Medvedev and the new European security architecture

President Medvedev's call for a new European security architecture is Russia's most active diplomatic initiative in recent times. Yet it lacks substance. Moscow has a much better understanding of what it opposes – a Euro-Atlantic security space dominated by NATO and the US – than of what it would like to see emerge. The Europeans need to emphasise that the fate of the Russian proposals depends on positive measures from Moscow, not empty rhetoric. And they should resist any attempts to minimise NATO, undermine the OSCE or legitimise a Russian sphere of 'privileged interests' in Eastern Europe.

Bobo Lo was a senior reserarch fellow at the CER (2008-2010).