Interview with Adam Kobieracki, director of the Conflict Prevention Centre
Timely action, sustained engagement
Adam Kobieracki has been the Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) since June of this year. His involvement with conflict prevention in the OSCE goes back to the 1990s, when he participated as a Polish diplomat in the negotiation of confidence- and security-building measures in Vienna. As head of the Polish delegation, he chaired the Permanent Council in 1998. Ambassador Kobieracki has also served with NATO, as Assistant Secretary General for Operations from 1997 to 2000. He spoke with the editor of the OSCE Magazine, Ursula Froese, about his views on conflict prevention and his plans for the work of the CPC.
Ursula Froese: What does a Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) have to be able to do in today’s world?
Adam Kobieracki: Clearly, the context has changed since the CPC was set up 20 years ago, when there was a real expectation of conflict breaking out in South-Eastern Europe. The role of the CPC today is to watch over a region that is essentially stable. Conflict prevention is effective if nothing happens. It is like defusing a bomb: if there is an explosion, the operation has failed. In the OSCE region, we have a number of protracted conflicts that have persisted over many years. The CPC supports the Chairmanship, Special Representatives and field operations in negotiating and mediating settlements and carrying out confidence-building measures.
The CPC has to provide early warning and possible response options to the Chairmanship to enable the Organization to take timely and effective measures to prevent the emergence, re-emergence or escalation of conflicts. It supports the negotiation and implementation of arms control and confidence- and security-building measures and provides assistance on the non-proliferation and control of small arms and light weapons.
What are your goals for the CPC?
My goal for the coming years is to adapt the CPC to changing realities, to develop our capacity for early warning and analysis, for instance by making use of fact-finding or observation missions, and to strengthen our mediation support. We should enhance our confidence-building measures and rehabilitation activities in the field.
After all, it is not the case in the modern-day world that the successful conclusion of diplomatic talks can definitively end a conflict. A negotiated solution is only the beginning of the road. A great deal needs to be done to stabilize a post-conflict situation. Establishing the rule of law, ensuring respect for human rights, building democratic institutions, making sure borders are open and secure, promoting reconciliation between communities: these are all tasks that require sustained engagement and that must be fulfilled to prevent conflict from flaring up again. Working for reconciliation must be a central role of the CPC.
This year, the CPC is assisting participating States in updating the military confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs) contained in the Vienna Document 1999. How important is this work?
CSBMs and the Vienna Document are among the most important achievements of the OSCE. My view here might be somewhat more subjective than objective, because I spent ten years of my life here in Vienna in 1990s, participating not only in the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty negotiations but also in the negotiations of regional CSBMs and the first Vienna Document. CSBMs are the software of arms control, the conventional arms control regime being the hardware. They should go hand in hand and reinforce each other.
The Vienna Document was a very instrumental document in the 1990s. The challenge now is to adapt it to new political and military realities, and this is what participating States are doing in the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC). I can hardly imagine any participating State in the present day wanting to conduct training or move troops on the massive scale envisaged in the Vienna Document. So the adjustment of thresholds or ceilings for troops or military equipment is one thing that is being discussed. But there is another thing I consider important, and that is the fact that we are dealing with different military realities in different regions. This is very much my personal view, but I do think that there is a future for regional or rather sub-regional CSBMs. The military requirements for confidence-building in the Black Sea region are different from those in South-Eastern Europe or the South Caucasus or any other part of our region.
I would say that today, the importance of transparency, military predictability and openness is probably more clear to all of us than it was in the 1990s. At that time we still had to deal with the remnants of the Cold War military potentials. What is more important now is to know what others are doing, to be in a position to envisage and anticipate the evolution of military potentials. And for that, CSBMs are a perfect tool.
Military intentions are also extremely important. The OSCE is the only organization that organizes a seminar on military doctrine from time to time, every five years – in my view it should be much more frequent. Explaining military doctrines to each other, discussing them, showing their defensive nature is a perfect instrument for defusing a lack of trust or a deficit in predictability.
In what other ways does the CPC provide support to the FSC’s work for military stability?
The FSC Support Section in the CPC is doing a lot of useful, practical things, like helping some of our participating States, for instance Ukraine and Kazakhstan, to get rid of the highly toxic rocket propellant, mélange, or helping with the disposal or safe storage of surplus ammunition, small arms or light weapons.
Our FSC support team advises and trains participating States on implementing their OSCE commitments on military security – under the Vienna Document, the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security, the Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons and the Document on Stockpiles of Conventional Ammunition. It also supports interested participating States in their efforts to implement global commitments – particularly the measures under UN Security Resolution 1540 on weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.
What is the role of the Annual Security Review Conference (ASRC)?
The ASRC was established in 2002 to enhance the security dialogue in the Organization and to review the implementation of programmes and participating States’ commitments in the politico-military dimension. I consider it to be one of the most important discussions the OSCE has every year. It is an opportunity for all the participating States to talk about security challenges as they see them, in a very frank and open manner. The real added value of the ASRC is that it is not just an exchange of instructions coming from the capitals. It is talking about national perspectives and exchanging perceptions.
The ASRC is a relatively new event - , but it is very much in the tradition of the OSCE: if there is a problem, then let’s look at it from all perspectives, let’s talk about it. The moment you start to discuss something that is worrying, compare different perspectives, it begins to change colour. It works as a kind of a safety valve, so that we can focus on the real issues.
Much of the CPC’s work is focused on military matters. Does conflict prevention also involve political, economic and environmental or human aspects of security?
In the twenty-first century, there is no other way to work for security and stability than by taking a comprehensive approach. Even the most difficult, protracted conflicts in the OSCE area have more than just a military dimension.
If you look at the CPC’s interaction with OSCE field operations in Central Asia, South Caucasus, South-Eastern Europe and Eastern Europe, you can see that conflict prevention also entails economic and environmental and human dimension activities: capacity and institution building or longer-term reforms in the rule of law or democratization.
How does the CPC support the work of the field operations?
CPC is the key link between the field operations and the rest of the OSCE. The field operations are an important source of early warning information. Through its regional desks, the CPC helps to shape their response to rapidly evolving situations and needs and co-ordinates their activities with OSCE Institutions and the Secretariat’s thematic units.
The field operations are sometimes far away from Vienna, so they rely on us. It is we who tell them what the mood is in Vienna, what the expectations are from headquarters. We make sure they actually implement their mandates and that they work with the authorities of the host country. We also talk to the host country representatives here. We are part of the reporting process. And of course, the field operations rely on us for administrative support.
One of the important mandates of the CPC is early warning. How does it function and how is it translated into response?
There is an almost eternal discussion in the OSCE about the relation between the consensus rule and the flexibility to act in case of tension or crisis. I hope that with a decision at the Vilnius Ministerial on the conflict cycle, we will strike a proper balance. We here in the CPC have no intention whatsoever to undermine the consensus rule, which is one of the foundations of this Organization. But on the other hand, if participating States expect us not only to warn them about possible crises or tension but also to take early action, then we should be given the flexibility to act.
One has to strike a proper balance between the consensus rule and the flexibility to act in the first hours.
Imagine a crisis has occurred in country X. What we should be able to do, without waiting for a formal decision, is send an observer or fact-finding mission to talk to the authorities, to get a picture from them and present it to the participating States, so that the decision they would then take, about what kind of involvement the OSCE should consider, would actually be well informed. I do not mean that the CPC or any other executive structure should take a decision on how to interfere without clear guidance, consensus-based guidance, from the participating States. One has to strike a proper balance between the consensus rule and the flexibility to act in the first hours.
On the protracted conflicts, in addition to supporting negotiations, does the CPC take any other measures to make progress?
It is a combination of support to negotiations and practical projects, like our water projects in areas affected by the August 2008 conflict in Georgia, where the idea is simply to make sure that farmers there have water. Despite all the political problems, regardless of where the borders or so-called borders are, a farmer must have water.
This is a simple, practical thing, but it is a good example because it shows how extremely diverse and wide-ranging CPC activities are. Sitting at this desk, I read early warning reports, sign papers authorizing the transfer of pipes for water projects, look into police-related issues of the Community Security Initiative in Kyrgyzstan, and make sure all participating States are fully aware of the incidents in northern Kosovo.
The Lithuanian Chairperson-in-Office has appointed you his Special Envoy for Kyrgyzstan. Can you describe the CPC’s work there?
The Community Security Initiative, which supports Kyrgyzstan police, is one tool we are implementing to promote reconciliation in the southern part of the country. We have the Centre in Bishkek, which is working in many other areas according to its mandate. I have been appointed Special Envoy of the Chairmanship for trilateral efforts with the EU and the UN, basically for visits to Kyrgyzstan, to talk with authorities, parliament and civil society, making sure they get the kind of assistance for their reforms that they actually need.
Since you mentioned Kyrgyzstan, let me also make a more general point. There is a kind of growing understanding among participating States in Vienna that we, as the OSCE, should consider how we could usefully contribute to stability and security in Central Asia in the context of the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan. In line with the OSCE tradition, we are not looking at what it is that we could impose upon participating States, but what we, as a non-military organization, could offer, so they can feel more safe and secure, given the obvious uncertainties about the situation close to their common borders with Afghanistan.
The success of prevention is notoriously difficult to measure. How can the CPC evaluate its effectiveness?
The CPC is careful to ensure that self-evaluation is an integral part of the way we manage our programmes and projects. In evaluating the process of reconciliation and building trust, one indicator for us is whether communities that we have assisted over time with the help of our field operations can overcome their animosity and engage in joint projects. Of course, the best indicator of our success is that there is no renewed rise in tensions or, worse, relapse into violence.
When we talk about reconciliation, we need our participating States to be cognisant of the complexity of the kind of change they want the OSCE to achieve. We are talking about shifts in values, building capacity and transforming societies. The relationship between what an international organization does to build trust and the outcomes are not tightly coupled. These changes do not happen overnight. Sometimes they take generations. With regard to sensitive political changes, evaluations do reveal the effectiveness and impact of multilateral action over bilateral efforts. That is why the CPC’s work in all phases of the conflict cycle is so important for the comprehensive security of our participating States.