"We all have an equal interest in stability and security throughout Europe. The years the OSCE has existed, and particularly this year, have given rise to great expectations and at the same time to powerful disappointments"
About this Quote
Yeltsin speaks to a basic post-Cold War insight: European security is indivisible. Instability in one corner spills across borders through refugees, arms trafficking, economic shocks, and political radicalization. By invoking a shared and equal interest, he tries to pull security debates away from spheres of influence and toward a cooperative model embodied by the OSCE, the continent’s widest forum bringing together North America, the EU, Russia, and the newly independent states.
The line about expectations and disappointments captures the arc of the 1990s. The transformation from the CSCE’s Helsinki legacy into the OSCE raised hopes that an inclusive body, operating by consensus, could anchor a new order based on confidence-building, human rights, election monitoring, and conflict prevention. Summits in the mid-1990s, new missions in the Balkans and the post-Soviet space, and agreements like the Budapest Memorandum fed the belief that rules and dialogue might replace bloc politics.
Reality quickly undercut that optimism. The OSCE’s soft tools and unanimity rule limited its ability to stop wars in former Yugoslavia, to resolve “frozen” conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria, or to shape outcomes in Chechnya. Meanwhile, NATO operations and enlargement moved security decisions back into a military alliance that excluded Russia, fueling Moscow’s sense that the forum promising equality was being sidelined when it mattered most. For Yeltsin, who preferred the OSCE as the central pillar of European security precisely because it gave Russia a formal, equal voice, the gap between lofty mandates and meager leverage was especially galling.
The statement is both plea and critique. It affirms a common stake in stability while warning that expectations placed on an inclusive, norm-driven institution cannot be met if power politics bypass it. The enduring tension he names — between cooperative security ideals and the hard limits of enforcement and trust — remains a core dilemma of the European order born after 1989.
The line about expectations and disappointments captures the arc of the 1990s. The transformation from the CSCE’s Helsinki legacy into the OSCE raised hopes that an inclusive body, operating by consensus, could anchor a new order based on confidence-building, human rights, election monitoring, and conflict prevention. Summits in the mid-1990s, new missions in the Balkans and the post-Soviet space, and agreements like the Budapest Memorandum fed the belief that rules and dialogue might replace bloc politics.
Reality quickly undercut that optimism. The OSCE’s soft tools and unanimity rule limited its ability to stop wars in former Yugoslavia, to resolve “frozen” conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria, or to shape outcomes in Chechnya. Meanwhile, NATO operations and enlargement moved security decisions back into a military alliance that excluded Russia, fueling Moscow’s sense that the forum promising equality was being sidelined when it mattered most. For Yeltsin, who preferred the OSCE as the central pillar of European security precisely because it gave Russia a formal, equal voice, the gap between lofty mandates and meager leverage was especially galling.
The statement is both plea and critique. It affirms a common stake in stability while warning that expectations placed on an inclusive, norm-driven institution cannot be met if power politics bypass it. The enduring tension he names — between cooperative security ideals and the hard limits of enforcement and trust — remains a core dilemma of the European order born after 1989.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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