VZCZCXRO5979
PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHLA RUEHMRE RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHVEN #0246/01 1631617
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 121617Z JUN 06
FM USMISSION USOSCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4009
INFO RUCNOSC/ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY COOPERATION IN EUROPE

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