On September 30, the EU fact-finding mission published its report on the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008. The report argues that Russia is responsible for a number of illegal acts in Georgia’s conflict zones, but that the escalation to large-scale hostilities on 7 August came following Georgia’s decision to launch an attack on South Ossetia. Importantly, the report is also critical of the international community’s behavior in the run up to the war. Given the prominent role assumed by the EU during and after the war, as well as the broader ambitions of the EU to be a ‘global force for good’, emphasizing multilateralism and conflict-prevention, it is worth assessing the EU’s performance as a security actor in the run up to the conflict.

BACKGROUND: In August 2008 a short, but full-fledged, war between Russia and Georgia managed to shake the foundations of the post-Cold War security order. Relations between Russia and the West hit their lowest point in over two decades. But the war also constituted an impetus for more soul-searching among the main European security actors.

Since 2003 the EU has deployed an increasing number of instruments to promote conflict settlement in the South Caucasus. It appointed a special envoy to the region, tried to join the Russia-led conflict-settlement formats in South Ossetia as an observer and financed the rehabilitation of the conflicts zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Over the years, the EU spent over EUR 30 million before 2008 on post-conflict reconstruction around the conflict zones of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but failed to develop a political and security strategy vis-a-vis these conflicts. The EU spent money on the conflict zones in the hope of promoting reconciliation between the parties to the conflicts, but also to become more influential in the conflict resolution efforts.

However, the EU has been quite divided on its potential engagement in the South Caucasus. Some EU states feared that a greater EU role in the South Caucasus would complicate EU-Russia relations and wanted to avoid that nearly at any cost. Russia clearly opposed a greater EU role in conflict resolution. This internal and external opposition to a greater EU involvement in conflict resolution in Georgia resulted in a number of policy failures by the EU. The EU report, written by Heidi Tagliavini, refers to some of them en passant: “over the years there was a gradual increase in European involvement in Georgia, which may be called forthcoming in terms of economic aid, politically friendly on the bilateral side, cooperative but cautious on contentious political issues and … mostly distanced [from] sensitive security issues. A good case in point was the European reluctance to take over the Border Monitoring Mission on the Caucasus range facing Russia, after Russia had vetoed the hitherto OSCE engagement in 2004.”

Behind this carefully calibrated phrase lies the story of EU’s failure to engage in conflict resolution. In late 2004, Russia vetoed the extension of the mandate of the 150-strong OSCE border monitoring mission in Georgia. Tbilisi invited the EU to take over the international monitoring of the Georgia-Russian border. Back in 2005 France (which later led the peacekeeping effort in 2008) led the ‘Nyet’ camp with the diplomatic support of Spain, Italy, Greece and partly Germany against EU involvement in the messy Caucasian affairs. As a result, instead of the requested 150 monitors, the EU only sent 3 persons as part of a so-called EU Special Representative’s Border Support Team. The team was later extended to 12 persons. This clearly was the most important EU failure to deploy conflict prevention mechanisms in Georgia and engage in conflict settlement.

Throughout 2007-2008 the EU also tried to beef up the team with two police and two border liaison officers who were supposed to develop an institutionalized dialogue with Abkhazia and South Ossetia on police and border management related issues. Internal foot-dragging by some EU member states, concerned that this would irritate Russia (especially Greece), and subsequently the August 2008 war, disrupted the process of extending the EU border support team.

IMPLICATIONS: With the benefit of hindsight, one cannot help wonder whether the war would have occurred had there been a strong international presence on the ground (read an EU monitoring mission). Chances are it would not have.

The breakout of the war demonstrated the inadequacy of EU conflict prevention and management policies in the region. Despite significant funding disbursed to mitigate the consequences of the conflicts, EU assistance could not replace a political and security strategy for conflict prevention. The deterioration of the security situation on the ground quickly invalidated the potentially stabilizing effect of EU financial efforts to promote long-term conflict resolution. The EU’s long term approach to conflict resolution simply did not keep pace and was overturned by a rapid deterioration of the security situation on the ground, led by an ever more assertive Russia and a new government in Georgia that sought to unfreeze the conflict resolution processes.

In the end, the EU paid twice. After avoiding the deployment of 150 monitors in Georgia in 2005 in order not to irritate Russia, the EU ended up deploying close to 300 monitors in 2008 and paying close to EUR 1 billion to the international fund for post-conflict rehabilitation of Georgia. The war of 2008 became one of the worst crises in EU-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War.

Thus the EU’s involvement in Georgia’s conflicts is a clear-cut cut case of failure to use conflict-prevention strategies, one of the EU’s key declared foreign policy principles. The European security strategy also says that the EU “should be ready to act before a crisis occurs. Conflict prevention and threat prevention cannot start too early.”

A number of key lessons stem from the EU’s conflict prevention failure prior to the August 2008 conflict. First, ‘not irritating Russia” is not a policy. Security crises in the neighborhood such as in Georgia end up worsening EU relations with both Russia and its neighbors. The EU has to do what it takes to contribute to stability in the neighborhood, hence creating a basis for good relations with Russia as well as with the EU’s Eastern neighbors. Ignoring conflicts makes matters worse for all actors and processes involved, including the EU-Russia partnership. Conflicts need to be managed and prevented, and “avoiding irritation” is a poor excuse for inaction.

Second, it may be late to pursue conflict prevention in Georgia (though the EU can still help prevent new outbreaks of violence), but it is not late to engage in serious conflict prevention and/or management measures in Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Crimea. In the last two, there is little danger of war, and the EU’s preferred strategies of conflict prevention through socio-economic instruments are just the right thing to do.

Third, the EU monitoring mission in Georgia will have to stay engaged for the long term. International peacekeepers have been deployed in Cyprus for 35 years leaving room for wounds to heel and bona fide negotiations to be conducted.

CONCLUSIONS: The EU may not be to blame for the war in Georgia. However, some stock-taking and lessons for the EU as a conflict resolution actor are indispensable if the EU is to fulfill its ambition of being a foreign policy actor. A key EU failure in the South Caucasus was its inability to play any meaningful security or diplomatic role in Georgia’s conflicts. Fear of irritating Russia by some EU member states prevented the EU from acting as a force for conflict prevention in Georgia’s conflicts. The EU deployed some financial instruments to contribute to conflict settlement, but failed to produce a coherent political approach to the conflicts. Its failure to act – even in the field of soft security, such as through deploying border monitors – contributed to an environment where war became a distinct possibility.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Nicu Popescu is research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), London office, dealing with the Eastern neighborhood of the EU.