How Has the 2008 Russia-Georgia War Affected the OSCE Security Community Model?

Abstract

Notwithstanding the substantial amount of critical work that has been produced on the implications of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, comprehending the imprint the aforementioned war has left on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), remains elusive. The 2008 Russia-Georgia war was the first military conflict between two OSCE Participating States in the 21st century and also the first use of military force abroad by the Russian Federation since the Soviet breakdown. Hence, this Thesis addresses the question of how has the 2008 Russia-Georgia war affected the OSCE security community model. Concurrently, this inquiry attempts to dissect the OSCE’s contribution in its complexity in that armed conflict whether the organization has failed or succeeded. Using the concept of “security community” sketched out by Karl Wolfgang Deutsch in 1957 and further altered by Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett in 1998, this study aims at demonstrating that the 2008 Russia-Georgia war was direct causes of the deterioration of relations amongst states within the OSCE area and that the idea of creating a security community from Vancouver to Vladivostok was undermined. Discourse and content analysis of data obtained during in-depth interviews with the members of the OSCE mission to Georgia at the time of war, and experts on the OSCE, as well as analysis of a wide range of statements addressed by the U.S., Russian, and EU ambassadors in the OSCE divulged that owing to the 2008 war this organization has been further polarized and divided into three groups: (a) Washington. (b) Moscow. (c) The EU, which itself was separated into two opposing groups. Data analysis also confirmed that the OSCE has failed at the political level in Georgia due largely to lack of discernment of the real situation in Vienna.