The Dilemma of European Security: Back to the Future?

March-April 1996

By Alice-Catherine Carls

MARTIN, Tenn.—[The Bosnian conflict has dominated American concerns in Europe during the past few years. As a consequence, the general public has paid relatively little attention to the efforts of NATO and various European organizations to deal with the wider security concerns of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, including Russia and former parts of the Soviet Union. The following overview by Prof. Carls focuses on these pan-European developments.—Ed.]
 

Since the breakup of the Soviet bloc in 1989, Europe has witnessed changes of biblical proportion at space-age speed. And yet, the region appears to have returned to its post-1945 predicament. A brutal conflict in the Balkans has just been halted, but everyone is carrying a heavy gunnysack of distrust, fears, and misperceptions. East-Central Europeans have unanimously expressed their desire to rejoin the West, but Russia is only halfheartedly committed to cooperation. A window of opportunity may now exist to create a "common European house," but can a new order be built? Clearly, European security again stands at a crossroads.

In 1989 several European countries seized the opportunity to create a broad concept of security founded on a partnership that would deal with economics, human rights, minorities, politics, and defense. While the European Community deepened its contacts with the transition economies of Eastern Europe, NATO started an ambitious program of restructuring and enlargement. NATO, however, still carried too much of a political charge, hence it began to take a back seat to European institutions that were taking a broader approach to peace. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) emerged in 1993 as the vehicle of choice for bridging the former East-West divide. As a result of OSCE efforts, led by France and the United States, the Stability Pact—an evolving structure of bilateral agreements and treaties between Eastern European— countries was signed at a conference of European Union members in Paris on 21 March 1995.

The Stability Pact is "a gradual, deliberate and transparent process" aimed at confidence-building among once-hostile neighbors. If successful, it could result in a powerful regional bloc. Moreover, it has the advantage of offering creative solutions and positive steps to countries waiting to be admitted into the Economic Union and NATO while helping alleviate Russian fears of an antagonistic Western bloc right at its doorstep.

In the spirit of trying to build a wider European security system, NATO developed the Partnership for Peace (PFP) concept in 1993. The PFP and the Stability Pact progressed in complementary fashion. Yet PFP, while providing a previously lacking neutral environment, initially complicated the situation. Russia refused until May 1995 to participate in it, while at the same time European security remained locked too tightly within it. The only way out was to decide whether NATO should delegate the enlargement process to the OSCE and whether it should admit Russia.

In 1994, two discussion groups on enlargement were formed under the leadership of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. Last September, they released their report. As a result, NATO reaffirmed its commitment not to divide Europe and affirmed the need to proceed slowly and cautiously in order to assure the security of all countries on equal terms. Enlargement and NATO-Russian relations were put on parallel tracks.

There has perhaps never in history been such an example of preventive diplomacy—consulting all interested parties and taking all sides into consideration in an attempt to forge the best possible security pact. The outcome, however, is still in doubt. It seems that Russia still views NATO's expansion as a hostile gesture, while Eastern European countries fear a revival of Russian imperialism. What makes the future so difficult to discern is the lack of a sense of direction from a world, according to Henry Kissinger, "in which almost all key elements are changing simultaneously."

More than ever, the Bosnian crisis looms large. It must remain a top priority for Europe. It has become the testing ground for a series of interlocking efforts dealing with economic, financial, human-rights, political, technological, environmental, and defense issues. The question is whether all the positive steps toward building a new Europe will be able to overcome the fears, suspicions, antagonisms, and uncertainties that remain.

[Dr. Carls teaches history and politics at the University of Tennessee at Martin.]