More shaping a security community

In a second session at the OSCE Security Days devoted to “Shaping a Security Community,” moderator Adam Kobieracki, Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, opens with the comment that OSCE is not in crisis but needs to adapt to the new security environment and establish or develop appropriate security institutions.

Steven Pifer, Director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative and Senior Advisor at CSIS, notes the absence of Russia from the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE).  Has the treaty in fact served its purposes?  Is there any need for new limits?  The real issue is subregions within the OSCE.  It might be best to develop a general set of rules for subregions.  Do you want limits on forces or transparency and confidence building measures?  If there are to be limits, what should they be on?  Tanks are far less important than the past.  Unmanned aerial vehicles and surface to surface missiles are much important.  So too are offensive capabilities.  How do you deal with forces on the territory of states that do not want them there?  This is not really an arms control issue.  It is going to be hard to get traction on conventional arms control with political leaders in the OSCE area.

Adam Rotfeld, Co-chair of the Polish-Russian Working Group on Difficult Matters of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, notes that Europe has rarely been so free of threats, but there are still problems of trust and confidence.  Fiscal problems are the big ones.  Security issues are now not between states but within.  OSCE initially helped to stabilize existing states.  Then in the 1980s it managed to play a strong role in reducing armaments.  Then it focused on conflict management.  What is the new stage?  What is needed is mutually assured stability.

General Vincenzo Comporini of the Italian Institute for International Affairs underlines growing global complexity.  Growing populations, better health care, improved education and political awareness are challenging regimes that had appeared stable.  Cheap availability of weapons is a complicating factor.  First step should be analysis, including a clearinghouse for open intelligence.  This intelligence should be shared in open dialogue with the states that are under challenge.  This may appear utopian, but no more so than earlier OSCE goals.

Daniel Mockli, head of strategic trends analysis at the Center for Security Studies, notes fatigue with military intervention and looks forward to softer approaches.  OSCE should focus on what it can really do.  A security community may be too difficult.  But there is a need for adaptation and for cooperative security efforts.  OSCE should be about managing diversity, reassurance, engagement.  There is a culture of dialogue, transparency and mutual learning that should guide the OSCE.  Conventional arms control has crumbled.  The political climate has deteriorated, threats have shifted to non-European sources, protracted conflicts have damaged the arms control regime.  The goal should not be a new legal framework but rather a more political approach.  Can we come up with a status neutral regime?  No new regime will emerge overnight.  Both limitations and transparency will be needed.  We may be too confident about living in stability.  There is still a need for predictability and mutual trust, which is what the OSCE should be about.  The way forward is to manage protracted conflicts in a way that reduces their impact within the OSCE.

The Turkish ambassador underlines that security is indivisible.  The protracted conflicts should not be separated out.  Limitations, transparency and information exchange, as in the original CFE treaty, should continue to go together in future arrangements.  The heart of the matter is deficit of confidence and trust.  That is what we need to boost, so as to ensure predictability.

A Russian participant notes the need for impetus to generate political will.  The negotiation process itself is an important part of the picture.  The ongoing dialogue is itself valuable.  We need to return to a culture of political-military dialogue.  The Dutch ambassador suggests any OSCE member who wants be involved in new talks on conventional arms control.  Focus should be on confidence-building.  Protracted conflicts play an important role; we need to find a formula to handle them.

Mockli suggests the problem is not political will but political fragmentation. It is important to start a process even if the outcome is uncertain.  OSCE has a unique toolbox for democratization issues that should be applied to the Arab awakening, but also inside the OSCE region.  Camporini underlines that security is a real issue in the Mediterranean because of the Arab awakening.  Syria is increasing tensions within the OSCE, which needs to pay attention to that crisis and offer itself as a model. 

Rotfeld suggests OSCE is vulnerable because of renewed geopolitical bipolarity.  But it is values that are important in the Arab awakening.  Nongovernmental institutions are playing a key role today, especially in confronting unconventional risks.  Government institutions are less relevant.  The OSCE area is heterogeneous; security is not the same throughout.  It is divisible and we need to be prepared to recognize that.  Flexibility is key.  There is no single recipe for building confidence.  Pifer reiterates need for focus on subregions and need for first focus to be on confidence-building measures and transparency.  Missile defense is a strategic offensive balance issue, but it won’t be decisive for ten years or more.  He questions whether the Russian justification of its nuclear forces on the basis of the conventional imbalance is really sensible.