Russia, NATO must give up military doctrines of Cold War days

A large group of prominent American, European, and Russian experts and diplomats has urged the leadership of Russia and NATO countries, including the USA, to abandon the military-and-political doctrines of the Cold War days and set about establishing a real, not declarative, strategic partnership. A studyon the subject, prepared by the group, was presented in Washington on Wednesday. The work on the document was done under the direction of former American Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, UK ex-Secretary of Defence Desmond Brown, Igor Ivanov, Russian ex-Head of Foreign Ministry, and Wolfgang Ischinger, former German Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The outdated security concepts of the Cold War Era and the related doctrines in the sphere of armaments and the armed forces (specifically, Mutual Assured Destruction and an immediate retaliatory use of nuclear forces) are keeping on as if there were no Downfall of the Berlin Wall, bringing about a dangerous assymmetry between military capabilities and political partnership, the authors of the report point out. Their opinion is that the legacy of the past enhances tension and mistrust in the Euro-Atlantic region and raises risks and costs in the field of national security. In order to overcome them, the experts maintain, it is essential immediately to take a number of steps which will gradually make it possible to establish a fundamentally different farmework for the maintenance of international security, the framework that would accord with the realities of the present day. Drawing the strategic nuclear forces of the USA and Russia out of the state of alert is the first recommendation out of 19 ones contained in the study. Naturally, analogous actions must ensue on the part of Britain and France. The authors of the study also suggest that the United States reduce by half the amount of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe provided analogous moves are made on the part of Russia. A special recommendation concerns antimissile defense that gives rise to keen contradictions between Moscow and Washington. The experts believe that Russia and NATO must at last establish cooperation in this respect which will envision an exchange of relevant information and the conduct of joint ABM exercises.