The re-securitization of Russia by NATO and Western countries based on the theory of collective security

Bagheri, Reza; Kazami, Alireza

doi:10.22059/jcountst.2023.363511.1051

The re-securitization of Russia by NATO and Western countries based on the theory of collective security

Document Type : Case Study

Authors

Reza Bagheri

Alireza Kazami

Department of European Studies, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jcountst.2023.363511.1051

Abstract

The expansion of NATO to the east and its security consequences for the countries of the region have long been of interest to researchers. The crisis in Ukraine made the issue of NATO development to be at the top of researchers' attention again. Russia considers Ukraine's actions to join the European Union and NATO development as a security threat, and the Western countries also considered Russia's actions in annexing Crimea and attacking Ukraine as a security threat, which led to a "collective reaction" in response. This article seeks to answer the question of why the Western countries and NATO, which previously sought to de-securitize Russia, adopted a global response to a regional crisis and re-securitized Russia. The current article examines the current state of tensions in relations between Russia and the West by adopting a theoretical approach and specifically by applying the theory of collective security. The results of this survey show that after the developments in Ukraine in 2014 and the annexation of Crimea to Russia, NATO identifies Russia as a new source of threat. In this change of NATO's position, the annexation of Crimea and the Donbass crisis have been very influential as an accelerating factor. In this situation, the West's concern for collective action against Russia can be analyzed in the framework of collective security theory.

Keywords

collective security

NATO expansion to the East

Russia-NATO relations

Ukraine crisis

Subjects

International Relations

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