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In this new Brookings Marshall Paper, Michael O’Hanlon argues that now is the time for Western nations to negotiate a new security architecture for neutral countries in eastern Europe to stabilize the region and reduce the risks of war with Russia. He believes NATO expansion has gone far enough. The core concept of this new security architecture would be one of permanent neutrality. The countries in question collectively make a broken-up arc, from Europe’s far north to its south: Finland and Sweden; Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and finally Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly several other Balkan states. Discussion on the new framework should begin within NATO, followed by deliberation with the neutral countries themselves, and then formal negotiations with Russia.

The research into the strategies of the sides in the Russia-Ukraine war is of great relevance, as it is one of the most intense conflicts on the territory of Europe since World War II. Further, the violent actions committed by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine have had an unprecedented impact on the international peace architecture and international relations; they have caused a humanitarian, economic, and social crisis on a regional and global scale. The present research may, most notably, help understand the causes and consequences of the conflict. For this reason, this paper aims to analyze and cover the peculiarities of the main military and political strategies of Ukraine and the Russian Federation in the context of the 2022 war, as well as evaluate specific actions the enemies took against each other as international actors. The updating of the states’ strategies should be noted, as previously Ukraine was regarded only in the context of European integration and reforms, while the full-scale war increases Ukraine’s subjectivity, particularly in terms of planning and implementation of military decisions and more proactive diplomatic efforts. Russia’s strategies were considered in the context of Western theoretical models aimed at establishing it as a regional leader with extensive military potential. Moreover, the beginning of the full-scale war proved that in the situation of the military conflict against Ukraine and its allies Russia’s strategic resources are limited, which calls for further research. The results of this investigation provide a theoretical basis for further research in the field and are of importance for the understanding of security issues, and safeguarding of peace and stability not only in Ukraine and Europe but all around the world.

The end of the Cold War led to intense debates about how change happens in international politics. In this article, we argue that practice theory has great potential for illuminating this question. Drawing on Vincent Pouliot’s empirical analysis of NATO-Russia relations after the end of the Cold War, we elaborate how change happens in and through practice. We show that post-Cold War security practices are inherently unstable, because there is a fundamental uncertainty about whether the Cold War is really over or whether the Cold War logic of bipolar confrontation still applies. Uncertainty about the meaning of the past destabilizes present practices and thus makes sudden and drastic change possible. To date, many contributions to the literature on international practices have, however, failed to grasp the inherent instability of practice. We argue that this failure is due to a particular conception of change that can be found in the works of Pierre Bourdieu. Through a close reading of Pouliot’s Bourdieusian analysis of post-Cold War politics, we demonstrate the limitations of such a perspective, notably that it is unable to grasp how change originates in practice.

NATO's 2010 Strategic Concept officially broadened the alliance's mission beyond collective defense, reflecting a peaceful Europe and changes in alliance activities. NATO had become an international security facilitator, a crisis-manager even outside Europe, and a liberal democratic club as much as a mutual-defense organization. However, Russia's re-entry into great power politics has changed NATO's strategic calculus. Russia's aggressive annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its ongoing military support for Ukrainian separatists dramatically altered the strategic environment and called into question the liberal European security order. States bordering Russia, many of which are now NATO members, are worried, and the alliance is divided over assessments of Russia's behavior.  Against the backdrop of Russia's new assertiveness, an international group of scholars examines a broad range of issues in the interest of not only explaining recent alliance developments but also making recommendations about critical choices confronting the NATO allies. While a renewed emphasis on collective defense is clearly a priority, this volume's contributors caution against an overcorrection, which would leave the alliance too inwardly focused, play into Russia's hand, and exacerbate regional fault lines always just below the surface at NATO. This volume places rapid-fire events in theoretical perspective and will be useful to foreign policy students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

The need for an understanding of the problem of creating a modern system for resolving European security problems and developing new reliable mechanisms for intraregional security with the participation of the EU and Russia has become an important issue in Europe. The current European security system is no longer based on traditional great power balancing. This article firstly examines how the transformation of the European security system has taken place in the post-confrontational period and secondly analyses how this process has influenced the role and place of Russia in the post-cold war European security architecture. This article shows that the place of Russia within the system of pan-European security since 1991 fits into the logic of keeping Russia outside of Europe. The new strategic nuances of Western policy are only modernized tools that regulate the degree of distance between the US, NATO and the EU from Russia.