NATO vs. Putin: Ukraine crisis redefining much more than borders

For anyone living nervously at the edge of NATOs eastern borders, there is probably little that could be more reassuring these days than a visit from the U.S. president.

Barack Obamas brief stop Wednesday in Talinn, the capital of Estonia located just over 200 kilometres from the Russian border, will bring him as close as he is likely to get in the near future to Russian soil.

And its probably as close Obama has come to a provocative move since the Ukraine crisis started.

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Officials see Estonia and its sister Baltic states in Russian President Vladimir Putins backyard as NATOs new front line. Obamas stop there is designed to reassure one side of the border, while riling the other.

The visit also kicks off a week that will be pivotal in defining Europes new normal.

The way western officials describe it, the continents security environment has been turned upside down in a way they could not have predicted. Just a few months ago, and despite their history, NATO nations and Russia had a formal arrangement that allowed them to work as equals on issues of common interest.

This weeks NATO gathering in Wales is now aimed at taking what was once a collaborativerelationship with Russia, and recalibrating it into a more adversarial one.

Military options

Without the threat of military action which has been repeatedly and explicitly excluded as an option for NATO insiders acknowledge that sanctions alone will do little in the short term to change Russias policy in Ukraine.

So the coming reset to relations with Russia involves NATO and its leaders pushing at the alliances edges, at least trying to appear to be upping the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It isnt clear whether its a strategy that will work. Or that it even should. But other options to which all NATO members might agree are limited.

Later this week, at their first summit since the Ukraine crisis started, NATO leaders will considerestablishing a new forward operating base in Poland east of the Iron curtain.They will also likelyagree on a rapid reaction force, announced Monday, which could involve thousands of troops at atime from the 28 NATO countries in rotation and which could deploy within 48 hours.

The bottom line is you will in the future see a more visible NATO presence in the East.- NATO Secretary GeneralAndersFogh Rasmussen

Perhaps more vexing (if you look at it from the Russian view), the leaders are hosting UkrainianPresident Petro Poroshenko, while the NATO secretary general is publicly stating Ukraine has aright to apply for NATO membership.

The bottom line is you will in the future see a more visible NATO presence in the East," says Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

For Russia, Ukrainian NATO membership is a red line.

So in doing all this, NATO leaders are pushing buttons they know might bring on severe blowback. Putin is not a fan of any form of NATO expansion in geographic footprint or in membership however modest.

The NATO summits inclusion this week of Poroshenko with whom Putin met a mere week ago to discuss the crisis will surely be seen by Putin as a direct provocation.

Russian ire

Already in this past week, Putin has been vocal in response. He worryingly reminded the world that Russia is still a nuclear power.

And it appears Russia is again pushing at the edges of its own boundaries of influence. Few Western leaders are using the word invasion to describe the entry of Russian troops and military hardware into the southeast region of Ukraine last week, but on Monday leaders did sharpen their language, explicitly naming Russia as a party to the conflict in Ukraine.

Thats not likely to sit well with Putin, who has rejected the notion that Russia as a nation hasintervened.

Nor will the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, however academic. Even though, despite the public statements to the contrary, it is highly unlikely Ukraine would join NATO anytime soon. There is too much opposition to the idea inside the organization.

Still, the discussion alone will raise Russias ire. So does the idea of a new permanent rotation of thousands of NATO troops exercising at Russias borders.

I am sure the reaction will be strong, says Heather Conley, senior vice-president for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. She points out NATOs actions have come only as a response to Putins provocative actions in Ukraine, and his massing of thousands of soldiers at their joint border.

It will probably, again, provoke the addition of force Russian forces along this area. So we will see a buildup on both sides, absolutely.

Mixed signals

Insiders acknowledge Putin has time on his side.

On the one hand, Obama and NATOs message for Russia is, dont even think about messing around in Estonia or in any of the Baltic areas in the same way that you have been messing around in Ukraine, says Charles Kupchan, senior director for European affairs in the Obama administration.

To the Baltic States, NATO is signaling that its security guarantee is ironclad, Kupchan says exactly the kind of reassurance Estonia has been seeking.

Yet the alliance has also been at pains to point out it is only taking a defensive posture, and that it has no plans for military confrontation with Russia. Asked directly, Obama concurred. Any new steps taken by Russia in Ukraine will be punished by more sanctions.

Officials have also repeatedly said that NATO enlargement is not on the agenda.

Still, in this crisis, NATO is also presented with an opportunity to re-define itself.

NATO should thank Vladimir Putin, because it was really searching for its purpose ... it was having a fairly significant identity crisis, Conley says.

It has now not only been repurposed, it has been reinvigorated.

And from the other side of the border, Putin is watching it warily, but closely.