Security Sector Reform in the Caucasus

Starting in February 2013, the Atlantic Treaty Association will begin a multifaceted project examining the potential for sustainable security sector reform in regions characterized by volatility and conflict. This initiative incorporates the research capabilities of ATA chapters in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to examine how effective reforms can be implemented to improve the capabilities and conduct of the security sector within each country of the South Caucasus.

The focus of this project is to maintain an equilibrium of stable instiutions that adhere to human and national security, while guaranteeing the maximum possible level of cooperation across neighboring countries.

Focus will be concentrated on the following areas:

Political Problems

In the Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), there is still a need for reforms to strengthen democratic institutions, create a fully independent judicial system, facilitate political pluralism, ensure the free access to and independence of media as well as the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. This has been highlighted in the latest report by the Council of European Union.

Different democracy indexes tend to consider Armenia and Georgia as hybrid democratic regimes, with a constitutional form of government, yet with limited democratic elements (independence of judiciary, free elections, and effective measures against corruption), while putting Azerbaijan amongst authoritarian regimes.

The three Caucasian countries have different internal political problems. In Azerbaijan, political opposition activities are constrained by the ruling majority, while in Georgia and Armenia the opposition only has a limited role.

Since indexes often fail to get the details of the situation as they tend to concentrate on the analysis of the governing elites rather than on the complex system of relationships between society and public authorities, this project aims to fill this and other gaps inherent in most research projects by taking a more in-depth and analytical approach on the ground within each country.

Economic Problems

The lack of dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as the recent conflicts further decreased the already low levels of economic cooperation within the region. Georgia is a relevant trading partner for both, Armenia and Azerbaijan, being amongst the top 10 trade partners of the two countries respectively, while their bilateral trade relations remain negligible.

The GDP per capita in Azerbaijan is $10,200. This relatively high number is due to the oil revenues of this country. The GDP per capita in Georgia is $5,500, and in Armenia $5,400. The GDP growth in 2011 was 5.5% in Georgia, 4.6% in Armenia and a modest 0.7% in Azerbaijan.

The entire Caucasus region is highly important in terms of energy supply for Western Europe. Several pipelines pass through the Caucasus. One of them, the BTC pipeline, links Azerbaijan with Turkey. It cuts through Georgia and is an important source of revenues for the region. Armenia, however, is left outside of these pipelines projects.

Social Problems

Education, health and social standards in the region are poor, but improving.

Health expenses in 2011 amounted to 2.1% of GDP in Armenia, 1.5% in Georgia and 1.0% in Azerbaijan. Education expenses in 2011 amounted to 3.0% in Armenia, 3.2% in Georgia and 2.8% in Azerbaijan.

Educated, rich, and secure people tend to live better lives, but also tend to question their allegiance to governments and political parties in a more complex and subtle way.

By analyzing the recent trends and implications within each sector, this project will determine the best way to ensure that improvement in these factors is ongoing and will have a constructive impact on security sector reform without undermining democratic transition.

Regional Security Issues

Due to several so-called ‘protracted conflicts’, diplomatic disputes and diverging political interests in the Caucasus, there is no shared political, diplomatic or military strategy able to stabilize the region, increase human and economic security or trigger growth.

The conflicts in the region have different backgrounds and characters, but dominate the entire regional security agenda and prevent bi- or trilateral cooperation. Georgia’s regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are still outside of Tbilisi control. In August 2008, a conflict with the Russian Federation over a portion of Georgian territory gained international attention. Armenia and Azerbaijan maintain a hostile relationship due to the ongoing conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabah. These two conflicts are the main sources of instability in the region. Their destabilizing effect has polarized political actors in each country, minimizing the role and influence of moderate reformists and preventing any serious efforts towards more regional (security) cooperation and integration.

Moreover, economic and energy-related interests from outside actors strongly influence regional security. Efforts for solving the protracted conflicts don’t appear to be high on the diplomatic agenda of any of the three Caucasus countries either, as the low-profile tensions seem to be convenient for the involved actors (external powers, regional governments, energy companies).

Security Governance Problems

The mentioned lack of accountability and transparency, high levels of corruption, and a deficit regarding the protection of human rights and the establishment of the rule of law are directly mirrored by the characteristics of security governance in the three countries.

For example, while in Georgia the political systems contain strong democratic aspects, the security sector is lacking democratic control and transparent governance structures as compared to “Western” standards. Thereby, one of the major issues is the democratic control of armed forces. This is one of the underlying reasons of the continued tensions and lack of trust in the region. However, the issue of concrete and comprehensive SSRs has not been addressed by international security organizations (UN, NATO, EU, OSCE) nor by the national governments or even parliaments.

This project aims to promote the establishment of common standards and best practices in the field of security governance to create significant confidence-building measures for the region that would promote a strong impact on neigbouring regional powers such as Turkey, Russia and Iran. Although the political points of origin vary significantly among the three countries in question, this project addresses the definition of best practices across the region and the development of policy guidance for SSR in the Caucasus as a whole in order to strengthen mutual trust and contribute to the stabilization of the region.

The Strategy

Creating a Comprehensive Report

The first step will be the creation of a Working Group (WG) of four experts working on a comprehensive report about security governance and its confidence-building effects in the Caucasus.

The four security policy experts (one from each country in the region as well as a research supervisor in Brussels) will analyze the status quo of the security sector in the three countries and the concrete prospect for a SSR effort in the following sectors:

1) Role of Armed Forces: National policy for conscription, role in domestic public order issues;

2) Political processes: parliamentary oversight, budgetary control, balance between Presidential Administration, Ministries of Defense and other agencies;

3) Rules for procurement, history of recent procurement;

4) Civil society engagement: transparency and media, NGOs representing IDPs, the role of ombudsman;

5) Social issues: mothers of conscripts, war veterans.

The work will incorporate a literature review as well as meetings with representatives of politics, security authorities, judiciary officials, NGOs, academia and media in the three countries.

Based on their proven record of in-depth research in the area of SSR and special knowledge about Caucasian security policy issues, the four experts have been carefully selected in collaboration with the ATA’s regional partners: the Atlantic Council of Georgia, the Armenian Atlantic Association and the Azerbaijani Atlantic Cooperation Association. Their initial research phase will be 6 months long.

The paper will present a comparative analysis of the different approaches in each country and will propose policy recommendations on these issues, in order to enhance democratic control of armed forces.

Sharing Best Practices

A special part of the immense research effort and the following comprehensive report will be dedicated to defining best practices that will be shared across the region. Best practices will serve as clear guidance for the steps to be taken in different disciplines of SSR across the Caucasus region and will therefore be of great importance beyond the first phase. In this context, the ATA will support the organization of in-depth interviews and meetings with SSR experts and security and defense policy representatives from the neighboring countries of Turkey, the Russian Federation and Iran. An historical perspective will be taken into consideration, as researchers will analyze the recent experiences in Central and Eastern Europe.

The range of expert interviews will also include security policy experts with direct SSR experience from Ukraine and Moldova, as these two former Soviet countries have comparable situations and concerns.

The Brussels-based research supervisor will conduct interviews with experts from NATO, EU, and the OSCE (HQ Vienna) in order to complement the country-based input for the definition of best practices for the Caucasus with long-standing experiences of international organizations being involved in a broad range of SSR efforts in various regions.

Presenting the Results to Parliamentarians Throughout the Region

After the finalization of the report, during the second half of the project phase, the comprehensive report will be launched in meetings (“roundtables”) bringing together the report authors with parliamentarians from all major political parties from the three Caucasus countries. These workshops will be organized in the three capitals (Yerevan, Baku, Tbilisi) with the support of the ATA, and will serve the purpose of raising awareness of the issue, enhancing parliamentary control of national security governance, and, above all, lobbying for the concrete policy recommendations, especially the best practices, and their legislative implementation on the national political level by the parliaments and governments. Special attention will be given to young parliamentarians and visibility will be guaranteed to all political parties through the involvement of independent media and online social media.

This phase will last four months. During this time, the experts will inform, influence and engage the parliamentarians from the region with regard to the necessary reforms in the security sector, and about what the countries can learn from each other and from neighboring countries.

Presenting the Results to Brussels Based Experts and Official Representatives

As a final step of the project phase, the ATA will organize a public high-level policy event at its HQ in Brussels. There, the Working Group will get the opportunity to launch its comprehensive report among the Brussels-based security policy community, to present their findings and discuss their policy recommendations. Selected representatives of NATO, EU (EEAS), and OSCE, will have exclusive access to the report before the event, and will present their views in short presentations leading to a broader debate. The outcome of this debate will inform a short, yet precise event report in order to make the evaluation of the policy recommendations publicly available as well.

The report, together with the event report as a documentation of the policy debate, will equally be published online (through the ATA channels, and, ideally, in partnership with other Brussels-based organizations), and it will be sent to a broad range of international security policy stakeholders, including think tanks and NGOs with a special interest in the region.