Origins of the European Security System

The Helsinki Process Revisited, 1965-75

Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, Christian Nuenlist

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415433877
• eBook ISBN: 9781134080045
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

This edited volume explores the significance of the earlyHelsinki process as a means of redefining and broadening the concept of security during the latter half of the Cold War. The early Helsinki process introduced innovative confidence-building measures, and made human rights a requirement of a legitimate and well-functioning international sys

Part I
Introduction

1 New perspectives on the origins ofthe CSCE process

Andreas Wenger and Vojtech Mastny

The Helsinki process remains a controversial legacy of the Cold War. Did the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) play a crucial role in bringing the East—West conflict to an end? Or was it largely irrelevant with the implosion of the Soviet Union that decided the outcome? There is no doubt that Communism collapsed under the weight of its economic inefficiency and the rejection of its repressive political system by its subject peoples. A non-violent ending of the Cold War, however, was not preordained. Developments set in motion by the Helsinki Final Act helped make it possible. By 1989, the CSCE had supplied a normative framework conducive to the peaceful demise of Communism while providing for the radical, but orderly, disarmament that defused military confrontation in Europe. The Helsinki process created the external conditions for the internal legitimization of democratic reform movements in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.¹

It had not always looked that way. The CSCE is a textbook case of history read backwards. At the time when the heads of states gathered to sign the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975, the West widely viewed it as a one-sided Soviet victory that sanctioned Moscow’s sphere of influence and the partition of Europe—an assessment that was seemingly supported by the Kremlin’s obvious satisfaction. Even after this simplistic view was proven false, as the CSCE became a forum where Moscow was put on the defensive, it remained uncertain how much difference, if any, the verbal battles waged there could eventually make. Few contemporaries were prepared to see the Helsinki process in a larger historical perspective. Only the revolutionary events of 1989/91, which brought the dynamic side of the process to the fore, highlighted the role of human rights in the expansion and redefinition of security. With the benefit of hindsight, the Final Act could be seen as a pyrrhic victory of a short-sighted and overconfident Soviet leadership and a genuine victory for the West’s innovative multilateral diplomacy. Soon, however, the CSCE’s importance as a viable model for a new European security system began to be overrated.²

The Final Act’s potential as a catalyst of change was already becoming apparent in 1986 – after the tenth anniversary of the CSCE and before the revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe took place. One of the co-authors of this introductory chapter wrote at that time:

In the Final Act, the West pledged its respect for the geopolitical realities Moscow deemed essential for its security. For its part, the Soviet Union subscribed to texts that made its domestic conduct a legitimate subject of international scrutiny. It received a better title to something it already had—control of its East European empire. But the West was given a means to facilitate transformation of that empire. The distinction was between the static and the dynamic components of the Final Act, between present and future deliveries, between security as a condition to be achieved and security as a process to be maintained, between an order built on power alone and an order with justice. An open-ended product of unconventional diplomacy, Helsinki was the beginning rather than an end.³

This book is about the origins of that beginning—the lengthy run-up to the Final Act that prefigured much of the substance as well as the direction of what would follow. In an attempt to take stock of the most innovative results of recent research, the individual chapters deal with Eastern and Western strategies, analyze the views of the two superpowers, discuss the critical role of the then nine members of the nascent European Community, and evaluate the contributions of the neutral and nonaligned countries. The authors used a wealth of new evidence from a multitude of archives and many valuable testimonies by the diplomatic eyewitnesses of the time. The CSCE was a largely open process—the reason why much of its record already became available and published at the time. But enough of the preparatory work and deliberations behind the scenes remained hidden, only to become available later on. The records from the Warsaw Pact archives have been particularly revealing, as the Communist countries’ common—or not so common—strategy on the security conference was being hammered out at the meetings of the alliance’s committees.⁴

Some of the early writings by participants in the Helsinki preparatory talks, particularly those by John J. Maresca and Luigi V. Ferraris, remain valuable accounts of the prehistory of the Final Act. They have more recently been supplemented by additional accounts from both Western and Eastern sides. In 2003, the Machiavelli Center for Cold War Studies—a consortium of Italian universities—organized an oral history conference in Florence on the period, the audio files of which are available on the website of the Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP), the organizer of the 2005 conference in Zurich, of which the present book is the main product. The Florence conference was followed in the following year by a workshop in Padua, the papers of which were subsequently published. In 2007, an oral history workshop in Vienna dealt with the role of the neutral and non-aligned states, particularly during the CSCE’s preparatory stages.⁵

The European security conference—originally a Soviet project first floated by Foreign Minister Viacheslav M. Molotov in 1954 – had long been a non-starter. Calculated to split the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by excluding the US from the list of the prospective participants, the proposal elicited tentative interest from among some of NATO’s member countries that were disgrun-tled about American leadership, but no action ensued, despite the protracted crisis of the alliance in the 1960s. The idea appealed more to Soviet allies because of the opportunity it might provide for them to assert themselves in the international arena—which was why Moscow, facing disarray within its own alliance as well, vacillated in pressing the project. Only with the onset of détente at the end of the decade were the necessary preconditions in place for the conference to be given serious consideration.

This introductory chapter begins by dealing with the background of the change. NATO had been consolidated after adopting the Harmel formula in 1967, which envisaged pursuing defense together with détente. The Soviet Union, having acted to “normalize” the situation in Czechoslovakia and consolidated the Warsaw Pact as a result, was getting ready for détente in Europe as well—all the more so since it was at the same time facing a possible military confrontation with China in the Far East. The new conference proposal by the Warsaw Pact summit of March 1969, which left the door open to American and Canadian participation, finally set the project in motion. Even so, more than three additional years would pass before the main conference would actually meet.

The diplomatic maneuvering that ensued showed that the two superpowers saw détente as a static, stability-oriented project that would be shaped bilaterally rather than multilaterally. Both Washington and Moscow focused on military security. However, their vision of top-down détente clashed with the political interests of their allies. The small and medium-sized members of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact perceived détente as a more dynamic process, which could eventually favor change over the status quo, and emphasized the multilateral dimension of détente. Reacting to these bloc-internal challenges, Washington decided to cut its losses, moderate its hegemonic leadership style of the 1950s, and leave the initiative for political détente in the hands of its European allies.⁶

The main surprise resulting from recent research is how much these differences permeated relations not only within the voluntary Western alliance of democratic nations, but also within the involuntary alliance of Communist dictatorships regimented by Moscow that was NATO’s Eastern counterpart. The asymmetry did not prevent the regimes from trying to pursue their own priorities, preferably—though not necessarily—with, rather than against, the Soviet Union. Nor was the Soviet Union, regardless of its strengthened hold on the Warsaw Pact, interested in dictating its will without consultation, however limited. In trying to forge a common strategy on the security conference, it felt compelled to treat its dependents somewhat more as partners than it had been previously accustomed to.

This was particularly the case with regard to the German question, which—as shown in the second part of this chapter, on the period of 1969–72 – determined the internal dynamics within both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The launching of West Germany’s new Ostpolitik by the Brandt government in 1969 created problems for both alliances. Before responding to its initiatives, the Soviet Union convened its allies to reassure them about its intentions. At the same time, the West feared that Bonn’s opening toward the East could lead to German neutralism, and hence tried to ensure that the progress of Ostpolitik be firmly anchored within NATO and monitored by it. Not until Bonn’s “Eastern treaties” had been concluded in Moscow and Warsaw to both Soviet and Western satisfaction did the project for the security conference start moving toward preparatory talks.

The chapter continues with the period from 1972–74, which shows why the EC Nine were able to assert themselves in a leading position during the preparatory talks. US—European differences on the relationship between the conventional force reduction talks (MBFR) and the CSCE negotiations, as well as on the potentially more important issue of free movement, which entailed the prospect of evolutionary change in Eastern Europe, could not be resolved within NATO. While Washington was distracted by its economic problems, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal, the CSCE preparations became the catalyst of the European Community’s emerging foreign policy. It was during the preparatory talks that the EC Nine managed to win acceptance of their model for the conference.

The chapter ends with the period from 1974–75, which helps explain why and how the West, in a changing international environment, was able to overcome its differences and maintain a common front throughout the Geneva stage of the preparatory negotiations. While the Western European strategy depended to some degree on support by the neutral and non-aligned countries, in the end active support by the US was indispensable. It was provided by Henry Kissinger who, notwithstanding his skepticism about the CSCE project, secured the key Soviet concession that made the Final Act possible.

Superpower détente and allies’ self-interest, 1963–68

After the Berlin crisis and the Cuban missile standoff, changes were under way in both Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Taking a step back from nuclear danger, by 1963 the two superpowers began to move towards a modus vivendi in their bilateral relations. Superpower bilateralism, however, did not do justice to the concerns of the Eastern and Western allies. The nuclear impasse between Moscow and Washington did not allow for a satisfactory settlement of the issues that were top priorities in Bonn, Paris, and London, as well as in Warsaw, Bucharest, and East Berlin. Washington’s and Moscow’s focus on the stability of their relationship nourished fears of a superpower sell-out of their allies’ interests. Not surprisingly, therefore, détente initiatives tended to emanate from other capitals than Washington and Moscow.⁷

Top-down détente, dominated by the global interests of the two hegemons, was unattractive to their respective allies. Those in the American camp began to pursue a more independent and assertive foreign policy. They were not necessarily consistent about it. While longing for the permanence of the US nuclear umbrella, they regarded the superpowers’ jockeying for hypothetical military advantage as both dangerous and pointless. They were disturbed by the diver-sion of Washington’s attention from Europe to Southeast Asia, yet encouraged by the room the diversion gave them for voicing their preferences for détente more vigorously.⁸

The same was true about Soviet allies—with allowances made for the qualitative distinction between a voluntary and a coercive alliance as well as that between governments responsive to the will of the people and those imposing their will upon the people. Eastern Europe’s ruling elites had reason to be disturbed about the creeping re-militarization of the Cold War under Nikita S. Khrushchev’s successors in the Kremlin. In trying to contest it, they also had opportunities they had not had before. The simultaneous loosening of the bloc discipline under a less cohesive and overbearing Kremlin leadership provided them with opportunities to pursue their own interests if they wanted to.

Warsaw Pact: towards reaffirmation of Soviet hegemony

Ferment within the Warsaw Pact was more prevalent than its façade of totalitarian unity suggested. Douglas Selvage in his chapter explores the diverse national interests behind the intensified Eastern calls for a security conference during the 1960s. At the alliance’s January 1965 summit, the Romanian party leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej questioned Soviet secretary general Leonid I. Brezhnev’s call for an arms buildup by arguing that the Western challenge could be better met by détente. Romania, appalled by Khrushchev’s high-risk gamble during the Cuban missile crisis, proceeded to obstruct the Soviet-backed draft of a nonproliferation treaty, pressing for one that would make it more difficult for both superpowers to keep expanding their nuclear arsenals. For its part, Poland tried to revive, with rather than against the Soviet Union, Khrushchev’s 1955 call for a European security system, adapted to serve Polish purposes better. These included military disengagement and political rapprochement across ideological lines, as publicized in plans by Polish foreign minister Adam Rapacki. Implying a reduction of Moscow’s exclusive influence in Central Europe, the plans elicited no more than lukewarm Soviet endorsement.⁹

Discomfort about the military courses the alliances were taking gave rise among their respective members to yearnings for détente that triggered the parallel crises of NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the latter part of the 1960s. Moscow’s efforts since early 1966 to solidify the Warsaw Pact by bolstering its still rudimentary institutions, thus making it into something more closely approximating a functional equivalent of NATO, aggravated the crisis. Originally intended to be accomplished in a matter of weeks, the proposed reform would drag on for three years. It prompted some of the junior allies to seek more influence on the management of the alliance and encouraged Romania to seek restriction of Moscow’s predominance. In contrast to the Soviet Union, they all wished for a less military and more political organization. Gromyko described the strengthening of the Warsaw Pact as part of the “struggle for détente,” another part of which was to be the concurrent weakening and, preferably, demise of NATO.

Campaigning for the non-renewal of the North Atlantic Treaty upon its expiration in 1969, the Soviet Union rallied its allies behind the call for a European conference that would lead to a “collective” security system, presumably superseding the two military groupings. The July 1966 Bucharest declaration that called for a new framework, however, was not so much a Soviet accomplishment as that of Poland, the main champion of the conference, and especially Romania. Having appropriated, to the dismay of the Soviets, Khrushchev’s original idea of simultaneous dissolution of both alliances, the Romanians exacted from Moscow a deferment of its Warsaw Pact reorganization plans as the price of their consent to the declaration issued by the conference. By early 1967, Polish Foreign Minister Rapacki had managed to win the support of his Warsaw Pact colleagues for the so-called “Warsaw package,” in effect linking the progress of détente to Western acceptance of the territorial status quo, including the Polish and East German borders.

The 1968 Soviet crackdown in Czechoslovakia seemed to bury the package, but prospects for détente actually brightened in its aftermath. It was not the restoration of Soviet-style normalcy in the restive empire, however, but the persisting uncertainty about the way in which it had been attained that provided the necessary setting. The landmark meeting of Warsaw Pact representatives in Budapest in March 1969, which happened to coincide with the climax of armed confrontation along the Sino-Soviet border, reiterated the call for a European security conference—for the first time without preconditions. It also finally enacted most, but not all, of the institutional reforms Moscow had been striving for. The compromise consisted in adding military dimensions to the Warsaw Pact while giving its members a greater say in its councils, thus giving them more incentive to toe the Soviet line voluntarily.

As military conflict with China continued to loom, Moscow decided to supplement the normalization in Eastern Europe with the normalization of its relations with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Securing the Soviet Union’s European flank while demonstrating the Warsaw Pact’s unity was essential in view of the escalating tensions with China, as noted by Bernd Schaefer in his chapter on China and the CSCE. Selvage views the Soviet push for the security conference as an opportunity to reaffirm its hegemony over Eastern Europe. Détente entailed a calculated risk for the Soviet Union, as Marie-Pierre Rey notes in her chapter on its CSCE strategies. Opening the closed Soviet system to the West was bound to undermine it unl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• PART I Introduction
• PART II The superpowers and European détente
• PART III Eastern strategies in the CSCE
• PART IV Western strategies in the CSCE
• PART V The Neutrals – economics – military security