Select Committee on Defence Third Report


NATO AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

Introduction

96. It is now nearly ten years since the opening of the Berlin Wall,[194] nine years since the first Baltic state declared independence from the Soviet Union,[195] Boris Yeltsin's first election as President of the Russian Republic[196] and the reunification of Germany[197] and nearly eight years since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact[198] and of the Soviet Union.[199]

97. Nonetheless, NATO's relationship with the former Soviet Union, and in particular the Russian Federation, still lies at the heart of its strategy to secure peace in the North Atlantic area. It is clear that NATO and Russia are in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, towards stability in Europe. However, despite Russia's membership of Partnership for Peace, this unity of purpose is far from apparent in the tone of relations between the two. The Washington Summit, and the new Strategic Concept, provide an opportunity for NATO to establish the formal framework of a clear, post-Cold War relationship with its old adversary. This task will be all the more difficult in the light of Russia's suspension of military cooperation in response to NATO's operations against the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In March of this year we visited Moscow and Kyiv to seek to get some measure of the state of opinion in Russia and Ukraine in the run-up to the 50th Anniversary Summit, and we seek to convey some of what we learned below.


194  9-10 November 1989 Back

195  Lithuania, 11 March 1990 Back

196  30 May 1990 Back

197  3 October 1990 Back

198  1 July 1991 Back

199  25 December 1991 Back


 
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Prepared 13 April 1999