WHITHER GOEST OSCE: A DEPARTING PERSONAL VIEW

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 USOSCE 000246 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/12/2016 TAGS: OSCE PREL SUBJECT: WHITHER GOEST OSCE: A DEPARTING PERSONAL VIEW Classified By: USOSCE Political Counselor Bruce Connuck, for reasons 1. 4 (b)(d) ======= Summary ======= ¶2. (C) OSCE is doing very valuable, if often unheralded, work in a broad range of areas of importance to the United States. As an organization it was extraordinarily successful in adapting to the dramatic changes in Europe throughout the 1990's, reinventing itself as an action organization doing concrete practical work rather than remaining focused on establishing overarching norms and principles. While OSCE's election-monitoring activities and efforts to help resolve post-Soviet conflicts like Transnistria, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh have rightly risen to public attention and attracted the appreciative interest of policymakers, it is OSCE's less visible day-in, day-out practical work on democratic capacity building, development of civil society, and post-conflict stabilization and reconciliation that may prove its most enduring legacy. ¶3. (C) But, success in the past does not ensure continued success. For a variety of reasons, many of the conditions that made success possible in the 90's have changed, often in ways that decrease prospects for future success. In this observer's view, the organization's ability to perform exactly those functions of greatest interest to the United States is under threat, and in fact has already been eroded. It is not at all clear that, looking ahead 2-5 years, OSCE will still be the vibrant organization that it is today, doing "real" hands on practical work to further democratic transformation. That is not a foregone conclusion, and OSCE's value makes it worth fighting hard to preserve. But with the dual constraints of the consensus rule and shrinking resources reducing our options, the U.S. and its allies are increasingly fighting a defensive battle to preserve what we value -- and bit-by-bit losing it. Absent significant changes in approach to OSCE by Russia and several other CIS states, in this observer's view we may well be confronted in the not-too-distant future with making a choice between maintaining an organization that primarily talks in Vienna and does little work in the field, or deciding that C/OSCE has run its natural course and should be wrapped up. End Summary. ======================== There's a Lot to Love... ======================== ¶4. (C) Little that OSCE does is dramatic or headline-grabbing, but much of its regular work on democratic transformation, promoting tolerance, and post-conflict reconciliation and stabilization is making a genuine contribution to the creation of a more stable, democratic Eurasia. In the Balkans, Caucasus, Ukraine and, even, in parts of Central Asia, OSCE field missions are helping societies develop the governmental and non-governmental tools to carry out their own transformations and to take their fate into their own hands. Over the past fifteen years, OSCE has gained recognition as a leader in developing programs, and providing expertise, in such critical areas as electoral system and judicial reform, civil society development, and inter-communal communication and reconciliation. More recently, OSCE has become an increasingly valued source of expertise for transforming the police forces of former authoritarian regimes into modern professional forces suited to democratic societies; for highlighting the appalling problem of trafficking in human beings and developing tool kits for both the victim protection and law enforcement sides of the issue; and for focusing attention at the most senior levels of governments on the growing problem of intolerance within societies related to religion, ethnicity and migration issues. It is worth stressing that OSCE began serious work on the latter issue -- largely instigated by the United States -- before it became a front-burner headline issue in Europe in the wake of the Danish "cartoons" problem. ¶5. (C) OSCE has also played a critical role for over a decade in seeking peaceful, negotiated solutions to the separatist conflicts in Moldova and the Caucasus. Its Minsk Group has been the international community's lead in mediating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and OSCE field missions in Chisinau and Tbilisi have been the main western "foot in the door" in efforts to resolve the Transnistrian and South Ossetian conflicts. Absent OSCE, Georgia and Moldova would have been left basically one-on-one at the negotiating table with the Russians and separatists. ¶6. (C) Many of the areas of OSCE activity described above are, of course, also the focus of other organizations' work, and of many national bilateral programs, as well. It is USOSCE 00000246 002 OF 004 unarguable that duplication, even competition, occurs at times. That said, there are many places where OSCE has a unique combination of both presence and broad mandate that cannot be matched by others. Its lack of rigid structures has, in the past, given OSCE the flexibility to respond both to changing circumstances and new opportunities in ways that more formal, perhaps hidebound, organizations find difficult. And, as a multinational organization, OSCE has the ability to marshal input and funding from a broad range of donors for common projects and thus enabling activities that would be difficult for any single donor, including the United States, to do on its own. ======================== ...But Not Everyone Does ======================== ¶7. (C) Unfortunately, it is almost exactly the list of things that the United States and western Europeans most value in OSCE that gives the most heartburn to the Russians and some other CIS and Balkan states, though the specific likes and dislikes vary even within that group. Briefly, the main formal complaints boil down to: -- "Interference in internal affairs" when criticisms are made of countries' human rights practices or lack of commitment to democratic transformation; -- "Imbalance" between the almost constant commentary and criticism and OSCE Institutions' attention devoted to participating States "east (and south) of Vienna," while (in their view) human rights and democratization problems in many established democracies allegedly get ignored; -- "Imbalance" in the significant attention devoted to OSCE's Human Dimension, in contrast to that given the Political/Security and Economic and Environmental Dimensions;" and -- OSCE's lack of formal legal status and more formal and rigid institutional structures, that allow too much autonomy to Institutions and field missions and a lack of participating State control (i.e. veto power) over many OSCE programs and activities. Less openly stated as a motivation, of course, is Russia's compelling interest in preserving maximum control over and influence in its "Near Abroad." OSCE is increasingly viewed by Moscow as a "tool" of the U.S. and EU for expanding their own influence in the CIS and for undermining Moscow-friendly authoritarians under the guise of democratic transformation. The incumbent authoritarians naturally share Russia's interest in preventing "color revolutions" on their own territories. ===================== The Real (OSCE) World ===================== ¶8. (C) The real question for U.S. policymakers is: "If we like OSCE just the way it is, why can't we just say no to attempts to change it? Why engage at all on so-called reform issues" being pushed by Russia and other OSCE detractors? Unfortunately, OSCE's reality is that it takes consensus to maintain the status quo, much more than it takes consensus to change it. There are two compelling facts of life dominating OSCE today: -- The requirement for consensus for every formal OSCE decision on every topic; and -- The increasing unwillingness of many participating States, including many in the West, to finance the organization's activities -- even those they may like. ¶9. (C) Over the past 5-6 years, there has been a growing readiness of participating States to veto, or threaten to veto, activities of which they disapprove. This is done either in discussion of specific substantive or procedural decisions, or through the budget approval process. Both the budget and the extension of OSCE field mission mandates must be approved, by consensus decision, every year, and the process is becoming bitterly contentious and acrimonious. ¶10. (C) Notable casualties of the process, despite intensive efforts by the U.S. and allies to prevent them, have included termination of OSCE's presence in Chechnya at the end of 2002 and of the Georgia Border Monitoring Mission at the end of 2004 -- both due to Russian veto. (The Russians, in turn, point to the termination of the Estonia and Latvia field missions at the end of 2001, over vehement Russian objections, as the precedent setter for vetoing mission mandate extensions.) We have also seen the conversion of the USOSCE 00000246 003 OF 004 mandates of a number of field missions from open-ended (not subject to periodic consensus extension) to limited duration mandates subject to regular renewal and, therefore, veto. The latter development has led, in turn, to many mandates being renegotiated -- at the insistence of the host state -- in an effort to bring mission activities more directly under host government control and supervision. In most (not all) such cases, the impetus has been an authoritarian regime's discomfort with field mission efforts to promote civil society and democratic transformation. ¶11. (C) The budget process is the other tool that is helping erode OSCE's ability to further U.S. goals and interests. Even as OSCE has added entire new areas of important activity in recent years (e.g. counterterrorism, anti-trafficking in human beings, promotion of tolerance),its budget has steadily shrunk. The result is that less and less money is being spread among more and more activities, and the new activities, which often have broad support, get higher precedence for funding. For some, e.g. the UK and Germany, restricting OSCE budgets is an imperative of domestic financial constraints. Others, like Russia, adamantly insist on a lower overall budget figure each year for alleged financial reasons, but also insist on putting the available money into areas that better "balance" (i.e. that they like) OSCE's overall focus among the three dimensions. They make little pretence about that meaning less money for the Human Dimension. They, and others, also increasingly insist on conversion of seconded positions (mostly provided by the West) to contracted ones paid for from the budget. In the current budget situation, that means that every Euro of additional personnel costs will come from the hide of programs and activities. ¶12. (C) It must be clearly understood: under present circumstances, the budget debates of recent years are, and are intended by some to be, a zero-sum game. If the U.S. and others are not prepared to fight for adequate (i.e. increased) funding -- including putting in our own share -- we can gradually kiss goodbye to much of what we value here. =============== What Can We Do? =============== ¶13. (C) USOSCE has made a determined effort over the past four years to be responsive to the concerns, where legitimate (and some are) of Russia and a range of other delegations. More than any other participating State, the U.S. has developed and put forward proposals for enhancing OSCE's work outside the Human Dimension, primarily in the Political/Security field. The Annual Security Review Conference was a U.S. initiative that was warmly welcomed by Russia and many other participating States. The U.S. has done more than any other delegation to develop practical OSCE efforts to aid counterterrorism efforts, some that we have deliberately proposed as joint U.S.-Russia initiatives. The U.S., with its major push for an OSCE initiative to combat rising anti-Semitism in Europe, prompted what has become a major focus of the organization on tolerance issues in the broadest sense. We have made consistent and intensive efforts to seek areas of cooperation with other delegations and to improve consultation and communication with those that feel ignored or left out of OSCE decision-making. ¶14. (C) These efforts have paid some dividends in increased goodwill and, at some key moments, in convincing Russia to defer pushing maximal and confrontational demands that would have brought OSCE's work to a screeching halt. We need to continue these efforts, no matter how frustrating they may at times be. This is so both because they at times actually produce constructive results and because we are also fighting a battle of perception in OSCE. ¶15. (C) We have to clearly understand that there are many participating States that are upset about various aspects of OSCE practice and activities, but which do not want to destroy the organization. They often sit on a very narrow rail between giving in to resentment and frustration, and working constructively to try to find solutions. Bending over backwards to show our readiness to deal with their concerns and to appear reasonable and open to new ideas is an essential element of our broader effort to marshal support for resisting encroachments on OSCE work of value to us. We never will turn round those like Russia, Belarus and some of the Central Asians who view OSCE's activities as a threat. But we can keep the Southeast Europeans and even some of the Central Asians on board and engaged by reaching out to them. The worst mistake we can make would be to write off all the concerns and complaints about OSCE as being exclusively a "Russia problem," and thus ignore genuine (and, again, at times legitimate) concerns of a broad spectrum of delegations. USOSCE 00000246 004 OF 004 ¶16. (C) It is also essential that we continue our close collaboration with the EU. For all the occasional ups and downs, this has, overall, been excellent, and it is an absolute prerequisite for efforts to defend western values in OSCE. While U.S.-EU unity in OSCE never guarantees success, its absence almost guarantees failure on key issues. ¶17. (C) In the end, however, we must recognize that there are real and growing limits on our ability to achieve our goals in OSCE, no matter how creative and engaged we might be. A small minority of participating States have vital interests (like literal regime or personal survival in some cases) that they view as being under threat from OSCE activities. At the point that any or all of them conclude that the perceived threat is intolerable, they have the power effectively to shut down most OSCE activity, though it may take a full budget/mission mandate renewal cycle to achieve rather than occurring instantly. If things come to that point, we can't stop them. ¶18. (C) While it is not an appealing or positive approach, in some ways our best, or least bad, strategy would be to decide what the non-negotiable bottom line for us really is; fight as hard as possible on every other issue to delay further damage and avoid getting to our redlines; and to hope that eventual change in Moscow and other capitals will change OSCE's prospects for the better before it is irretrievably harmed. The latter hope is not one to bet one's pension on. SCOTT