Clouds of Suspicion: Airspace Arrangements, Escalation, and Discord in U.S./NATO-Russian Relations

Policy makers in the Euro-Atlantic region are concerned that incidents involving military or civilian aircraft could result in dangerous escalation of conflict between Russia and the West. This brief introduces the policy problem and traces the evolution of three sets of cooperative airspace arrangements developed by Euro-Atlantic states since the end of the Cold War—(1) cooperative aerial surveillance of military activity, (2) exchange of air situational data, and (3) joint engagement of theater air and missile threats—in order to clarify the current regional airspace insecurity dynamics and identify opportunities to promote transparency and confidence in U.S./NATO-Russian relations

Cooperative Airspace Security in the Euro-Atlantic Region

This paper offers an overview of existing arrangements and provides a discussion of policy challenges involved in constructing a regional Euro-Atlantic capability to jointly monitor and counter common airspace threats through the networking of military and civil air traffic control systems. It argues that a strengthened political, financial, and technical commitment to build a cooperative airspace security system is a “win-win” area for NATO-Russian engagement that would promote regional military transparency, deepen cooperation against airborne terrorism, and enhance regional crisis stability. Deeper and broader regional airspace security arrangements would also foster the culture of cooperation, transparency, and confidence built between all Euro-Atlantic states—large and small—through practical civil-military cooperation. In a May 2010 op-ed, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden wrote of the “vital” need to “adapt” Euro-Atlantic security institutions “to the challenges—and opportunities—of a new era.” He noted the importance of “reciprocal transparency” of military forces, called for improved cooperative means to deal with “external challenges,” argued for more “effective conflict-prevention, conflict-management, and crisis-resolution” mechanisms to enhance stability, and reaffirmed the importance of territorial integrity and the indivisibility of regional security. “We seek an open and increasingly united Europe in which all countries, including Russia, play their full roles,” Biden stated. A careful examination of “bottom-up” cooperative opportunities in airspace security in line with this vision is in order at a time when policy makers in Washington, Brussels, and Moscow seek to design and agree on a common capability to defend the Euro-Atlantic against missile threats. Toward this end, an expansion of ongoing cooperative airspace security projects is a cost-effective and technically feasible undertaking that could promote both agreement and action on the rules of engagement, as well as on the sharing of information, technology, and costs in regional missile defense that involves Russia. In an effort to make Euro-Atlantic security “indivisible,” it might also be useful to learn from past experience with using this type of functional engagement for the purposes of reassurance. This paper begins by introducing a practical case of airspace problems over the Baltic. It continues with an overview of existing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approaches to the networking of military and civil air traffic control systems. It further describes the William J. Clinton administration’s efforts to build cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe through the Regional Airspace Initiative. The paper then offers an analysis of present airspace tensions in conflict-prone and non-NATO state areas in the region. Finally, it reviews the ongoing NATO-Russian Cooperative Airspace Initiative and recommends that this project be expanded geographically and to the sharing of military aircraft data as well as extended to U.S.-Russia counterterrorism cooperation across the Bering Strait

Contrasting Russian Perspectives on Coercion and Restraint in Russia’s Security Relations with the West

This discussion paper analyzes a sample of 2014-2016 Russian-language publications focused on Russia’s security relations with the United States. It characterizes the Russian expert debate at that time as dichotomous in nature, where security policy analysts proposed either coercive or restrained policy approaches in dealing with perceived threats. It assesses similarities and differences of these two perspectives with regard to the nature of Russia’s political-military relationship with the West, as well as past challenges and then-future opportunities in nuclear arms control and strategic stability

What arguments motivate citizens to demand nuclear disarmament

Why is the global public so apathetic about nuclear disarmament? To answer this question, this article examines the various arguments made in support of policies meant to rid the world of atomic weapons. They include the immorality of deterrence, its impracticality in a world where the enemy does not behave rationally, and the calamitous consequences of nuclear accidents. The authors argue that the approach with the highest chance of successfully stimulating political activism focuses on the current costs of maintaining nuclear arsenals