Chapter 1 Jus Post Bellum Frigidum: An Idealistic Critique of Three Decades of Post-Cold War Global Security
Edwin R. Micewski
When the Cold War ended almost thirty years ago, widespread euphoria en- sued. The realization of a more just and stable world order – of an interna- tional order no longer dominated by two radically opposed ideologies, armed to the teeth and deterring each other from engaging in direct war with nuclear arsenals that could kill all of humanity several times over – seemed to be in reach. The hopes for an adequate jus post bellum frigidum were flying high in an- ticipation of comprehensive conventional and nuclear disarmament and the probable emergence of a new political and military humanism across the globe. The enthusiasm found its intellectual-philosophical peak in Francis Fukuyama’s proclamation of an End to History, suggesting that with the victory of the free world, history as a coherent evolutionary process has ended, and with liberal democracy reached its final form of human government.1 The strategic communities of civilian and military experts of nations and alliances – governmental and nongovernmental alike – found themselves amidst these developments. While adjusting to new political and social cir- cumstances and specifically, a drastically altered security environment with expanded challenges, they contributed significantly to the policy arrangements of post-Cold War security and defence. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the transat- lantic security arena was soon abuzz in hyper-activity. A great deal had to be accomplished in terms of international cooperation, promoting democratiza- tion in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, providing economic and educational support, and stabilizing new zones of conflict and unrest. This writer, as no doubt did many readers, shared the initial enthusiasm and conducted, as well as participated in, the educational efforts for democratization in Eastern and Southeastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s and early
1 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History? The National Interest, no. 16 (1989), 3–18
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2000s. The establishment of a post-Cold War New World Order started as an initially well-intended and seemingly meaningful project. This essay looks back at the almost three decades since the Cold War ended and critically examines implemented policies against the backdrop of the Just War Theory and classical ideas in social and political philosophy. It argues that a lack of philosophical depth in the strategic design of transatlantic politics led to shortcomings and failures in establishing a balanced post bellum frigidum. The lack of strategic prudence and the absence of a sensible political phi- losophy of international relations, including the parameters of globalized po- litical ethics, led to bad governance and exacerbated the coexistence of nations and peoples. This chapter stipulates and verifies the thesis that deficiency in liberal arts education, shortcomings of necessary erudition and understanding in international relations and national security, as well as in the policy dimen- sions of social and political affairs, caused harmful practice.
1 A Brief Recap of Post-Cold War National Security History
When they signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (inf) Treaty in 1987, agreeing to remove short- and medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe, Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev seemed to usher the leading nuclear superpowers of the world into a new era of trust and cooperation. Not long after, the Charter of Paris, a peace document signed in November 1990 by most European governments, the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union, essentially concluded the Cold War. The Paris Charter formed the basis for the expansion of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce), turning it into the world’s largest security- related intergovernmental organization, comprising some 57 states in Europe, North America, and Asia. A host of promising first steps to pacify the international order was to follow on political-strategic, as well as military-operational levels. nato, the North- Atlantic Alliance, apparently superfluous after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, reinvented itself and adopted its Out-of-Area concept in response to the new security challenges. It implemented the North Atlantic Cooperation Council/nacc (subsequently named Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council/eapc) for collaboration with the ussr and former Soviet satellites as well as nations that had remained militarily neutral during the Cold War. It was at the nacc’s first meeting in December 1991, when the Soviet delegate received notice that the Soviet Union had just dissolved and that he henceforth would represent its successor, the Russian Federation.