Förslag på riskreducering av väpnad konflikt mellan NATO och Ryssland!

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Text på Svenska följs av en mer omfattande text på engelska.

This text is first in Swedish, and followed by a more comprehensive text in English.

Detta är en översättning av Ronny i Ronneby av Rekommendationer från deltagarna i expertgruppen om riskreducering av väpnad konflikt mellan NATO och Ryssland (December • 2020). Denna har fått ligga väl så länge men är alltid mycket aktuell!

Översättaren informerar:

Jag har försökt underlätta för svenska läsare att snabbt få kläm på innehållet i expertgruppens rekommendationer genom denna fria översättning av den sammanfattande texten. Ifall någon med bättre språkkunskaper än jag upptäcker att jag inte gjort originaltexten rättvisa tar jag tacksamt emot synpunkter och förslag till rättelse.

Min ’fria’ översättning
Jag har i min ’fria’ svenska översättning valt att försöka vara trogen originaltextens grundläggande varning för konflikteskalering genom att framställa det befarade förloppet med ord och uttryck i en stegrande skala:
– ”Nära möten” (med eventuell vänlig ordväxling)
– ”skärmytslingar” (ordkrig/’tuppfäktning’)
– ”väpnade konfrontationer” (hot och vapenskrammel)
– ”rent väpnade sammandrabbningar” (avlossade vapen)

Tillagt länkar om centrala avtal
Jag har tagit mig friheten att göra två förändringar/kompletteringar som är helt mina egna:
• De föreslagna 7 områden som behandlas har jag rubriksatt även i sammanfattningen.
• Jag har bifogat länkar till förklarande sidor för tre centrala avtal.

Översättning av resten
Finns intresse kan jag försöka att på liknande sätt även tillhandahålla den resterande förslagstexten med min ’fria’ översättning.

Digitalt utanförskap
Att jag här återger hela texten i mailet (utom deltagarförteckningen) beror på mina digitala begränsningar och avsaknad av eget mailkonto, internetförbindelse, mobiltelefon mm.

Svenska deltagare
13. Hans Blix, f d svensk utrikesminister, docent i folkrätt, generaldirektör i internationella atomenergiorganet IAEA) 1981-1997, ordförande för FN:s inspektionskommission (UNMOVIC), https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix

51. Sven Hirdman, Ambassadör i Ryssland 1994–2004, Statssekreterare på försvarsdepartementet (1979–1982), https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hirdman

” Förstörelsens fästen är kraftigt bemannade
det är dags för de SNÄLLA att bli fly förbannade!”
(Tage Danielsson)

SAMMANFATTNING

Denna expertgrupp från Ryssland, USA och Europa höll 15 internetseminarier om NATO–Rysk konfliktriskreducering under sommaren och hösten 2020 och har följande förslag:

För att upprätthålla strategisk stabilitet ser vi fram emot omedelbara åtgärder för att förlänga det nya START-fördraget i 5 år.

Samtidigt är vi oroade över de senaste årens försämrade europeiska säkerhetssituation. Det kärntekniska och konventionella vapenkontrollsystem som tog årtionden att bygga upp håller snabbt på att förstöras, utan att något annat erbjuds i dess ställe. Nära avstånd mellan NATO och ryska styrkor är bekymmersamma i sig och med oroväckande risk att skärmytslingar upptrappas till väpnade konfrontationer till följd av ökad militär aktivitet. Samtidigt som gruppens medlemmar har olika åsikter om de bakomliggande orsakerna till krisen och i takt med att ökade spänningar byggs upp mellan Ryssland och NATO, är vi oroade över den överhängande fara för rent väpnade sammandrabbningar som detta innebär.

Med tanke på denna situation uppmanar vi våra länders ledare att visa den politiska beslutsamhet som krävs för att vidta ett antal brådskande åtgärder för att minska riskerna för väpnade konflikter. Dessa militära och säkerhetsmässiga åtgärder bör fullföljas oavsett om vi lyckas minska de allvarliga politiska tvisterna mellan våra länder eller inte. Dessa steg kan faktiskt bidra till en atmosfär där en lösning av de politiska knäckfrågorna underlättas.

Trots att alla steg förmodligen inte går att genomföra omedelbart föreslår vi en rad åtgärder. De detaljerade rekommendationerna nedan tar upp följande områden:

1. Behovet av dialog
Återupprätta den praktiska dialogen mellan Ryssland och Nato, inbegripet direkta kontakter mellan de militära befälhavarna och experterna i Ryssland och Natos medlemsstater.

2. Förebyggande av incidenter
Att utveckla gemensamma regler för att minska risken för oavsiktliga incidenter på land, i luften och till sjöss.

3. Ombesörja stabilitet
Öka stabiliteten genom att öka öppenheten, undvika farlig militär verksamhet och tillhandahålla särskilda kommunikationskanaler för att förhindra upptrappning av eventuella incidenter.

4. NATO-Russia Founding Act
[https://www.nato.int/nrc-website/media/59451/1997_nato_russia_founding_act.pdf]
[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_25468.htm]
Utnyttja (och eventuellt komplettera) 1997 års överenskommelse mellan Nato och Ryssland för att skapa regler för återhållsamhet, öppenhet och förtroendeskapande åtgärder.

5. Avtala om begränsningar för utplacering av konventionella vapen i Europa
I avsikt att få till stånd ökad öppenhet och stabilitet undersöka förutsättningarna för avtal mellan NATO och Ryssland om begränsningar av utplacering av konventionella vapen i Europa.

6. Robotförsvar och medeldistansrobotar i Europa.
Upprättande av ett förhandlingsråd mellan Ryssland och USA/NATO om ämnena medeldistansrobotar och ballistiskt missilförsvar med avsikt att förhindra en ny kärnvapenkapplöpning i Europa.

7. Open Skies Treaty
Bevara Open Skies-fördraget.

Executive Summary

Rekommendations
This group of experts from Russia, the United States and Europe held 15 online-seminars on NATO–Russia Risk Reduction in summer and fall of 2020 and offer the following ideas:

To maintain strategic stability, we look forward to immediate action to extend the New START Treaty for 5 years.

At the same time, we are concerned by the deterioration of the European security situation in recent years. The nuclear and conventional arms control system that took decades to build is rapidly unraveling, with nothing to take its place. Incidents in the course of military activities which bring Russian and NATO forces into close proximity are worrisome in their own right and run the risk of escalation. While members of our group differ over the root causes of the crisis, we are concerned that as tension builds between Russia and NATO, a real military confrontation becomes an increasing danger.

Given this situation, we call upon our countries’ leaders to demonstrate the political will necessary to take a number of urgent actions in order to reduce the risks of military conflict. These military and security actions should be pursued whether or not we make progress in reducing the serious political disputes among our countries. Indeed, these steps can contribute to an atmosphere, in which resolution of those difficult political issues becomes more achievable.

We propose a set of measures, recognizing that not all of these steps will be immediately feasible. The detailed recommendations below address the following areas:

7. Open Skies Treaty

1. Re-establishing practical dialogue between Russia and NATO, including direct contacts between the military commanders and experts of Russia and NATO member states.

Developing common rules that will reduce the risk of unintended incidents on land, air and sea.

Enhancing stability by increasing transparency, avoiding dangerous military activities, and providing dedicated communication channels that would avoid escalation of incidents that might occur.

Utilizing (and possibly supplementing) the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act to codify restraint, transparency and confidence-building measures.

Exploring possible limitations on NATO and Russian conventional force in Europe to enhance transparency and stability.

Establishing consultations between Russia and US/NATO on the topics of intermediate-range missiles and ballistic missile defense, in order to prevent a new nuclear missile race in Europe.

Preserving the Open Skies Treaty.

SPECIFIC PROPOSALS

1. The need for dialogue

1.1. Political dialogue should be revitalized at the ambassadorial level in the NATO-Russia Council and include briefings by military experts as appropriate.

1.2. As part of the NATO 2030 re ection process, Russia and NATO member states should analyze relations between NATO and Russia with a view to deve- loping the military-to-military dialogue. At a time when most NATO-Russia cooperation remains suspended, such a dialogue should not be viewed as a departure from NATO’s “no business as usual” policy, but as a step that is necessary to increase predictability and reduce the risk of military incidents at sea, in the air and on land escalating to the level of military con ict.

1.3 Once Russia and NATO member states reach a formal or informal understanding or agreement, they could take initial steps in the form of parallel unilateral measures that do not necessarily require conclusion of a formal agreement between NATO, or NATO member states, and Russia, which could prove politically difficult to achieve in the present environment.

1.4. Regular meetings should be held between the Chief of General Sta of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff , the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, reinforced by military experts, to address issues of current concern.

1.5. In addition, NATO member states and Russia should resume contacts at the level of military representatives in the NATO Military Committee and restore the Russian military liaison mission at SACEUR Headquarters.

1.6. Furthermore, NATO member states and Russia should enhance military contacts in OSCE forums to provide a more e cient and inclusive format for discussion and quick decision-making on current issues relating to military activities.

1.7. NATO and Russia should consider the possibility of establishing special NATO-Russia communication channels or hotlines in sensitive regions such as the Baltic, and Black sea regions and the High North area.

1.8. While the recommendations offered in this paper would be developed primarily in NATO-Russia channels, a number of them could be opened to discussion with and participation by other countries, such as Sweden and Finland in the Baltic and High North regions, and Ukraine and Georgia in the Black Sea region.

2. Preventing incidents

2.1. Prevention of incidents and de-escalation once they have occurred is the most urgent issue related to military interaction. NATO member states and Russia, as well as other European states, need to together formulate a minimum set of realistic measures that could be adopted as formal agreements, informal understandings or parallel, coordinated steps. While they do not have to be in the form of a legal treaty, they should have real force so as to e ectively reduce the level of mutual tension.

2.2. NATO and Russia should develop a single set of common rules that would de ne minimum distances between military aircraft and ships as well as procedures for interaction of crews. To this end, they could resume joint work within the framework of the Cooperative Airspace Initiative (CAI), which had as one of its tasks the strengthening of confidence-building measures along the NATO-Russia line of contact. To address this task, sides should resume a navigational data exchange on the air situation along Russia’s Western border with NATO member states that was already established in the past.

2.3. As one of the options for managing incidents, the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Agree- ment on Prevention of Incidents at Sea and in the Airspace Above the Sea, as well as 11 similar agreements between certain NATO member states and Russia, could be taken as the basis for additional bilateral or multilateral agreements. Another source of ideas and approaches can be found in the Sino-American agreement of 2014 and Protocol of 2015 on prevention of incidents, which combines principles of prevention of incidents at sea and prevention of incidents during military activities in general.

2.4. Russia and the United States should reach agreement on notification of heavy bomber patrols and ights near the borders of the other side, similar to the notifications they exchange of ICBM and SLBM launches.

2.5. NATO and Russia should develop and adopt standardized procedures for de-escalation of military incidents and con icts. They should also conduct joint sta training exercises to prepare for de-escalation, create de-confliction mechanisms in the Baltic, High North and Black Sea regions, and establish a joint mech- anism similar to the one built up by Russia and the United States in Syria.

3. Ensuring stability

3.1. NATO member states and Russia should rea rm the reciprocal political commitments contained in the NATO-Russia Founding Act (1997) and the CFE Final Act (1999) whereby NATO and Russia agree to refrain from additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces in areas close to the territory of the other side in Europe.

3.2. They should explore the possibility of reciprocal constraints or further parallel unilateral commitments on the size and scope of military activities in contiguous areas, or on the level of armed forces permanently located in such areas, with scope wider and thresholds for advance noti cation and mandatory observation much lower than those required under the 2011 Vienna Document. A focus for such measures could be the Baltic Region (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland and Germany), including Kaliningrad and Russia’s Western military district.

3.3. NATO member states and Russia should consider including in transparency measures landbased and sea-launched conventional intermediate (medium-range) strike systems, such as cruise missiles that may be located outside the contact zones if they can support exercises and military operations in the contact zones.

3.4. They could also draw on the experience with the provisions relating to the inner-German border area contained in the 1989 U.S.-Soviet agreement on preventing dangerous military activities. That agreement required troops to behave with caution in the border area. The sides could consider the establishment of reciprocal zones in which exercises should not be conducted, e.g. within 5 to 10 kilometers of speci ed borders, while also limiting personnel and certain kinds of military equipment in such zones.

3.5. Russia and NATO member states could agree that both sides will conduct large-scale military exercises, as a rule, at a militarily meaningful distance from their borders taking into account the speci city of contact zones. They should con- sider reducing the scale and frequency of military activities with respect to numbers and geography, in particular exercises in near borders. Generally, military exercises should be executed responsibly, not provocatively.

3.6. As for “snap exercises”, which continue to be a source of tension and are not subject to prior notification, we recommend the establishment of a regime of mutual transparency at a high military level between Russia and NATO. To that end, a “quiet notification” mode should be developed, e.g. providing confidential advance high-level notice to the other side, but with no advance warning to troops participating in the exercises. “Quiet notification” could also be applied to short-notice transit of multinational forces. An appropriate level for this sort of mutual information exchange would be the Chief of Sta of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander

4. NATO-Russia Founding Act

4.1. If agreements can be reached between NATO and Russia on additional con dence-building, transparency and restraint measures, these could be incorporated as additional protocols or annexes to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act.

4.2. NATO and Russia could also agree to de nitions of the parameters of the reciprocal measures of restraint mentioned in the Founding Act, such as “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.” This could be established as the equivalent of one army brigade and one air wing/regiment per country or Russian military district.

4.3. With the implementation of these additional risk-reduction measures and signi cant progress in the resolution of broader political differences between NATO and Russia, the sides could agree to draw up a new Code of Conduct for European security, which could also engage other European states beyond NATO and Russia.

5. Possible agreements on conventional armed forces in Europe

5.1. Con dence-building measures and possible measures of restraint should provide for effective collective and individual defense for all states in the region, big and small, with a view to enhancing stability and transparency, avoiding surprises, and minimizing risks of escalation. Given that a new conventional arms control treaty does not seem possible or practicable at this time, agreements may take the form of political commitments.

5.2. NATO and Russia should start negotiations to adopt certain measures to limit the arms race in the European region based on the assumption that currently deployed force levels are su cient. Agreement should be aimed primarily at limiting destabilizing concentrations of forces and military training activities.

5.3. Both sides should consider and discuss the potentially destabilizing capabilities of some precision and long-range conventional weapons with a view to exercising restraint and ensuring transparency in this sphere. They could adopt transparency measures also with respect to conventional strike forces located outside the zone of direct contact of Russia and NATO. This refers to naval forces, long-range aviation and ground-based weapons, not covered by New START, with the range capability to reach this region.

5.4. The measures proposed in this paper should be signi cantly more farreaching than the provisions of the Vienna Document 2011. They should take into account the experience of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and its adapted version and extend their scope.

5.5. Therefore, we recommend conducting an analysis of the Vienna Document 2011 with a view to extending the scope of its transparency and veri cation measures and its provisions on large-scale military exercises and other deployments to include naval forces, all large air force and air defense formations, conventional ground-, air- or sea-launched ballistic or cruise missiles, as well as logistic and communication units.

5.6. NATO member states and Russia should practice parallel unilateral arms control measures, coordinating them in advance, where practicable, and reciprocating as appropriate.

6. Missile Defenses and Intermediate Range Missiles in Europe

6.1. Russia and the United States/NATO should hold consultations on missile defense in Europe, both strategic and non-strategic, nuclear and non-nuclear, with a view to increasing transparency and overcoming existing di erences.

6.2. They should consider ways to bridge the di erences between NATO’s declared intention not to deploy any nuclear-armed ground-based missiles in Europe and Russia’s proposal for a moratorium on nuclear- and conventionallyarmed medium-range and intermediate-range missiles in Europe. A rst step could be to agree upon reciprocal transparency measures with regard to existing capabilities.

6.3. Russia, the United States and other NATO member states should enhance transparency beyond current capabilities through an annual exchange of tenyear plans for the development of missile defense in Europe, the creation of a data exchange center, and noti cation of new missile defense elements that have reached operational readiness.

7. Open Skies Treaty

7.1. Participants in the dialogue support preserving the Open Skies Treaty as it is one of the few remaining transparency instruments geared to promote con dence- building between states parties in Europe.

7.2. We should focus on the consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty for the remaining 33 states parties and on preserving the treaty. All states parties, including Russia, should remain in the Treaty for a su cient time to assess how it would function in these conditions and to allow time for possible reentry by the United States. Russia and the United States, as well as other states parties, should discuss their concerns about the treaty and try to nd agreed solutions.

7.3. Remaining states parties should consider the possibility of joint diplomatic initiatives aimed at returning the United States to the Open Skies Treaty.