Coping With Anarchy: Ethnic Conflict and International Organizations in the Former Soviet Union
| DOI | 10.1177/004711789601300101 |
| Author | Mark Webber |
| Date | 01 April 1996 |
| Published date | 01 April 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1
COPING
WITH
ANARCHY:
ETHNIC
CONFLICT
AND
INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
IN
THE
FORMER
SOVIET
UNION
Mark
Webber*
*This
is
a
revised
version
of
a
paper
presented
at
the
British
International
Studies
Conference,
University
of Southampton,
December
1995.
President
Bush’s
proclamation
in
1990
of
the
imminence
of
a
’new
world
order’
now
smacks
of
misplaced
optimism.
Certainly,
the
world
is
in
many
respects
very
different
from
what
it
was
just
ten
or
even
five
years
ago.
The
collapse
of
Soviet-
style
communism,
the
dissolution
of
the
USSR
and
the
evaporation
of
the
latent
nuclear
terror
associated
with
East-West
rivalry,
mark
a
fundamental
alteration
to
what
Marxist-Leninist
scholars
used
to
refer
to
as
the
’correlation
of forces’.
Yet,
far
from
ushering
in
the
new
era
of
peace
and
harmony
envisaged
by
the
American
President,
this
upheaval
has
had
the
consequence
of
introducing
into
the
international
arena
a
state
of
flux
and
uncertainty
not
seen
since
the
1930s.’
I
Amongst
the
most
pressing
sources
of
anxiety
is
the
eruption
of
ethnic-based
con-
flicts
in
the
Balkans
and
the
new
states
of
the
former
Soviet
Union
(FSU);
the
emergence
of
a
’zone
of
conflict’
adjacent
to
the
hard-pressed
’zone
of
peace’
that
continues
to
survive
in
Western
Europe.2
Here,
communist
rule
has
bequeathed
adventitious
borders,
intermingled
nationalities
as
a
consequence
of
induced
migration,
and
scores
of
localized
grievances
stemming
from
decades
of
arbi-
trary,
centralized
administration.
The
contribution
this
inheritance
has
made
to
ethnic
tensions
has
been
rendered
that
much
worse
by
a
host
of
other
problems,
notably
economic
breakdown,
heavy
militarization
and
institutional
decay,
that
have
been
passed
on
to
the
successor
states
by
their
communist
progenitors.
In
the
FSU
the
effects
of
these
multiple
crises
have
often
been
manifest
in
vio-
lent
form.
Wars
have
raged
in
parts
of
the
FSU
since
the
latter
years
of
the
Soviet
period.
The
most
protracted
of
these
has
been
the
undeclared
war
Armenia
and
Azerbaijan
have
waged
over
the
status
of
the
Armenian
populated
(but
Azeri
administered)
enclave
of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
On
the
ground,
this
conflict
has
largely
gone
the
way
of
the
Armenian
side.
By
mid-1993
Karabakhi-Armenian
forces,
assisted
by
volunteers
and
supplies
from
Armenia
proper,
had
not
only
dri-
ven
all
Azeri
forces
out
of
the
enclave,
but
had
also
occupied
large
swathes
of
Azerbaijan
territory
to
the
south
and
west
of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Georgia
mean-
while
has
been
wracked
by
three
distinct
conflicts.
Two
of
these,
located
in
South
Ossetia
and
Abkhazia,
have
pitted
the
government
in
Tbilisi
against
separatist,
eth-
nically-based
movements.
Here
too
the
central
authorities
have
not
fared
particu-
larly
well.
During
the
latter
half
of
1993,
Abkhaz
forces
drove
out
the
Georgian
1
F.
Halliday,
Rethinking
International
Relations
(Basingstoke:
Macmillan,
1994),
p.216.
2
R.
O.
Keohane
and J.
S.
Nye,
’Introduction:
The
End
of
the
Cold
War
in
Europe’,
in
R.
O.
Keohane
et.
al.
(eds.),
After
the
Cold
War.
International
Institutions
and
State
Strategies
in
Europe,
1989-91
(Cambridge,
Mass.:
Harvard
University
Press,
1993),
p.6.
2
authorities
and
consolidated
their
control
over
all
the
territory
of
Abkhazia.
In
Moldova,
the
central
government
in
Chisenau
has
had
to
contend
with
a
violent
separatist
force,
in
this
case
armed
contingents
situated
in
the
Dniester
region,
a
locality
with
a
concentrated
Russian
minority
population.
The
war
which
erupted
in
this
region
in
1992
amounted
to
a
successful
armed
coup
by
the
Dniester
forces. ’
Finally,
in
Tajikistan,
a
major
conflagration
during
1992,
pitting
forces
grouped
around
the
former
communist
nomenklatura
against
a
disparate
opposition
of
Islamic-democratic
forces,
resulted
in
some
20,000
fatalities
and
over
half
a
million
refugees.
After
suffering
defeat,
much
of
the
opposition
crossed
into
neighbouring
Afghanistan,
from
where
it
has
mounted
periodic
raids
along
the
border
against
Russian-commanded
forces
allied
to
the
Tajik
government.’
This
article
focuses
on
these
violent
ethnic
conflicts
in
the
Soviet
successor
states
and
specifically
on
the
role
of
international
organizations
in
regulating
them.’
My
concern
is
to
examine
the
role
of
the
two
organizations
that
have
played
the
most
visible
role
in
the
conflicts
of the
region -
the
United
Nations
and
the
Conference
on
Security
and
Cooperation
in
Europe
(CSCE -
known
since
January
1995
as
the
Organization
of
Security
and
Cooperation
in
Europe,
the
OSCE).
While
some
justifiable
pessimism
has
been
levelled
at
the
prospects
of
conflict
resolution
in
the
FSU
and
a
good
deal
of
scorn
has
been
poured
on
the
unfulfilled
promise
of
international
organizations
in
the
post-Cold
War
order,
this
article
argues
that
a
modest
contribution
can
be
made
by
bodies
such
as
the
UN
and
the
OSCE
toward
the
attenuation
of
conflicts.
The
article
begins
with
a
consideration
of
the
role
of
international
organizations
generally
in
situations
of
ethnic
conflict
and
then
proceeds
to
a
detailed
analysis
of
their
role
in
the
FSU,
focusing
on
the
attitudes
various
interested
parties
hold toward
multilateral
approaches
to
conflict
regulation.
Finally,
I
conclude
on
a
note
of
cautious
opti-
mism
by
suggesting
that
ethnic
violence
in
the
region,
for
all
its
destructive
and
seemingly
irrational
logic,
can
be
contained
and
need
not
be
the
occasion
only
for
the
wringing
of
hands.
International
organizations
and
ethnic
conflict
The
problem
of
ethnic
conflict
in
international
relations
The
utility
of
international
organizations
is
an
issue
that
has
long
divided
schol-
ars
of
international
relations.’
While
space
precludes
a
full
recapitulation
of
this
3
Ethnicity
has
not
been
the
only
factor
responsible
for
these
conflicts.
In
Moldova,
the
cause
of
the
Russian
population
in
the
Dniester
region
owes
as
much
to
ideological
and
political
factors,
while
the
conflict
in
Tajikistan
is
driven
by
a
Byzantine
mix
of regional,
religious,
clan
and
political
factors,
as
well
as
ethnic
ones.
All
the
conflicts,
however,
have
an
ethnic
dimension.
See
W.P.
Limberg,
’World
Turned
Upside
Down:
Ethnic
Conflict
in
the
Former
Soviet
Union’,
in
W.
Raymond
Duncan
and
G.
Paul
Holman,
Jr.
(eds),
Ethnic
Nationalism
and
Regional
Conflict.
The
Former
Soviet
Union
and
Yugoslavia
(Boulder,
CO:
Westview
Press,
1994)
4
I am
not,
therefore,
concerned
with
internal
political
and
economic
strategies
of
conflict
management.
My
express
concern
is
with
the
international
dimensions
of
dealing
with
ethnic
conflict.
5
For
an
indicative
exchange
see
J.
J.
Meirsheimer,
’The
False
Promise
of
International
Institutions’,
International
Security
,
vol.19,
no.3,
1994/95
and
R.
Keohane
and
L.
Anderson,
’The
Promise
of
Institutionalist
Theory’,
International
Security
,
vol.20,
no.1,
1995.
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