Strategic Culture of the OSCE and Its Reflection in the Effort to De-escalate and Resolve the Conflict in Ukraine.

• Author: Dubsky, Zbynek
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction (1)

The study of the strategic culture within international security enjoyed a certain revival after the end of the Cold War. Cultural approaches to strategic studies have nevertheless been predominantly connected with states as security actors. Discussion, however, has also started about the possibility of applying strategic culture to international security organizations since states are able to construct a strategic culture within an organization, and such strategic culture is subsequently reflected in the activities of such organizations. Security organizations are of intergovernmental character, and decisions adopted by these organizations and actions taken by them depend on their members. Therefore, we can assume that if organizations have different members, structures and capacities, they also have different strategic cultures. (2) Cultures are therefore defined based on different ideas, perceptions and beliefs, and thus are socially constructed by collective understanding and interpretation about the world. (3) The study of strategic culture of these organizations then plays a key role in the discussion about their action readiness and effectiveness.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) shows specific features of strategic culture resulting from the fact that the roots of this organization lie in the ability of the organization to initiate dialogue and implement cooperation in the security area at the regional level among actors which perceive each other as threats, and which prefer deterrence and non-cooperative approaches. This feature is becoming once again a typical feature of the OSCE at the beginning of the 21st century: this may be the reason why it is called by some 'perhaps the world's least-known major security organization. '(4)

The crisis in Ukraine, nevertheless, proved that the OSCE was the only security organization, which directly participated in the effort to de-escalate, stabilize and search for a solution to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. We have chosen the crisis in Ukraine intentionally as it has so far been the largest conflict in the European area in which Russian and Western interests clash, and Russia has denied some of the core principles of the OSCE (according to the other participating states of the OSCE). Recent research into the OSCE seems to understand this security organization as a weak organization in crisis. (5) However, the case of Ukraine shows that it can be activated in an escalated case, like the one in Ukraine, where at least partial cooperation among "enemies" is happening in a non-cooperative context. In addition to the existence of a common rational interest in stabilizing the situation, the specific strategic structure of the OSCE may also have played its role. This could explain the paradox in which the organization reacts based on certain principles which are, in the case of the conflict analyzed here, clearly dysfunctional.

The first aim of the study is to identify the specific features of the strategic culture of the OSCE as a regional security governance framework between 'non-allies,' based on discourse analysis of the texts. The results provide us with a framework for the case study. The second objective is to test this strategic culture on the case study of the specific reaction of the OSCE to the crisis in Ukraine, and to demonstrate, based on the analysis of the entry of the OSCE into the conflict, how the individual features of the strategic culture were reflected in the OSCE actions.

The Strategic Culture of the OSCE as an Example of Regional Security Governance between 'Non-allies'

The discussion about strategic culture has been linked to the cultural and sociological turn in the human sciences. (6) It is, therefore, evident that international reality is not merely the result of material and physical forces, but it is a phenomenon socially constructed through discourse power. (7) Strategic culture has a significant impact on the norms and values of organizations and their institutionalization. (8) Social constructivists also stress that interests are not pre-given, but they are subject to redefinition and change as a reaction to the changing constitution between states and norms as threats are the product of inter-subjective dynamics and do not necessarily exist 'out there.' (9)

The term "strategic culture" traditionally refers to military force and the rules governing its use. Johnston for instance defines strategic culture as an integrated system of symbols (e.g. argumentation structures, languages, analogies, metaphors), (10) which acts to establish a pervasive and long-lasting strategic preference by formulating concepts of the role and efficiency of military force. Johnston recommends starting at the very beginning of strategic culture and moving systematically forward through the analysis of its formative age. When studying strategic culture, Johnston admits that it may include a wide range of material from various texts concerning the development of an understanding of war and peace. Johnston solves this problem by using the methods of symbol analysis and cognitive mapping. (11) Although the original strategic culture was drawn exclusively to military power and its use, (12) later military force was understood as only one of the tools to achieve policy goals. (13) Strategic culture is generally understood as a set of norms or values or principles related to the understanding of security (14) Colin Gray understands the strategic culture more comprehensively as a set of ideas, positions, traditions and behavior, which result in the interaction of strategic culture in institutions and in procedures. (15) Regardless of the individual approaches to strategic culture, it is evident that it does not concern decisions about actual implementation of aims, means and ways, but rather contains a set of priorities and preferences regarding the given policy. (16)

This approach makes it possible to assign a strategic culture to an actor such as an international organization. There are nevertheless fundamental differences when we study the strategic culture of an international organization and the strategic culture of states. First, as Acharya points out, the strategic culture of states dominantly focuses on "the maintenance or management of an adversarial relationship. The concept is not usually applied to issues of conflict resolution, institution building, and cooperation..." (17) The emphasis on the ability to cooperate is therefore of fundamental importance in the case of identification of features of strategic culture. Second, we can assume that in the study of the culture of organizations we focus on regional security and regional security links, i.e. we take into account "collective strategic behavior, or 'habits of thought' of regional institutions with regard to security affairs." (18) These two fundamental differences may also be reflected in the case of identification of the strategic culture of the OSCE and its features.

Strategic culture may perform the function of a certain limitation for strategic elites, which do not choose from all strategic options in their decision making, but only from those which they perceive as acceptable with regard to their strategic culture. Therefore, strategic culture limits the strategic elites in the selection of individual strategic options. Because states enter into international organizations, we can claim that they can subsequently create and share a strategic culture of such organizations in addition to their own strategic culture. Such a situation creates conditions for transfer of interest in strategic culture to international organizations. The strategic culture of each state and international organization thus issues from its historic experience and political structure, always reflecting its past experience as well as specific contemporary political intentions. Decision makers gradually adopt traditional, long-term strategic approaches and procedures. At the same time, they also significantly influence these approaches in specific situations. (19)

The emphasis on security in all its forms, including the approach to the use of force, differentiates the term strategic culture from the term institutional culture. The term institutional culture is in general related also to institutions (not only international organizations) in relation to their values, and it operates with institutional logic in a social context. It also allocates it certain features, (20) and in general it emphasizes primarily the habits, skills and styles of actors concerning how they interact, and how they negotiate and construct strategies of action (21) without links to security. Therefore, we can conclude that strategic culture could be seen in relation to the institutional culture as its specific subset used for actors dealing with security.

In the case of the OSCE we can in general expect "the vision of a free, democratic, common and indivisible Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok, rooted in agreed principles, shared commitments and common goals." (22) Three terms related to security are reflected in the OSCE: (i) comprehensive security (i.e. a complex link of classical military security with its economic, environmental and human factors which are not only considered interlinked by the OSCE, but also equally important), (ii) indivisible security (i.e. understanding that security of one OSCE participant state cannot be detached from the security of other states in the region, which is actually an expression of security solidarity), (iii) and cooperative security (i.e. security based on elementary trust and cooperation, peaceful resolution of disputes and operation of mutually cooperating multilateral institutions). (23)

When examining the strategic culture of the OSCE we shall more closely focus on the analysis of the...