Europe should keep a spare key for Russia
Read it for yourself, and don't dismiss it, as most Western commentators have. The Pan-European Security Treaty, proposed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is worth a look. Yes, it can be modified and improved, and ambiguities removed. But it makes a lot of sense, and it would be another step towards what the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, urged - the creation of a 'European house' that contains Russia as one of its inhabitants.
Only those 'with one foot in the cold war', to quote US President Barack Obama on the eve of his recent visit to Moscow, should find it objectionable.
Even in the worst of times under totalitarian rule, many Russians, not only Mr Gorbachev, wanted in their heart a European identity - not difficult to believe among those who were conscious of the natural links of their country's artistic talents and their (repressed) church. When the communist dictatorship ended, it enabled Russians and many of the other peoples of the ex-Soviet Union to greet, in Vaclav Havel's phrase, the 'Return to Europe'.
When two years ago I interviewed Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Russian scholar, former national security adviser and now an unofficial adviser to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, he said: 'I have given speeches about a Europe that extends from Portugal on the Atlantic to Vladivostok on the Pacific'. But he also added the important caveat: 'But when that will happen, I don't know. However, I do know if Ukraine doesn't move to the West, is prevented from moving, or is excluded from the West, Russia's involvement with the West will be much more delayed.'
I would add to that point that, if president Bill Clinton hadn't pushed through the expansion of Nato and if president George W. Bush hadn't continued the process by breaking a solemn American promise made to Mr Gorbachev not to install Nato military infrastructure in eastern Europe, Moscow would not be so unnerved by Europe and America's courting of Ukraine.
Ukraine would be permitted to enter the EU without much of a serious fuss and Russia itself would have been a big step nearer being considered for entry itself.
At the moment, the question of Russia as part of Europe is off the agenda. The issues discussed at the recent Moscow summit are the short-term ones - nuclear disarmament, Afghanistan, Iran and Georgia, although we do not know what Mr Obama discussed with Mr Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in private.
But one day, not too far off, it must be. Dr Brzezinski will say that, in 20 years' time, Russia might be considered for European Union membership. There is much to put right before then, not just on the Western side but on Russia's, too.
Nevertheless, Russia wants a peaceful and productive relationship with Europe and the US. That is why we must read and work on Mr Medvedev's Pan-European Security Treaty. It is a good place to start if one concludes, as I do, that one day Russia must be part of the EU.
Jonathan Power is a London-based journalist
