The Russian war against Ukraine and remake of European security architecture: dynamics and prospects

Abstract

In the first decade of the 21st century, Russia once again brought the Primacy of Power in the bosom of the Liberal Order established in 1991. As a result of the 5-day aggressive war against Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the principles based on the 1975 Helsinki Act on the inviolability of borders, non-use of force, and protection of sovereignty in Europe actually lost their relevance. What about the European security system that was established in 1991 has collapsed after the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 2022. Post-Cold War European peace-keeping Organizations, (ie OSCE and Council of Europe) international law mechanisms (1975, Final Act of Helsinki, 1991 Charter of New Europe, etc.) and the European soft deterrence strategy actually were unable to prevent and deter aggressive revisionist politics of Kremlin regarding neighboring countries (usually called “Near Abroad” by Kremlin). As a result, the European region and its security architecture faced an acute crisis the analogue of which has not been seen since the end of the Cold War and which is periodically exacerbated by nuclear threats both the high risks of using tactical nuclear weapons and potential missile strikes on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants which are situated in the area of battles. No matter how the outcome of the war in Ukraine ends, it has fundamentally changed the European region already, especially the geopolitical picture of the Black Sea basin, the balance of power, and the strategic culture of the acting powers, which would be a determining factor of regional security developments for the next decades. The present article discusses the peculiarities of the formation of the European security system after the end of the Cold War. Specific attention is paid to the actual issue dealing with the dilemma of which security system was important for future Europe ‘OSCE First’ or “NATO First Strategy”? The weaknesses of the European security architecture and its underlying causes became the basis of the biggest military-political crisis in Europe. An important aim of the paper is to present the dynamics of military and political events in the region based on the analysis of current events, as well as by observing the interests of global and regional actors acting in the region and their policies, to determine in a theoretical aspect what kind of international order emerging in the Euro-Atlantic area, how transformative will be the Ukrainian war, what kind of changes brought it in the current European order and what kind of consequences are expected for future. In the final section, the article presents possible scenarios of European security transformations.