Session V: Co-operative Security Policies in Europe: The OSCE Experience and its Relevance for Korea

The OSCE - Lessons applicable to Northeast-Asia? Draft Theses¹

by Hans J. Giessmann

Introduction

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was created as a permanent conference forum (Conference for Security and Cooperation - CSCE)² in Helsinki in June 1975. It became formally transformed into a Regional Organization according to Chapter VIII of the UN-Charter - and renamed - during the Budapest Summit in 1994.

The OSCE was innovative in various aspects³: Firstly, in an era characterized by Cold War and a block-to-block confrontation, it had a wide and inclusive character by comprising all States participating in the Conference as sovereign and independent states and in conditions of full equality. Secondly, at a time when most negotiations and security organizations adopted a piecemeal approach to security, it endorsed a comprehensive perspective on security and cooperation. Thirdly, decisions of the Conference were taken by consensus thus often making the decision-making process as important as the decisions themselves. Fourthly, its decisions were politically rather than legally binding, given the Conference considerable flexibility. Finally, it had no institutional structures until 1994, the result being that the very impetus needed to keep the process going was an end in itself.

It can be concluded that the OSCE characteristics are that its is both comprehensive and inclusive, based on equality and flexibility, on political will and consensus of participating States, and that its is a lean organization in the pure sense of the meaning.

The so-called Helsinki-Process, which brought about the founding Final Document of the CSCE in 1975 provided three assets to the European participating States, including the United States and Canada, that had not existed before: a multilaterally feed-backed and permanent channel of communication, a normative code of conduct (both for inter-State and for intra-State relations and reference), and a long-term program of cooperation.

Three inter-related topics were put into separate Baskets: security dialogue and military confidence-building, economic cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian issues. The basket-construction of the OSCE provided a leverage to the participating States to link different issues with each other, if necessary or helpful. While it can be argued that the Eastern States were interested from the outset of the Helsinki-Process to endorsing the post-war status quo of Europe and especially to strengthening the legitimacy of the communist rule, and also in using Basket II for acquiring economic and financial assistance from the West, the Western States laid the primary focus on a gradual systemic change of the Eastern societies and humanitarian relief for the people living in the East. As a matter of fact, human rights issues that had been a "long-standing taboo"⁴ in the East-West relations became by virtue of the Final Act for the first time a legitimate subject of dialogue. Moreover, commitments to human rights by the participating States gave the people within the States the opportunity to address human right issues before their own governments.

Founding Principles, Strengths and Weaknesses of the OSCE

The Final Document of Helsinki comprised ten founding principles forming the normative basis for cooperation:

1. Sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty;

2. Refraining from the threat or use of force;

3. Inviolability of frontiers;

4. Territorial integrity of States;

5. Peaceful settlement of disputes;

6. Non-intervention in internal affairs;

7. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief;

8. Equal rights and self-determination of peoples;

9. Cooperation among States; and

10. Fulfilment in good faith of obligations under international law.⁵

The triumph of the CSCE, as one observer has noted, was not really a reflection of the messages manifested in its documents: "Rather, this triumph was firstly due to the signals radiating from the 'third basket' into the rigid Soviet socialist ruling systems, and secondly to the fact that the entire institution contributed to making the end phase of the East-West conflict almost totally free of violent disturbances."⁶ Yet the importance of the CSCE reached way beyond that. It became a catalyst for fostering security and cooperation in Europe and overcoming the ideological division of Europe in the 1970s and 1980s.⁷

In retrospect, the OSCE has accumulated both strengths and weaknesses:⁸

Its strengths are characterized by:

1. the very fact, that 55 nations, including the US and Canada belong to the OSCE, making it to a multilateral security framework that covers the whole Northern hemisphere from Vladivostok to Vancouver. No nation has been given the right to veto;

2. the overall positive record during the Cold War. Its cooperative security order contributed not only to diminishing risks of war and to enhancing confidence-building between the participating States but - above all - to perforating ideological barriers and autocratic structures in the former communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe. While the military security role of the CSCE (Basket I) had only very little attraction for the Western governments, a growing number of people in Central and Eastern Europe were captivated by its principles of freedom, liberal society, democracy and free market. The success of the independent Polish Trade Union Solidarnosz and the gradual transition of power in Hungary, the public appeal of the Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, or the spread of Helsinki-Groups in the Soviet Union could not be appropriately explained without reference to the CSCE and its principles;

3. the political momentum created by permanent cooperation. After the iron curtain fell, unlike other Cold War institutions, which ran into a permanent or at least temporary legitimacy crisis, the OSCE became even stronger than before, because its inherent principles became applied in almost all participating States. The former conference mechanism was transformed into a formal Organization;

4. the socializing impact of its norms and principles. The Helsinki-principles have set a high political standard, which has influenced the behaviour of governments, both in the intra-state and inter-state relations, and in which non-state actors for the first time have recourse to expressing their aspirations for freedom and democracy openly to safeguard human and minority rights without running the risk of becoming blamed of "counter-revolutionary" activity;

5. the comprehensiveness and dynamics of its agenda. The Organization's focus is not only directed to preserve and foster the existing status quo of international security and inter-state relations by confidence-building measures but also in intra-state conflict resolution, democracy building, and enhancing the rule of law within all participating States. Security in a complex and comprehensive sense has become understood as to be rather a dynamic process of change than maintaining the status quo;

6. the inclusiveness of its membership. The Organization is open to all European nations provided they adhere to the common standard of principles. It is not directed against any non-participating State or group of states, it does not even have a collective military capacity.

Its limitations, however, are:

1. the legally non-binding character and derived from that, that principles and resolutions agreed upon cannot be enforced legally;

2. the dependence on political consensus, which - though making any decisions taken politically powerful - brings about limitations to the operational strength of the OSCE, especially in situations of crisis within individual participating States, or if specific individual national interests matter. Even though the Organization has agreed upon a ¡°consensus minus one¡± approach, it has proven to be difficult to apply this approach in practice;

3. complicated and sometimes cumbersome mechanisms in cases were human and minority rights have been violated by governments who represent their States at the conference table;

4. the weak internal leadership structure of the Organization, including the weak role of the Secretary General and the OSCE secretariat, and derived from that, a usually time-consuming process for operational decision-making;

5. the poor financial and - in the context of its comprehensive tasks and geographical scope - inadequate resources the OSCE has at its disposal;

6. the existing institutional rivalry between the OSCE and other regional arrangements, like NATO or the (Western) European Union, which are rendered comparably more important by some participating States;

7. the different affiliations and security policies of the participating States: some of which are allied, others neutral or non-aligned;

8. the basically governmental character of decision-making. As in the UN it is governments who decide whether the most striking stability within state boundaries or whether they are cross-national;

9. a weak parliamentarian legitimacy; and

10. a low-profile public awareness of the success story of the OSCE within the societies of the participating States, especially after the ending of the Cold War and the communist camp.

Ironically the positive record of the former CSCE during the Cold War was largely attributed to its weaknesses. One may even assume that the CSCE was so successful and survived 15 years of Cold War only because it lacked institutional power:

1. The deficiency in legally binding commitments made the adversaries more susceptible to agreeing on common principles and political standards that could not be enforced.

2. The required political consensus limited decision-making to rather general resolutions and declarations of intent without pressing the governments hard to adopt far-reaching unilateral or intrusive steps.

3. The cumbersome operational mechanisms provided high hurdles to cross before any intrusive measure could be applied on individual participating States.

4. The weakness in leadership, structures and mechanisms posed less of a threat to those participating States, who were particularly afraid of "interfering measures" backed by the authority of an international institution against their national rule, either domestically of abroad.

5. Though the CSCE had little access to financial resources, diminishing their operational capabilities, it was exactly this low-level of funding, which facilitated participating states in implementing their budgets effectively and in carrying out domestic policy processes.

6. For the CSCE was not a system of collective security and neither had a military function, the participating States were given "free choice" of their own military arrangements.

7. The CSCE, by making a strong case for sovereignty and non-interference, diminished concerns of some States of becoming absorbed by others. This argument applied of course especially to the case of East Germany.

8. The governmental character of the CSCE lowered the risk for some governments to become subject to decision-making against their will, especially if intra-state issues were concerned.

9. A weak parliamentarian legitimacy contributed to a separation of the discussion on human rights, minority issues and democracy between the state-to-state level and the intra-state level.

10. The low public awareness shielded the communication channels against interfering domestic political struggles.

The OSCE today - obsolete or irreplaceable?

The sudden collapse of Communism and the implosion of the Soviet Empire has dramatically transformed the post-war security order in Europe. With the end of the Cold War the major task of the OSCE has ceased to be the resolution of political hostilities between states, the destruction of ideological barriers, and the de-escalation of military confrontation between military blocks. While assuming wars between them have become far less likely the primary interest of the participating States has shifted from inter-state military stability, arms control and systemic change to political stability, civilian control of armed forces and socio-economic prosperity. Is that to say that the OSCE has become obsolete? First of all, those strengths aforementioned make still a strong case for the existence of an organization like the OSCE. Secondly, the political norms and principles accepted and widely shared by all participating States provide a normative framework for a durable peace order in Europe that reaches way beyond the goals of an underpinning security order. Thirdly, the strong reference to multi-level cooperation, to democracy building, safeguarding of human and minority rights and to a common European socio-cultural identity describes the aims and requirements rather of an ongoing process than of an existing reality already in Europe. No other organization in Europe has become comparably experienced in tackling such issues more successfully. Fourthly, the code of norms and proven mechanisms may apply also for other parts of the World, for example in the Mediterranean or even in Asia. Japan and Korea, for instance, have been participating in the OSCE in an observer status already. Finally, its restricted scope and the prevalent cultural affinity of the participating States could provide better opportunities for a regional organization when compared with the UN.

However, if what was formerly deemed as positive effects of institutional weakness has now turned into a hindrance for institutional efficiency, the participating States may be hardly ready to further allocate necessary funds and resources to such an organization. When the first Balkan crisis occurred the OSCE quickly became blamed for being "toothless" and "failing". Simultaneously, first signs of "imperial restoration" in Russia led many Eastern Europeans redirect their aspirations away from a collective security order under the auspices of the OSCE toward a collective defence order based on the Western Alliance. This redirection was paralleled by the efforts of NATO members to rather adjusting the Alliance to new challenges than to relying solely on a Pan-European collective organization. For most Western States the OSCE was and has remained primarily a tool for making political changes in those nations, which are more likely not to enjoy fully-fledged Western-type liberal democracy. For example, while about a dozen of missions on minority issues have been launched by the OSCE in Central and Eastern Europe, none has started with regard to the situation of the Curds, the Irish or the Basques. If that one-sided approach to the operational role of the OSCE continues, one might expect not only that Eastern participating States might become fed up by "being taught" democracy but also that enlargements of "Western institutions" will gradually marginalize the role of the OSCE. Eventually, its only residual function might be creating a formal link between Russia and some Caucasian States on the one side and the integrated Western and Central Europe on the other. In this case, the chance of establishing a common European identity under the auspices of the OSCE would as fade away as the unifying impact of its norms and principles.

Because of its comprehensive approach, the future legitimacy of the OSCE will very much depend on its contribution to intra-state conflict prevention and resolution, and also to successful political and societal transformation in the reforming countries of Central and Eastern Europe. And it will depend on addressing minority issues all-across Europe. To develop a "collective security identity" without transforming itself into a collective security system, a gradual alignment of the deep social differences and an improving political and economic integration of all participating States of the OSCE, including Russia, are required. It is a lesson learned from the success of the European Union that a stable peace order will only emerge if stable democracies, the rule of law, functioning market economies and a higher level of mutually beneficial interdependence are in place everywhere. By applying its comprehensive approach, the OSCE can accurately assist the societies of the participating States in this endeavour. However, it still has along way to go.

Two major reasons can be mentioned that the OSCE will not transform into a collective security system. First of all, most participating States feel such a system would lack credibility. Secondly, the most important positive impact of the OSCE on European security and stability in the years to come is less bound to military stability but on diminishing risks that could finally lead to the outbreak of military hostilities between states and even more within state boundaries. By dealing rather with the causes of conflict than with military conflict settlement the OSCE - interlocked with an expanding European Union and NATO - the OSCE could contribute to reducing requirements for military defence precautions. During the Cold War the OSCE was mainly considered a tool in the hands of the governments to provide as much stability as necessary to avoid open confrontation and to promote ideas of justice and human rights. Today the probability of wars between the European states has become less likely. Ironically, though arms control issues had been on the agenda of the organization from the very outset, it was only after the Soviet Empire had imploded that the first operational arms control treaty - the CFE-Treaty - became signed in 1990. Yet after the Cold War had ended, the interest of the participating States to further negotiate arms control agreements lowered substantially and what the States did was to reduce their forces and military equipment according to the diminished military threats East-West and to restructure the arsenals according what they perceived to become new challenges to security. The willingness to make individual - and immediate - concerns a subject of serious follow-up negotiations within the framework of the Group of 23 or even of the 55 participating States of the OSCE cooled off, not at least in the course of NATO enlargement. As it happened to be before the end of the Cold War it may be the case in future as well, that such confidence- and security-building measures as agreed upon under the auspices of the OSCE in the 1980s may outweigh the operational role of negotiated arms control and also disarmament in the near future. As for arms control is concerned unilateral and gradual proactive and reactive steps undertaken by the participating States may prove to be more likely.

The most prominent role the OSCE is bound to play, however, will remain in the field of projecting "soft power". Its normative approach still provides proper guidelines for all state and also non-state actors. While it is still governments who negotiate and take major decisions, the legitimacy of OSCE field operations ("missions") has extended to what were formerly called "internal matters" of states. The OSCE has indeed been successful with its various missions even though the public awareness of these successes has been much lower than of its alleged failures. Hardly anyone counts the wars that have not been fought! For example, the first High Commissioner on National Minorities, the former Dutch Foreign Minister, Max van der Stoel, and the OSCE Long-Term field missions in the Baltic States, in Georgia and in Slovakia have made tremendous contributions to the de-escalation of tensions within these countries and have also strengthened good neighbourly relations. Another creative approach was that of appointing a Special Representative for the freedom of the press and media who has served as a kind of a clearing house for complaints about autocratic control of independent media. It can be concluded from these and other successes that the premature suspension of Yugoslavian participation in the OSCE was a mistake: First, if rights are suspended then the affected party may also feel less committed; secondly, the OSCE has had little influence on the Yugoslavian domestic situation from 1992 to 2000 and was rather tackled like an enemy by the Yugoslavian authorities. Thirdly, and most important, the opposition in Yugoslavia could not benefit much from referring to the OSCE principles, after Yugoslavia had been suspended from the organization. Moreover, the suspension created also doubts about the equality of rights and commitments for all participating States, because - for example - neither Croatia nor Russia have suffered from comparable punishment. It is hard to say whether or not the handling of the Yugoslavian case by the international community, and especially the OSCE, has contributed even to the escalation and prolongation of the Balkan crisis. As a matter of fact, those nations who blamed the OSCE for its failures and deficiencies were participating States themselves, and a non-supranational organization like the OSCE cannot do more about a conflict than its most powerful members want it to do. That's why the future role of the OSCE will very much depend on support by its lead nations, namely the United States, Russia and the EU members.

It may be a serious threat to the OSCE, even for its existence, if perceptions of institutional inefficiency, inadequate enforcement capacity and insufficient resources become more serious problems for the participating States. Also an ongoing institutional rivalry between NATO, the European Council, the European Union and the OSCE would hit the institutionally weakest organization of the "Big Four" the hardest. The OSCE is neither a "second choice" nor is it a substitute for other institutions but complements them with original mechanisms and approaches. Contrary to much of public opinion it is not any less important than the other three organizations.

The OSCE should be in a position to act according to the principle of "OSCE first", which was originally articulated by the former Dutch and German Foreign Ministers Koojimans and Kinkel already in May 1994. The idea of that principle was to assign the OSCE a more all-encompassing role in intra-state and cross-national conflict prevention and de-escalation of conflict. It would require a strengthened proactive capacity to ensure early warning and early conflict management by the OSCE dependent on clear-cut mandates, properly qualified mission members, appropriate equipment and funding, and also the creation of public feedback in order to make people better aware of the positive role which the OSCE can further play in Europe.

It can be concluded, that the OSCE will not become obsolete, if its functions and roles become permanently adjusted to new challenges and risks, if the participating States support proactive missions of conflict prevention undertaken by the OSCE, if they provide necessary funding and resources, if the legitimacy of the organization becomes strengthened by closer links between political decision-making and local constituencies, and if a positive public awareness is existent. The OSCE is irreplaceable because of its unique features, especially its comprehensiveness and flexibility. It stands, however, at the crossroads either to become marginalized or second to none in the field of proactive conflict-prevention.

Lessons for Northeast Asia?

General Ideas and Conclusions

Much has been said and written about why it would hardly make sense to copy Europe's experiences flatly to Northeast Asian region: the existence of bilateral disputes on territorial matters; Russia's and mainland China's absorption by domestic politics; the possibility of nuclear blackmail; heterogeneous political, economic, social and cultural structures; asymmetric and asynchronous power balances; greater distances (land or sea) that are to be bridged between the centres of strategic decision-making; lacking neutral intermediaries; the sharp asymmetries of economic performance. However, some of the conditions that led to initial rapprochement in Europe can be detected in Northeast Asia as well:

1. A high level of military confrontation and mistrust between the regional players;

2. competing vested governmental interests;

3. a gradual shift in the distribution of regional power projection;

4. growing interests in having stable patterns of cooperation as a prerequisite for increasing economic prosperity and for diminishing the likelihood of war; and

5. a habit of loose dialogues on a broad range of issues that might serve as a basis of a generic security networking.

While the OSCE has formed a kind of a general roof for various, though inter-linked, tables or baskets for consultation and cooperation between East and West in a greater Europe, which over time have created a momentum of their own, the regional cooperation in Northeast Asia has become rather based on bilateral and intra-regional "clusters" for dealing with issues of specific interest to the participating States. Whether or not these clusters will eventually turn into a general multilateral framework is an open question. This being said, however, some experiences the OSCE has mad may be applicable also in Northeast Asia. As far as rather general lessons are concerned such could be drawn as follows:

1. Institutionalised and permanent channels for consultation have not only contributed to improving mutual accountability of intentions on either side but have also served for clarifying any conceivable disputes or incidents in early phases by which unintended risks of escalation could be avoided.

2. A normative code of conduct and rules has improved the reliability and verifiability of governments' behaviour in compliance with the principles of international law both on the inter-state and intra-state level.

3. A common agenda that was both comprehensive and specified from the very outset has paved the way for the possibility of "asymmetric" progress. Lacking progress in one area (for example arms control) has not necessarily made its mark on other areas (military confidence-building). The process of cooperation, being an end in itself, has not become endangered by the temporary deterioration within determined realms of relationship. While negotiated topics were inter-linked but still separated from each other the participating States have been able, on the one hand, to act according to their (different) vested interests and to search, on the other, for win/win-compromises by temporarily connecting different areas with each other.

4. Specifically sensitive issues were either dropped from the founding agenda (for instance the open German Question) or explicitly left in the care of those who first had to find proper solutions (in case of nuclear weaponry, the nuclear powers). By leaving some issues aside, the "solution" of which was a matter of particular concern for only some of the participating States the Conference was able to focus on practical progress in those areas relevant for most of them.

5. Finally, confidence-building and peaceful change has proven to be a gradual process within which the second or third step should not be planned before the first. The first step, however, may trigger off next ones. There is no sense in waiting for the "final solution" before starting, because each progress must be built on a solid foundation, which may require even a series of incremental steps.

The present "cluster-approach" may suffice to apply these general European lessons, if any, to the Northeast Asian region without making any progress dependent on the existence of a formalized multilateral (sub-)regional framework. It may be rather more acceptable to create permanent (sub-)regional "thematic tables' of interested States. Flexible combinations of these "tables" on an ad-hoc basis may facilitate practical solutions, if necessary or wishful.

Security- and Confidence-Buildung (CBM/CSBM)

The CBM-dialogue of the former CSCE became based on six major premises:⁹

1. a limited number of actors, organized within two politico-military blocks (causing a bipolar context for negotiations), nonetheless sharing a common and vested interest in avoiding military conflict between East and West;

2. a comparably high degree of basic stability of the European security system independent of accompanying political and ideological confrontation;

3. a fairly recent nature of the East-West antagonism;

4. massive arms and forces deployments and a lack of arms control that made both sides interested in diminishing risks of unintended war and nuclear annihilation;

5. the existing framework, provided by the CSCE, the founding document of which explicitly rook recourse to the aim of security and cooperation; and

6. a cultural affinity in relative terms of the states concerned.

If these premises would be considered a 1:1 requirement for other CSBM-dialogues as well, lessons for Northeast Asia were could hardly be drawn. The most important premise, however, is a different one, the political will of the participating parties to rather make use of the benefits of peaceful cooperation instead of playing zero-sum games at the costs of the security for others. As Lachowski and Rotfeld have pointed out, it is necessary to understand the capabilities and limitations of CSBM. They "are not a cure-all for international security problems. They constitute part of the outcome of a wider cooperative process of reconfiguring inter-state relations rather than create it. (...) Confidence is a `fair-weather' feature and can hardly exist in a state of crisis or conflict."¹⁰ On the other hand, once implemented and proven, CSBM can contribute to better shielding 'fair-weather' conditions against a revival of international crisis and conflict. Enduring reliability of negotiated CSBM requires certainty that any obligations and commitments are respected. Since political commitments may be withdrawn by autocratic regimes more easily than within democracies verification (on-site) has to be attributed to a prominent role. While in Europe the pattern of confidence-building was very much influenced by the block-to-block structure of security, in other regions, where a comparable structure does not exist, a rather piecemeal approach of bilateral measures may be more easily achieved. Such measures could be agreed upon in the bilateral "clusters" first while later become a subject as well of "table"-discussions in a (sub-)regional context. Where necessary the role of guaranteeing powers have to be examined when it comes to bilateral measures in an early phase. Finally, diverging perceptions of threat and instability - both inter-state and intra-state - have to be earnestly considered before addressing the scope and structure of CSBM.

The more perceptions are diverging, the more it becomes necessary to carefully examine the impact of individual steps not only on the situation of the parties involved but also on their neighbourly relations. Confidence-building between two parties at the cost of a third may lead to an outcome much different from what the negotiating parties intended. More specifically, different force postures and doctrines have to be looked at in a balanced way. Package solutions may be required to meet most striking security concerns on either side. Moreover, if a broadened pattern of cooperation is missing against which political and military security- and confidence-building measures can be measured, accompanying steps of improving relations in other areas - economy, humanitarian issues etc. - should be considered from the very beginning. Military CSBM could start from the modest perspective of developing and enhancing better communication and transparency, and of diminishing the likelihood of unintended wars.

The CSBM regime of the OSCE certainly cannot (and should not ) copied flatly to Northeast Asia. Several practical experiences might be analysed and adapted to the Northeast Asian context, if useful. But the CSBM created by the OSCE should not been interpreted simply as a "toolbox" or a "blue-print" for other nations to make their free choice what to use or not to use. Security- and confidence-building has to be understood rather as a generic process which may require a great deal of innovative and flexible approaches. The OSCE story is about it is worth the effort, no more nor less. Incidentally, this may be perhaps the most important lesson to be taught to others.

Footnote

1. Draft paper only. Not for quotation.

2. In my paper the acronym OSCE is used also in cases when the text takes reference to the previous CSCE.

3. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Ed.), OSCE Handbook, Vienna 2000., p. 11.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., p. 10.

6. Wilfried von Bredow, The OSCE: Construction and Identity Problems, Institute for Peace Research and Security Politics at the University of Hamburg (ed.), OSCE-Yearbook 2000 (forthcoming).

7. OSCE-Handbook, op. cit., p. 12.

8. Hans J. Giessmann, European Security and Defense Identity Issues in a Global Perspective, KNDU-review, Vol. 5, no. 2, December 2000, pp. 33-66.

9. Zdislaw Lachowski/Adam Daniel Rotfeld, CSBMs in Europe: Success or failure, Manuscript not yet published, mimeo, pp. 1-10.

10. Ibid.