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ANKARA: Post-Soviet confidence games

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  • ANKARA: Post-Soviet confidence games

    Journal of Turkish Weekly
    Nov 29 2014


    Post-Soviet confidence games

    29 November 2014


    LONDON - It is starting to look like a pattern. After painstaking
    talks, the parties in the Ukraine conflict come to an agreement - only
    to have it fall apart or fail to be fully implemented. At least three
    separate deals to resolve the crisis have been struck, and each has
    quickly unraveled. Even a unanimous vote in the United Nations
    Security Council condemning the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
    and demanding access to the crash site has failed to produce the
    desired results. Over three months later, Dutch investigators have
    still not been able to conduct all necessary visits.

    The usual diagnosis for the repeated failure to forge a lasting
    agreement is a lack of trust on both sides of the conflict, for which
    the usual prescription is to introduce a series of confidence-building
    measures. If only the Ukrainian national government in Kyiv, its
    Western allies, Russia, and the Ukrainian separatists could learn to
    trust each other, the thinking goes, perhaps a settlement could be
    reached.

    But confidence-building measures are not the panacea that they are so
    often portrayed to be. To be sure, there are cases where the absence
    of trust-building efforts could partly explain why a conflict drags
    on. The 25-year tug-of-war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
    region of Nagorno-Karabakh is a prime example. But there are also
    conflicts in which years of confidence-building measures have not only
    failed to produce a solution but have also prevented one from taking
    shape.

    The parties tussling over Georgia's breakaway regions of South
    Ossetia and Abkhazia spent some 15 years taking part in
    confidence-building measures, before Russia upended the status quo in
    2008 by recognizing both regions' independence. Since then,
    confidence-building has continued in the form of regular talks in
    Geneva, but nearly 30 rounds of meetings over the past six years have
    yet to yield tangible progress.

    Of all of the so-called "frozen conflicts" in the former Soviet
    Union, the dispute over Transnistria, the strip of land between the
    Dniester River and Moldova's border with Ukraine, was once considered
    the most amenable to resolution. And yet, even there, two decades of
    confidence-building measures have been unsuccessful.

    Yes, such measures have helped to maintain open lines of
    communication, preventing small disputes from escalating into violent
    conflict. But, despite the best efforts of the OSCE, the European
    Union, the United States, Ukraine, and even Russia, the conflict is no
    closer to a settlement than it was when the process began.

    There are three major reasons why real progress has failed to
    materialize in Transnistria. For starters, the confidence-building
    measures put in place lack local support. Neither the elite nor the
    public, on either side of the conflict, see a realistic chance for
    rapprochement in the near future.

    Second, confidence-building, to some extent, has worked against an
    ultimate settlement of the conflict. Since the 1990s, the two sides
    have struck some 170 agreements. But, by making the status quo more
    comfortable and reducing the need for game-changing moves, these have
    been steps away from, not toward, a solution.

    Finally, confidence-building does not happen in a vacuum, but within
    a specific regional and global geopolitical context. More often than
    not, the conflicting agendas of the great powers have stood in the way
    of a final settlement.
    The lesson for Ukraine is that while building confidence may be
    necessary, it is not sufficient to resolve the crisis. If it is to
    help move the parties toward a final agreement, certain conditions
    must be met.

    Technical expertise is needed to design and implement measures that
    are part of a strategic vision to end the conflict. But such measures
    will be effective only if the regional and global geopolitical
    environment supports the search for a resolution. Most important,
    local leaders must be genuinely committed to the process, rather than
    seeking to curry favor with donors.

    The lack of technical expertise is not a major problem in eastern
    Ukraine. But, as in all of the post-Soviet conflicts, the search for a
    solution is not taking place in a favorable geopolitical climate. Nor
    are local leaders committed to building trust and confidence; indeed,
    separatists are engaged to just the opposite.

    Confidence-building measures can help to stabilize a conflict, but
    the stability they generate is often fragile and temporary. In an
    environment like that in Ukraine, there is a risk that such measures
    will sustain, not end, the conflict.

    by Stefan Wolff
    29 November 2014
    Project Syndicate

    http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/176354/post-soviet-confidence-games.html

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