ORIGINILE SOVIETICE ALE UNEI INIŢIATIVE ACTUALE A POLITICII EXTERNE A FEDERAŢIEI RUSE: TRATATUL GENERAL DE SECURITATE EUROPEANĂ
THE SOVIET ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S RECENT INITIATIVE OF FOREIGN POLICY: THE EUROPEAN SECURITY GENERAL TREATY

Summary/Abstract: The Russian project of a „European Security Treaty”, launched in 2008 and associated with the name of the former President Dmitry Medvedev, has deep roots in Moscow’s foreign and strategic policy. Starting with 1954, a “General European Security Treaty” was promoted by the Soviets, as part of their strategy to undermine the Western-European Institutions, and particularly NATO. Even the Warsaw Treaty, signed in May 1955, establishing the basis for an integrated military organization of the Soviet bloc, represented a tactical vehicle to promote the Soviet objective of the pan-European security treaty. Art. 11 of the Warsaw Treaty provided for the dissolution of the Soviet military-led organization when a European Security Treaty would enter into force, thus replacing the security architecture based on the military blocs. The Soviet initiative led, in the particular context of détente at the beginning of the 1970s, to the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe‘s process. Its outcome, the Helsinki Final Act, represented the result of 20 years of Russian campaign for a pan-European security arrangement. This result was nevertheless different in fundamental aspects to that wished by Moscow, and the inclusion of the Human Rights basket in the Final Act had its contribution to the dissolution of the communist system in Europe. This study outlines the evolution of the Soviet initiative on a European Security Treaty since its apparition in 1954 and until the CSCE process. Besides the personal views reflected in the memoirs of actors of that time (as Anthony Eden, Charles Bohlen, Andrei Gromyko, or Anatoli Dobrynin), and the published documents, the NATO Archives provide interesting and realistic assessments of the Soviet initiative.

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