ABSTRACT
During the early 1990s, the relationship between European security institutions and Russia was meager. The European Union (EU), entangled in its Balkans quag mire, was obsessed by its own internal developments and reforms, essentially look ing at the United States and NATO to fill the gap on security. NATO and the United States essentially considered Russia a security risk in spite of the rapprochement initiated by the Clinton administration.1 In the second half of the 1990s, various attempts to integrate Russia into the West were made. But they remained timid rather than proactive. In the Balkans, the EU viewed Russia as a precious mediator with the Slavs and Russian military presence as a counterweight to American policy, which often opposed European interests. Russia participated in peace-keeping operations and was closely associated with negotiation processes. The EU as a main soft-security actor developed a special relationship with Russia through the strategic partnership, worried by a spillover of Russian instability on European territory. NATO established a similar relationship in the Balkans by associating Russia with crisis management operations in Bosnia and Kosovo and by granting Russia the Cooperation Partnership Council (CPC) in 1997. But in essence, Russia was left out of the major changes affecting the European strategic setting such as the development of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) and NATO reform. The Chechnya issue was severely criticized by both Europeans and Ameri cans as a major case against human rights.
