Europe: Strategies for Co-operation and Joint Solutions

The article examines the sustainability and adaptability of European security institutions, structures and organizations in the context of the fundamental and qualitative change of the post-Helsinki European security order. Suggestions are presented for managing the Ukraine crisis by military and political restraint, the observance of the Helsinki Decalogue of principles and by upgrading executive mechanisms of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In a new European security order, the core political components would be constituted by the inviolability of frontiers and the incontestability of internal political order. In broader international change, the relative decrease of the role of old powers has to be accommodated with the growing clout of emerging powers. Since most of the conflicts take place within the States and not between them the risks and new threats have to be dealt with by transformed and upgraded security institutions adapted to the new security environment. At the same time, there is a manifested lack of interests by the great powers to rely on multilateral security institutions unless they are used as instruments in pursuing their own strategies. The new common security arrangement for the West and Russia has to reconcile the adversary national security interests within the Euro-Atlantic Security Forum.