Abstract
As is pointed out by Muthiah Alagappa’s framework analysis for this volume, that regional organizations1 might relieve some of the burden on the United Nations (UN) in the area of conflict management gained new currency after the Cold War. As Boutros Boutros-Ghali pointed out, the goal of such task-sharing was not only to distribute management burdens more effectively by taking advantage of hitherto under-utilized regional capacities, but also to democratize international relations through the devolution of power to regional entities.2 In addition, some would argue that regional organizations are better prepared than global ones to address specifically regional problems.3
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Notes
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, reprinted in An Agenda for Peace 1995 (New York: United Nations, 1995), paras 63–4.
For a summary of such arguments, see S. N. MacFarlane and T. G. Weiss, ‘Regional organizations and regional security’, Security Studies, 2 (1), Autumn 1992, pp. 10–11.
A situation in which ‘a single powerful state controls or dominates the lesser states in the system’. See R. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 29.
For more substantial background on these conflicts, see S. N. MacFarlane, L. Minear and S. Shenfield, Armed Conflict in Georgia: A Case Study in Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping (Providence, RI: Watson Institute, 1995), Occasional Paper No. 27;
S. Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations: The Caucasus and Post-Soviet Disorder (London: Zed Books, 1994), pp. 81–114;
and S. Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition: Nation-Building and Conflict (Washington, DC: CSIS, 1994), pp. 100–41.
On this point, see S. M. Chervonnaya, Abkhazia-1992: Post-kommunisticheskaya Vandeya (Moscow: Mosgorpechat’, 1993).
According to Russian military sources, Russian troops deploying to the line of contact initially faced some hostile fire. This was suppressed through the use of superior firepower, a process facilitated by the force’s rather broad rules of engagement. One Russian military officer characterized the latter in the following form: any violation of the ceasefire would be ‘immediately and severely punished’. See P. Baev, Russia’s Peacekeeping in the Caucasus, a discussion paper for the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs/Western European Union Conference on ‘Peacekeeping in Europe: Assessing UN and Regional Perspectives’, Oslo, 17–18 November 1994, mimeograph, p. 14.
For more general discussion of Russian peacekeeping, see A. Raevsky and I. N. Vorob’ev, Russian Approaches to Peacekeeping Operations (New York: UNIDIR, 1994), Research Paper No. 28;
M. Shashenkov, ‘Russian peacekeeping in the “near abroad”’, Survival, 36 (3), Autumn 1994, pp. 46–69;
and S. N. MacFarlane and A. Schnabel, ‘Russia’s approach to peacekeeping’, International Journal, 50 (2), Spring 1995, pp. 294–324.
On this point, see CSCE, Third Meeting of the Council: Summary of Conclusions (Stockholm: CSCE, 1992), p. 12.
V. P. Lukin, ‘Our security predicament’, Foreign Policy, 88, Fall 1992, pp. 57–75.
See, for example, S. Neil MacFarlane, ‘La CEI et la sécurité regionale’, Etudes Internationales, XXVI, 4, décembre 1995, pp. 785–97; Andrei Zagorsky, ‘Die Gemeinschaft Unabhaengiger Staaten: Entwicklungen und Perspektiven’, Berichte des Bundesinstituts fèr Ostwissenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, 50, 1992.
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© 1998 Third World Quarterly and Academic Council on the United Nations System
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MacFarlane, S.N. (1998). On the Front Lines in the Near Abroad: the CIS and the OSCE in Georgia’s Civil Wars. In: Weiss, T.G. (eds) Beyond UN Subcontracting. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26263-2_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26263-2_6
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