Think tank: NATO and Russia need new rules to avoid war

Russia and NATO must agree on common rules to handle unexpected military encounters to reduce the risk of inadvertently triggering a war between Moscow and the West, a group of former foreign and defence ministers said today (26 August).

With both Russia and NATO intensifying military exercises because of the crisis in Ukraine, incidents such as mid-air face-offs between rival military jets are on the increase.

Calling for a high-level NATO-Russia meeting, the group of 14 - including former Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov, ex-German defence minister Volker Rühe, former EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and colleagues from Britain, France, Spain and Turkey - said rules for communication at sea and in the air were paramount.

"The situation is ripe with potential for either dangerous miscalculation or an accident that could trigger a worsening of the crisis or even a direct military confrontation," they said in a report published by the European Leadership Network.

The London-based think tank, which this month said both sides were training for the possibility of war, said it had recorded 66 "close military encounters" between Russian and NATO military forces, and between Russia and neutral Sweden and Finland, which NATO counts as partners.

>>Read: NATO, Swedish fighters scrambled to intercept Russian plane

It has been keeping count since March 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The following month, a separatist war broke out in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian rebels and government forces.

The group said an agreement, possibly based on a similar pact between the United States and China, would set out actions to avoid, such as attack simulations near the other side's military vessels and aircraft.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rc07bMb4cKA

If such exercises or live weapons-firing did take place, there should be timely warnings and agreed radio frequencies and signals vocabulary.

NATO has suspended all practical and military cooperation with Russia, but can still convene political meetings.

Snap exercises in March were one of the Kremlin's biggest shows of force since the start of the Ukraine crisis. It put the navy's Northern Fleet on full combat readiness in Russia's Arctic north, close to Norway, a NATO member.

NATO has also held exercises - although not on the same scale - mainly in eastern Europe and the Baltics. Along with its partners, the 28-nation alliance will hold its biggest military exercise in more than a decade in October.

The report said an "action-reaction cycle" was now under way between NATO and Russia that could be hard to stop.

"History is littered with examples of international crises and tensions that developed a momentum of their own and resulted in conflict even when no one side intended it," it said.

NATO rejected in a statement this month any suggestion that its military exercises make war in Europe more likely, saying Russia has 10 times more exercises planned this year than NATO.