The United States defends Russia's interests, but the political "elite" tries not to notice it When, about two years ago, President Putin, when asked by an English journalist about the possibility of Russia joining NATO, answered: "Why not?", it was...

The United States protects the interests of Russia, but the political "elite" tries not to notice it

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When, about two years ago, President Putin, when asked by a British journalist about the possibility of Russia joining NATO, answered: “Why not?” This was taken as a rhetorical figure of speech, and not as a political statement of intent.

Many experts rightly recalled that the NATO bloc is primarily Article 5 of its charter on the collective defense of the borders of any NATO member state threatened by external aggression. Russia's accession to NATO would mean the extension of this article to all the borders of the Russian Federation. It is very difficult to imagine Polish, Dutch or German divisions moving to the Far East in the event of some kind of military conflict on the borders of Russia in this region.

September 11, 2001 and the events that followed changed many of the established geopolitical stereotypes. The idea of ​​a military alliance between Russia and at least some NATO countries no longer seemed so absurd. Moreover, during the operation in Afghanistan, a de facto military alliance of the United States, Russia and Great Britain, the powers that made the greatest contribution to the success of the global coalition, was practically realized.

The experience of participating in this coalition was extremely positive for Russia, which did not lose a single soldier during the operation. The resources of the only superpower in the world - military, economic, political - were used to solve the most important task of Russia's security - to eliminate the hotbed of aggressive Islamic radicalism on the southern borders of the CIS. It is interesting that the Russian tasks were directly implemented during this operation more fully than the American ones: bin Laden was not caught, Al-Qaeda was not defeated, the most difficult task of establishing a peaceful life in Afghanistan was left to the Americans.

This absolutely new trend for Russia - the participation of the United States in solving problems of ensuring Russia's security - any reasonable diplomacy should only strive to strengthen.

In this context, the final remark of Vladimir Putin in his statement on September 24, 2001 seems significant: "We will be ready to go to deeper forms of military cooperation with the United States if the nature of relations between our countries fundamentally changes."

Only one thing can become a fundamental change in the nature of our relations - the assumption of mutual obligations to protect the security of citizens, territorial integrity and inviolability of each other's borders. The establishment of this kind of allied relations should become the central task of Russian diplomacy, in the context of which all the pettiness and far-fetchedness of traditional "price lists" becomes only more obvious.

Thus, the common long-term strategic interests of Russia and the United States in Northeast Asia are obvious. These interests are very simple: the presence in this region of a strong, economically prosperous Russia within its current borders. The opposite scenario would mean the disappearance of Russia as an independent state and a sharp rise in the strength of the main rival of the United States in this region - China.

A phantom confrontation with the West and a course towards a “strategic partnership” and a de facto military coalition with China would lead not only to the marginalization of Russia, but also to its subordination to China’s strategic interests, and in the long term, to the loss of control over the Far East and Siberia, first facto and then de jure.

In December, Moscow hosted several international conferences on the topic "Rapprochement between Russia and the West: Causes, Interests, Prospects." At one of them, which took place on December 11 at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an interesting report was made by US Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow. In particular, he said that in order to give dynamism and irreversibility to the process of rapprochement between Russia and the West, it is necessary to raise bold, creative questions, and proposed two such issues for discussion: the creation of a joint regional missile defense system to protect the territory of Europe and Russia (proposed for the first time by Putin in 2000 year) and the possible participation of Russia in the new NATO project of rapid reaction forces.

In my commentary on the Vershbow report, I agreed with his idea of ​​the need to raise new non-standard questions and suggested, for my part, to expand Vershbow’s list with a third question, addressing it directly to the speaker: “In the context of the development of allied relations between Russia and the West, do you think it is possible in the foreseeable future extension of the security guarantees provided for in Article 5 of the NATO Charter to the borders of the Russian Federation, including its borders in the Far East?”

The US Ambassador's response was, in my opinion, quite remarkable, and I will try to reproduce it from memory as accurately as possible. “In short, yes,” Alexander Vershbow said confidently and continued: “Of course, taking obligations to protect each other’s borders, including the Russian-Chinese border, should be part of the process of establishing allied relations between us. The US has always assumed that Russia could claim NATO membership, which would mean collective security guarantees for its national borders. Some of our friends in Europe doubt the possibility of such a scenario, but we in the United States consider this direction of development to be real, although it will take some time.