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Map of Europe |
Volume 3, Number 2, June 2004
Caspian-Black Sea Security Challenges and the Regional Security Structures by Alexander Goncharenko (PDF, 7 pages, 150.7 KB)
The Caspian-Black Sea region is perceived today as an extremely important area on the global geopolitical map, due to the presence of both huge reserves of natural resources and major strategic transport corridors, the control of which will determine the shape of the geostrategic landscape in Eurasia, both in the present and in the future. For these reasons this region has become a focus of attention for geopolitical, politicomilitary, economic, and other interests of the primary global and regional powers.
It gives me distinct pleasure to welcome the first meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Security Study Group held in Poland. Krakow, which was the seat of Polish kings in medieval times, may be considered a fitting venue for such an event. This city used to be a hub of Poland’s activities on a regional and international scale, and as in the past, today it continues to serve as Poland’s foremost place of scholarship and intellectual debate. Meeting here, amongst a gathering of distinguished guests from more than a dozen countries in Europe and North America, I recall this tradition of multilateral relations and learning, convinced that the proceedings of the Euro-Atlantic Security Study Group will also help to stimulate a lively debate on issues of import to the international community.
The South Caucasus is becoming one of the most dynamic geostrategic regions of the globe, reflecting in particular the long-term interests of U.S. foreign policy in the vast region of Central Eurasia. In this essay, I will seek to share some reflections both with American and Armenian academics on the importance of the Armenian factor in establishing a comprehensive security architecture in the South Caucasus, as well as in promoting economic progress and democracy in this region. I will introduce some specifics of the Armenian case, particularly regarding the active involvement of the Armenian Diaspora in the political life of the United States, as well as the importance of the Republic of Armenia in promoting regional security and democracy in the South Caucasus, a process which is either bridging or colliding with the foreign policy interests of the U.S., the EU and Russia, as well as those of the regional actors in Central Eurasia. The notions presented here on the restructuring of the security architecture in the South Caucasus should be of interest also for policy makers and decision-making circles.
As the EU’s intervention and crisis management capabilities have been ripening and surviving their first tests in the Balkans or Congo, there is a growing interest in spreading this experience and introducing some “pilot projects” of intervention in other parts of the world. In this respect, the areas that attract most of the EU attention are situated in its near neighborhood. Stability in Moldova and in the South and the North Caucasus are especially important for the EU as it expands.
First, the fact that we are in Bulgaria today on the eve of NATO enlargement and on the eve of EU enlargement (which will not directly concern Bulgaria tomorrow, but will include Bulgaria in as short a time as possible) is probably the only good news we see in the world today. I have been for the last two years a professor at the College of Europe in Natolin, close to Warsaw, at the request of Jacques Delors and Bronislav Geremek, the former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs. I have the privilege of having 120 post-graduate students-50 percent of them coming from the “New Europe”-and I can see in their eyes their happiness to have been born at that time, in that place. The privilege of late birth, if you want. It is in their eyes that I find the only hopeful signs in the world today. I am very happy to be the guest of the Rakovski College here in Sofia, and I want to thank you very much for your hospitality.
A sea-change has taken place in Russian perspectives of Western European military integration since 1991. In the early 1990s, the Western European Union (WEU) and the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) were largely ignored in Russia. The Russia-WEU relationship was virtually non-existent, as was any discussion of the CFSP. According to Vladimir Baranovsky, “everything that related to the creation of Eurocorps or efforts to reanimate the WEU were viewed as not worthy of attention.” One reason for this was that existing European military mechanisms were not considered effective for the regulation of conflicts and crises. Indeed, according to politician Vladimir Ruizhkov, the question of a military relationship between Russia and Europe “a few years ago ... would have looked absurd.” Yet by 2003, European military integration-and Russian engagement with it-was considered to be among the most important priorities for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID). Two main processes had raised Europe’s profile in military security discussions in Russia: the conflation of the WEU with the European Union (EU) and the intensification of the CFSP. These processes were seen to provide further arguments that the EU was becoming a serious international actor. Symptomatic of this shift in Russian perspectives, a military relationship between Russia and the EU has developed. Military-political links have been established, discussions over crisis response concepts held, and Russian participation in EU operations has begun.
It is ironic that the alliance between Europe and the United States has been put into question by disagreements over the Iraq crisis in late 2002 and early 2003. The simmering talk of the transatlantic rift-and, to be fair, there has been talk of such a rift for quite some time starting as early as beginning of the 1990s, especially among political observers and analyst-erupted and was elevated to the highest echelons of policy makers. The long-denied rift confirmed itself on the lips of those who make ultimate political decisions: the Americans blamed Europeans (at least some of them) as betrayers of their commitments to the alliance, while Europeans accused the Americans of hot-headedness. There was a bitter exchange of degrading phrases between the two sides just prior to the outbreak of the war in Iraq, pitting particularly the French and Germans versus the Americans.
Decision-making is the first step in implementing human will, and is therefore a prime human factor in warfare. Military education, training, and exercises are all focused on aspects of decision-making. British Military Doctrine (BMD) states that the “exercise of command is primarily concerned with the decision making process.” British Army doctrine emphasizes that it requires “good judgment and initiative” to know when a decision is needed.
Relatively little attention has been paid to the study of the cultural roots of security concepts. This is because security is seen as the exclusive preserve of geopolitics or geo-strategy, both of which tend to focus more on international relations or military capabilities than on cultural anthropology. Nevertheless, the historical and cultural conditions under which crises start and develop are of the utmost importance, because they shape the way we understand these conflicts and ultimately find solutions to them. This is particularly true of the southern Mediterranean, a region where security-related crises are recurrent and where parties on either side of the Mediterranean Sea have a different understanding of the main security threats.
As a dedicated non-member country, you can trust Switzerland to be strongly committed to upholding the status of those states that will be left out of future rounds of NATO and EU enlargement. However, this natural tendency of the Swiss should not be taken as a sign of blind instinct or unsophisticated conservatism. We may not be candidates for membership in NATO for valid historical reasons, and we may be regrettably slow on our path towards full integration in the EU. But we do nevertheless have a perspective on the evolution of our continent, on global security, and on the principles and references that we think should guide meaningful progress towards enhanced stability and prosperity. It is in this sense, and because of a set of reasoned convictions, that we favor patterns of openness, outreach, and cooperation between the numerous bodies we belong to, as well as the few to which we remain outsiders.
In this short essay, I will take the position of the “Devil’s Advocate.” I am not doing so, however, simply out of a contrarian urge. Rather, I am doing so aiming to provoke fresh thinking, to furnish new ideas, and to bring forth new, courageous commitments for the integration of the nations of the Western Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community.
In the face of the continuing challenges to international security, the focus for the 16th meeting of the EASSG was deliberately placed on crisis management.
So much has been written in the past several years about the Balkans, yet some confusion still exists about what exactly constitutes the region. Therefore, at the outset of this essay, I will first make an attempt to geographically define the Balkans. There are more views-some of them very new-than just this one on the market regarding this issue. Of course, the classical concept still predominates: the Balkans comprises the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, which became part of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages. In the twentieth century, the “Balkans” overlapped with “Southeastern Europe,” and these two notions were used, and very often still are used today, to describe the same geographical area. Recently, some analysts have started referring to three geographical blocs, which today are quite distinct from the security point of view: the classical Balkans, the Black Sea area, and the Caspian area. They are considered to be parts of the northern tier of the most volatile region in the world, known as the “Greater Middle East,”1 where the most dangerous threats to international security are thought to have their origin. Experts across the Euro-Atlantic community are now combining these three blocs into one larger area called “Greater South-East Europe.” Recently, in July 2003, in Bucharest, the Institute for Political Studies of Defense and Military History, together with the National Defense University from Washington, hosted an international conference devoted to the topic “Southeast European Security after the 2004 Dual Enlargement.” Among the invitees in attendance were experts not only from the classical Balkans, or South-Eastern Europe, but also from the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, as well as from Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.
There are many reasons to agree with the statement that “the obvious lesson-that conflict prevention must begin as part of post-conflict reconstruction-is seldom drawn.”1 Dealing with this problem among the plethora of issues involved in making the world a safer place for life and social progress calls for greater solidarity of those who can draft and implement adequate strategies, and who possess sufficient resources to see them through. The countries of the Euro-Atlantic security zone and their institutions-primarily NATO and the EU-have a special political responsibility in implementing an effective post-conflict rehabilitation strategy. Adjusting the threat perception systems of Europe and North America will have the beneficial effect of not only maintaining cohesion during eventual interventions, but also in the aftermath of the conflict. Certainly, Euro-Atlantic solidarity is another crucial component in the mechanism of postconflict rehabilitation strategic efforts. In a similar way some changes would probably be needed in the very conceptual model of “post-conflict rehabilitation” in order to adjust the present strategic approach. All three adjustments will require strenuous and concerted effort, and they will succeed only if the worth of Euro-Atlantic solidarity is fairly and objectively calculated: the two sides of the Atlantic need each other to cope with the immense task of achieving a secure global community that is capable of carrying out the multitude of global activities. Achieving a balance between cooperation and healthy competition between Europe and North America is the maturity test for politicians and thinkers on two continents. Working together and/or in a coordinated manner on post-conflict reconstruction in various places of the globe has the potential to produce a positive net effect, including rehabilitating the bruised relations suffered during the last year between parts of Europe and the U.S.