Fyodor Lukyanov: Europe's last security project is quietly collapsing
At the time, many believed the Final Act would solidify the postwar status quo. It formally recognized existing borders – including those of Poland, the two Germanys, and the Soviet Union – and acknowledged the spheres of influence that had shaped Europe since 1945. More than just a diplomatic document, it was seen as a framework for managing ideological confrontation.
Fifty years later, the legacy of Helsinki is deeply paradoxical. On the one hand, the Final Act laid out a set of high-minded principles: mutual respect, non-intervention, peaceful dispute resolution, inviolable borders, and cooperation for mutual benefit. In many ways, it offered a vision of ideal interstate relations. Who could object to such goals?
Yet these principles were not born in a vacuum. They were underpinned by a stable balance of power between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Cold War, for all its dangers, provided a kind of structure. It was a continuation of the Second World War by other means – and its rules, however harsh, were understood and largely respected.
That system no longer exists. The global order that emerged after 1945 has disintegrated, with no clear replacement. The post-Cold War attempts to graft a Western-led system onto the rest of Europe succeeded only briefly. The OSCE, which evolved from the CSCE, became a vehicle for imposing Western norms on others – a role it can no longer credibly perform.
Despite the growing need for cooperation in an unstable world, the OSCE today exists mostly in theory. The notion of 'pan-European security' that underpinned the Helsinki Process has become obsolete. Processes are now fragmented and asymmetric; rivals are unequal and numerous. There is no longer a shared framework to manage disagreements.
That hasn't stopped calls to revive the OSCE as a political mediator, particularly amid recent European crises. But can an institution forged in a bipolar world adapt to the multipolar disorder of today? History suggests otherwise. Most institutions created in the mid-20th century have lost relevance in periods of upheaval. Even NATO and the EU, long considered pillars of the West, face mounting internal and external pressures. Whether they endure or give way to new, more flexible groupings remains to be seen.
The fundamental problem is that the idea of European security itself has changed – or perhaps disappeared. Europe is no longer the center of the world it once was. It has become a theater, not a director, of global affairs. For Washington, Europe is increasingly a secondary concern, viewed through the lens of its rivalry with China. American strategic planning now sees Europe mainly as a market and an auxiliary partner, not a driver of global policy.
The Trump administration's economic policies highlight this shift. Measures targeting Russia, for example, are often less about Moscow and more about Beijing or other major powers. Even the conflict in Ukraine, while grave, is treated by many in Washington as a pawn in broader geopolitical chess.
Consider, too, the OSCE's diminished role in managing real-world conflicts. One recent case illustrates the point: proposals to establish an extraterritorial corridor through Armenia, protected by an American private military company. This idea may never materialize, but it reflects the mindset now prevalent in the West – one in which legitimacy can be manufactured as needed, with or without traditional institutions like the OSCE.
The Final Act of 1975 was, in retrospect, the zenith of Europe's geopolitical stature. Much of Europe were no longer the main actors, but it remained the primary arena. Even that is no longer true. The continent's fate is increasingly shaped by external powers and shifting alliances. New agreements are needed, ones that reflect today's realities and involve new players. But whether such agreements can be reached is far from certain.
The 'spirit of Helsinki' has not disappeared – but it no longer animates the institutions it once created. The principles remain appealing, but the context that made them meaningful is gone. If collective Europe wants a new era of security and cooperation, it will have to begin not by reviving the past, but by accepting its end.This article was first published in the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta and was translated and edited by the RT team
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Like him, hate him, Otto von Bismarck – Prussian aristocrat, arch conservative, user of German nationalism, maker of wars, and then keeper of the peace – was no dummy. And his ego was Reich-sized. Yet even Bismarck had a grain of humility left. Smart politics, he once remarked, consists of listening for 'God's step' as He walks through 'world history,' and then to grab the hem of His mantle. In other words, stay attuned to the needs and especially the opportunities of the moment. Tragically, Bismarck's single greatest skill was to seize – and, if need be, help along – opportunities for war. But sometimes peace, too, gets its chance. Fifty years ago, all European countries – minus only Albania, initially – plus the US and Canada, signed the Helsinki Final Act (or Helsinki Accords). A complex document addressing four areas (called 'baskets') of international relations and follow-up implementation, the Helsinki Final Act was a breakthrough for Détente in Europe. Détente was a global attempt, driven by Brezhnev and Gromyko's Moscow and Nixon and Kissinger's Washington to, if not wind down, then at least manage the Cold War better. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was not the only reason for this policy of restraint and reason. Coming extremely close to all-out nuclear war Dr.-Strangelove-style helped concentrate minds. Add the US fiasco in Vietnam, and by the late 1960s, the desire to de-escalate was strong enough even in Washington to quickly override the Soviet suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring. In the first half of the 1970s, a flurry of high-level international diplomacy and treaties marked the peak of Détente. By 1975, the Helsinki Accords were the peak of that peak. 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Since Western mainstream media excel at not reporting what Russian politicians are trying to tell us, it is likely that few will notice outside of Russia. That's a shame because Lavrov has more than one message we should pay attention to. Under the understated title 'Half a Century of the Helsinki Act: Expectations, Realities, and Perspectives,' Lavrov delivers a harsh and – even if you disagree with some of the details – fundamentally valid and just criticism of the disappointing failure following the promising beginnings at Helsinki. That failure has a name – the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Incidentally, the OSCE is the successor of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), which actually produced the Helsinki Accords between 1972 and 1975. Before the leaders of the time, both great and small, could meet in Helsinki to sign them, at what Cold War historian Jussi Hanhimäki called a 'largely ceremonial affair,' there had been years of painstaking, meticulous negotiations. There's a lesson here for the impatient Trumps and Zelenskys of today: serious results take serious preparation, not a day or two of grandstanding. What happened to the OSCE next is not complicated: with 57 member states, making it the largest security organization in the world today, it has massively under performed. At least if we measure it by its aims, as originally set out at Helsinki in the heyday of Détente. The OSCE could have been an indispensable international forum, bridging the front lines of geopolitics and ideologies (or, as we now say, 'values'). After the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, it could even have become the core of new security architecture, which included everyone from Lisbon to Vladivostok. 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Not to speak of the demented attempts by Ukraine's delusional, corrupt, and increasingly isolated Vladimir Zelensky to use the Helsinki anniversary to once again call for 'regime change' in Russia. Yet what is even more important is Lavrov's candid message about the future, as Russia sees it. First, it is polycentric or multipolar and, in this part of the world, Eurasian and emphatically not transatlantic. In that respect, it is almost as if we are back in the mid-1950s. Back then, long before the Helsinki Act became reality, Moscow – then the capital of the Soviet Union – suggested building comprehensive security architecture. The West refused because Moscow was not willing to include the US. By the 1970s, the Soviet leadership had changed its position, affirming that it was possible to include the US, which, in turn, made Helsinki possible. So much for fairy tales of Russian 'intransigence.' That inclusion was an irony of history, as Washington initially showed only distrust and disdain. As Hanhimäki has shown, Henry Kissinger considered Europe a sideshow, though not the Soviet Union: the US has always respected its opponents much more than its vassals. He suspected that if Moscow and Western Europe got to cozy it could end up threatening Washington's control over the latter. He once told his team with more than a tinge of nasty racism that the Helsinki agreements might as well be written in Swahili. Now, Moscow is back to standing firm against trans-atlanticism. Lavrov writes, 'Euro-atlantic' conceptions of security and cooperation have 'discredited themselves and are exhausted.' Europe, he warns, can have a place in future Eurasian systems, but it 'definitely' won't be allowed to 'call the tune.' If its countries wish to be part of the 'process, they will have to learn good manners, renounce [their habit of] diktat and colonial instincts, get used to equal rights, [and] working in a team.' You may think that this is very far from the Europe we are seeing now: one that is submissive to the US to the point of self-destruction (as the Turnberry Trade and Tariff Fiasco has just revealed again), blinded by hubris in its 'garden-in-the-jungle,' and fanatically invested in not even talking to Russia and confronting China. And yet, none of the above can last forever. Indeed, given how self-damaging these policies are, it may not last much longer. The news from Moscow is that, though Russia has not closed the door on Europe entirely, if or when the Europeans recover their sanity, they will find that Russia won't allow them to return to having it both ways: being America's vassals and enjoying a decent relationship with Russia at the same time.
