IV. Renewing pan-European security cooperation?

Chapter:

4. Euro-Atlantic security and institutions: rebalancing in the midst of global change

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2010

Author(s):

Alyson J.K. Bailes, Andrew Cottey

Developments since 2008 have triggered an intense new round of debate on pan-European security structures. The 2008 conflict in Georgia was a dramatic failure for Europe’s existing security institutions. In the wake of that conflict, concerns over a possible new cold war between Russia and the West intensified, triggering debate on what measures might be taken to avoid such a confrontation. In the USA, one of the first major foreign policy steps of the Obama Administration was its call to ‘press the reset button’ on relations with Russia. More concretely, since 2008 Russia has explicitly called for new pan-European security arrangements and in particular a new European security treaty. In response to these Russian proposals, the OSCE launched the ‘Corfu process’ to review and revive the OSCE’s role.