What will the new Russian-American structure for international security be like?

Russia and the United States have announced their intention to create a new joint bilateral structure on international security. This was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 8, 2021. There is an agreement on the establishment of such an organisation, and the parties have begun to develop proposals on its structure and functions. Russia should prepare its proposals within 7-10 days and give them to the American side for review.

A natural question arises: what will such an organisation do? What will it look like? How effective will it be, and how far can Russia and the United States go in ensuring global security? More precisely, in the sphere of preventing the risk of direct military clashes everywhere, from the underwater kingdom to space orbits.

Before guessing about the structure of such an organisation, it is necessary to understand what its functions will be. What tasks will it solve for its founders? How will it help (or hinder) to pursue their national interests?

Offhand, it can be assumed that the first function that such an organisation should have should be monitoring. The structure should rely on data from different intelligence agencies and departments, but it needs to somehow come to a common denominator in the interpretation of this data. That is, the structure will outline the circle of organisations whose data it will either recognise immediately, or after verification by its own structures, which should arise and receive its own analytical and methodological apparatus.

If this is not done, the structure will turn into another negotiation platform, duplicating existing analogues. Then it will be possible to say: its creators do not need it as a real security tool and it was created solely to put pressure on each other. But this is irrational – it is possible to exchange reproaches and ultimatums anywhere, from the UN rostrum to the recently killed Russia-NATO format. That is, it is logical to assume that such an organisation will not be exclusively a platform for negotiations.

Consequently, negotiations should turn from periodic events into a permanent process, and for this it is impossible to do without monitoring and expertise. This means that it is necessary to create a joint, at least at the level of secretaries, apparatus and allocate a budget for this. At least in order to determine the methods of calculating and analysing national intelligence data.

In addition to monitoring and analysis, the structure should have the functions of forecasting and risk assessment. Someone has to do this, too. It is not enough to collect the conclusions of closed intelligence reports. This data still needs to be legalised somehow, that is, to show their knowledge without highlighting the sources and methods of obtaining information. This is one more problem, but a technical one.

Much worse for the structure which is being created is that it is created not by allies, but by enemies. It is not necessary to speak more gently, we are not in sports and not in business. If Russia did not have nuclear weapons, the United States would not hesitate to destroy us like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we are not rivals, not competitors and not partners, we are enemies. Existential and eternal.

And this means that in relation to each other, we have a strategy of containment, rejection and harming as the main task of our own survival. The organisation being created should not contradict the main strategy – harming the main strategic rival without the risk of developing an uncontrollable conflict. To what extent will the joint security structure help or hinder the solution of this main strategic task? Will there be a contradiction between the goals of the founding states and the goals of the organisation?

It is only clear that there is a contradiction, but a mechanism is needed to transport it in a constructive direction, to equalise the potentials of the parties, otherwise the structure will undermine the security of one side and strengthen the other. This lineup will not be acceptable and will lead to an exit from the format. And if so, then the functions of the structure tend to be superficial - monitoring, negotiations. Bidding on how to interpret some data and how to ignore others.

Propaganda will get another institution, but it will not add security. Do both sides need it now? Hardly. The mountain must not bring forth a mouse, or it will no longer be a mountain. Russia and the United States do not intend to create empty structures now.

It is absolutely clear that the structure being created will correspond with others and will have to involve the opposite side in its foreign policy course and not interfere with foreign policy. The temptation to turn the structure into another manipulative tool will be very great.

But any attempts by the parties to act behind each other's backs will immediately kill the meaning of the existence of this structure. It will turn into a screen for guerrilla warfare and subversive actions of the founders against each other. The parties already have no trust in each other, and if caught by the hand, they will be even more filled with mutual suspicions and will rush to work ahead of the curve on the principle of "you die today, and I tomorrow”. Instead of security, we will get an increased danger in more difficult conditions.

That is, the structure being created has the potential for virality: in the event of unsuccessful behaviour, immunity will be undermined, and security will decrease. Instead of trust, the security structure will feed distrust, which there will be nothing left to treat with. After all, it doesn't mean that we should create a new security structure, but there are no other ways to protect oneself, except to create a structure with many functions for this.

Thus, it's possible to say that the structure being created should increase the potential of trust and reduce distrust, otherwise it is harmful. It's enemies who create a structure, that is, by creating it, both take a contradictory step for themselves: they come to a fork in the road between changing their goals, which cannot be changed, and emasculating the meaning of the created structure, which will worsen the state of relations in comparison with the current ones, already worthless. It's about whether to change one’s goals, or change the goals of the structure. What to do in this case?  

If only negotiations will be conducted, then this is the weakest thing that can be created. It will be another platform for endless disputes, an analogue of the Minsk process. No one observes anything, and the war continues.

If monitoring is added to the negotiations, then the question of evaluating the initial data will arise. Here it shouldn't be like in the case of the downed by Ukraine Boeing flight MH17: I see this data, but I don't see it at close proximity. Here it is necessary to agree that the data is accepted and verified by two parties. And in case of discrepancies, an expert group is created that comes to a common opinion. And only after that, one or another decision is made by the heads of state.

What will be the decisions of this structure for the presidents of the United States and Russia? Mandatory? Advisory? Recommendation letters? It is clear that the weaker the status, the lower the security. After all, the structure will directly affect the sovereignty of the founders. They will either have to make decisions of the structure, or discard them. In this case, conciliation commissions should work, which should have agreed regulations.

As was already mentioned, monitoring will entail joint forecasting and planning. How will this affect the expansion plans of the two global states? It is clear that it will have a deterrent effect. Hence the desire to limit the scope of competence of the structure to issues of preventing nuclear collision or threatening to develop into a nuclear collision issues.

But security is a broad, and most importantly, a deep concept. Starting in ideology and economics, it moves into the military sphere. Where will the competencies of the created structure end, and how will they affect the policy of the founders?

The conclusion may be as follows: the structure will be created as the simplest and most flexible form, initially carrying a conflict of interests and contradictory functions. Hence, the structure will be blurred, and the efficiency will be low. But this is an excuse to use the situation to develop a relationship. If security will be a real need, we will have to increase the structure's apparatus and load it with new regulations and functions.

It is possible to deepen the competence of the structure quite strongly, if there is a will of the parties. Or it is possible to limit oneself to the delegations sitting opposite each other once a month or a quarter. It is possible to transfer functions to attached officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Department altogether. They will use military data and try to agree on the limits of what is permissible for each other.

In any case, the organisation will be somewhere in the middle between a permanent mission and an anti-crisis commission. The coordination bar will float, and it is not yet clear who will install it, where and how. How will the one who replaces Biden behave in relation to the structure? Will the structure grow into a multilateral one? Or will it be an addition to existing institutions? How will the US allies behave? Will the UK torpedo the structure, or will the US be able to keep the British lion on a leash on the sidelines?

The broader the tasks of the organisation which is being created will be, the more difficult it will be for it to act in the general context of the conflict policy of the founding countries. Small tasks are easy to solve, but it is unlikely to suit Putin and Biden. Most likely, they will try to create on the basis of this structure some kind of permanent consulting and coordination mechanism bypassing the establishment.

If it can be accomplished, there will be more security. The structure will first act on the principle of a fire brigade - to extinguish where it burns. Then it will objectively move on to the prevention of fires. This will have far-reaching consequences if implemented. Anything can be broken, but for a while a certain structure can be built with the possibility of completion if the developers wish. Whether there will be such a desire, and in what case it may appear – that's what is most important in this situation.