EUROPEAN TRANSITIONAL STATES THROUGH THE PRYSM OF SECURITY SITUATION - PAST AND PRESENT
Andrej Miholič
Security in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
has always been inseparably linked to that of
1. Lost in the whirl of the empires' interests (1900-1918)
The
events in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe from the beginning of the 20th
century to the end of World War I have been subject to the interests of four great
powers-
The main security threat
was the danger of conflict among the regional super-powers. Practically, the
nations could not influence the great powers' decisions at all as their members
were in fact second-class citizens in their own countries. Nationally mixed
armed forces were maintained to cope with any threats. The most important
strategic demand and advantage was the capability of rapid mobilisation of
forces to the vicinity of the national borders to halt the advance of enemy
forces.
The unbalanced colonial
division of the world together with the increasing needs of fast developing
European countries, led to the all-European conflict at the end of that period.
The human and material capacities involved on all sides by far surpassed all
previous armed conflicts. World War I drastically changed the political picture
of the entire continent and especially the regions under discussion.
2. Dreams come true (1918-1945)
Throughout
the second half of the 19th century and in the first two decades of
the 20th century, the national aspirations of the subjugated nations
in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe were strengthened and finally realised at the
end of World War I. Before the war, most of these countries - except
The main security
threats facing the states in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe were the danger
of expansion of the communist revolution beyond the Russian borders and the
possibility of a military intervention by neighbouring countries or potential
alliances. The states' interior security was based on powerful police forces
and security services, while defence from outside threats depended on large
national armed forces using conscripts. With the emergence and consolidation of
totalitarian regimes with communist, Nazi and fascist ideologies, favourable conditions
existed once again for the outbreak of a far-reaching military conflict which
expanded into other parts of the world. The Eastern and South-Eastern European
countries were divided between the opposing sides. The occupation by the Axis
forces was followed by military rebellions in many of these states, and a civil
war in the
3. The conflict of ideologies (1945-1991)
The
anti-Nazi alliance was marred before the end of World War II. Western
democracies felt increasingly threatened by the rapid increase in Soviet
military power and its expansionistic policy, based on the principle of
spreading communist ideology deep into the heart of the
The
European communist regimes found it essential to reinforce their authority
which required with drastic measures against any form of domestic opposition. Consequently,
extremely powerful security services and police forces tried to ensure the
uniform behaviour of their citizens by imposing fear throughout society.
Similar measures were used in externally, but within the eastern-bloc - military
force used in
The main security threat
to the West was the possibility of an all-out conventional war between the
blocs in
4. Fragmentation vs. integration (1991-present)
The
Cold War ended in 1991 with the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and final
collapse of
4.1. The outbreak of nationalism
At the collapse of the
Soviet bloc a vacuum emerged in numerous states following the disintegration of
communist ideology. It was replaced with re-awakened nationalist tendencies
that led to the destruction of multinational states in the region. In
Even today the reasons
for many of these conflicts have not been satisfactorily solved (
Besides those afore
mentioned issues, the status of individual minorities in East European states
represents a potential focus of ethnic tensions. One example is the disputable
Hungarian legislation which granted special social and cultural rights to Hungarian
minorities in the neighbouring countries (
4.2. Diversification of threats
Ethnic
disputes are not the only source of security threats that the transitional
states have been coping with. In connection with globalisation trends, the poor
economic situation and political instability of these states after the collapse
of the communist regimes helped to create ideal conditions for the expansion of
the so-called "post-modern" threats. Such threats include organized
crime, the danger of economic collapse. This has been demonstrated by the
events in Albania in 1997 when the collapse of the ‘Pyramid’ investment schemes
resulted in extensive riots and total disintegration of the governing structures,
so that the international community had to intervene, illegal migrations
(especially economically motivated refugees from the third-world countries),
ecological problems (mainly the occasional reproaches of certain western
countries about the presumable poor safety of individual East-European nuclear
power plants, for example Temelin nuclear plant in
the Czech Republic) and last but not least, local and international terrorism.[1]
A
widespread social disapproval due to their role in the past, as well as
economic and political instability which resulted from the change of regime at
the beginning of the 1990s also influenced the drastic reduction of the power
and capacities of the once respected and feared security forces in these
states. Moreover, the deficiencies in legislation caused widespread organised
crime in the region. In particular, the drug trade from
The
transitional states' capabilities to cope with such security threats are more
or less limited, so they urgently need assistance from abroad. Thus, the role
of the West with its international structures is extremely important. Intensive
international co-operation both at bilateral and multilateral levels is needed
to minimise "post-modern" threats (all the above mentioned threats
have a significant international character). The transitional states can
achieve this only through the establishment of stable and democratic government
structures, the rule of law, functioning free markets and human rights enshrined
in the constitution and in practice.
4.3. Terrorism as a global threat
Terrorism
is certainly one of the most topical post-modern security threats, therefore it
is presented separately in this paper. This threat has been present on the
European continent for well over a century. The most significant terrorists
from the first half of the 20th century were the Russian anarchists
and their targets and methods were rather typical for the period until the end
of World War II. Most of the attacks were aimed at selectively chosen targets
(more or less exposed political representatives) and, as a rule, the terrorist
groups did not operate outside an individual state. The assassination of Franz
Ferdinand, Austrian Crown Prince, met with the widest response in that time and
provided the great European powers with a reason to start World War I.
The
next stage of terrorism can be limited to the period from the end of World War
II to the beginning of the 1990s. During that period in particular, large
ethnically motivated groups with enormous logistic support, including the PIRA in
Regarding logistical support for terrorists, state support played an
important role. A wide range of states were culpable, from both super-powers
and their allies to individual states which, by supporting such activities, saw
a good opportunity to achieve their foreign policy goals - for example: Iran,
Libya and Syria. Some transitional
states also supported terrorism, especially the European left-wing groups by
providing assistance with finance, weapons and safe havens.
The end of the Cold War
resulted in a significant decrease in state support of terrorism.[2]
This trend reached its peak after the events on September 11, 2001 when the
last states sponsoring terrorism stopped or at least limited their activities -
e.g.: Iran which feared military intervention by the USA. Considering the fight
against terrorism, however, the trend in decreased state support did not have
significantly positive consequences in the long run. Numerous terrorist groups
efficiently adapted to the loss of that source of finance, safe havens,
training, weapons and other equipment by a re-direction to the other sources.
Thus, they evaded the state control over their activities and became completely
autonomous. This is also one of the reasons for increased attacks on the
unselectively chosen targets. In recent years, there has been a higher level of
damage caused by terrorist attacks considering both human and material loss.
The other reason is better protection of obvious targets, the search for
greater media attention, the increased number of terrorist groups with
apocalyptic and genocidal goals (cults and other
extreme religious groups, various right-wing groups, etc.) and easier access to
sophisticated weapons.
The process of economic
globalisation, accessibility to weapons and technological progress in the field
of transport and communications also enable relatively small groups with more
or less moderate resources to conduct continuous terrorist campaigns in a
geographically large area. In past decades the terrorist groups have
increasingly become active internationally. Their main motives for this are:
·
Logistical
needs – recruitment of new members, their training, acquisition of financial assets,
weapons, etc.;
·
Reduced
risks /enabling continuous activities (if the group is destroyed by security
forces in one country, it retains active cells elsewhere which continue operations;
·
International
objectives: the fight against an individual state (regime) can quickly be
upgraded into the fight against all members of the alliance which supports its
interests; international goals are still characteristic mainly for the
ideologically and religiously motivated groups;
·
Operational
opportunities: each state has a large number of diplomatic, economic, cultural
and other representatives abroad; by spreading their operational activities
into foreign states, there is a wide range of new potential targets for an
individual terrorist group; due to the inadequate perception of security
threats or inefficiency of local security forces these targets are sometimes
poorly protected;
·
Promotion
of goals: if, due to the censorship in their own country, publicising the goals
of individual groups is prohibited, therefore the groups then promote them abroad
– this is the case with neo-Nazi groups in Germany and extreme Islamic groups
in Egypt;
The terrorist groups carrying out
the attacks in a geographically dispersed area need a relatively broad logistical
support. Due to the limited resources in an individual area, faster
accessibility and/or reduced risks they disperse it in various geographically
separated locations (usually in various countries).
In
the last development stage of this phenomenon which began in the first half of
the 1990s and still continues, terrorism has reached financial self-sufficiency
and, consequently, also a full political and operational autonomy. The two
consequences of such a process of "privatization" from the state
control characteristic of the previous period, are the increased
unpredictability of terrorist groups' activities and also the increased scope
of destruction caused by the terrorist attacks in recent years (there are no
more external factors to limit the choice of targets and means used). This trend
that was also acknowledged by the Director of the CIA, John Deutsch,[3]
is clearly visible from the figures 1-6 (see appendix) showing a gradual
increase in the number of victims of terrorist incidents since the end of World
War II. The processes of "privatization" and internationalization of
terrorist groups are therefore the main features which characterize the
development of this phenomenon in the past decade.
4.3.1. Terrorism and transitional states
The
terrorist groups' activities can be roughly divided into operational - direct
preparations and performing the attacks - and support - all forms of logistical
activities which enable these groups undisturbed performance of operational
activities. Considering the possibility that contemporary terrorist groups
would carry out either of the two activities mentioned above on their
territory, the threats to the European transitional states can be divided into
direct and indirect. The former means an actual physical threat to the citizens
of an individual state and their property, while the latter means above all the
political consequences which that state would have to cope with if it served as
a kind of "logistic basis" to the terrorist groups for their
operational activities in
Although
direct terrorist groups' threats to transitional states seem significantly less
likely than the second form of threats, there are certain risks present in the
region which could in future lead to the
realization of such threats. Some of the most probable potential targets and
motives include the following:
·
The
representatives and/or the infrastructure of authority or the members of ethnic
and religious groups due to the radicalization of ethnic and/or religious
tensions between the majority population and various marginalized groups in an
individual state. In the discussed part of Europe particularly the cases of
Serbia and Montenegro (the unsettled status of Kosovo and the tensions between
the Albanian majority and Serbian minority in the province; the large Muslim
community in Sanjak which has already suffered from
the excesses of the Orthodox majority in the recent past; also the members of
the Croatian and Hungarian minorities in Vojvodina
are occasionally a target of the nationalists' threats), Bosnia and Herzegovina
(despite nearly a decade of peace the relations among the entities could still
considerably aggravate), FYR Macedonia (the tensions between the Macedonian
majority and Albanian minority), and Moldova (the unsettled status of Transnistria region) stand out;
·
The
representatives and/or the infrastructure of authority or an unselectively
chosen group of citizens due to the terrorist groups' wish to influence the
policy of a target state. The motive for the selection of such targets could be
the participation of individual transitional states' armed forces in military
operations in
·
The
political representatives and/or members of armed forces and/or infrastructure
of individual states in conflict areas. Attacks on such targets would probably be only part of a wider campaign
intended to achieve the withdrawal of foreign forces (at present the
transitional states with their political representatives and armed forces in
·
The
members and/or infrastructure of international peacekeeping forces in the
transitional states, where post-conflict stabilization operations take place,
could become targets due to the supposed bias towards the opposing sides or
disagreement with the policy of their countries (members of units participating
in operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo under NATO and UN command);
·
The
representatives and/or infrastructure of other states (embassies, attachés,
etc.) and trans-national partnerships (e.g. European Union, NATO and UN) which
could become targets due to disagreement with their policy[4].
Poor security due to insufficient understanding of a threat in a particular
state and/or inefficiency of local security forces; these representatives could
also be targeted by terrorist groups which are otherwise not active in the
region.
Despite the above mentioned risks it
should be emphasized that they are only theoretical, and that the countries
under discussion are regarded as "low-profile" members of the international
community. Therefore, activities will not have much impact internationally.
Thus, it is more probable that the internationally oriented terrorist groups
will direct their operational activities towards targets in those countries
more closely involved.
Although
a possible terrorist attack on a transitional state or on their overseas
representative is relatively low, there is a stronger possibility of indirect
threats from terrorist groups. Political instability, economic
under-development (and consequential lack of financial supervision),
corruptibility of civil servants, spread of crime and poor border control are
some examples which in certain transitional countries or in certain areas of
their territories, provide ideal conditions for terrorist groups to operate and
to support their activities in the West or in other parts of the world.
Recently, individual
states in the region have been exposed to logistic activities of certain
international Islamic terrorist groups, which came to the region during recent
armed conflicts, in which some Muslims (in
Individual parts of
Eastern and South-Eastern Europe are susceptible especially in the field of
organizational activities, financing and acquisition of weapons.
1. ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITIES:
·
Recruitment
of new members, especially among members of ethnic and religious groups in the
region that are, or have been, subjected to violence, economic sanctions or
other forms of pressure due to political and/or religious reasons (The Albanian
population in Kosovo, southern Serbia and FYR Macedonia, the Muslim population
of Bosnia- Herzegovina and Sanjak, etc.);
·
Training
of members - to meet this need terrorist groups could set up their bases in
some areas where the central (state) authorities cannot or will not exercise
their power to a satisfactory extent (for example parts of FYR Macedonia and
Albania). These areas can also provide safe havens for those who prepare such attacks
or try to evade the security forces after an attack has been carried out;
·
Transport
of members into
2. FINANCING:
·
Collecting
financial contributions (voluntary or involuntary in the form of the so-called
"revolutionary taxes") from members of an ethnic or religious group
which the terrorist group supposedly fights for, or from the wealthy
sympathizers in the region (this is one means of finance used by the Albanian
groups OVK in Kosovo and ANA in FYR Macedonia);
·
Fund
raising through co-operation with organized crime, the most important is
trading in drugs, arms and people. The most profitable is the drug trade involving
mainly Albanian criminal groups gangs who are linked with the two
above-mentioned Albanian groups[6];
·
Money
laundering through the financial systems of these countries do not exercise a
satisfactory level of control. This problem has often been exposed by numerous
western countries and international organisations. According to the American
CIA's estimates, published in The World Factbook 2004, a great majority of the European
transitional states are still susceptible to the money laundering activities in
spite of the gradual improvement in legislation and efficiency of financial
control services.
3. ACQUISITION OF
WEAPONS:
·
Purchase
of arms and equipment in the illegal arms market. The vast stockpiles of
weapons and equipment in the region are to a great extent the remnants of the arms
race from the Cold War period, as well as the consequence of the conflicts in
the last decade and a half (a special problem is a vast quantity of more or
less sophisticated unregistered in civilian hands). Nowadays, the terrorist
groups would mainly be buyers and not sellers in this market;
·
The
purchase of so-called "dual-use" materials that can be used both for
peaceful and military purposes. The control of this trade (for example ammonium
nitrate which can be used as fertilizer or as a component for assembly of
explosive devices) is rather inefficient in certain European transitional
states, and could be taken advantage of by terrorist groups.
With the increasing importance of
the international fight against terrorism the external pressures on the European
transition countries to improve their role in this fight are also intensify.
They should do more especially in preventing terrorist groups' logistical
activities, but demands for their efficient performance often exceed their
actual capabilities. Therefore it is essential to increase co-operation among
transitional and other states affected by such threats regionally as well as
internationally.
5. How to deal with security threats in the
future?
Today
the transition countries face a wide range of threats. Included are those that
are characteristic of previous periods (all-out conventional war following an invasion
of a neighbouring country or alliance), latent internal ethnic conflicts (if
such problems are ignored or inadequately treated, ethnic disputes in the
region could again escalate into armed conflicts) and other post-modern
threats. The latter include organized crime, economic crises, illegal
migrations, ecological catastrophes and of course international and local
terrorism. The situation regarding the activities to abolish or reduce such
threats is so far rather poor at many levels, including state policies,
legislation, competencies and capacities of state armed and security forces, as
well as international co-operation. Despite significant improvements recently,
important delays compared to the West still exist. For a successful improvement
of the current security situation in the region it is necessary to meet the
following:
·
To
stabilize conditions in those transitional states which further political and
economic development is prevented by ethnic tensions resulting from the armed
conflicts in the last decade. Despite yearlong peacekeeping and peace-building
operations in
·
To
strengthen national economies by stimulating efficient transition to market
economies that will result in economic stability and international
competitiveness. Therefore, they could cope more easily with the remaining threats.
·
To
enhance the level of dialogue and mutual economic dependency within the region
at bilateral and international levels, and thereby intensifying efforts to
strengthen mutual trust. This has been pursued for more than three decades
under OSCE auspices.
·
To
establish a regional early-warning centre to identify general and specific security
challenges threatening the European transitional states, and to monitor trends.
It would be vital to avoid unnecessary duplication of activities of this and
other existing systems at various levels of international co-operation;
·
To
increase efficiency in the security forces and the legal framework of transitional
states in their fight against organized crime. Besides improving legislation,
competencies and quality of staff training, there must be co-operation with
neighbouring countries to work together. Exchange of data on suspects of crime
at the multilateral level, especially the co-operation within Interpol, and
with Europol and Eurojust for the transitional states.
·
To
improve the readiness of security forces and rescue services to react to a potential
terrorist attack, to increase efficiency of security forces and financial
control services to prevent logistic activities of terrorist groups often
closely connected with organized crime. Therefore, it is useful that both
phenomena fall under the same jurisdiction. As mentioned above, International
co-operation at bilateral and multilateral levels is essential and the OSCE
also has an extremely significant role, allying the
·
To
stimulate projects to enhance awareness of ecological problems and to form a
more suitable state policy in this area (for example, seeking more
environment-friendly sources of energy to replace some aging nuclear power
plants in transitional states that could be a serious threat.
This list does not cover all
measures needed for an efficient and all-embracing fight against the many security
risks facing transitional states today. However, it provides general guidelines
which, could improve the security situation in the region and is also directly
linked to its economic development. The transitional states' capacities at the
national level are in most cases too poor to achieve satisfactory results.
Therefore, it is essential to continue and increase co-operation between these states.
The greatest difficulty in the area of security is the possibility of the
region being divided according to the level of development taken place by
gradual accession of smaller groups of states into Euro-Atlantic partnerships.
As regards integration, much effort will be necessary in future to avoid the
situation when individual states could lose contact with these trends due to
their lack of progress. In the long-term this would have severe consequences
for security of the entire continent.
Andrej Miholič
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APPENDIX
1. Map of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
APPENDIX
2. Potential Conflict Areas in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
APPENDIX
3. Significant Minorities in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
APPENDIX
4. Opium Trafficking Routes in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
APPENDIX 5.
Trends in Ammount of Damage (Human Losses) Caused by Terrorist Attacks in
Periods 1945-2004 (mid-September) and 1991-2004 (mid-September)[7]:
Figure
1. Number of Terrorist Incidents That Caused More Than 100 Victims (Killed and
Wounded Together) from 1945 to 2004 (mid-September)
Table 1. Number of Terrorist Incidents That
Caused More Than 100 Victims (Killed and Wounded Together) from 1945 to 2004
(mid-September)
|
period |
number of attacks |
|
|