Task-sharing for European security

Abstract

With the title I've been assigned to talk about, task-sharing, I'm looking at the issue in the context of the title of this section. Also, I'm looking at the issue in the context of the title of the conference, which is broader in scope. Further on, I'm looking at task-sharing in the context of overall European security, and not just in the sense of what the Americans, Spanish, French and others can contribute. In essence, I'll be looking at task-sharing in the context of designing a peace and security system for postCold War Europe that is meant to be achievable: a peace and security ( to make use of a fashionable word) that is actually coming into place as we speak because of its making use of existing international governmental and non-governmental actors to provide for security on the continent. The task-sharing that I'm about to share with you involves a model I've been looking at called the New European Peace and Security System NEPSS, for short. And NEPSS has both descriptive and prescriptive elements. Descriptively, as I just indicated, NEPSS is developing as we speak; but, it also has prescriptive elements, elements that I think ought to be there for the post-Cold War peace and security system in the new Europe to prevent what I call future Yugoslavias. First of all, the descriptive aspects of NEPSS: Here, I'm looking at the post-Cold War peace and security architecture for Europe in the context of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is the main organizing device for my model, for the simple reason that it includes all the former Cold War enemies, and the neutral and unaligned, numbering some 54/55 participating states in all. And, as you all know, the OSCE (coming from the old CSCE the Helsinki Process) has three pillars, three distinguishing dimensions.