Electronic Library of Scientific Literature Electronic Library of Scientific Literature
Vol. VIII / No 3 / 1999
3 Príhovor šéfredaktora - Editorial
ŠTÚDIE, ANALÝZY - STUDIES, ANALYSIS
Kurdská otázka - príklad transštátneho etnického konfliktu
The Kurdish Question - an Example of a Trans-State Ethnic ConflictKonflikt Etiópia - Eritrea
Ethiopian-Eritrean ConflictRuská spoločnosť: socio-kultúrne a politické faktory konfliktu
Russian Society: Social-Cultural and Political Factors of the Conflict67 Peter Juza
Konflikt v Čečensku - kronika roku 1995
The Conflict in Chechnya - the Cronicle of 1995Čínska ľudová republika - národnostné zloženie a národnostná politika
The People’s Republic of China - the Ethnic Composition and the Nationalities PolicyÚVAHY, ROZPRAVY - REFLECTIONS, TRANSACTIONS
Partnership For Peace (PFP): After the Washington Summit and Kosovo
Partnerstvo za mier (PZM): Po washingtonskom summite a Kosovo105 Jana Grittersová
The Evolution of the Concept and the Role of Sovereignty
Vývoj koncepcie a úlohy suverenityDOKUMENTY, PRAMENE - DOCUMENTS, SOURCES
118 Dohovor o zákaze použitia, skladovania, výroby a transferu protipechotných mín a o ich zničení
RECENZIE, SPRÁVY - REVIEWS, REPORTS
133 Daneš Brzica
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Velká šachovnice. K čemu Ameriku zavazuje její globální převaha
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives138 Peter Juza
N. B. Narbajev: Rusko a Eurázia: problémy štátnosti. Druhá polovica 19. - začiatok 20. storočia
N. B. Narbajev: Rassija i Evrazija: problemy gosudarstvennosti. Vtoraja polovina 19. - načalo 20. veka140 Bezpečnosť v demokratických spoločnostiach
142 Alena Kotvanová
Seminár Civilno-vojenské vzťahy v demokratickej spoločnosti
A squeamish kurdish problem has not been solved yet. At time this trans-state and ethnic conflict with international dimension was connected with arresting and deportation of PKK’s leader Öcalan. Turkish authorities have been fighting the PKK’s rebels at south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq and especially civil population have suffered from these fights. Most of Turkish authorities knows that peaceful solution of the kurdish problem should improve an image of Turkey abroad, for example a chance of Turkey to become a full-fledged member of EU.
What does it mean - to be a Kurd? To identify persons who perceive themselves like Kurds in Turkey is very complicated. Some of them consider themselves not only like Kurds, but also as Turkish.
Kurds are often described as ”stateless nation”, ”people without country”, they are marked like the biggest stateless ethnic group of the countries of the Middle East. There are proclamations, that Kurds are an instance of ”etno-nationalistic movement” or ”protonation”.
They are wide diffused in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, but none of these countries they are dominated in. They are a divided population even in Turkey: some of them were assimilated with Turkish society up to unconscious of individual ethnic awareness. Some of kurdish groups from Turkey and other states have become political and they want autonomy.
There is a wide spectrum of various opinions to kurdish ethnic community in Turkey. But governments from outside are not practically prepared to help Kurds forming their own state yet, especially because of a possibility to endanger a regional safety.
A previous Prime minister T. Ciller shortly mentioned about possibility of kurdish community in Turkey to take a ”Baskit model” of regional autonomy in autumn 1993. Also in May 1995 one of Spanish government’s representative declared in report for West-European Union, that Turkey should follow Spain and Basks and provide the Kurds the rights for cultural self-expression and forms of political and administrative autonomy without breaking of territorial integrity of the Turkish state.
The picture of this problem is complicated. Kurds in Turkey could feel themselves multiidentical. In practice it seems that assimilation, discrimination, centralization and modernization in Turkey - all these attributes have influenced the kurdian identity.
Eritrea becoming independent, with the consent of Ethiopia, was considered a unique event on a continent that has experienced so many wars about the right to self-rule. However there are elements in Ethiopia’s political mosaic that can never accept Eritrea independence.
To be able to find a lasting solution it is thus very important to try and map out all the root-causes of the conflict. Regional and ethnic tension has been festering for years between Ethiopia and Eritrea and together with the complicated historical common background could be considered as the main reason of the conflict. There seem to be at least some economic factors behind the conflict. The decision by Eritrea to create its own currency, the ”Nakfa”, together with the problems that have occurred when Ethiopia has used the vital harbour of Massawa and Asab, now in Eritrea, has probably also contributed to outbreak of the conflict.
There are definitely some historical reasons behind the conflict. The early history of Ethiopia begins with the glorious, but still only partly understood Axumite Kingdom, which grew up around Axum in the N highlands in the 1st century AD and endured until 10th century AD. The process of unification of Ethiopia after a hundred year of near anarchy started with the Menelik II. (1889-1913). Menelik established most of Ethiopia’s and Eritrea’s present frontiers. This period is also connected with Italy’s claim to Ethiopia supported by Britain and France as they shared out the rest of eastern Africa. As a result of Italian expansion the protectorate called ”Eritrea” was created in 1890.
From the historical point of view there should be no doubt that the territory of today’s Eritrea was a part of Ethiopians kingdoms.
However, for more than 60 years since 1890 Eritrea was under the foreign rule. Eritrea was federated to Ethiopia in 1952, but when in 1962 the federation was dissolved and the province was annexed by Haile Selassie, guerrilla war-broke out and continued also during the dictatorship of M. H. Mariam (1974-1991).
The two countries separated amicably in 1993, but their friendship disintegrated and the conflict erupted last May when Eritrean troops occupied a 400 square km triangle of scrubby Ethiopian-administered land around the town of Badme on the western end of their border.
Small and poor countries engaged in costly and ruinous wars are nothing new in Africa, but this one has especially dismayed the world. The conflict and the way it has been fought came as real surprise.
What started as a seemingly innocent border dispute had suddenly turned into one of the largest conventional wars in recent history.
Ethiopian-Eritrea war also showed that deadly conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa have been marginalised by the outbreak of war in the Balkans. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recently pointed out during a press conference in New York ”The world has completely ignored the fighting in Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, Sudan, Ethiopia-Eritrea war - although these are wars hardly less murderous than the conflict in Yugoslavia”.
The dispute centres on a 400 square km rocky triangle of land around the town of Badme on the western border. The border itself had been clearly demarcated in three separate international treaties -1900,1902 and 1906 - involving Britain, Italy and Ethiopia.
The two countries are among the poorest in Africa, but both Ethiopia and Eritrea are reportedly engaged in buying as much arms as their poor economies can afford from countries such as Russian Federation, China, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine. Both sides have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on high tech military hardware. The two Horns of Africa neighbours possess at least 600 Soviet-era tanks and they mobilised around half a million battle-hardened fighters of both sexes. Eritrea has mobilised around 250,000 soldiers to the front line, while estimates put the Ethiopian army at 350,000 strong. More than half a million fighters have now confronted each other in trenches fortified many times since May last year.
Neither side has released their own casualty figures, but it is feared that more than thirty thousand soldiers have already been killed in mainly hand-to-hand fighting and artillery exchanges.
Both countries have close military relationships with the two countries-Israel and the United States - who have a strategic interest in keeping then as stable allies close to the Arabian peninsula and bordering Sudan.
As the armies of Ethiopia and Eritrea slam into each other along their common frontier, the shock waves are already being felt around the entire region. From Somalia to Sudan, Kenya to Djibouti, fears are rising that the continent’s latest conflict will spread beyond the two countries, undermine the Horn of Africa’s fragile hopes of rehabilitation and provoke an arms race in the region.
The International community calls for an end to the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The United Nations, the European Union, African leaders and U. S. government have all pleaded for restraint and immediate stop of military confrontation.
At the end of February, Eritrea suddenly accepted the Organization of African Unity’s (OAU) framework agreement for peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Eritrea policy change followed a major Ethiopian victory at Badme, one of the border areas in dispute. The OAU´s agreement, put forward last November called for a return to the position held before 6 May last year and a restoration of the Ethiopian administration in the disputed area of Badme; demilitarisation of the disputed areas of the frontier; deployment of international peace keeping monitors; and, within six months, a UN-organised demarcation of the border according to colonial treaties and international law. Ethiopia accepted the OAU framework. Eritrea saw the OAU framework as an attempt to pre-empt any decision over disputed areas.
In reality, neither side seems interested in abandoning the military option for resolving the border issue. Many observers believe that both sides have committed too many troops and weapons to let the war finish without decisive victory. It’s also clear that the two regimes are now incompatible. For both governments the war could become a fight for survival.
There are many conflicts going on in the world, not least in Africa, but we seldom hear about them. The Eritrean-Ethiopian war is in the shadow of the Kosovo crisis but should not be neglected by the international community.
Since 1992 Russia is on the way to reform and decentralizing its government, which means the differenciation of power and property, between the state and society, the center and regions. The country was able to keep its area, but not a peaceful process of changes.
Two extreme conflicts developed during the last period of time in this area, OSETIN-INGUSSIAN and CHECHENIAN conflicts, which grew up into an armed conflict, both were settled down, but no termination by peaceful political settlement was possible. The danger of a widespread violence is still a current emergency.
All these events are occuring in the background of the massive political crisis, which developed in Moscow in the fall of 1993, and a later socioeconomic crisis, causing a new wave of inflation and destabilization of existing regime in August 1998.
From ethnicity to nation: the modernization process of a society.
Representatives of different groups become members of a ”united” nation only in the case, when the loyal feeling to a nation as an entity is stronger than the loyalty to the own different group. A nation in this view express against different ethnic groups an alternative type of society, or like Parsons wrote, an alternative type of ”social system” - a system of relations between individuals shaped according to a concrete situation, including a subsystem of common accepted cultural symbols.
Resulting from this is the fact, that the existence of a common culture as collection of symbols, securing in connection to human needs a common order providing normal life, is the condition for the existence of a social system in the form of a nation.
A nation is created in the process of evolution, realized as a modernization of a society, an entire, complex evolution from the traditional to actual status, creating the subjective feeling of different ethnic, confessional or social groups to be part of a unified national society.
Sociocultural structure of the Russian society.
Russia still did not terminate its evolution to the civilization of today. This situation can be explained for example by the fact, that the beginning of the modernization process, born in Europe at the period of renaissance, started in Russia two centuries too late - with the reforms of Peter I.
In western Europe the modernization was going on even in the 19.th century already dominated by market economy, urbanization of the population, improved education and political participating of masses on societal living. In this exact period of time N. I. Kostomarov found the existence of ”a deep difference between the lifestyle of a Russian and the lifestyle of western people”.
Actually, in the present time there are four macrogroups on different civilization-level in the Russian society: the original nations, traditionalist groups, ideologized groups and the modernized population.
The original nations are in the soviet-sense for classification small nations in the north, Siberia and far east, total amount of 150 000 people, living in small groups of 30 families, who did not pass in their societal evolution the level of the tribe - formation.
This society is not politically motivated, is not taking part on the solution of economic and political problems outside of the own system, their orientation is limited by passive existence without any confrontation with the appeals of civilization.
Traditionalist groups include a significant part of non-Russian nations and nationalities as well as the whole volume of country population of Russia, which represent not less than 25 % of population seeking to keep their ethnicity. This group is characteristic for being ready and prepared to react collectively. This fact occured also by the study of a group of sociology-scientists from Krasnodarsk regarding the Chechenian crisis in 1995, who explored the readiness to protect own interests in the understanding of the North Kaukasus population. The main characteristic of their view was an extreme interpretation of the right to selfdefinition, as the base of their new legitimacy.
Ideological groups include first of all the population in small towns and industrial areas, representing approximately 30-35 % of the country’s total population. These groups seem to project their global understanding through a particular one, are egocentric in an unusual way, which is reflected in an increased deviacy in their behaviour, alcoholism, criminal behaviour, suicide, assimilating of clan-structures.
Modernized population of Russia includes about 40 % of the entire citizenship, this segment was originated in the period before the revolution and is represented by humanitarian and engineering-technical intelligence - physicians, teachers, scientists, private businessmen. About one fourth of this segment dispone with the statute of personality, and in an evident manner create the base for the formation of Russiaś political nation, but until now have not achieved the control about sources of states power. Resulting, the activities of this segment are concentrated on the implementation of the second generation human rights, focussing on the role of the state and its passivity and active participating by their protection.
Only the modernized population in Russia has reached the level of civilization providing the possibility to create a unified society.
Political competition and institutional conception in Russia.
No institutional political system is available to describe the political environment, providing political alternatives eliminating the use of violence. Political groups are concentrated around leaders, and the concurrence between them can take the form of conflict including violence at any moment.
About the political orientation give the relations between liberal, radical and conservative streams a clear evidence. In a developed society this relation is about 40-10-50, but in Russia in 1995 it was 20-47-11.
The liberal movement was extremely settled down, it is explained also by the war in Chechensk, the radical ideology is keeping about 45 % of the votes and the conservative ideology has also few institutional representation.
According to actual societal structure in Russia the relation between modernized, ideological motivated and traditional segment has reached the values about 40:35:25. The real relation between the liberal, radical and conservative stream, representing the values typical for these societal segments, is according to the State Duma polls in 1995 about 20:47:33. It means, that not all political relevant groups of the society dispone with structural political possibilities for participating on the political procedures in the country, so they feel forced to form own rules of the political game, alternative to the state recognized rules.
Destabilization, that occured by the elections of 1995 can be explained by the economic breakdown of recent years and as well as the fact, that until present days no essential problem of a reforming society was solved in Russia - there was no conscious consensus about political goals found between different groups of the society, the status of disagreement became even more serious.
The key question of the solution of the stability problem in Russia is the consensus between the state and society, based on the strategy of a dynamic stability, which is to realize only under the support of masses of first of all modernized population, not elites. This process creates the situation of an open state - its normal interaction with the society as the natural environment of its substantial existence.
After the split of the Soviet Union, many analysts expected that Russia would repeat the fate of the USSR and would disintegrate, too. According to them, one of the main reasons of a possible split of the Russian Federation would be the presence of potential and real conflicts on the Russian territory and on the territory of the post-Soviet Community of Independent States which have a common border with the Russian Federation.
Today, it is possible to identify around 130 potential inter-ethnic and inter-confessional conflicts and conflict situation within the Russian Federation. One fifth of these conflicts took place in various forms.
The author points out the historic aspect of the mutual relations’ building between Chechnya and Russia, while putting emphasis on the 18th century. At that period, the territory got into the sphere of serious interests of the tsarist Russia.
The Chechnya conflict itself broke out yet during the existence of the USSR - in September 1991. On 11 October 1992, Dudayev announced the state of emergency as a reaction to the mobilization of Russian military forces at the borders with Chechnya. The Russian troops left their positions at the Chechen borders only on 18 November 1992. The view on the Chechen conflict between 1994 and 1995 increased the political distance between the power and the opposition.
In one year after the outbreak of the war, Moscow’s policy on Chechnya (1995) returned to the beginning the necessity to solve the Chechen problem by ”Chechen hands” and not by military force. It became the central topic of the election campaign before the elections to the State Duma which took place on 17 December 1995. In 1995, the war in Chechnya became the main determinant of the internal political development in Russia which was preparing for the elections to the State Duma that could give Russia a new political character. It was not only that the war did not solve the objective historic contradictions but from many aspects it even revealed them. The initial optimism of the action of setting off the war sublimated very quickly and the impacts of this action were manifested at the further reverse political development of Russia with far-reaching consequences of the political profilation of Russia even in the 21st century.
The events in Chechnya or the way of solving the problem by Kremlin raised the question whether the year 1995 would become the year of a great (positive) change or the year of collapse in the development of the modern Russian statehood. After the post-perestroyka period, the year 1995 became really the most difficult one.
The Chechen conflict had fundamental influence on the Russian political scene. The solution of the conflict stimulated the disintegration of the traditional division of powers between the most important political groups. It meant a disorientation in the majority of political groups, it slowed down the crystalisation and the formation of potential coalition groupings within the outbreaking election campaign.
In 1995 - 1997, elections to legislative bodies and of representatives of single heads of the subjects of the Russian Federation took place in which the politicians and the voters reflected the experience from the modern history of Russia.
From a short-term point of view, it would be possible to speak about the consequences on the presidential elections in 1996, from a broader point of view it is about the permanent presence of official violence in the Soviet - Russian history of the 20th century which forms the basis of a specific ”Russian way”.
This factor has always influenced the contents, the orientation and the result of all processes (economic, social, spiritual, ethical etc.) that is confirmed by the political events in Russia not only in 1995 but mainly from 1985 up to today.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) meets the criterions of a multinational state - on its territory there live more than three ethnic groups and with respect to their territorial distribution these nationalities have a certain degree of influence on the internal situation in the PRC. The majority nation in the PRC is comprised of the Han nation (92 % of the population according to the 1990 census data). The relatively high homogenity of Chinese population might lead to an underestimation of the ethnic question in contemporary China. As the minority populations inhabit sensitive strategic border areas with rich natural resources, this problem should not be overlooked.
According to official Chinese documents (e. g. the Preamble of the 1984 Constitution) PRC is a ”unitary multinational state”. The concept of a unified Han nation (Hanzu) was developed by Chinese intellectuals at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries when they were confronted with the idea of the nation-state introduced from Europe. Due to the strong local identities, various dialects (often mutually unintelligible), different cultural traditions is the homogenity of the Han nation a matter of discussion, but the state accepts this concept till now and there is little chance for its revaluation. The creation of a supranational identity, so-called Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu) composed of all ethnic groups living on the territory of China (i. e. China after the decline of the last Qing Dynasty in 1911) was another important step in the development of modern national identity and consciousness in the 20th century China.
Until 1937 the Chinese Communist Party explicitly promised to the nationalities in future China the right to self-determination and the right to secede, however later in 1940’s that right was withdrawn and instead the concept of regional autonomy was offered. This policy was later, after the foundation of the PRC in October 1949, implemented. Some articles of the common programme adopted in September 1949 and the 1954 Constitution together with the General program of the People’s Republic of China for the implementation of regional autonomy for minorities from August 1952 constituted until 1980’s the legislative basis of the minority status. These documents stipulated the basic rights of national minorities (e. g. equal status, freedom to use their distinctive languages and cultures, the right to preserve their traditions) and stipulated the establishment of autonomous regions, prefectures and counties. However later development proved (in particular the periods of the Great leap forward, 1958-60, and the Cultural revolution, 1966-76) that these rights were formulated too general and the minorities were too vulnerable to the radical economical and political line of the central government.
The so-called open door policy which was launched in December 1978 brought some changes also to the situation of national minorities. The 1982 Constitution upgraded the role of minorities and together with the Law on regional autonomy for minority nationalities which came into operation on the 1st October 1984 gave them more rights than they had before. This law serves as a guideline for all legislation on ethnic minorities and provides broader rights of self-administration (e. g. leading officials must be members of the nationality exercising autonomy, resolutions from higher political organs may not be implemented if they do not take into account local conditions). However even this law does not meet the demands of many minority nationalities for greater autonomy (e. g. the approval of the central government is necessary for implementation of autonomously derived regulations). The minority nationalities are underrepresented in the People’s Liberation Army and in the Chinese Communist Party - both exercise considerable political power - and so in general the implementation of regional autonomy in PRC is insufficient. The central government perceives the economic performance as the best tool to integrate various nationalities into the state. This economic policy (e. g. special subsidies for minority regions, tax relief, infrastructure investment) proved as successful with some nationalities but the demonstrations and violent protests in the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the late 1980’s and during the 1990’s revealed that the increase of living standard is not a definitive solution of their status in the PRC.
The ethnic conflict is not the most urgent problem of today’s China but together with other risk factors of current development (e. g. unemployment, social instability, the uneven territorial distribution of prosperity,weakening of the authority of the Chinese Communist Party) it may lead to a destabilization not only of the People’s Republic of China but also of adjacent regions.
The NATO Washington Summit and the war in Kosovo pose serious challenges for the Partnership for Peace (PFP) in implementing reforms among its 24 partners and dealing with the expectation of the nine partners seeking NATO membership.
Because the nine partners of the Membership Action Plan (MAP) have heightened expectations of NATO membership, the continuing lack of an invitation could lead to disillusionment. This could lead to cleavage among MAP partners.
Lessons learned by Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic suggest that the nine MAP partners may find their human and material resources overwhelmed in harmonizing NATO Standardized Agreements (STANGs) to their defense establishments and in responding to the NATO Defense Capabilities Initiative. The result could develop two-tier armed forces in the MAP states, one tier designed to function within the PFP, the second developed according to national defense, but neither able to function well as a whole.
A ”security earthquake” shook Europe during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Limited crises reappeared and began to haunt Europe, making NATO look outward and take steps to project stability - its new mechanism was cooperation.
The North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), formed in November 1991, brought former adversaries together to talk and to begin multilateral cooperation, not partnership. The emerging political dialogue helped Central and East European (CEE) politicians to better understand defense requirements; they slowly began to realize that defense encompassed more than just military issues (e.g., civil emergency planning, air space management, etc.)
PFP Genesis and Evolution
Partnership For Peace has undergone enormous change since its inception at the January 1994 Brussels Summit. Though some in CEE initially saw PFP as a palliative (no enlargement), PFP did move non-NATO members beyond dialogue and into practical partnership. PFP developed a framework and process; it established the norm that partners should be ”contributors” and marked a shift from purely multilateral dialogue to bilateral (partner and Alliance) relationships in the form of Individual Partnership Programs (IPPs) and self-differentiation. It marked the establishment of a wide environment of cooperation, to include the Planning and Review Process (PARP), transparency, civil control/oversight of the military, and peace support operations.
The July 1997 Madrid Summit made PFP more relevant and operational by introducing enhanced PFP and a second PARP cycle. It also marked the introduction of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC)-which replaced the NACC-and creation of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC) and NATO-Ukraine Commission to keep Russia and Ukraine engaged in the partnership. It was also marked by the invitation of three PFP states to join in membership talks with NATO.
By the April 1999 Washington Summit, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had joined NATO. The summit introduced programs to make PFP more operational and approved the new Alliance Strategic Concept, which for the first time mentioned PFP (para. 35) as an Alliance activity. It launched a Defense Capabilities Initiative to improve interoperability among Alliance forces and, where applicable, between Alliance and partner forces. The Membership Action Plan (MAP) and a third PARP cycle were intended to establish closer relations among partners and the Alliance for common operations.
NATO is developing an operational capabilities concept (OCC) that should help to engage partners in future military operations by identifying national or multinational forces that can be used in non-Article 5 activities. The OCC should be developed by autumn 1999 and will result in a pool of forces that can augment NATO forces.
The MAPs, a practical manifestation of the NATO (Article 10) Open Door policy, identify five partner activity areas (political and economic, defense/military, resources, security, and legal) that develop the capabilities needed for membership. The MAP annual National Plan (ANPs) generated by each partner allow each to set their own objectives and targets on preparations for possible future membership,
The PARP has been further enhanced so that it is similar to the force planning procedures among the allies. Ministerial guidance sets partner support elements to be involved in exercise planning.
In sum, the Washington Summit poses serious challenges for PFP in the form of greater differentiation among the 24 partners (9 MAP and 15 non-MAP). In addition, because it is implausible to admit nine new members in the near term, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) must successfully deal with the expectations and needs of the MAP partners.
External Challenges
The PFP future is challenged not only by internal factors, such as how well partners implement reform, but also by the external environment.
Kosovo is one external factor that will affect the PFP future of some partners. For those opposed to NATO actions in Kosovo (e.g., Russia), the phrase ”partnership for peace” now has a hollow ring. NATO actions reinforce their perception that it intends to interfere in national internal affairs. To change this perception, NATO needs to make PFP a flexible forum to explain its policies and listen to the views of those who may not share the same perspective. PFP ia an open door to the rest of the world; some partners argue that door needs to remain two way.
Another external effect of the war in Kosovo on NATO political decisions is the yet unanswered question of whether the war will become a catalyst for South East European enlargement of whether lessons learned from Kosovo by the NAC, at 19, could become an impediment to further enlargement.
Finally, another external factor is the so-called ”new member” effect. For example, if new members fail to meet NATO force goals and create the impression that enlargement has contributed to more ”consumers” and not ”producers” of security, NATO might well be hesitant to further enlarge anytime soon.
Lessons Learned by the New NATO Members
Because Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are the only NATO members who have been PFP partners, their experience is particularly useful in helping the Alliance deal with the partnership’s new challenges. One fundamental difference between the three new allies and current PFP partners is that each new member significantly downsized its armed forces before accession; experiencing many of the resulting social pains and political consequences prior to accession. Nevertheless, these new members have many of the same military challenges as the partners, such as dealing with top-heavy officer corps, reducing conscription service, building non-commissioned officer corps, and modernizing armed forces with scare resources. Their experience can help the Alliance to more effectively implement PFP after the Washington Summit.
The experiences of the new members highlight three major gaps that could affect the PFP.
1. Political ambition drove the three new members; as a result, practical cooperation was merely a derivative of the process. The disparity between partner expectations and reality was large, even a accession on March 12, 1999. Their general staffs stressed military modernization; the defense ministries, the political imperatives. Funds were scarce and bureaucratic hurdles immense. The entire political system was not ready for NATO membership. But Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic differed from the nine MAP partners in that they held an invitation since July 1997, so their governments had political reason to justify devoting scarce resources to the armed forces.
2. Resource scarcity (in terms of trained personnel and money) is similar. For the three new members, the PARP prepared roughly 15 percent of the armed forces to NATO standards, creating dislocations among the remaining forces and resulting in two-tier military structures. The enhanced (third cycle) PFP and Defense Capabilities Initiative applies PARP procedures to all the MAP partners’ armed forces. This is not only a great burden to the MAP partners’ nascent militaries and defense ministries; it also creates an implicit NATO obligation toward partners who do not yet enjoy Article 5 protection.
3. The application and incorporation of NATO STANAGs were huge hurdles and overburdened the physical capacity of the new members. For example, it was an enormous effort for Hungary just to translate 621 STANAGs into Hungarian and begin military harmonization. Poland was overwhelmed. Initially it needed to build from just three people to roughly 600 to harmonize the 50 initial NATO STANAGs, to roughly 700 STANAGs by the Madrid Summit, to 1,500 by the time of accession. The 1,169 STANAGs now made available to MAP partners could likely overwhelm their limited physical capacities.
MAP Partner Expectations and NATO Challenges
Compared to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which downsized their armed forces before their entrance into NATO, the MAP partners either must still downsize (Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia) or build new armed forces (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Slovenia). Albania and Macedonia fall into yet a third MAP subgroup. As reduced partner armed forces result in social dislocation, NATO may become the object of blame.
NATO also needs to prevent two-tier armed forces from developing among MAP partners. In their effort to achieve membership, the danger is that MAP partner force distortions will result. For example, Slovakia is committing 5 percent of its defense budget just to PFP. If NATO ultimately does not reciprocate with an invitation, some MAP partners may end up with two-tier forces that will have little utility in helping the partner deal with its own security.
Though NATO has stated that the MAP is a ”practical manifestation of the Open Door,” and that the MAP ”does not imply any timeframe for any accession decision nor any guarantee of eventual membership,” each MAP partner wants to (or actually does) believe an invitation is in the offing. Each to varying degrees believes that its commitment of scarce resources to augment NATO will result in a reciprocal obligation.
Hence, NATO needs to seriously consider just how far the NAC at 19 can enlarge to accommodate the 7 to 9 MAP aspirants (to 26+?). If any or all of the MAP aspirants fail to receive membership invitation, they will likely be disillusioned, resulting in a cleavage of the MAP partners from the Alliance. Some MAP partners have expressed skepticism about NATO efforts to develop regional cooperation in the Baltic region and South Eastern Europe and fear that efforts to regionalize will undermine the fulfillment of their enlargement objective. Hence, NATO needs to examine seriously how far it is willing to enlarge and to stress that MAP participation prepares the political conditions for compatibility but does not guarantee enlargement.
The ANP assessment is important to NATO credibility. NATO feedback from the assessement to the MAPs needs to be rigorous and precise to encourage real military reform, to temper potentially false expectations, and to stress that the MAP is a route to compatibility, not necessarily a route to membership. This may be difficult, because existing NATO staff, already burdened by 19 (rather than 16) Defense Planning Questionaire assessments, would be further burdened by providing nine additional ANP assessments. However, if NATO succeeds in providing rigorous appraisals that result in partner reforms, it would imply a reciprocal NATO political commitment.
Another important NATO tool is the Defense Capabilities Initiative. NATO has thus moved away from the merely diplomatic to being more involved with the MAP partners’ force planning process. Some MAP partners actually see the DCI as leading to a de facto (vice de jure) operational Article 5. The multiyear planning guidelines help MAP partners sell their defense programs to their parliaments, but, to the degree to which each MAP partner succeeds, the partner perceives a reciprocal NATO obligation.
Fifteen non-MAP Partners
The 15 non-MAP partners include Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova; the neutrals - Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland; the Cuacasus - Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).
Russia at first did not want participate in PFP, but as other countries joined they reluctantly approached the Alliance. Russia initially refused to submit an IPP, then after six months submitted one they did not implement. Later, Russia negotiated a second IPP they have not implemented. So, relations exist only on an ad hoc basis working on specific activities. Russia has participated in IFOR/SFOR and participates on the EAPC and Political-Military Steering Group and other fora, but mostly as a silent partner. They have essentially, withdrawn from PFP and the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council pending the outcome of the Kosovo conflict. It remains unclear what relations will be after they return.
Ukraine’s participation in PFP is the link drawing Ukraine to the West. Since 1994, 5,000 military officers have participated in PFP activities (3,800 in PFP military exercises). During the second PARP cycle, Ukraine fulfilled 11 Interoperability Objectives thanks to NATO financial assistance. Participation in IFOR/SFOR has been important; in March 1999, NATO established a training center and, in May, a liaison office in Kiev, which should give impetus to cooperation. In sum, PFP remains Ukraine’s main path to advance military training and to work with the West.
Moldova, though a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, does not participate in any of its military or political-military bodies. In pursues neutrality and does not see NATO enlargement as a threat to security. Moldova sees active participation in PFP as an important avenue for its future integration in European security structures. Not surprisingly, scarcity of economic resources, language problems, and lack of experience constrain its participation in PFP activities.
Austria has been a member of the European Union (EU) since January 1995, after which it joined the PFP (February 1995). PFP plays an important political unifying function by allowing Austria to maintain neutrality while meeting its EU peace support operation requirement. After the July 1997 Madrid Summit, Austria joined the EAPC, but delayed participating in enhanced PFP until November 1998. Austria now has diplomatic representation and staff elements at NATO headquarters. PFP is important in that it is the only dimension in Austria’s security policy (aside from EU and Common Foreign and Security Policy) that has a consensus among all the political parties represented in its Parliament.
Croatia is not yet a member of PFP because of incomplete implementation of Dayton, return of refugees, and democratization. It has made progress in all three deficiencies and views the partnership as a path toward full NATO membership. In sum, it plans to join the MAP.
Initial concerns about differentiated (MAP and non-MAP) partnerships resulting from the Washington Summit may have been overdrawn. Many non-MAP partner subgroups appear to exist. As a result, participation in the Partnership may atrophy for some (Russia, Belarus), but become more significant among others (Austria), particularly among partners with greater proclivity toward liberal democratic institutions.
Recommendations
U.S. bilateral efforts will most likely be needed in aiding partners’ nascent defense ministries by training civilian and military personnel to fulfill MAP and STANAG requirements.
U.S. defense assessments that have been conducted for some MAP partners - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Romania - also need to be provided to Slovakia and Slovenia.
NATO credibility on further enlargement and its capability to encourage partner military reforms will hinge, in large measure, on how thorough and critical its annual National Program Assessments are conducted. Hence, NATO needs to ensure that adequate staff elements are available to meet the task.
The theory of sovereignty is ”a product of particular social and economic conditions” and cannot be understood without reference to ”its specificity in time and space”. Norms of sovereignty, as Philpott defines them, represent ”commonly agreed-upon rules that define the holders of sovereignty and their prerogatives.” These norms try to find an answer to three questions: First, who are the legitimate entities in international politics? States? Second, who is legitimate to become one? If states, by what criteria? Or nations? Third, have states absolute sovereignty in all affairs within their territory or do they have to accept the legitimacy of outside intervention? This essay can be understood as an attempt to provide a partial ”illumination” of some problems outlined above and at the same time, to suggest the ”destiny” of the concept of sovereignty.
The origin and history of the concept of sovereignty are closely related to the nature and evolution of the state and in particular to the development of ”centralized authority in early-modern Europe.” It reflects the evolving relationship between ”state and civil society”, between ”political authority and the community.” The concentration of power in the hands of states began in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. The originality of the modern doctrine of sovereignty is often obscured in comparaison with ”analogous but fundamentally different conceptions” in the Greek city-states, Egyptian, Persian and Roman empires and in the kingdoms and principalities of the medieval Europe.
As I mentioned above, ”the decentralized political arrangements characteristic of feudal society had given way to the Westphalian state system, that is a system of territorially bounded sovereign states, each equipped with its own centralized administration and possessing a virtual monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.” In the system of sovereign states, ”all states were equally independent of outside authority in the control of territory and population.” ”Sovereignty, territorial integrity and legal equality of states were seen as the hallmarks of international relations.” These principles are the point of departure of international conduct. The principal accepted norms of international conduct are: first, the norm that other political entities cannot apply their own rules on the territory of the sovereign states, second, principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states, and third, principle of the equal rights and duties for all states regardless of their demographic, economic or strategic differences.
Concept of sovereignty is not static but it is subject to change, and therefore achieving clarity on its definition is very difficult. Many formulations have been marked by ambiguity, controversial and diverse meanings at different historical moments. Bodin in his De la République (1577) defines sovereignty as ”supreme power over citizens and subjects unrestrained by law”. This means absolute and perpetual legislative power unlimited in extension and duration. For him, the citizenship represented ”the subjection of an individual to the sovereign”. Hobbes also claims for the necessity of the concentration of ”all social authority in the sovereign” in order to ”limit conflict and to preserve the collectivity”. The more democratic versions of state sovereignty offered by Locke, Rousseau and Kant reflected a changing economic and political environment and the emergence of a new economic capitalist class. Rousseau in his Social Contract (1762) tried to fuse the sovereignty of the people with the sovereign of the state and for him ”the moral authority (or popular sovereignty)” was the basis of state sovereignty.
Since the modern concept of sovereignty was formulated by Bodin, many definitions of sovereignty emerged. According to me, the clearest and the most accepted definition of sovereignty is sovereignty as supreme legitimate authority within a territory. This concept of sovereignty describes holders of sovereignty (state, people, body of law, etc.), supremacy over the territory’s inhabitants and independence from intervention by an outside authority (another state, United Nations, etc.) and the affairs over which a holder of sovereignty governs within a particular land. The question is: how do we perceive the E. U. or humanitarian interventions of UN in the framework of these concepts?
The fundamental presumption which is central to all theories of sovereignty, is the existence of a sharp distinction between domestic realm with its order, cohesion and government and the international system characterized by fragmentation, absence of central authority and the permanent threat of war. Brown speaks about so-called ”double-headed notion” of sovereignty. ”On the one hand, rulers were sovereign in so far as they accepted no internal, domestic equals, on the other hand, they were sovereign in so far as they accepted no external, international superiors.” The absence of an external superior implies the absence of ”government”, which is the definition of anarchy. A world government would undermine state sovereignty.
The question of external sovereignty was analysed by numerous authors. For Grotius, the alleged father of international law, sovereignty was demonstrated when ”a state, in dealing with its internal affairs, remained free from the control of all other states.” Giddens, for example, claims that ”sovereignty of the nation-state does not precede the development of the state system... , and, he continues, ”rather, the development of state sovereignty depended (and still depends) on a monitored set of relations between states”.
Sovereignty in international relations has been attributed to two, institutionally and structurally alike, but different ”in the source of their legitimation”, types of entities: ”states, defined in terms of the territories over which institutional authorities exercise legitimate control, and nations, defined in terms of ‘communities of sentiment’ that form the political basis on which state authority rests.” There exist a tension between state sovereignty, emphasising a link between sovereign authority and a defined set of exclusive political institutions and national sovereignty, which stresses a link between sovereign authority and a defined population. Following this logic, one could raise the question: Which of these two principles of sovereignty should international system favour?
Barkin and Cronin defend, using reasonable argumentation, the stability of sovereign states. They claim that national sovereignty can be potentially destabilizing for all states because of minority groups living on their territories and also owing to the possibility of objective fixation of juridical borders in comparison with ”national identification”, which ”being inherently subjective, cannot be fixed in the same way”. Understanding what constitutes ”the legitimate basis” of sovereignty determine significantly the patterns of global conflict. Attempts to alter state boundaries and coordinate them with national groups, according to the principle of national sovereignty, come at the expense of other states (e.g. the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938). When a sovereignty is of a more ”juridical nature” that does not allow legitimately to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, conflicts have the character of internal violence against own population (e.g. in Bosnia and most recently in Kosovo).
State or Nation?
It was the French revolution (1789) that led to the symbolic transfer of sovereignty from the king and the government to the people. However, as Barkin and Cronin rightly stress, this does not imply that citizens were enabled to ”the transgressions of expanding administrative states”. Moreover they reveal that the popularization of sovereignty gave rise to the ideology of ”mass nationalism” which caused the major conflicts of the twentieth century. For example, also fascism is often differentiated from other totalitarian regimes and is defined as a particularly destructive race of nationalism.
Historical function of the nationalism has been to achieve the coincidence of state and civil society, through the creation of the ”nation-state”. Nation and state have not developed simultaneously: in some cases nation preceded the state (e.g. in Germany), in others not (e.g. in France). Following this philosophy, also in the ”non-Western world” is the tendency to build nation to obtain political independence and the formation of sovereign state.
The French revolution also highly contributed to the traditional definition of the nation by the requirement of national self-determination and citizenship rights. Nineteenth century added the claim for minority right guarantees. The most extreme case of self-determination is the demand for own state for every nation but other types include some kind of ”a federal arrangement” or simply certain rights or protection for a group within a state. Nevertheless, minority protection became a normal condition placed on new states only in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin and national self-determination in the arrangement after the First World War under ”the sponsorship of Woodrow Wilson and at the eager behest of freshly liberated Eastern European nations”.
The sovereign statehood, previously enjoyed only by European states was gradually extended. The way to the global Westphalian system was very long, commencing from the Berlin Conference in 1885 with its so-called ”standard of civilization”, the Article 22 of the League Convenant regarding the ”mandante system” and Article 73 of the U. N. Charter with its ”sacred trust”. Finally, the principle of self-determination was acknowledged in 1960, in the Article 1 of the United Nations Charter and the General Assembly Resolution 1514 on decolonisation which states: ”All peoples have the right to self-determination” and ”inadequacy of political, economic, social and educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.” Colonialism was condemned as ”alien subjugation, domination and exploitation ... a denial of fundamental human rights.” The charter asserts the self-determination to peoples, not nations. This implies that each individual has a right to own government and to participate in that government. The term ”peoples” does not imply ”any specific basis for delineating national boundaries”, as nationalism does. An expansionist nationalism signifies an expansion of the state to wherever nationals live according to the premise that ”the state should match the nation”. This means, especially in areas with more than one nationality, a threat of interstate conflict. As long as a state adequately represents its people as individuals, other states cannot legitimately claim to represent some of these people as members of its ”nation”. This principle is reflected in the UN Charter as non-interference in the domestic affairs of other states. However, the question of non-intervention has appeared to be, using Brown’s terms, a ”double-hedged” one. I will try to brighten it in the following part.
Sovereignty, non-intervention and human rights
The international settlement after World War II with its emphasis on the integrity of juridical borders and the principle of non-intervention allowed ”internal imperialism”, i.e. gross abuses by governments of their population, the domination of one ethnic group over others within the state, in extreme cases ethnic genocide (in Rwanda), and ”ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia, without a substantive response from the international community.
In the light of Frost’s ”constitutive theory”, ”constructing engagement in the internal affairs of states seems to be an imperative rather than an aberration. Both the traditional ‘hands off’ claims by tyrans and the ‘foreigners are not our concern’ assertions by citizens of well constructed states must be seen, ..., as illegitimate positions.” I argue that this claim could be justified in the contemporary interdependent world realm characterized by the diminished effectiveness of states and in the same time by grave humanitarian situations, such as genocides or mass migrations. The threateningly increasing number of intrastate conflicts initiated with violent actions of governments against their own citizens, through extreme corruption, incompetence, or complete breakdown, favour humanitarian interventions. For the defense of my argument I would use also Rosenau’s approval of ”interventionary acts” in the name of morality and humanity: ”People flee starvation, violent repression and civil war, and in the very act of fleeing they extend the scale and severity of the circumstances that may call for international intervention”. He also stresses the efficacy and the increasing legitimacy of these acts, as these undermine traditional interstate norms: ”Each interventionary act,..., is so much of a break with historic conventions that it serves as an explicit stimulus to subsequent events of a comparable nature... Calls for supervised elections, for international peace-keeping forces, and for IMF involvement have acquired increasing degrees of legitimacy ”. He also triumphantly points out that through the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by U. N. ”the sovereign had finally been dethroned” and that even most resistant states have had to accept, or at least recognize, the legitimacy of outside interventions in their affairs.
These measures are evidence that interests of citizens began to compete with states’ interests. In 1992, for example, the Security Council of UN authorized the use of force on behalf of civilian populations in Somalia. The other attempt aiming at the protection of innocents and the punishment of transgressors where the state lacks power or will, and also the new-established International Criminal Court in Rome, which as an independent instrument of justice ”would try perpetrators of genocide and other crimes against humanity”. In the contemporary multi-centric world, promoting challenges to the authority of states from the part of new active and innovative actors, such as human rights movement, ecological movement, the women’s movement, and the peace movement, and also more ”analytically skilful” citizens who are more resistant to ”vague symbols of sovereign authority”, is clear that political leaders cannot place reliance on wholesale and unquestioned support for their opposition to humanitarian intervention which lessens sovereignty of their state.
Will State survive?
The clash between ”the fixed geography of states” and ”the nonterritorial nature” of today’s problems and solutions indicates a decline of the nation-state as ”the natural problem-solving unit”. The era of globalization has brought a novel redistribution of power among states, financial markets, and civil society. The states are sharing their political, economic, social and security powers with businesses, with international organizations and with nongovernmental organizations. They are new merged geographic or functional entities along state, such as the European Union, taking some of its powers. Besides these centralizing processes of globalization, we are also witnesses of decentralizing tendencies - subgroupism, tribalism, nationalism, ethnicity - with their ”otherness” representing an attempt to resist globalization and to take on formal international roles (for example German Länder in the context of the EU).
Although after the end of the Cold War the security threat to states from other states has diminuished, non-traditional threats are mounting: terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic conflict and also the ”soft threats” of environmental degradation, denial of human rights, population growth, poverty, and lack of development. This framework favours the diffusion of power between states and non-state actors in dealing with these ”humankind’s interconnected problems” and solving them efficiently and quickly. However, the problematic can be ”excessive pluralism” which may represent plurality of voices but be unable to bring forward any of them. Moreover, there are roles that only the state can perform. Only state can impose order and collect tax. Only state can meet crucial social needs that markets do not value, such as providing a job security, protecting consumer health and safety, etc. And what about the ”democratic deficit” provoked by the international decision-making by ”unelected international bodies”?
Conclusion
As I demonstrated above, under the impact of economic and technological changes and advanced communications framework, some of the territorial political entities might merge into bigger political societies, as in the seventeenth- century Europe Westphalian state system of centralised absolutist states replaced the fragmented feudal system. However, Hinsley warns us, that ”we must not delude ourselves by thinking either that this process of reconstitution will obliterate any existing territorial community before the passage of many years, or that it will ever absorb all existing territorial communities under a single state.” Following this logic, assuming that the world realm will be composed of more than one territorial unit, we can assume that the security, diplomacy, law, commerce, the evolution of culture and of civilization will be influenced by the dominance of the nation-state in the future and that sovereignty, as his major characteristic, ”will continue to be an essential qualification, in law as in practice, for membership in the international community.” But on the other hand, there are proposals for the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly in the U. N. to represent the people rather than states of the world.
It is difficult to pronounce the final judgement about sovereignty, we can only presuppose that the concept of sovereignty in the future is likely to become ”even more blurred and indistinct” than it is at present.