Europe Needs a New Security Structure

by Vartan Oskanian
Tuesday, 02 December 2008 20:00

Two events of great consequence – one throughout the globe and the other in our region –
have rattled the world's assumptions in the second half of this year.

The first – the global financial shake-up – has been so broad and so deep that even the
lame-duck status of George Bush's presidency proved no obstacle to the leaders of the world's
20 largest economies gathering in mid-November in Washington to discuss cures.

Today, what started as a local loan crisis is hampering development worldwide and already
promises to lead to a global recession.

Now, everyone is already wondering whether the Bretton Woods 1940s-era system of
international institutions is indeed, as Gordon Brown observed, incapable of handling the
financial challenges of the 21st century.

No one foresaw the potential calamity when the glut of Middle Eastern oil cash flowed into the
US, although in the 1980s and mid-1990s such extra cash had come to South America and
Asia, and there, too, it led first to bubbles and later, of course, an eruption. When a similar
bubble and eruption shook the US this summer, the response was lots of finger-pointing, even
by those who should have known better.

The response was the same when the other significant event – the Russia-Georgia conflict –
broke out in August. Although it was the Georgians and South Ossetians who were most
immediately and directly affected, the repercussions have indeed spread beyond our region.
The long-term effects of this first of its kind clash, the first instance of use of force at this scale,
between states, will continue to reverberate.

Although accumulated tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi set off the explosion, the
underlying trigger was the issue of NATO expansion. Talk about bringing NATO's borders to
Russia's frontier, in a region with great strategic, historic and economic significance for Russia,
had raised alarm signals.

But just as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were not equipped to supervise,
stop, mitigate international imbalances in revenue and cash accumulation, so it seems the
existing post-Cold War security institutions are unable to override old security frontiers, or
prevent the exercise of prerogatives to prevent other clashes.

Over the past 400 years from the Peace of Westphalia, to the Concert of Europe, the First
World War and the Second World War, the world has been through at least four, perhaps five
significant transformations. After each major war and conflict, a new system emerged, new
mechanisms and new institutions were created to regulate state relationships.

But at the end of the Cold War, the very institutions that contributed to the defeat of the Soviet
Union remained the main pillars of the so-called new world order. That situation was tolerated at
the time of the collapse, when Russia was weak, in shock and distracted. Insisting that those

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Europe Needs a New Security Structure

by Vartan Oskanian
Tuesday, 02 December 2008 20:00

same institutions, particularly those dealing with security, operate the way they used to is
neither realistic nor sustainable.

Because the long, expensive, casualty-ridden Cold War ended without a shot being fired, we
have been more complacent, less thoughtful, less strategic and far-sighted about the critical
post-war period. That has meant an expansion, almost by default, of a security alliance that was
born to contain an assertive, expansionist, aggressive empire that no longer exists. That has
meant a Russian proposal to place missiles in Kaliningrad in response to a US proposal for a
missile shield based in the heart of Europe. That has meant Russia suspending its participation
in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty and with it suspending any promise of balance. This
is an untenable formula of a future that is only imagined in terms of a divided past.

Nearly one hundred years ago, after the first European flare-up of the 20th century, the
Europeans wanted to continue to shape the world in its old form, and it was the Americans who
pioneered their own, new vision of old geopolitical relationships of power. As a result, America's
strength and influence stretched throughout what has been called the American Century. From
the League of Nations to the Helsinki Final Act, American idealism and future vision shaped the
world.

Today, America is renewing itself again, and reaffirming its commitment to remaining strong and
influential. At the same time, thankfully, President-Elect Barack Obama has indicated he will be
attentive to what Europe is saying and to forge an indispensable Europe-America partnership.
We expect that he will indeed go forward with a review of missile deployment, the Iranian
showdown, the Iraqi and Afghanistan engagements, and even NATO expansion.

Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev have even shown the way. Just as Europeans convinced
Bush to host the precedent-setting gathering on the economic crisis in November, Europe and
Russia have now proposed a summit meeting of the member states of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), this time on this other far-reaching matter of global
significance: security issues and structures. When ministers from the OSCE meet in Helsinki on
4 December, they should set the process in motion.

The change that candidate Obama promised the Americans is a change that can include a
vision of a truly new order for an interdependent world.

European Voice (Economist Group)

December 1, 2008

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