CIAO DATE: 10/07
The National Interest
Mid-Life Crisis?
Marc Perrin de Brichambaut
Abstract
DOES THE OSCE still matter for United States? The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), like its predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), has never gone down that well with the American public and opinion-makers. Before President Gerald Ford traveled in 1975 to sign the Helsinki Final Act, William Safire wrote an article for The New York Times headlined “Jerry, Don’t Go.” And Safire was not alone in criticizing the administration for its seeming acceptance of the Soviet Union’s desire to obtain recognition of the status quo that emerged in Europe after the Second World War. Many observers in the United States thought that the Final Act would not serve American interests; few believed that its decalogue of principles, including those on human rights, would be respected by the Soviet Union.
In the end, the CSCE outlasted its skeptics and outperformed its critics. Although the conference and its review meetings did not catalyze reform in the Soviet Union or bring down the Berlin Wall, it was an important part of the story of the Cold War’s end. The conference quickly took a special place in the long-standing U.S foreign policy objective of locking Moscow into a process of engaging on issues related to fundamental freedoms with the long-term aim of eventually building a “Europe whole and free and at peace.”
The CSCE mattered, and the OSCE still matters for U.S. interests. In the 1990s, the OSCE was a key instrument for supporting the transition to democracy underway in the former Soviet bloc countries. Now we are witnessing a slowdown of this process in the OSCE area and the rise of differences between states on the direction of the organization. The OSCE must adapt once again to new realities.