THE ORGANIZATION FOR DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT—GUAM: A ROAD MAP TO RELEVANCE? (A View from Georgia with Certain Personal Reflections and Conclusions)
Abstract
Just over ten years ago, in 1996, the Deputy Foreign Ministers of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, deeply concerned over excessive Western concessions to the Russian Federation during the tumultuous and prolonged negotiations on the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), on the initiation of Araz Azimov, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, gathered at OSCE Headquarters in Vienna. This meeting became the first informal exchange (later this unofficial discourse was transformed into a formal caucus) related to these countries’ common security interests.1 We can say that the first brick in the foundation of GUAM was laid.
Although the initial steps of activities of this caucus were tense, the issues of the CFE Treaty that prompted those consultations were as much “technical” as strategic; however, these “technicalities” and “numbers on the flanks” mattered a great deal to the independence and sovereignty of those countries.
These were turbulent and tiring nightly plenary sessions and debates concerning the future parameters of the CFE Treaty. Certain common risks and challenges were identified on how to deal not only with the Soviet legacy of conventional arms on the respective national territories in general, but also concrete problems of the CFE flank issues that were supposed to be placed in a so-called quoted regime along the whole perimeter of the former Soviet Union borders, including the sovereign territories of Georgia and Moldova.
One year later, these regular but still informal meetings concerning specific issues were trans-formed into a more complex and comprehensive package of security problems of mutual interests regarding bilateral (or sub-regional) cooperation, which led the Presidents of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova to transform the existing informal group of experts into an actual and formal Forum with a fancy abbreviation—GUAM.2
Thus, the birth date of GUAM—10 November 1997—was the day of the first presidential summit in Strasbourg when the presidents of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova met during the summit of the Council of Europe and, after a protracted meeting, issued a Joint Communiqué which emphasized the importance of the four nations cooperating extensively in establishing a Europe-Cau-casus-Asia Transportation Corridor (TRACECA).
It also underscored the prospects for strengthening interaction between the GUAM member states, “for the sake of a stable and secure Europe, guided by the principles of respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of state frontiers, mutual respect, cooperation, democracy, supremacy of law and respect for human rights.”3
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References
See: T. Kuzio, “Promoting Geopolitical Pluralism in the CIS. GUUAM and Western Foreign Policy,” Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 47, No. 3, May/June 2000.
See: V. Socor, “‘GUAM’ at Ten,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 20 June 2007.
The Joint Communiqué. Meeting of the Presidents of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, Strasbourg 1997.
See: T. Kuzio, “Geopolitical Pluralism in the CIS: The Emergence of GUUAM,” European Security, Vol. 9, No. 2,Summer 2000, pp. 81-114.
GUAM is geographically located within the Wider Black Sea/Caspian Basin Region/Caspian Basin.
See: P. Goble, The CSIS Conference on the Problems of GUAM, Washington D.C., 10 July, 2000.
See: P. Goble, op. cit.
See: K. Waltz, “Theory of International Politics,” Reading,Ma, 1979, p. 96.
In my position as Secretary of the National Security Council of Georgia, I had the privilege to meet and deliver certain messages from President Eduard Shevardnadze to some world leaders, including President Heydar Aliev. All of these meetings with President Heydar Aliev were for me lessons in acute strategic vision and statesmanship, as well as in understanding the benefits of regional cooperation to pursue the national interests of the GUAM member states. However,almost every time, President Aliev noted sarcastically, “Tedo, how long do we need to be independent states before your Western friends stop calling us “newly independent?” A resolute and clear-cut question which still resonates strongly in my ears and mind and which still requires an appropriate answer (T. Japaridze, Notes of My Meetings with H.E. Heydar Aliev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, March-November 2002-2003).
See: GUUAM: Genesis and Growth of a Group, Remarks by H.E. Hafiz Pashaev, Ambassador, Republic of Azerbaijan. The Black Sea Regional Security Program, The John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University,31 May, 2001.
See: Final Communiqué of the Yalta GUUAM Summit, 6-7 June, 2001; V. Socor, “‘GUAM’ Summit Preview: A New Lease on Life,” The Jamestown Foundation, 20 April, 2005.
See: V. Socor, “‘GUAM’ Summit Preview: A New Lease on Life.”
L. de Puppo, The EU Looks Carefully at the Caucasus and its Energy Potential, London, 4 June, 2006.
See: E. Ismailov, V. Papava, The Central Caucasus. Essays On Geopolitical Economy, CA&CC Press®, Stock-holm, 2006, p. 77.
During World War II, Nicholas Spykman, an American strategist, challenged the centrality of the concept of the “Heartland” developed a generation earlier by Halford Mackinder (against Mahan’s sea power thesis), and focused in-stead on what he called the “Rimland,” by which he meant essentially continental countries with a maritime façade. Some GUAM member states, Ukraine, Georgia, and partially Azerbaijan have these features, although the Black Sea itself—the main body water, as mentioned above, that lies within the GUAM region—does not have, as acknowledged by most ex-perts, some of the obvious strategic dimensions and happens to be perceived as a sort of “lake” divided between Turkey and Russia (see: Ch.J. Fettweis, “Sir Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics and Policymaking in the 21st Century,” Parameters,Summer 2000, pp. 58-71; T. Horn. “The Revolution in Transatlantic Affairs. Perils and Promises of a Global NATO,”Policy Review, August 2007).
See: Kiev Declaration on Establishment of the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development-GUAM,available at [http://www.guam.org.ua/226.1087.0.0.1.0.phtml].
V. Socor, “Summit Takes Stock of GUAM’s Projects, Institutional Development,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 4, Issue 120, 20 June, 2007.
See: The Financial Times, 26 August, 2007.
See: A Workshop on the Prospects of GUAM, Stanford University, The Institute for International Studies, 18 No-vember, 2000.
See: Interfax-Ukraine, 15 June, 2007.
See: Echo, 16 May, 2007 (see also: A Workshop on the Prospects of GUAM).
See: Developing Partnership and Cooperation between the Organization for Democracy and Economic Devel-opment—GUAM and the European Union for 2007-2008, available at [http://www.mfa.gov.az/ssi_eng/international/or-ganizations/guam/Baku_Summit_2007/Interaction_Plan_rus.pdf].
The so-called “clusters” of possible cooperation with the EU have been identified by the member states, par-ticularly: democracy, respect for human rights and good governance, strengthening of security cooperation, border management, resolution of protracted conflicts, energy and transport, environment, trade, agriculture and fisheries, em-ployment and social affairs, regional development and cross-border cooperation, research and education, science and technology.
See: Eurasia Daily Monitor, 20 June, 2007 (see also: Joint Press Statement on the GUAM-Japan Meeting, Baku,2007).
See: GUAM Sectoral Cooperation Development Strategy, The Baku Summit, 2007.
.See: Emerging Threats to Energy Security and Stability, NATO Security through Science Series, ed. by H. McPherson, W. Duncan Wood, D. M. Robinson, London, 2004.
Trend, 16 February, 2007.
A Roundtable on the Situation in Ukraine, The Wilson Center For International Scolars, The Kennan Institute,January 2007.
E. Rumer, G. Simon, Toward a Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region, The Institute for National Stra-tegic Studies, The National Defense University, Washington D.C., April 2006.
However, it seems that, as experts admit, throughout the 1990s, the infatuation with globalization and “a time-space compression” in the virtual world entrapped many Western countries, including the GUAM member states, and led these countries to ignore the gradual and eventual transfer of the center of gravity of world politics and the global econo-my from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Analysts, and specifically those within GUAM, which is trying to merge the compo-nents of stability: sustainable development and security, need to keep in mind that globalization has significantly in-creased the importance of the maritime dimension on the commercial side (85 percent of the world trade volume and 60 percent of oil and gas travel by sea) and the emphasis in this regard should be made on maritime security, which all too often is confused with — and reduced to — maritime safety (see: T. Horn, op. cit.).
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