by Tapio Kanninen and Georgios Kostakos (*)
Condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is rightly aimed at President Vladimir Putin. As if starting a war against a sovereign country was not enough, there is the added chock of the atrocities committed by Russian troops against Ukrainian civilians. However, an overblown Western reaction will have dangerous consequences for the future of the whole international order, increasing greatly the likelihood of a generalized war even with the use of nuclear weapons, a nuclear accident, and run-away global threats, notably climate change.
The West has imposed severe sanctions on Russia inflicting maximum pain on the Russian leadership, the oligarchs and the population at large. While this is understandable as an initial response, ideally to prevent rogue behaviour, it is questionable whether it will have the intended impact after certain time has passed, or it may make the Russian behaviour even more rogue and unhinged. The Western sanctions rekindle the sense of persecution and victimhood that goes deep into the Russian psyche. There are some good reasons for that, as historically Russia has suffered in the hands of powerful invaders like the Mongols, Poland, Napoleon and Hitler.
George F. Kennan, the architect of US containment policy and the Marshall Plan, expressed Russian fears of invasion in this way: “At the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity.” During the Soviet Union era Eastern European and Baltic States gave Russia a buffer zone against potential invaders, but when the Soviet Union broke up that buffer was lost. Successive US governments used this situation to the West’s military advantage expanding NATO. Kennan strongly objected to that, as he thought it would start a new Cold War with Russia. NATO expansion was in his mind “Strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions”. Whether such a reaction seems irrational or not from a Western point of view, NATO expansion is perceived as an existential threat by those sitting in the Kremlin.
The effects of the Ukraine war have already been catastrophic. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded with millions of refugees, increased inflation and rising food prices. Inside Russia too sanctions and isolation are increasing poverty, misery, humiliation, resentment and hatred against the West. Despite apparent setbacks on the ground, the Russians have the means to exact revenge if relations between Russia and the West continue to deteriorate: nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and cyber-attacks. We have to remember how the bitterness felt by the Germans after the Versailles Treaty’s harsh peace terms in 1919 made possible Hitler’s path to power.
After two world wars, humankind has learned that large scale carnage and humanitarian suffering need to be followed by a sincere effort to build a new international architecture based on collective security and cooperation. In his strong address to the UN Security Council on 5 April 2022 President Zelensky called for a fundamental reform (or dissolution) of the UN as collective security does not work. Indeed, Article 109 of the UN Charter provides for a General Conference of the Members of the United Nations to review the Charter at the latest ten years after it entered into force, that is by 1955, which did not happen. 77 years letter, such a review of the UN Charter is long overdue and urgently needed, even if politically fraught with difficulties. A much more practical, parallel effort would be to start a confidence-building process in Europe and the world, to (re)establish the required minimum level of mutual trust for peace and cooperation to take hold. History shows us how that kind of process could be initiated.
The Finnish-Soviet Winter War of 1939-40 bears significant resemblance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Finland has a long border with Russia. Historically, Russia has feared an attack from the Baltic Sea. After the German invasion of Poland, Stalin asked Finland to give some areas to the Soviet Union to ensure protection of Russian strategic interests but Finland refused. Stalin started a war, which led to Finland’s losing parts of its territory but the Soviet Army could not occupy the whole country.
After WWII two Finnish Presidents, Juho Paasikivi and Urho Kekkonen developed a doctrine of cooperation and friendship with the old enemy, for geopolitical reasons. The key was to cultivate good personal relations with Kremlin to undermine any coup attempt by Finnish communists and exercise some self-censorship to avoid provoking the Soviet Union. “Finlandization” was condemned and ridiculed in the West but has made the Finns feel secure for decades – in fact the World Happiness Report 2022 ranks them the happiest people in the world for a fifth consecutive year – even if they now feel unhappy enough with Russian aggression to be seeking NATO membership.
President Zelensky of Ukraine did not have at all a mindset of Finlandization before the Russian invasion and some observers have characterized his prior behavior as provocative. President Macron reportedly raised Finlandization as one model for Ukraine. In 2014 Henry Kissinger had already publicly suggested Finlandization as a viable option for Ukraine. Former UK Foreign Secretary Lord Owen and his colleagues responded to Kissinger at the start of the Russian invasion, stating that permanent Finlandization of Ukraine is unrealistic but a military confidence-building treaty should be established between NATO and Russia with the help of Ukraine. Finland is indeed only an example, a useful precedent that should be kept in mind. We all should do our best to ensure that Ukraine becomes the new model of peace and prosperity for itself and the world, and “Ukrainization” the new success story one will be referring to. Some further history lessons and confidence building measures offered below aim to contribute to that.
Another lesson from history is how a visionary foreign policy of a country can turn a security threat into a confidence-building process. After the tensions created by the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 the Soviet Union suggested in 1969 to European countries that a Conference on Security should be convened. Preempting a rejection of the Soviet initiative, Finland put forward a counter initiative suggesting Helsinki as venue for the Conference with expanded agenda and inviting also the US and Canada to participate.
There was strong criticism of the Finnish proposal but it gradually gathered strength and the Conference was held in Helsinki in 1975. The result was reduced tension in Europe and between the US and the Soviet Union. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) grew out of this to become the world’s largest security-oriented regional organization active in peace missions, electoral and human rights monitoring.
It is high time for a country, a group of countries and/or an international organization or a group of international organizations to propose a new process for peace and cooperation in Europe and beyond, like Finland did in 1969. And this time China should be part of it as well. The UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN General Assembly and world leaders have key roles to play in the process, if they are up to it. The process could start by examining elements for a lasting ceasefire in the Ukraine – Russia war, or could come after a ceasefire has been established with a view to strengthening the possibilities for long-term peace.
Even before a long-term process is put in place, a short-term confidence-building measure could include setting up a panel with experts from all sides to evaluate how the risks of accidental nuclear war may have increased as part of the Ukraine crisis, including delivery, early warning and command-and-control systems, and propose new safeguards. Another confidence-building measure could involve a similar panel of experts on catastrophic climate change that already affects all sides and which could focus their energies on more constructive, win-win projects.
Eventually, a new treaty between NATO and Russia will have to be negotiated, as per the proposal by Lord Owen and his colleagues. Such a treaty has already been put forward by the Putin government in December 2021. Although the sincerity and acceptability of the Russian proposals are seriously doubted especially by Western commentators, one cannot but recognize the importance of keeping the parties, Russia and Ukraine on one hand and the US, NATO and Russia on the other, engaged by means other than war. Having Russia by itself engaged in multilateral processes that recognize its major power status and pay attention to its concerns is also something one should not dismiss lightly, if there is sincere will to avoid a nuclear exchange, the likelihood of which will just increase if the war continues and escalates.
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(*) –Tapio Kanninen is President of New York-based Global Crisis Information Network Inc and former Chief of Policy Planning at the UN Department of Political Affairs. He is also co-founder of Climate Leadership Coalition, a largest non-profit climate business network in Europe. While at the UN he was Head of Secretariat of Kofi Annan’s five Summits with Heads of Regional Organizations that also included military alliances like NATO. Kanninen was a Secretary and Research Focal Point of the High-level Drafting Group of “An Agenda Peace”, Boutros Boutros Ghali’s proposals for the prevention of conflicts, building peace and strengthening peacekeeping in response to the request of the first Summit of the Security Council at the level of Heads of State or Government in 1992. Kanninen was also a Convener of the Interdepartmental Working Group to implement the recommendations of An Agenda for Peace.
On UN reforms, he was Secretary of the General Assembly Working Group on the reform of the Security Council and an author of “Leadership and Reform” (Kluwer 1995) analyzing Perez de Cuellar’s reform process of the UN in the late 1980s.
After joining the UN in 1979 Kanninen organized with the UN Secretary-General’s Office, Yale, MIT and other international partners a number of seminars and workshops on preventing accidental nuclear war, a serious issue already in the 1980s. His latest book is Crisis of Global Sustainability (Routledge, 2013). He holds an MA in economics from the University of Helsinki and Ph.D. in political science from the Graduate School of the City University of New York
— Georgios Kostakos is Co-founder and Executive Director of the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability ( FOGGS).
About half of his thirty-year work experience Georgios spent with the United Nations (UN), including with the Executive Office UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and field missions for political affairs and human rights.
Outside the UN he has held various positions at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), organized postgraduate courses at the University of Athens, was a visiting lecturer at the Brussels School of International Studies / University of Kent and served as LIFE Climate Action Sector Coordinator at NEEMO EEIG. Georgios is also the Publisher of Katoikos.world, the online magazine and community-building project of FOGGS, where he and Tapio Kanninen have also recently published on the Ukraine crisis.