Copyright by Hannah Claire Alberts 2016 The Report Committee for Hannah Claire Alberts Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Russia’s OSCE Policy and the Ukraine Crisis: Renewed Interest, Enduring Approach APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Thomas J. Garza William Inboden Russia’s OSCE Policy and the Ukraine Crisis: Renewed Interest, Enduring Approach by Hannah Claire Alberts, B.A. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degrees of Master of Global Policy Studies and Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2016 Abstract Russia’s OSCE Policy and the Ukraine Crisis: Renewed Interest, Enduring Approach Hannah Claire Alberts; MGPS, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Thomas J. Garza This report presents a detailed investigation of Russia’s behavior within and toward the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in order to determine whether the military crisis Ukraine beginning in late 2013 and the OSCE’s consequent “renewal” as a crisis management organization have altered Russia’s policy toward the organization. The study concludes that Russia’s policy toward the OSCE has not undergone a fundamental change as a result of the Ukraine crisis. While Russia has been willing to endorse an expanded role for the OSCE in Ukraine, Moscow’s approach to the organization remains selective and highly critical. A review of Russia’s rhetoric and actions with regard to the OSCE from late 2013 to early 2016 suggests a limited increase in Russia’s use of the OSCE as a foreign policy tool, but does not indicate that Russia’s assessment of the organization has improved. Unfortunately, because the OSCE’s fate is highly dependent on will of member states, the lack of change in Russia’s policy toward the organization indicates that hopes for a stronger OSCE are unlikely to be realized. iv Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................. vii Introduction ............................................................................................................1 1. The OSCE: Comparative Advantages and Ingrained Friction .....................5 Comprehensive Foundations ...........................................................................6 Inclusive Membership .....................................................................................8 Weak Institutional Foundation ........................................................................9 2. Russia as a Multilateral Actor ........................................................................12 3. Russia and the OSCE: Cooperation, Frustration, Disengagement .............19 1990s: High Hopes and Cooperation Give Way to Frustration ....................20 2000 Forward: Disillusionment and Disengagement ....................................25 Sources of Discontent ..........................................................................26 Withdrawal and Subversion .................................................................32 Inching toward Irrelevance ..................................................................35 4. The OSCE and the Ukraine Crisis: A Return to Relevance? ......................38 OSCE Takes a Leading Role ........................................................................39 OSCE's Many Mandates ...............................................................................42 Challenges and Limitations ...........................................................................46 5. The Ukraine Crisis and Russia’s OSCE Policy: Poking Holes in the Silver Lining .......................................................................49 Russia’s Access to the Multilateral Space ....................................................50 Russian Statements on the OSCE .................................................................51 The OSCE in Russian doctrinal publications ................................................55 Russia’s Actions Within the OSCE ..............................................................57 A Constructive Russia? ........................................................................57 Obstructionist Behavior .......................................................................59 Legitimizing Kremlin Policy ...............................................................61 Testing Western Resolve .....................................................................63 v Net Effects ....................................................................................................65 6. Conclusions/Implications ................................................................................68 References ..............................................................................................................74 vi Abbreviations CFE Treaty Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty CiO OSCE Chairman-in-Office CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization EEU Eurasian Economic Union EU European Union HCNM OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities HFA Helsinki Final Act G8 Group of Eight KVM Kosovo Verification Mission MC OSCE Ministerial Council NATO North Atlantic Treaty Alliance ODIHR OSCE Office for Democratic Initiatives and Human Rights OM OSCE Observer Mission at the Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe PA OSCE Parliamentary Assembly PC OSCE Permanent Council RFoM OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization SMM OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine TCG OSCE Trilateral Contact Group UN United Nations UNSC United Nations Security Council vii Introduction The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) marked the 40th anniversary of its foundational document, the Helsinki Final Act (HFA), in July 2015. A landmark agreement in East-West relations, the 1975 HFA set forth a vision of a universal, inclusive system of European security. Thirty-five states signed the initial agreement, including the Soviet Union, the United States, Canada, and all but one of the countries of Europe. The OSCE’s predecessor, the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), promoted the comprehensive concept of security outlined in the HFA, encompassing political-military issues, economic and trade matters, and human rights concerns. As the only multilateral security forum in the Euro-Atlantic area that included the Soviet Union as a full and equal member, the CSCE occupied a historically significant role in promoting East-West dialogue, even in times of extreme tension.1 The CSCE became the OSCE in 1994, and it is now the world’s largest intergovernmental security organization, spanning from Vancouver to Vladivostok. In the years leading up to the 2015 anniversary of the historic conference in Helsinki, however, many observers and analysts noted the organization’s slow lapse into irrelevance in the post-Cold War era. Particularly as Russian attitudes toward the organization soured over the years, the OSCE’s future became increasingly unclear. Having been one of the organization’s most enthusiastic supporters in the early 1990s, Russia emerged as one of its most vocal critics in the 2000s. Moreover, as the EU and NATO expanded to form the dominant framework for discussions of European security, 1 The world “multilateral” is used throughout this report to describe institutions and arrangements that involve three or more countries working together in a continuous format. Elana Wilson Rowe, Stina Torjesen, and Robert Legvold, eds., “The Role of Multilateralism in Russian Foreign Policy,” in The Multilateral Dimension in Russian Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2008), 1. 1 the OSCE became increasingly marginalized. Scholars warned that “the very foundations of the Organization” were at stake or, even more pessimistically, that the OSCE already had “lost its relevance as both an instrument of foreign policy and as a framework for multilateral cooperation.”2 In 2013, however, just as the organization prepared to launch a series of seminars to commemorate the HFA and tackle difficult questions about the organization’s hazy future, the Ukraine crisis erupted and dramatically altered the landscape of European security.3 Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its involvement in the military conflict in the country’s eastern provinces posed grave challenges to the core principles of the OSCE. Despite this affront, the OSCE moved quickly to assume a central role in managing the crisis and facilitating dialogue between Ukraine, Russia, and the pro-Russian separatist groups active in Ukraine’s two easternmost regions. Imbued with renewed purpose, the OSCE took the opportunity to prove its continued relevance in the international arena. The OSCE has garnered much praise for its monitoring and mediating activities on the ground in Ukraine as well as its support of high-level political negotiations. The organization, indeed, has been so omnipresent in Ukraine that many observers are hailing the OSCE’s revival. This report questions the validity of this OSCE “renaissance.” Clearly the organization is more visible and active than it has been in some time, but have the factors constraining the OSCE’s prominence within the European security architecture 2 Wolfgang Zellner, “Russia and the OSCE: From High Hopes