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The Role of International Organizations in Security matters―The costs and benefits of "organized multilateralism" in Europe
by Peter Schmidt
Introduction
There have been two separate but interrelated conflicts on the Balkans in the 1990s: the first in Bosnia, the second in Kosovo. In both cases, aside from the large number of NGOs, the full range of Europe-related security organizations, from the UN to the OSCE, from NATO to EU (and WEU), have all been involved in one way or another. All these structures contain a more or less extended bureaucracy. As a whole, they represent something often designated as the "network of inter-locking" or, as critics argue, "inter-blocking institutions." Regardless of this criticism, this network is mostly regarded in Europe as a positive feature of the new "European order." It limits and pacifies traditional power games among independent states and at least provides the option to bring to bear the different capacities of these organizations in a flexible manner. By this, it contributes substantially to peace and security in Europe.
An important and influential body during the conflicts on the Balkans, however, is not a fixed organization but a loose association: the Contact Group. It was replaced by the G-8 club in the hot phase of NATO's air campaign against Serbia in June 1999. The G-8 group prepared the Security Council Resolution 1244, the basic peace settlement with Serbia. But neither the Contact Group, nor the G-8 maintains a big bureaucracy. By their working methods and structure, neither body represents the modern "organized mutilateralism," which many in Europe think to be the great asset of the European security order. Instead, they are much more representative of the old "concert of powers" of the nineteenth century. This "nineteenth century arrangement" has, consequently, raised criticism from smaller and non-participating states, as well as from the existing multilateral institutions like the EU. Nevertheless, this "concert of powers" functions today in a different political environment than in the nineteenth century. It operates not detached from "organized multilateralism" but remains―in one or another way―related to it. One could even argue that this group of powerful countries has an important vocation to fulfill, a function which the system of multilateral institutions is not able to deliver in the same way: it can break a decision blockade in multilateral institutions and it can organize flexible crisis management, which requires contributions not only from one, but from several security institutions.
One of the major questions facing security institutions in Europe today is how the cohesion and effectiveness of the current setting can be maintained and further developed. This must be done at a time when two major institutions, NATO and the EU are in a process of enlargement. This raises the question of how this can be done without promoting disagreement and indecision within and between these organizations. Complicating the situation, the OSCE is looking for a new role, and the UN is under substantial pressure to reform itself, especially at the Security Council level. Obviously, the whole security system is in a state of flux.
Against this background, the subsequent analysis will attempt to answer at least some of the questions of the future roles of the major security organizations influencing the state of security in Europe (and beyond) and their inter-relationship in the following steps:
