Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 05/2008

Approaching or Avoiding Cooperative Security? 14th Workshop of the StG "Regional Stability in South East Europe"

Franz-Lothar Altmann, Sonja Biserko, Nina Dobrković, John F. Erath, Ernst M. Felberbauer, Dušan Janjić, Predrag Jureković, Dragana Klincov, Sandro Knezović, Frédéric Labarre, Jolyon Naegele, Plamen Pantev, Lulzim Peci, Matthew Rhodes, Dennis J.D. Sandole, Denisa Saraljić-Maglić, Heinz Vetschera, Amadeo Watkins

September 2007

Austrian National Defence Academy

Abstract

The key issue for a peaceful development in the Western Balkans is the question of how to strengthen regional co-operation in this postwarspace, in order to achieve the aim of co-operative security. Five years ago the Regional Stability in South East Europe Study Group of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes carried out a workshop on a similar subject that took place also in Reichenau, in Lower Austria, and in which especially the results of the South Eastern Europe Stability Pact reached then were analyzed. The conclusion at that time was that regional co-operation initiatives like the Stability Pact were useful, but the group members came also to the conclusion that the involvement of the international community for a longer period is necessary to put life into them.

What has really changed in the last five years regarding regional cooperation? Does the renaming of the Stability Pact into Regional Cooperation Council, which is planned to be done in early 2008, mean that the regional actors are finally aware of their responsibility for contributing to a peaceful and co-operative security environment? Or is this only wishful thinking on the side of the international community, which wants the countries of the region at last to become a part of the European mainstream? What will, what should be the role of the international community in the regional stabilisation process in the next years?

Are we near to reaching the end of the cycle of international involvement, in which the international role has changed from terminator of war to a peacekeeping role and finally to an advisor’s role that gives support in economic and political reforms? Or is it a naïve and illusory idea to expect the Western Balkans in the medium term of becoming an area characterized by well-developed political, social, economic and security relations, seeing that some conflicts like the Kosovo case still have the potential to destabilize part of the region? In which fields does cooperation work? In which areas is there necessity for improvement?

New dynamics in regard to the stabilisation process have characterized developments in South East Europe in late 2006 and in current 2007. Some of these dynamics linked to Euro-Atlantic integration have the potential to increase regional actors’ ability and readiness to strengthen co-operative structures, especially if we look at the positive signals coming from the last NATO Summit in Riga. On the other side dynamics linked to state-building issues could call forth new nationalist tendencies among regional actors and cause serious setbacks in regard to the peace processes.

Beside the difficult Kosovo situation the continuation of the semiprotectorate in Bosnia and Herzegovina evoke critical questions related to regional stability in general and especially to the goal of reaching cooperative security....