Six years after the Crimean crisis and the subsequent phase of confrontational dissociation, the first signs of a softening of the hardened fronts are becoming visible. There is a growing realization that the policies of recent years are producing high costs, but are not offering any solutions. Western states dared to take a first step to reduce the level of tensions in summer 2019 with the decision to keep Russia in the Council of Europe. Nevertheless, caution is advisable as phases of détente in Russian-Western relations have regularly been replaced by relapses into confrontation. Against this background, we are developing a new conflict model that sheds new light on the origins of the high tensions in Russian-Western Relations and points to a way to defuse them. In a nutshell, this model maintains that the high tensions resulted from a failed association project – the famous idea of a pan-European peace project whose contours were developed during the early 1990 – and the following dissociation of Russia from this order. However, this model also assumes that a conclusion of the dissociation process creates possibilities for a reduction of tensions. Building on this theoretical assumption, the article explores how the de-facto state of separation achieved in the last years could be transformed into a more codified and stable state of coexistence on the «thinner» basis of norms and institutions.
Dissociation; Russia; West; NATO; EU; tensions; Paris Charter.