Article for Dzerkalo Tyzhnya

http://gazeta.dt.ua/internal/ukrayinska-kriza-svitovoyi-bezpeki-_.html

The global security system has shown its impotence at the muzzle of guns of anonymous “polite people” and “little green men”. Modern hybrid warfare unfolds before our eyes, and neither Ukraine, nor the world were ready for it. The annexation of Crimea, events in eastern Ukraine put a big question mark on the effectiveness of global security. Will the international community find an answer to this new challenge? How do we ensure peace and national security in Europe today? The present and future of the Ukrainian nation depends on answers to these questions.  Today, Ukraine goes through a crisis of its statehood. For the first time in the history of independence, our country suffered external aggression. Crimea has been lost. After the recent events in Odesa and Mariupol, after pseudo-referendums in Donbas the threat of a loss of more territory in eastern Ukraine and creating pockets of instability in the south of the state increases. With the first shots fired we are rapidly approaching the point of no return - the line that must not be crossed. Unfortunately, we have to admit that we have been artificially pushed into this scenario. Ukraine is under massive external pressure: hostile propaganda, economic and military action. Recent events revealed absolute unpreparedness of state agencies in dealing with internal and external challenges. At the same time, we witness extremely low effectiveness of current international security mechanisms. The institutes of global collective security inherited from the Cold War era - the time of confrontation between the two ideological camps - have proven to be absolutely inadequate. 

The Ukrainian dimension of the global crisis

Ukraine and the world faced a new type of aggression. Its military component subtly faded into the background. “Humanitarian” interventions, active deployment of a fifth column, Russian domination in the information field have become the primary assault forces of aggression. Ukraine turned out to be unable to give an adequate response to these external attacks. Some of the reasons include fragmented society, civic immaturity, divided loyalty. The Maidan events gave us impetus to overcome these problems, but the Ukrainian society is still making the first steps in this journey. The government contributed to the deterioration of the situation - political elites proved unable to compromise and create new formats of dialogue. Their exclusive bet on the methods of force within the anti-terrorist operation did not work. Instead, we see a deepened crisis of confidence between the center and regions, tensions in society are growing. It is obvious that attempts of one of the political forces to monopolize power and keep it at any cost complicates national reconciliation. As a result, the Ukrainian society remains fragmented and disoriented in the face of external aggression and hostile propaganda. The most devastating effect of the government crisis was seen in state agencies responsible for Ukraine’s national security. Now the security and defense sector is a mirror of political and economic problems of the state. Their effective operation would be the key to Ukraine’s existence and her sovereignty. But the system turned out to be slow, thoroughly corrupt, frozen in post-Soviet (although, let's be honest - sometimes properly Soviet) values and management framework. The Armed Forces of Ukraine for years have been preparing for a war of the industrial era. Instead, today's “hybrid warfare” is waged by the enemy using irregular armed groups and anonymous military units. This modern warfare became a brutal challenge for our political and military command. The lack of open confrontation, the use of new tactics, misinformation, whipping up the atmosphere of panic and threats, the human shield tactics demonstrated the helplessness of the army in this new type of warfare. As a result, during the early days of intervention, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were in a state of confusion and disarray. The top military command with the active “support” of the political leadership could not or did not want to give adequate and professional orders. The economic sector was also vulnerable. Weak diversification of markets for Ukrainian products, strong links of important sectors of the national economy to the Russian market, lack of alternative supply of resources - all of this has become a matter of national security. Our industry and infrastructure are still energy-intensive and inefficient. The heavy economic pressure by Russia results in capital flight, unemployment and rising utility prices. Lack of adequate information and cultural policy has led to the cultural occupation of a significant portion of our citizens. Hostile propaganda imposed the artificial problem of discrimination against Russian-speaking population, fear of the ephemeral threat of extreme nationalism. Without proper Russian and English-language content the Ukrainian information space turned out to be isolated, non-competitive, not ready to communicate the Ukrainian position to the international community. Under the influence of the Russian interpretation of events the world has not reacted to the conflict immediately and woke up only when the annexation of Crimea became a fait accompli. The cumbersome bureaucracy of advanced democracies was powerless to fend off an attack of a single country.

The world dimension of the Ukrainian Crimea annexation crisis

Support for the so-called separatist movements in eastern Ukraine by Russia became possible only in conditions of helplessness of international security institutions and relaxing the regulatory function of international law. The Ukrainian issue has showed once again how the force of law lost to the law of force. And no matter how long the bureaucratic system of collective security would be looking for reasons for the defeat, this fact is obvious. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a direct violation of the basic principles and norms of international law. And unfortunately it still remains unpunished. First of all, it is a violation of the UN Charter (Article 2, paragraphs 3 and 4) and the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe of 1975, obliging signatory states to renounce the use of force and threat of force and solve international disputes by peaceful means. The entire framework of bilateral Ukraine-Russia agreements became void. In particular, the basic Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation signed in May 1997. All mutual commitments, guarantees and assurances of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity were easily wiped out by actions of the current leadership of Russia. International legal guarantees granted to Ukraine in 1994 by the Budapest Memorandum in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons did not work either. So this memorandum turned into a historical monument of “the art of diplomacy” and became another demonstration of the impotence of “good intentions” before the determination of the aggressor. Attempts of the guarantor states – the USA and the UK – to trigger an international mechanism to respond to the crisis by recourse to the UN Security Council (which, in particular, is envisioned in Article 4 of the Budapest Memorandum), predictably failed. The result of stormy discussions at the UN Security Council was the veto of Russia, which has this right as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. A pleasant but ineffective victory of Ukrainian diplomacy was the adoption of resolutions on the Ukrainian crisis at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on March 27, 2014. The fact that the international community refused to recognize the Crimean “referendum” (100 votes against vs. 11 votes in favor of such recognition), was the proof that the Ukrainian position was fair. However, given the advisory nature of UNGA resolutions, there were no direct consequences of the adoption of this document for Russia. Intervention of regional security structures has been delayed and has failed to significantly influence the situation. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) acts on the basis of consensus, which means its decisions are made by a unanimous agreement of all member states. Therefore, Russia’s refusal as one of the member states created problems for an effective involvement of the OSCE in resolving the crisis in Ukraine-Russia relations. Only additional efforts of guarantor states helped to move the process from a standstill and work out a package of priority initiatives to resolve the crisis. As for NATO, its possibilities in the case of Ukraine are limited by its Charter providing for collective security guarantees only to its member states.

Challenges of modern hybrid warfare, which should be dealt with by Ukraine and the world

The top priority today undoubtedly is the creation of conditions for a peaceful settlement of the current crisis. Only peace and consolidation of society will pave the way for the return of Ukraine on the path of sustainable development and address a number of pressing political, economic and social problems. In this sense the implementation of the OSCE road map for the de-escalation of the crisis gains critical importance. This includes the rejection of violence, disarmament, a national dialogue and the holding of national presidential election on May 25 this year. The truce and a broad public dialogue is really the key to the settlement. It is obvious today that politicians are unable to perform this task. Only civil society led by reputable public figures, intellectuals and members of the clergy, key Ukrainian scientists and experts, could pave the way for a national compromise. Strengthening the system of national security remains Ukraine’s homework, which the country should finally do. We need to change the frame of mind of political elites. Their representatives should learn to think about future generations instead of the next election and poll ratings. Politicians must understand that today our people need to consolidate as a political nation through an internal dialogue. It is important to update and improve the national security policy, including the National Security Strategy of Ukraine and other documents requiring adjustments based on the lessons learnt in the current crisis. Reforms of law enforcement agencies, special services, building effective Armed Forces remain our top priority. The police reform should be carried out transparently and under the public scrutiny. Some national authorities should be rebuild from scratch. Effectiveness, savings in public spending, transparency of procedures, zero tolerance for corruption should become the ideology of public service. Solving economic and social problems of Ukraine’s regions is only possible through the local government reform, creating space for community development and local initiative. Ukraine needs government decentralization, especially in matters of budgetary relations, humanitarian policy, strengthening interregional relations and the links between regions and the national government.  But this is not enough. Strengthening Ukraine's national security is directly related to increasing the effectiveness of international regional and global security institutes. Obviously, one of the most pressing issues in this area is the OSCE reform. Discussions of the need to strengthen European security and the OSCE reform were launched under the Corfu Process (2009) and “Helsinki + 40” (2012). At that time it concerned the need to increase the role of the OSCE in conflict prevention and arms control in Europe. During 2010-2012 Ukrainian experts developed a significant number of proposals and programs that allow us to shape the key direction of reform of this organization. This would be the transition to a new system of regional security in Europe based on the principles of secure development, collective settlement of conflicts and disputes, establishment of mechanisms for collective preventive intervention in conflicts. The new architecture of European security must be organized in such a way that the right to direct arms control, military technology, use of the armed forces were placed under broad "collective sovereignty", which must be endowed with the OSCE. Amid the Ukrainian crisis the reform of the UN Security Council became even more important. New centers of global influence, new players with their own interests and approaches emerge on the global stage. The current model of the Security Council obviously does not take into account the whole complex of these interests. Therefore, it seems reasonable to introduce new countries (India, Brazil and Germany) as permanent members of the Security Council. At the same time we have to state that the right to veto, which is reserved for permanent members of the Security Council has ceased to fulfill its stabilizing function. The solution to this problem lies in the redistribution of Security Council powers to the UN General Assembly. Particularly, this should be done by expanding the powers of the UN General Assembly in matters of preventive responses to conflict and international participation in solving them, above all, in situations where the work of the Security Council appears to be blocked. It is extremely important to also strengthen the regulatory function of international law and the responsibility for its violation. This includes the reform of the International Court of Justice and the creation of effective mechanisms of implementation of its decisions, including supranational ones. Ukraine should contribute to the development of new security architecture in Europe and worldwide. We have learnt the hard way how devastating the consequences of errors and passivity in security matters may be. The dramatic lessons of the Ukrainian crisis today are important for all nations, especially nations that are in the early stages of their statehood. Guaranteeing the right of each nation to freely choose the vector of its development and appropriate strategies - this must be the imperative for building a new international system of collective security.