Re-setting US-EU-Russia Relations. Moving Beyond Rhetoric

After a period of severe turbulences, the United States, Europe, and Russia seem willing to start out on a new course. While rightly rejecting the notion of spheres of influence as an outdated Cold War relic, the United States and its European allies need to recognize that a stable security order for Europe can hardly be achieved without involving Russia as one of its constitutive parts. Such a new system would probably increase Russia's cooperation on issues of vital interest for the United States and Europe, such as nuclear nonproliferation (e.g. Iran) and the fight against Al Qaeda (e.g. Afghanistan). Following a concise summary of US-European-Russian relations since the early 1990s, the argument is made that a 'strategy of engagement' aiming to create a single security space best serves Europe's long-term stability.

Paper presented at the second Transatlantic Security Symposium "US-Europe-Russia Security Relations: Towards a New Compact?", organised by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Rome, 22 June 2009.