security and human rights 27 (2016) 273-288 brill.com/shrs osce Mediation in an Eroding International Order Philip Remler retired u.s. diplomat Abstract The feeling is widespread in the West that the post wwii normative international or- der has been under severe challenge since Russia’s seizure of Crimea, now exacerbated by statements from the American president casting doubt on the institutions that un- derpin that order. Is there a future role for osce mediation as this order erodes? Study of the Ukraine crisis in light of other protracted conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union shows that the same challenges have existed for a generation. Because the conflicts were small, however, the international community chose to accept a fic- tion of convenience to isolate them from an otherwise functioning international order: the narrative that the separatists sought independence, not (as in reality) a re-drawing of post-Soviet borders. This isolation is under pressure both from the new experience in Ukraine and from the extension of ever-greater Russian control over the separatists, amounting to crypto-annexation, despite a backlash from Moscow’s clients, including in Armenia. There is little likelihood of a resolution to the Ukraine crisis, including Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and prospects for mediation to resolve the conflicts remain dim. However, continued talks may resolve some humanitarian issues and pro- vide a release valve to prevent pressures boiling over into renewed open warfare. In 2015 the present author published an article outlining some effects of the Ukraine crisis on protracted conflicts in the osce area and on osce mediation in those conflicts.1 He has been asked to revisit his assessment of that time in * Philip Remler is a retired u.s. diplomat with experience in osce missions and mediation efforts: he served with the osce Assistance Group in Chechnya (1995), collaborated with the osce Minsk Group (1993, 1996–98), and headed the osce Mission in Moldova (2007–2012). He also served in Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. He has written on protracted conflicts, including a study of negotiations to end the Karabakh war. 1 “Ukraine, Protracted Conflicts and the osce,” Security and Human Rights 26 (2015), 88–106. © nhc, 2017 | doi 10.1163/18750230-02703007 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 10:36:55AM via free access <UN> 274 Remler light of subsequent events in world politics (in particular the advent of a new administration in the United States) and in the region. The new developments give little cause for optimism that settlement in any of the conflicts is closer. Rather, the question for the osce is whether the international community, in view of the challenges posed by the Ukraine crisis, should continue to engage in the fictions that have allowed it to manage the conflicts since their begin- nings in the collapsing Soviet Union. Keywords mediation – separatism – frozen conflict – border – osce – Armenia – Azerbaijan – Georgia – Moldova – Russia – Ukraine – Abkhazia – Crimea – Donbass – Karabakh – South Ossetia – Transdniestria i Russia-West Tensions and the osce Uncertainty is the major handicap to analyzing the effects of East-West ten- sions on the osce and its mediation efforts. Some of the uncertainty was gen- erated in anticipation of a series of European elections. But to a much greater extent, the uncertainty derives from the blank slate of future u.s. policy to- wards Russia. No one knows what it will be, including those currently charged with making it. New developments appear constantly, and point in many con- tradictory directions. In such a highly fluid situation, contemporary analysis is of necessity journalistic. Much has been made of the praise candidate Trump lavished on President Putin. Indeed, the two were natural allies, since both wanted to upend the post- World War ii international order and recreate in its place a neo-Westphalian world in which ethnically defined nations advance their individual interests through bilateral relations dictated by relative strength and weakness. Since World War ii, an international order has been built through norms-based treaties and cooperative organisations aimed at regulating or mitigating in- ternational frictions. In contrast, as Trump’s chief security and economic advi- sors, H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, wrote in a much-quoted joint Wall Street Journal op-ed on 30 May 2017, in Trump’s view “the world is not a ‘global com- munity’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage”. This complements the view of Trump’s “Alt-Right” advisors and supporters, who (along with far-right populists in Europe) see Putin as a proponent of their conservative social values and a security and humanDownloaded rights from 27 Brill.com09/27/2021 (2016) 273-288 10:36:55AM via free access <UN> Osce Mediation In An Eroding International Order 275 defender of Christian and “European” civilisation against a perceived threat from Islamic terrorists and immigrants. Trump as President has therefore made clear that he would favor a rap- prochement with Russia. He has been vague, however, on what the u.s. could get out of it, limiting himself to little more than “getting along”, with the hope that in some undefined way Russia could help the u.s. in its struggle against the Islamic State. In the wake of Russian interference in the u.s. election there is broad bipartisan antipathy in Washington to any such rapprochement, and senior figures in Trump’s party have called for new sanctions against Russia, rather than a relaxation of existing ones. Investigations into Russian actions by several Congressional oversight committees and by a Justice Department Special Counsel are underway that will keep the issue before the public in a way that may render most of Trump’s prospective rapprochement politically unsustainable. Foreign policy shifts in this and other areas are not the purely inside-the- Beltway struggle between Trump and the Washington foreign policy estab- lishment that some have portrayed. Rather, real facts on the ground in the real world have made themselves felt, the more so because the prior level of knowledge was so low. Thus, North Korean nuclear and missile tests, the po- tential disaster of a trade war with China, use of chemical weapons and oth- er urgent issues in Syria, and the fallout from Russian attempts to meddle in u.s. elections – all of these, rather than a power struggle inside Washington’s maison sans fenêtres, are forcing u.s. policy into its new direction, and any president would be forced to make adjustments. What of Russia’s approach to the Trump presidency? It would appear that Russia has maintained the policy line it adopted in the wake of its annexation of Crimea in 2014.2 Russia has been clear on what it wants from a prospec- tive rapprochement with the Trump Administration; it wants exactly what it wanted previously: an end to sanctions and recognition as a member of a small group of Great Powers, with an uncontested right to a clearly defined sphere of influence, including border changes to legitimise facts on the ground. It ap- pears from leaked intelligence information that Russian figures believed that Trump’s National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, was key to advancing these goals. Shortly after Flynn was fired, on 13 February 2017, Russian state media outlets were ordered to stop their positive coverage of Trump, according to a 2 Ample literature has emerged to explain Russia’s foreign policy course; a good analysis is available in Russia and the New World Disorder by Bobo Lo (Brookings Institution Press/ Chatham House, 2015). security and human rights 27 (2016) 273-288 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 10:36:55AM via free access <UN> 276 Remler respected Russian journalist and political analyst. Thereafter, it appears that Putin has returned to the line he adopted when the Obama Administration was in power: viewing relations with the u.s. as a zero-sum game and capitalis- ing on opportunities to advance Russia’s position and influence, especially in the Middle East. The situation on both sides portends a worsening in relations, not the reset Trump touted before coming to office. It is too early to tell whether this round of exacerbation will permit any action between Russia and the West on the sharp deterioration in arms control regimes: the Cold War-era Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (abm), Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (cfe) and, it appears, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (inf) are now non-functioning; new fields of conflict such as cyber warfare remain entirely unregulated. In reality, the most useful direction for u.s.-Russian relations since the 2014 crisis would have been stabilisation: avoiding further deterioration and re -establishing po- litical-military consultations, common during the Cold War, to avoid incidents and start laying the groundwork for re-establishing arms control regimes in the fields of nuclear, conventional and cyber weapons. Amid this turmoil, u.s. and Russian policies towards the osce are un- likely to receive much attention from either side. The u.s. has traditionally viewed nato as the principal forum for its security interests in Europe, but has supported the osce as part of the web of agreements and implementing organisations that underpinned an international order based on norms and values. That international order was strained in the years leading up to 2014, and in particular by Russia’s repudiation of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, but it was Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 that led the u.s. to believe that the entire international order is under attack. Russian meddling in demo- cratic processes in the u.s.