Rysk författare om Europas säkerhetsarkitektur

One of the most important effects of Russia’s war against Georgia in August 2008 was a new set of approaches to the future of European security being actively promoted by Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. According to their interpretation, the Georgian war was not a particular incident (an exception) but a structural event, a landmark comparable to Russia’s own ‘September 11’ to be symbolised as a ‘moment of truth’. Lavrov called the events of August 2008 a systemic breakdown, which necessitates the reparation of the deficient architecture of security.
 What is interesting is that this claim is substantiated by two different sets of arguments. One of them contains conceptual explanations as to why the existing security institutions are weak and inefficient. Firstly, the current security architecture proved unable to prevent a number of violent crises, from the Balkans to the Caucasus. Secondly, what is wrong, in Russia’s view, is that the European security landscape rests upon obsolete ‘bloc approaches’. Thirdly, the prevailing approaches to security are excessively ideologised. Though neither of the prominent Russian speakers explains the exact meaning of this invective, one may guess that it may boil down to Russia’s criticism of the conflation of normative/democracy-related and
security arguments. Thus, Russia insists that security decisions (including NATO enlargement) should not be based upon the assessments of the state of democracy in one country or another. Fourthly, in today’s Europe, to the dissatisfaction of Russia, certain countries and their groups enjoy special (exclusive) rights in security-making – a clear allusion to NATO. Fifthly, Lavrov compared today’s security arrangements to a patchwork, a metaphor pointing to fragmentation and lack of due uniformity. Här.