defence,” or even “forward defence.” All three approaches stand in the way of lasting peace
    This historical experience of Europe following the end of the Second World War is currently being repeated in the West Asia conflict. Israel is a recent example: “Peace through security,” the Israeli narrative,” has failed since the nation’s founding. Experience suggests the opposite case, “security through peace.” This will be possible only through peace with all Israel’s neighbours.
    Europe, if it so wished, could draw on its own experience: An overarching framework based on stable inter-state relations, good working relationships at leadership levels, and the recognition of the military status quo has proved to be a kind of master key to appropriate relations between and among states. Historically this has maintained a balance of power among the major powers.

The ideological antagonism between the two blocs during the cold war evidently proved to be less of an obstacle than was generally assumed and treated as such. In this context, when Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and NATO Secretary-General Manfred Wörner advocated overcoming the division between the peoples of Europe, involving the Soviet Union and Russia in shaping Europe’s future, and creating a “lasting and just peace order for the shared continent,” these views carried weight. The SPD also developed alternative proposals for a collective European security system, which Egon Bahr elaborated as the head of the Hamburg Institute for Peace and Conflict Research. In devising his vision for the post-Cold War era, he was guided by the concept of a “space between Lisbon and Vladivostok as a security entity.”³ Europe had “the opportunity to organise the security of its states in such a way that wars between them become impossible.”
    All these opportunities for a sustainable European security order had already been squandered or shattered before the “Two-plus-Four Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic” was signed in Moscow on 12 September 1990. Twenty-eight years later, in 2018, Gernot Erler a Social Democrat, then serving as “Coordinator for Inter-Societal Cooperation with Russia, Central Asia, and the Eastern Partnership countries” at the Federal Foreign Office, remarked: “Today we are witnessing a deep crisis between Russia and the West. And at first glance, this appears to have stemmed from the conflict in Ukraine…. The crisis clearly has deeper roots. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the conflict is not the cause, but rather the product of a longstanding process of loss of trust and alienation.”⁴

NATO’s eastward expansion and the deception of Russia

On 5 May 1990, at the opening of the Two-plus-Four talks on the “Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany,” Edouard Shevardnadze, the USSR’s foreign minister, stated: “For us, NATO is what it has always been: a military bloc opposed to us, with a doctrine of a specific orientation and based on the premise of being able to launch a first nuclear strike…. If anyone were to try to corner us on matters affecting our security, this would – and I say this quite openly – lead to a situation in which our political flexibility would be abruptly curtailed. Emotions will run high here, the ghosts of the past will come to the fore, and the national complexes rooted in the tragic chapters of our history will resurface.”⁵
    Consequently, even at that time, NATO enlargement, preventing the establishment of military infrastructure close to Russia’s borders, and the stationing of permanent NATO troops in that region were at the very top of the USSR’s list of security priorities as sources of mistrust. “Nothing has been agreed,” Shevardnadze said, “until all aspects of the arrangement have been agreed upon, until a complete balance of interests has been found.”
    As outlined, the Federal Government initially agreed to the latter. In his memoir of the Two-Plus-Four negotiations, Foreign Minister Genscher repeatedly emphasised that he had argued strongly in favour of duly accommodating the Soviet Union’s security needs. In his speech at an event organised by the Evangelical Academy in Tutzing, West Germany, on 31 January 1990, which was also attended by GDR Prime Minister Hans Modrow, Matthias Platzeck (then a minister without portfolio for the Green Party of the GDR in the Modrow cabinet) and Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker, he stated: “It is up to NATO to make it absolutely clear: Whatever happens within the Warsaw Pact, there will be no eastward expansion of NATO territory – that is, closer to the border of the Soviet Union. These security guarantees are significant for the Soviet Union and its conduct. The West must also take into account the fact that the changes in Eastern Europe and the process of German reunification must not lead to any impairment of Soviet security interests.”⁶
    This was credible at the time, given Bonn’s intention to free itself from external constraints on its sovereignty that might hinder a more powerful German state on the international level. This required the approval of the Soviet leadership, and Bonn obtained it.
    It is even now not clear whether Bonn was aware that as early as February 1990 – while the Warsaw Pact was still in force – the American secretary of state, James Baker, had – during talks in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia – sounded out their agreement to an eastward expansion of NATO. Robert L. Hutchings, foreign policy adviser in the first Bush administration, noted: While Poland and Hungary proved to be enthusiastic supporters of NATO, things were more difficult in Prague. “President Havel was a more problematic figure … He had brought with him into office, from his days as a dissident, the conviction that both ‘military blocs’ – that is, NATO and the Warsaw Pact – should be dissolved in equal measure and replaced by a new pan-European peace order, preferably through the CSCE as a new collective security system…. We considered it important to explain to him why the United States did not believe that the CSCE could replace NATO as an instrument of European security, even if it were to adopt definitely a new understanding of its role.”⁷ Hutchings made clear what “was at stake” for the US: to prevent the “reunification of the Germans” from leading to an agreement “that could be detrimental to the entire security structure of Europe for generations to come,… such as a withdrawal from NATO, or at least the banishment of nuclear weapons from German soil, or that they would comply with the demand to withdraw all armed forces stationed in Germany.”⁸ Many in Washington regarded the institutionalisation of the CSCE process as anathema, because they feared that the Conference might undermine NATO.
    The US administration knew that it need not take Bonn’s verbal distancing from an eastward expansion of NATO all too seriously. On the occasion of a visit to Washington on 17 May 1990 by a large delegation from the Federal Republic, led by Kohl and Genscher, to “coordinate American and West German policy,” Hutchings noted: “Summary of the key points immediately after the meeting: Point Three: US troops are to remain stationed in a united Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Kohl attached particular importance to this.”⁹ The Clinton administration actively launched its strategy of NATO’s eastward expansion in 1993. According to documents from the US National Security Archive, even Russian President Boris Yeltsin was initially led to believe that there were no plans for NATO’s eastward expansion.¹⁰
    Consequently, this stance taken by Bonn and the US unfolded in parallel with the Two-Plus-Four negotiations, including the knowledge that the USSR, as a negotiating partner on “German unity,” had already categorically rejected NATO’s eastward expansion.
    At the end of the Cold War Hutchings summarised his insights into the policies of the administration he had served: “Much as in 1919 and 1945, there was an atmosphere of triumph and anticipation that the values which had defeated the enemy would immediately bring about peace. But this time too, those hopeful expectations were dashed, whether in the US or in Europe.”

Modus vivendi as the CSCE’s master key to peaceful coexistence

Europe’s tangible experiences of peace through the CSCE date back to a relatively short period during the Cold War and even the early years following 1990. During this period, East and West were able to freeze or adjust security-related unpredictability to a mutually agreed level. A military status quo underpinned this peace despite parallel political and ideological discord. Both sides were aware of each other’s conflicting intentions.
    These experiences of the CSCE process offer a blueprint:

• The CSCE process operated in parallel with the Cold War and thus provided a forum for the equitable comparison of problems.
• The primary understanding of “conflict civilisation” (Dieter Senghaas) was the prevention of war between states. This was based on the realisation that it is not systemic differences per se that constitute the primary source of threat, but rather the militarisation of how these differences are dealt with. From this, a system of conduct developed over the course of the Helsinki Process:
• European leaders from both East and West were able to safeguard their inter-state relations from the very sword of Damocles that was the constant mutual security threat, and to keep their (including personal) relations at leadership levels intact.
• During the Cold War, East and West were able to freeze or adjust security policy unpredictability to a mutually agreed level. This enabled a comparatively predictable security policy environment on both sides. This primarily benefited a truce in Central Europe, the dividing line between the blocs.
• This gave rise to a modus vivendi between East and West based on two pillars: the military status quo and political competition to be conducted by peaceful means.

This overall framework of the modus vivendi – comprising stability in inter-state relations, working relationships at leadership levels, and the military status quo – proved to be a kind of master key to ensuring appropriate behaviour by states towards and with one another. It helped to balance and maintain the balance of power between the major powers. •

¹ Bahr, Egon. Der deutsche Weg (The German Path), Karl Blessing Publishers, Munich, 2003, p. 131.
²Press and Information Service of the Federal Government, No. 134/p. 1141, Bonn, 29 1989
³ Bahr, Egon. Zu meiner Zeit (In My Time), Blessing Publishers, Munich 1996, p. 566.
⁴Neue Ostpolitik – Entspannen, Eindämmen, Abschrecken? (A New Eastern Policy – Détente, Containment, Deterrence?), DGAP event, Berlin, 1 June 2017, https://dgap.org/de/veranstaltungen/neue-ostpolitik-entspannen-eindaemmen-abschrecken
⁵ Genscher, Hans-Dietrich. Erinnerungen (Memoirs), Siedler Publishers, 1995, p. 775
⁶ Oldenburg, Fred. Deutsche Einheit und Öffnung der Nato. Berichte/BIOst 55-1996 (German Reunification and the Opening up of NATO. Reports / BIOst, 52–1996). Cologne: Federal Institute for Eastern European and International Studies, https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/4274/ssoar-1996-oldenburg-deutsche_einheit_und_offnung_der.pdf?sequence=1
⁷ Hutchings, Robert L. Als der Kalte Krieg zu Ende war, (When the Cold War Ended), Alexander Fest Verlag, Berlin, 1999, p. 176.
⁸ ibid., pp. 155ff.
⁹ ibid., p. 186
¹⁰ Savranskaya, Svetlana; Blanton, Tom. Die Nato-Osterweiterung: Was Jelzin zu hören bekam (NATO’s Eastward Expansion: What Yeltsin Was Told), in: National Security Archive, 16 March 2018, p. 1/14, in: LUFTPOST, Friedenspolitische Mitteilungen aus der US-Militärregion Kaiserslautern/Ramstein, LP 043/18 – 11 April 2018 (Peace Policy Reports from the US Military Region Kaiserslautern/Ramstein); https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansionwhat-yeltsin-heard

* Dr Dr h. c. Arne Clemens Seifert (born 1937 in Berlin), Ambassador (ret.), Senior Research Fellow, WeltTrends-Institute for International Politics, Potsdam. Studied at the Institute for International Relations, Moscow, specialising in Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, graduated in 1963. Received his doctorate at the Institut für Internationale Arbeiterbewegung (Institute for the International Workers’ Movement), Berlin, in 1977. Received an honorary doctorate from the Orient Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2017. Served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR from 1964 to 1990: Arab States Division, working on the ground in Egypt and Jordan. Head of the sector for Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan; Research Associate to the Deputy Minister for Asia and Africa; Ambassador to Kuwait 1982–1987; Head of Department 1987–1990. After 1990: OSCE Mission to Tajikistan; Central Asia Advisor at the Center for OSCE Research (CORE), Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, specialising in OSCE and Central Asia research – civilian conflict prevention, transformation, political Islam, secular-Islamic relations, and political processes. Recent publications include: Dialog und Transformation – 25 Jahre OSZE- und Zentralasienforschung, (Dialogue and Transformation – 25 Years of OSCE and Central Asia Research), Nomos; Islamischer Aufbruch in Zentralasien – Spezifika religiöser Radikalisierungsprävention, (Islamic Awakening in Central Asia – Specifics of Religious Radicalisation Prevention), OSCE Yearbook Vol. 24, 2018; Friedliche Koexistenz in unserer Zeit – Der neue Kalte Krieg und die Friedensfrage, (Peaceful Coexistence in Our Time – The New Cold War and the Question of Peace), WeltTrends 2021. “Regelbasierte internationale Ordnung” versus post-koloniale Emanzipation – Grenzen und Sackgassen eines globalen Hegemonieprojekts, (“Rules-based international order” versus post-colonial emancipation – limits and dead ends of a global hegemony project), World Trends 2022