Not whiffs of Munich but a European security plan that smells good?

Photo by Guillaume Périgois on Unsplash

One of the most constructive suggestions offered on how to deal with Russia comes from Mary Kaldor, director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit in the London School of Economics Department of International Development.

The Professor recently pointed out that a rethink is needed of Europe’s security arrangements. Rather than following preordained lines of classic geo-political alliances like Nato, she said, Europe should be building its structures of security and cooperation per the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

The end of the Cold War was a good moment to move firmly on the demilitarisation of Europe. But even though the Warsaw Pact (the military alliance of Eastern bloc countries) closed shop, Nato remained a going concern, and even expanded.

Nato’s structure is divisive anyway, she added, unlike the Helsinki Accords, with their three basic components — the prevention of war; economic, social, cultural, and environmental co-operation, and hum…