PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

    View
  • Russia at War and the Islamic World

    View
  • Ukraine’s Ripple Effect on Russia’s Indo-Pacific Horizon

    View
  • The Determinants of Assistance to Ukrainian and Syrian Refugees | New Voices on Eurasia with Volha Charnysh (Feb. 16)

    View
  • Conflicts in the North Caucasus Since 1991 | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Does the OSCE Need Saving?

  • July 1, 2010
  • PONARS Eurasia

 

In a recent report ("Behind the Eight Ball: Deciding on an OSCE Summit") from the Atlantic Council's Task Force on Eurasia as Part of Transatlantic Security, Senator Chuck Hagel, Ross Wilson, and Damon Wilson argue that the United States should support the convening of a summit of OSCE leaders later this year, as one of three major summits (NATO and U.S.-EU being the other two) to "advance a U.S. vision for European and Eurasian security." With 56 member states in Europe, the post-Soviet space, and North America, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is often touted as the foundation for a more ambitious "European" (really European/Eurasian/Transatlantic) security architecture stretching "from Vancouver to Vladivostok." While the vision of a European security architecture has a number of intrinsic obstacles to overcome, there are some specific challenges to utilizing the OSCE in particular as a basis for this vision. The OSCE's roots in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 have led the organization to develop an expansive view of security, with an emphasis on three "baskets" or "dimensions" of security: politico-military, economic and environmental, and human. While most member states might want to maintain an equal emphasis on all three dimensions in a beefed-up OSCE-based security institution, Russia and several other post-Soviet states have for years been less enthusiastic about what has turned out to be the OSCE's most prominent mission: election monitoring and other aspects of democracy and human rights promotion. Russia, in particular, has also resisted greater OSCE responsibility for conflict resolution in Moldova and Georgia (in the latter case, helping to emasculate its role in South Ossetia after the August 2008 war). Russia's vision of a new European security institution would, at a minimum, separate out more traditional security functions from those that focus on the internal social and political development of member states while seeking to steer such an institution away from dealing with "old issues" like the Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhaz conflicts. Nonetheless, the OSCE does seem to be an intuitive platform, with its Cold War legacy and broad membership base, for moving forward with substantive discussions on the future of European/Eurasian security.  One question is whether it can serve as such in its current form, or whether more progress could in fact be made by "unbundling" the organization into three separate ones that focus on separate dimensions. The Atlantic Council report, like most on the subject, emphatically supports maintaining the integrity of the OSCE, but other alternatives might be worth debating. (It's worth mentioning that the Atlantic Council Task Force's main sponsor is the government of Kazakhstan, the current chair of the OSCE, chosen after great debate and at best lukewarm American support, given Kazakhstan's poor record on democracy and human rights.) MORE: For an insightful discussion and debate on European security architecture more generally, I'd recommend "A New European Order" (March 2010) in the German Marshall Fund's Brussels Forum Paper Series, with articles by Robert Legvold and (as co-authors) David Kramer and Daniel Fata. Cory Welt UPDATE: At their July 16-17 informal ministerial meeting, OSCE members agreed to hold the OSCE head of state summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, probably at the start of December. This will be the first such summit since 1999, when the Istanbul Summit was the venue for the signing of the adapted CFE treaty and a host of other political-military commitments.

Related Topics
  • Democratization
  • European/Eurasian Security
  • OSCE
  • Politics
  • Security
  • U.S.
Previous Article
  • In the News | Hовости

In the News: Regime Change in Kyrgyzstan

  • May 17, 2010
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Defending New START

  • July 8, 2010
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

  • Irina Busygina
  • February 8, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ukraine’s Asymmetric Responses to the Russian Invasion

  • Nurlan Aliyev
  • July 28, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.