Publication titled Security Sector Reform: Global Case Studies

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Sec urity Sector Reform: Global Case Studies
S e c u r i ty
Sector
Reform
Global
C a s e
Studies
Róbert Ondrejcsák (Ed.)
Róbert Ondrejcsák (Ed.)
© Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs
Bratislava 2016
© Authors:
Róbert Ondrejcsák
Filip Ejdus
Maksym Bugriy and Hennadiy Maksak
Beáta Górka-Winter
Nodar Kharshiladze and Tornike Sharashenidze
Language corrector: Marek Šťastný
© Graphic design: Zuzana Chmelová
Printing: AMD plus, s. r. o.
With support of:
Security
Sector
Reform
Global
Case
Studies
Contents
Róbert ondrejCsák
Security Sector Reform in Slovakia with Focus on NATO and EU
Pre-accession Period
42
Filip Ejdus
Muddling Through a Rocky Road: Security Sector Reforms in Serbia
64
Maksym Bugriy
Hennadiy Maksak
The Initial Situation Before Conducting SSR in the Ukraine
98
Beata Górka-Winter
Security Sector Reform in Post-conflict Environment – The Case
of Afghanistan
120
Nodar Kharshiladze
Tornike Sharashenidze
Georgian Security Sector Reform
4
Security Sector Reform
in Slovakia with Focus on NATO and EU
Pre-accession Period
Róbert Ondrejcsák
S e c ur i ty S e c tor Re form : G lo bal Case Stud ies
5
5
Introduction: The initial situation
after Slovakia’s independence
in 1998 became the political driving force of integration to NATO and EU,
which was also supported by majority of intellectuals, cultural and academic
elites, urban population and the inhabitants of the capital, Bratislava. The
integration to the Alliance was also officially the goal of the government, led
by Vladimír Mečiar, but the real steps taken – both domestically and internationally – were contrary to the country’s official position.
The reason of focusing on pre-accession period of the Slovak security sector
reform and the era shortly after that is the determining influence of that period on the reforms carried out. Slovak Republic was established in 1993, as
one of the two successor states of former Czechoslovakia. The newly established country faced several challenges and key factors which determined its
overall strategic situation, as well as the context of the security sector. These
were as follows:
• Strategic and foreign policy orientation of the country
• Building independent statehood which included also institutions-building in the field of security
• Transition from communist legacy system, institutions and mindset to
a completely new one based on Western standards
The first vector – in accordance with the other V4 countries – was the socalled “Atlantic option”, it means the support for Slovakia’s integration to
NATO and gaining the guarantees of collective defence. The intellectual idea
behind it was that the Central European states, including Slovakia, belong to
the so-called Western world, culturally, politically and historically. That idea
was advocated by the majority of the then opposition parties, which later,
6
The two above-mentioned possibilities existed more on the level of academic debates and were supported by isolated groups. Moreover, they were not
real options carried out in practice. The “European option” ran aground on
the lack of Europe’s potential to autonomously guarantee the country’s security, while the Central European option – which proposed the creation of
kind of regional block – was even less realistic, because of total overestimation of the V4 states’ room for maneuver in strategic affairs.
S e c ur i ty S e c tor Re fo rm: Gl oba l Case Studies
In 1993, when Slovakia was established, one of the key questions which the
country faced was the overall strategic orientation. Unlike the cases of Poland,
Czech Republic and Hungary, where the ambition to integrate to so-called
“Western structures”, notably NATO and EU, were defined as a number one
strategic goal, with no relevant concurrent idea in political and public debates
and considerations, in Slovakia we experienced several competing vectors.
They in turn determined also the way of realization – or blockade – of the
country’s security sector reform. Theoretically one can identify several vectors – “Atlantic”, “neutrality”, “Central European”, “European” – but only the
first two were really significant in political and public discourse, with in-depth
influence.
The second vector “neutrality” was advocating Slovakia’s non-alignment and
joining of the “belt of neutral states”, notably Switzerland and Austria, in the
Central European space. Naturally, it also meant not joining NATO. While
officially the government took pro-integration stance, the real policies and
politics steered Slovakia towards a non-block status, a kind of neutrality –
some researchers say, the tendency was more towards a kind of gradual unofficial orientation towards Russia, rather than neutrality, an idea that could
be supported by numerous secret agreements signed with Moscow during
the Mečiar era. Besides that the representatives of the second coalition party
at the time, the Slovak National Party (SNS), used openly anti-NATO rhetoric
and advocated “eastern orientation”.
The domestic tensions over the foreign policy orientation were culminating, as it was also perceived as the struggle over the “civilizational choice”
of the country. At the end it led to the formation of broad anti-Mečiar coalition of right wing, liberal and left wing parties, which were able to defeat
Mečiar’s party HZDS in the 1998 parliamentary elections. It also meant that
the question of Slovakia’s strategic orientation was definitely answered –
even if almost a decade later than in the case of the other V4 neighbors and
at relatively high costs of polarization of the society. After overcoming the
7
sharp decline of public support for NATO membership caused by the Alliance’s operation in the Balkans in 1999, the level of public support remains
constantly relatively high, at over 60 percent in case of NATO membership
(against is less than 1/3 of the population), and there is no relevant political
party which advocated other than the “Atlantic option” for Slovakia’s foreign
and security policy orientation and identity (even the nationalist Slovak National Party, a very strong opponent of NATO membership remains relatively
reserved in its positions recently).
Slovakia also on concentrating station a sufficient number of military units
and military personnel on its territory.
The then federal army command realized this fact and by autumn 1992 the
army’s ranks decreased by 30,000 persons. A mass redeployment of military
units to the territory of Slovakia resulted in 40% of the total allocated there,
compared to 17% from the period before November 1989. Further development of the military policy depended on the political development in the
country after the elections in 1992 and the following division of the federation to Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The initial challenges
8
Slovak Security Policy from 1993 to 1997
First important moment of the post-communist security sector development
was the November 1989 decision of the leadership of the Czechoslovak People’s Army not to intervene in favor of the communists and its officers finally
pledged loyalty to the non-communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic,
which had existed for several months (Samson 1997). Subsequently after its
necessary de-politization and de-ideologization, pragmatic changes started
to be executed. As it concerns Slovakia, particularly after its peaceful split
from the Czech Republic, no substantial personnel changes took place and
armed forces in essence preserved the conventional political military thinking. Nevertheless, the deployment of the Czechoslovak army until 1989 in the
territory of Czechoslovakia, resulting from the (Moscow imposed) shared responsibilities executed by the army on the basis of the Warsaw Pact, did not
meet the “defence needs of the Slovak part of the Federation”, because while
in the Czech territory combat formations were concentrated, in the Slovak
territory training units and military schools were mostly temporarily deployed. Under the new conditions, such a deployment lost its original meaning, which was the reason why at the first stage of the post-revolutionary
changes strong pressure was exerted – not only on the reduction in forces
and the shortening of the length of the compulsory military service, but in
On one hand, the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia was accepted with a relief that local wars accompanying a decline of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia
had not spread to Central Europe, but on the other hand, it rendered Slovakia
almost unknown which was understood rather as an “east territory of the
Republic that had split”, what’s more, with an authoritarian Mečiar’s government, which has raised doubts abroad. Nevertheless, already on January 1,
1993, Slovakia became a member of CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), was diplomatically recognised by 62 states, and later
de facto by all the other countries. Already in January 1993, Slovakia became
a member of the World Bank, UNO, and on June 30 it was incorporated into
the Council of Europe. Moreover, on October 4, 1993 the association agreement with the European Union was signed in Bratislava.
An application for the succession after the Czechoslovak Federation, and
not for the succession after the Slovak Republic from the years 1939 to 1945,
had a significant importance for a fairly fast process of international diplomatic recognition of a new state (Duleba, Lukáč, and Wlachovský 1998, 11).
9
The achievement of independence and statehood accentuated own political
and national identity of Slovakia. The process of accession to international
organizations also meant a possibility that Slovakia might resign a part of
this new achieved sovereignty in the future. It was upon the political elite
of the country to decide whether it would interpret and present this process
to the public in a way leading either to integration or isolation (Bugajski and
Duleba 2001, 11). The fledgling political scene, limited experience of the new
state administration in statecraft, as well as under-institutionalization of the
new state’s policy caused that Slovakia had not avoided several mistakes, although it achieved fairly quickly a wide international recognition, similar to
that of its more experienced partners from the Visegrad Group. While in the
mentioned countries the basic objective of the political elite was the fastest
integration with the developed West, the Slovak elite concentrated on building-up of its own political and economic power, frequently in contradiction
to the principles of the Western integration processes. The integration into
European and Trans-Atlantic political, economic and security structures was
declared as a priority of the government, but the practical policy did not meet
this declaration. On the contrary, it was frequently in direct contradiction
with it (Duleba, Lukáč, and Wlachovský 1998, 12).
Furthermore, the Slovak Republic only concentrated on the fulfilment of
formal requirements related to the efforts at the integration into the EU and
10
One of the reasons why Slovakia at the beginning of 1993 started to lose an
easily won positive credit was the fact that the ruling political elite did not realize basic thesis that applies to foreign policy and in general: the integration
of Slovakia is not a primary responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
or diplomacy, and that domestic politics de-facto matters more. However
skilful the diplomacy is, it is unable to disguise the deficits of democracy,
social problems, non-compliance between legislation and its enforcement,
and many other aspects that push the state either “to Europe“, or in the opposite direction (Alner 2002, 46–47). Moreover, at that time, Slovakia had
not built the institutional basis of the foreign-policy service, did not have
a sufficient number of experienced diplomats, and had not formulated any
foreign-policy and security program (Bugajski and Duleba 2001, 11).
NATO. On October 27, 1993, the European Parliament in Strasbourg ratified
the European Agreement on the Association between the European Communities and the Slovak Republic. On February 9, 1994, in the NATO headquarter in Brussels, the former Prime Minister Mečiar signed the framework
political document on the accession of Slovakia to the Partnership for Peace
(PfP) project, and on June 27, 1995 in the EU Summit in Cannes, he submitted Slovakia’s official application for the accession to the EU. All this made
the impression that Slovakia regarded the integration process as a sport discipline – to be among the first who would formally apply for the participation in the integration projects, but without greater effort at fulfilment of the
commitments, which it entailed. The result of this approach was that at the
end of 1995 Slovakia had to repeatedly face criticism for its domestic policies that were expressed in the demarches by the EU and USA, and due to
the non-fulfilment of political criteria for membership in the Euro-Atlantic
structures (Slovakia) found itself outside of the mainstream of the European
integration processes. During the NATO summit in Madrid in July 1997 Slovakia – unlike Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic – was not invited to the
initial interviews on membership. Slovakia sustained a similar humiliating
defeat in December 1997 at the EU summit in Luxembourg, when it was classified to the second category of applicants for the membership. This given
that still in the period 1993 to 1994 Slovakia was classified in one group with
the other V4 countries (Marušiak, Duleba, and Bates-Melišová 2002, 347).
The surprisingly fast division of The Czech and Slovak Federal Republic had
a serious impact on the defence policy of Slovakia. In a very short period
of time, the Slovak Republic had not only to build the structures of Ministry of Defence from scratch, but also execute the reform of the Army of the
Slovak Republic, created on the basis of training units and military education schools of the federal army and units relocated to Slovakia in 1992. The
operation of the Slovak Army was based on the basic principles of security
policy contained within the Constitution of the Slovak Republic and from
the Defence Doctrine that was in force from 30 June 1992. This first politicalmilitary document expressed the basic conditions, objectives and principles
of activity of the state in the field of defence. It was the first official document in which the Slovak Republic defined its security-political orientation
11
to the Trans-Atlantic and Western European political, economic and security institutions. Slovakia clearly declared in this document that it did not
regard any state as its enemy or felt threatened by anybody (Ministry of Defense of SR 2002, 11).
coalition government started to persuade the citizens that Slovakia “did not
need the integration”, and that the “Western model” of the transformation
did not reflect the needs of the Slovak nation. By the end of 1995 the myth
about the “Slovak way of transformation” emerged as an excuse for the failure of the foreign policy and the integration ambitions of the Mečiar’s government. The leaders of the coalition parties (Movement for Democratic Slovakia, Slovak National Party, Association of Workers of Slovakia) called for
the neutrality of Slovakia and the controversies with the West logically made
the Slovak representatives approach Russia, which showed them its full support and understanding (Bugajski and Duleba 2001, 22).
In spite of the “double-track“ management of the Ministry of Defence – the
Minister of Defence Ján Sitek from the Slovak National Party that was against
NATO accession and its election programme had embraced neutrality, and
the programme declaration of the government that set NATO accession as
one of its priorities – at the time when Slovakia’s democratic governance was
questioned in Western democracies, the Slovak Army was a stable and quite
an apolitical institution on the background of the partiality and manifestations of the emotional chaos that were typical for the internal political development of the country (Samson 2000, 421–436).
The Army of the Slovak Republic that continually enjoyed the highest support of the population and that in the previous years was the flagship of the
integration started to lose its wind. The reform that was permanently attempted by each new management of the Ministry of Defence did not progress and the Slovak Republic appeared to be a “problem child” in the Central
European region” (Lukáč, Samson, and Duleba 2000, 368).
Slovak soldiers were involved in activities of the Partnership for Peace (PfP),
but also in peace-making operations under the aegis of UNO in the Balkans.
From 1 July 1993 the engineer troops operated within UNPROFOR in the
territory of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and from March 1996 in the
UNTAES mission in Eastern Slovenia. The preference given to the UNTAES
mission over IFOR under the aegis of NATO showed the true face of our integration policy and by all accounts was one of the notorious last straw that
caused the non-invitation of Slovakia to NATO in 1997 in Madrid.1
Slovak Security Policy after 1998
and the real launch of reforms
1 Slovakia has given preference to the UNTAES mission under the lead of UNO in the Eastern
Slovenia over the IFOR mission under the command of NATO. It was a very bad signal for NATO
because Slovakia that had been in this territory from 1993 and knew it well left the NATO units
in an unknown environment. The Major-General Ľudovít Gál, general director of the Section
of Integration and Foreign Relations of MoD of the Slovak Republic also expressed similar
views during the International Conference “Slovakia Belongs to NATO” on 26 October 2000 in
Bratislava (in Holotňák, M., Olexa, M.: Proceedings of the International Conference “Slovakia
Belongs to NATO”, Bratislava, 2001, p. 61).
12
The internal politics of the government of Vladimír Mečiar in the period from
1994 to 1998 caused that Slovakia failed not only in its integration policy toward NATO and the EU but also found itself in international isolation. The
The parliamentary elections in 1998 and the new government headed by
Mikuláš Dzurinda meant the turn in the foreign and security policy of Slovakia. The primary objective of the foreign policy of the new Slovak government was to win back the confidence of the EU and NATO countries and
subsequently catch up with other Visegrad countries in the process of integration into the most important European and Trans-Atlantic groupings
as soon as possible. The primary task of the Dzurinda government was to
promptly correct the negative image of Slovakia abroad and put an end to
the international isolation to which Slovakia was pushed in the years 1994
13
to 1998 by the then coalition government headed by the prime minister and
the chairman of the Movement for Democratic Slovakia Vladimír Mečiar
(Bruncko and Lukáč 2000, 326).
a document that contained several dozens of tasks but without specification of deadlines, personal responsibility for their fulfilment, and financial
calculations. It addressed a “vision” of reform rather than the reform itself.
Moreover, in that period the Slovak Republic still had not elaborated basic
strategic documents clearly defining its vital interests, security threats and
corresponding security and defence policy of the state for the achievement
of strategic objectives. By the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001 the
Slovak Republic was criticized by the Alliance for the situation in the armed
forces, their slow and lengthy reform, low morale of the management of the
Ministry, absence of defence planning and unrealistic plans that it presented
and their conflict with declared priorities of the state.
The vision of NATO membership became the most important driving force
of the in-depth security sector reform. In June 1999 the Slovak government
reacted to NATO MAP (Membership Action Plan) by the adoption of the Programme of the Preparation of the Slovak Republic for the Accession to NATO
(PRENAME). The effective coordination of this Programme was supported
by the resolution of the Slovak Government passed in 1999. In this way the
tools for the implementation of MAP in conditions of Slovakia were created
and conditions for the monitoring of the preparatory process on the part
of NATO fulfilled (Bugajski and Duleba 2001, 25). In relation to its integration ambitions, the Slovak Republic was put before the task to systematically
master two mutually complementary processes – to start the transformation
of the armed forces and ensure the overall preparation of Slovakia to the
membership in NATO. The new political situation after the elections in 1998
allowed to take fundamental measures aimed to reverse the negative development in the sector of defence, resulting from its long-term undercapitalization and from transformation failures, and hence to avoid its potential collapse. However, the result was the adoption of the Conception of the reform
of the Ministry of Defence for 2002 (with outlook until 2010) in October 1999,
14
The first official trip of the new prime minister of the Slovak Republic led to
Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union and NATO, which should
have signaled the new orientation of the Slovak foreign policy. In spite of the
positive impression from the arguments presented by the Slovak Republic
(public support of the accession to NATO and the compatibility of the Army
of the Slovak Republic with the Alliance forces) the very short period that
elapsed from the changes in the country could not convince the Alliance
to include Slovakia among the new NATO member countries already at the
Washington summit. It was important though that after the Washington
summit the way for the country’s accession to NATO remained open and Slovakia was allowed to start the difficult fight for the restoration of its starting
position from 1993.
The first real success of the new government in this field was the approval
of three strategic documents (the Security Strategy, the Defence Strategy, and
the Military Strategy) on the basis of a wide consensus that allowed it to
pursue the legislative and conceptual changes. In compliance with the military strategy, the document The Slovak Republic Armed Forces – Model 2010
and the following Long-term Plan of the Structure and Development of the
Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic were drawn up. The Long-Term Plan
became a historic landmark of the radical change in the reform of the country’s armed forces because it was the first reform document that also dealt
with costs incurred by the reform and modernization, including the change
to smaller professional armed forces capable of deployment, replacement of
the obsolete military equipment and the enhancement of the operational
readiness aimed at the achievement of NATO standards. Prior to that all attempts at the reform of armed forces in Slovakia failed because the reform
conceptions were not connected with a qualified quantification of required
costs.
In the area of foreign policy, just after the Washington summit, the Slovak
Government confirmed its resolution to behave as a de-facto NATO member
when it opened the Slovak territory and the air space for the logistics support for the NATO operation during the Kosovo crisis. No less important task
of both governments after 1998 was the fulfilment of all criteria required for
the accession to the European Union in 2004 together with the other three
15
The development of the European defence project in the last decade and the
significant decrease of Euro-autonomous tendencies – connected with political and leadership changes in France, but also in Germany – solved the
country’s dilemma in favor of Atlanticism (even if it wasn’t a real dilemma in
case of Slovakia).
The accession of the Slovak Republic to the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance
on 29 March 2004 and to the European Union on 1 May 2004 brought fundamental change for the Slovak Republic in terms of its foreign policy and security position. The full-fledged membership in NATO gives Slovakia “hard
security guarantees”, while the membership in the EU in turn is regarded as
providing “soft security guarantees”. Furthermore, the integration into the
Euro-Atlantic security and European political structures creates favorable
conditions for the successful solution of Slovak Republic’s security concerns.
It also defines new security tasks that however no longer have a purely national character, but affect other member states (Korba and Šťastný 2004,
462–463). In this context, questions appeared with regard to the approach
Slovakia would apply to these tasks: first, the dilemma between active and
passive approach to security crises, and second, between so-called “Euro-Atlantic” and “Euro-autonomist” strategic orientation of Slovakia (Korba and
Šťastný 2004, 462–463). As the years after Slovakia’s accession showed, both
questions were clearly answered – by deploying significant contingents of
troops to missions abroad, by which Slovakia committed itself to the active
approach, and also has managed to be a part of the pro-Atlantic rather than
Euro-autonomist group of European countries.
Overview of Slovakia’s strategic
documents 1993–2005
However, the distribution of forces among particular missions abroad was
not always logical from the perspective of Slovak strategic interests – East
Timor, Eritre/Ethiopia, most recently Cyprus – and last NATO’s operation
in Afghanistan were the most important operations for the Slovak Armed
Forces.
16
countries of the Visegrad Group. Slovakia succeeded in achieving this objective and completed the accession negotiations with the EU during the Copenhagen summit. From the security point of view, in its programme declaration from November 2002, the government supported a wider involvement
of Slovakia in the erection of the European security pillar – the European
Security and Defense Policy of the EU. However it understands the European
policy as increasing of the responsibility of the EU member states in security
within the framework of the strategic alliance with USA and Canada as part
of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance framework.
During the analyzed period, the Slovak Republic has adopted the following
open (publicly available) security documents of strategic security character
• SR Defence Doctrine (adopted in 1994, ceased to be valid in 2001)
• Basic Principles and Aims of National Security of the SR (adopted in 1996,
ceased to be valid in 2001)
• SR Security Strategy 2001 (adopted by Parliament on 27. 3. 2001 – replacing
the Basic Principles and Aims of National Security)
• SR Defence Strategy 2001 (adopted by Parliament on 25. 5. 2001 – replacing
the SR Defence Doctrine)
• SR Military Strategy 2001 (adopted by Parliament on 25. 10. 2001)
• SR Security Strategy 2005 (approved by Government on July 13th 2005,2
replacing the Security Strategy 2001.
• SR Defence Strategy 2005 (approved by Government on July 13th 2005, 3
replacing the Defence Strategy 2001 and the Military Strategy 2001
2 http://www.rokovania.sk/appl/material.nsf/0/25EE0E111893509BC1257034003C3161?OpenDo
cument
3 http://www.rokovania.sk/appl/material.nsf/0/07934884E18441EBC12570380033E95F?OpenD
ocument
17
The Defence Doctrine of the Slovak Republic (1994)
Following the division of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the Slovak
Republic as the successor had to ensure its acceptance not only within the
framework of Slovak political spectrum (due to some sentiment for the federation), but also as the subject of international relations. This was manifested
in having to respond to the challenges, which have resulted from the relations with neighboring countries (dispute on the completion of Gabčíkovo
water works and the lawsuit in Haag, modernization of Jaslovské Bohunice
nuclear power plant, completion of Mochovce nuclear power plant etc.).
The 1994 Defence Doctrine of the Slovak Republic was rather a document
which was approaching the western understanding of defence strategy. In
it, the relation to the integration processes to the EU and NATO was characterized rather in general. In its approach to NATO, in its introduction it is
quoted that it is the security-political document expressing the conditions,
aims and principles of military-security policy of Slovakia for the period of
its participation in the program of Partnership for Peace. NATO is considered
in the document as the decisive and the most effective security organization,
and the gaining of full membership in NATO is considered as the basic orientation of security policy. In relation to EU, it is concisely stated that the endeavor of integration, expressed by the signing of the European Agreement
on Accession [the country] is acquiring also the security dimension.4 From
the view of use of the army, it is aimed only at the defence of independence,
sovereignty, and inviolability of borders of the Slovak Republic. From the
perspective of the integration process and tasks of the Partnership for Peace,
a standpoint was missing as regards the participation in peace missions, and
various other forms of cooperation of the armies. This task is mentioned
partially only in Chapter IV as the activity within the framework of missions
of international peace forces (not specifically NATO).
On June 30, 1994, the National Council has approved the Slovak Republic Defence Doctrine and in 1996 it has taken note of the Basic Aims and Principles
of National Security of the Slovak Republic. Both documents have signaled
progress in that they have become security-political documents of strategic
importance, and for the first time since the origin of the Slovak Republic
they have tried for a complex view of the problems of security and defence.
However, they were prepared by a narrow group of people from the Ministry
of Defence, without consultation with academics, independent experts and
non-governmental organisations. For this reason, as well as from the view
of existing political development, they did not exceed certain narrow context of understanding of security and defence due to the short period of time
since the establishment of the Slovak Republic and the constellation of the
political scene of that period.
18
1993 was the year of creation of the Army of the Slovak Republic, and for understandable reasons, the main endeavour was aimed at the creation of new
structures, delimitation of personnel and materiel from the army of the Federal Republic. Furthermore, it was necessary to form the headquarters of
the Slovak Army, as well as the Ministry of Defence. Theoretical works have
started on the strategic documents, two of which were officially approved by
the National Council of the Slovak Republic in the period from 1994 to 1996.
4 Defence doctrine of SR, Chapter II. There, the support for strengthening of European security
and defence identity is expressed, however, this was the concept used within the framework
of NATO.
19
Basic Principles and Aims of Slovakia’s
National Security 1996
Basic aims and principles of national security of the Slovak Republic were
prepared under the management of the Ministry of Defence, and it can be
concluded that in that period the problems of security was connected with
a much narrower understanding of security – as ensuring defence. The next
documents that followed were approved exclusively by the “Defence State
Council”. One such a document was “Strategic Concept of Defence” (which
was the basis for the Concept of Army’s construction to 2000) replaced by
the “National Defence Strategy” (restricted document as the basis for “Long
Term Plan of Slovak Army Development) (Nečej 2004).
Basic principles and aims of Slovakia’s National Security 1996 was a document prepared in the period when the country suffered democratic deficits
and the foreign-policy orientation has become hard to read. The most attention in the document is devoted to the definition of national interest5 and the
factors, which influence its realization.
In comparison with the Defence Doctrine, it was less specific as far as at
the expression of relation of Slovakia with NATO and the European Union.
What’s more, concrete measures towards the accession process both to NATO
as well as to the European Union have disappeared. Only in the aims section,
third listed task was characterized as the “creation of conditions for gradual
integration of the Slovak Republic into the transatlantic and European collective political, security, economic structures and institutions”, but none
of the institutions was mentioned by name. In addition to that, creation of
these conditions was questionable, as it is known that due to its own shortcomings, Slovakia was not invited to join the Alliance in 1997 together with
the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.
Development after 1998 – a watershed
in integration process
5 The national interest – in comparison with later documents – was relatively narrowly characterised as the safeguarding of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of
borders, security, economic prosperity and international recognition of the Slovak Republic
(Basic principles and aims of national security of the SR, Chapter I)
20
Of note is also the fact that the Defence Doctrine was prepared and approved
in 1994, but the Basic Aims and Principles of National Security as late as 1996,
when the logic would suggest a different order. Thus the defence strategy has
superseded the analysis of national security and determination of its aims.
In the period 1998–2001, on the basis of Program Declaration of the Government of the Slovak Republic from 1998, the elaboration of strategic documents has commenced – namely the Security Strategy of the Slovak Republic, the Defence Strategy of the Slovak Republic, and the Military Strategy
of the Slovak Republic. A need to prepare these documents was underlined
by the fact that the priorities defined in previous documents were not realized, as well as that in spite of their certain strategic aim, it was necessary to
characterize more unequivocally the security environment, the security challenges, risks and threats, and the resulting interests of the Slovak Republic.
Preparation of these documents was also a reaction to the non-inclusion of
the Slovak Republic among the newly accepted members of NATO. The fact
that no documents of strategic importance were elaborated and approved
by the National Council of the Slovak Republic as consensus-based materials necessary for further development has influenced negatively also the
endeavor of the MoD to prepare the Integrated Army Development Program
to 2010 with the perspective to 2015, which was not approved.
21
Incompatibility of previous documents adopted in Slovakia with new challenges and threats has expressed itself distinctly after the Washington NATO
summit in 1999. The Strategic Conception of North Atlantic Alliance has
brought a new view to the developing security environment, security challenges and risks and thereby also to the approach towards security in the 21st
century. The Slovak government has reacted by approving – immediately after the Washington summit – the program of preparation for membership
in NATO, PRENAME, and the National Action Plan of Membership. The entire Action Plan of Membership in NATO, adopted at the Washington summit, has for the field of defence stipulated that the aspiring countries shall
identify themselves with the strategy of the Alliance in the way as it is expressed in the Strategic Conception, and that at the accession to NATO, they
shall be able to provide forces and means for collective defence and other
Alliance tasks, with adequate participation in its structures.
of reaching political consensus, the conclusion was accepted that parliamentary approval is unavoidable, as it guarantees a higher transparency and
at the same time the continuity of security policy also following a change of
government after the elections.6
The Security Strategy 2001
The Security Strategy of the Slovak Republic 2001 has originated as the first
complete “umbrella” document, which was followed by the defence strategy
and the military strategy. Its approach to the assessment of security environment, security risks, threats and challenges was based on the approach of
the Strategic Concept of NATO. In comparison with previous documents, the
strategy has recorded a shift in the definition of Slovakia’s interests, which
were divided into the vital and important ones. The membership in NATO
and the EU was included as one of the vital interests.7 This strategy for the
first time defines the security policy of the Slovak Republic and the requirements for its security system. It expresses an active approach to the shaping of the security environment and to the building of capability to respond
to the risks and threats. From the view of integration to the Euro-Atlantic
structures, the accession to NATO prevails in the strategy over accession to
the EU. This fact has undoubtedly influenced the situation in the accession
In the beginning of deliberations on strategic documents, in the forefront
was the question of who should approve them – the National Council, or the
government. Slovakia received words of caution during, inter alia, international seminars also of possible time delays in case of submission of these
documents to the parliament (Majority of countries had these documents
approved only at the level of government). From the perspective of the need
22
In that period it started to be clear that the Slovak Republic is exposed to the
same threats as the other countries of the Euro-Atlantic space, and the need
for gaining security guarantees through membership in NATO ceased to be
only a rhetorical question. However, the changes in the security environment have influenced also the need for reconstruction of the entire security
system, including the armed forces. All the endeavors that came before with
regard to reconstruction of the armed forces have failed, and in 2000 and
at the beginning of 2001 the Slovak Republic was criticized by the Alliance
for the state of the armed forces, for their slow and lengthy reform, as well
as for the absence of security planning and conflicts of plans with the proclaimed priorities of state (Army of the SR 2001; MoD SR 2001; Department
of defence 2001).
6Present constitutional Act on Security and the Act on Defence of the SR already determine
specifically that the National Council approves the strategic documents and the developmental programs in the field of security and defence (note of the author)
7 The last paragraph of Article 7 of the Security Strategy of SR states as one of the vital interests:
“The maintaining of peace and stability in Central Europe, connected with the expansion of
the zone of democracy, security and prosperity, including the full membership of Slovakia in
the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union”
23
Defence Strategy and Military Strategy 2001
Transfer of stability through the enlargement of NATO and its PfP, as well
as EAPC is considered a decisive factor for the formation of European security environment. The forming of security and defence policy of the EU is
considered as a complementary process to the system of collective defence
of NATO (Security Strategy of the SR 2001, art. 4). Therefore also in the action part of the document, a bigger accent is put on the reform of the defence system and the armed forces, so that they would be interoperable with
the armed forces of NATO (Security Strategy of the SR 2001, art. 58).9 The European Union is rather viewed as a factor for stability and the performance
and security of the economy. In relation to the common European security
and defence policy of the EU, it states that Slovakia, as an associated country,
shall look for the possibilities of its share in it (especially with regards to solution of emergency situations, with accent on operations of humanitarian
character). In internal security, the strategy is aimed at the harmonization
of alien and asylum policy with the policy of EU and the realization of the
requirements of Schengen agreement (in connection with uncontrollable
migration) (Security Strategy of the SR 2001, art. 53 and 62).
The defence and military strategies, based on the security strategy, have
elaborated its conclusions with the accent on the forming of aims of the
defence policy and the definition of strategic aims of the armed forces. The
basic goal was to ensure an effective defence of the Slovak Republic by own
forces before the invitation to NATO, and at the same time to ensure the fulfilment of military-political criteria for the entry to NATO. For the armed
forces it meant creating the preconditions for future activity both within the
framework of NATO and within the framework of the forming European security and defence policy (Defence strategy of the SR 2001, art. 19). For the
reasons discussed above, it was determined that priority programs were considered those directly connected with the compatibility and interoperability
with NATO, including the earmarking of financial means (Military strategy
of the SR 2001, part III). Equally it was stipulated to maintain high readiness
forces at minimum at the level of battalion for the needs of state defence,
prevention of conflicts and contribution to an entire spectrum of NATO operations (including collective defence). The forces of lower readiness at minimum on the level of brigade were to be able, in addition to operations of defence of the state, to contribute to operations within the framework of article
5 of the Washington Treaty. In addition, attention was paid to host support
(Military strategy of the SR 2001, chap. IV) No concrete contribution to ESDP
was mentioned in these documents.
8 On the basis of approval of the national program PRENAME, the cycle of preparations has
started in October 1999 for the admission to NATO. The meeting of NAC NATO has approved
the introductory phase in April 2000. In accordance with the conclusions of the NAC meeting
in the format 19+SR in April 2001, the disproportions were criticised among the aims of MAP
and the results of transformation in the field of defence. (note of the author)
9Identically, in articles 59–61, which are devoted to the integration to Euro-Atlantic political
and security structures, the membership in NATO is characterised as an optimum variant for
the achievement of effective security guarantees. The accent is put on the realisation of NP
PRENAME and the completion of building of an interoperable defence system after obtaining
membership in NATO
24
process to NATO when this integration started to be hampered (if not endangered) by the stagnating reform of the Army of the Slovak Republic.8
A more concrete formulation of the relation to the EU was included in the
amendment to the Constitution of the Slovak Republic in 2001, adding: “The
Slovak Republic may, through an international agreement, which shall have
been ratified and promulgated in the way stipulated by law, or on the basis of
this agreement, to transfer the performance of a part of its rights to the European Communities and the European Union. Legally binding acts of the EC
and the EU shall have precedence over the acts of the Slovak Republic (Constitution of the SR, art. 7 paragraph 2).
25
Preparation of strategic documents
after Joining NATO and EU
strategic security documents of the NATO and the EU shall enable the fulfilment of commitments resulting from the Slovak Republic’s membership in
them. The update of the aims of the defence policy included stipulations for
ensuring the building and development of armed forces of the Slovak Republic preferably to be capable of fulfilling the tasks of defence of the state and
participating in operations of NATO, and ensuring an active and effective
participation of the Slovak Republic and its armed forces in the creation and
realisation of the European security and defence policy, while maintaining
complementarity with NATO.11 In comparison with previous strategic documents, more concrete positions can be seen towards the NATO and the EU,
while maintaining the long-term orientation known as “NATO first”. As for
the change of character of defence, it is reflected in the shift from the model
of territorial defence to the defence of interests, where the defence of territory is covered by common defence according to article 5 of the Washington
Treaty, and it is also presumed that Slovak Republic shall have a share in the
operations outside the Euro-Atlantic space and outside article 5. The document assumes strengthening of cooperation in the field of security and defence policy of the EU, outlining certain specifics.12 From the view of impact
on the reform of armed forces, the document considers it necessary to take
into account effective utilization of common defence within the framework
of NATO, to develop and structure the armed forces in favor of NATO structures. On the basis of the above, also financial priorities are assumed, as well
as the creation of military capacities of the EU shall be taken into account.13
On the basis of admission to NATO and the EU, it was assumed that new
documents shall be prepared and approved by the parliament in the course
of 2004. In view of the delay in the preparation of the “umbrella” document –
the Security Strategy, entire work was postponed for 2005.
Directive for Defence Policy 2004
This document has undertaken a re-evaluation of strategic documents for
the field of security and defence of state in such a way that they shall respond to changes of the security environment, and in accordance with the
10 The purpose of the Directive is to “In connection with changes of the security environment and
qualitatively new tasks, which result for the Slovak Republic’s membership in NATO and the EU, to
specify the political-defence framework for a strategic re-evaluation of the defence of state, including the definition of key fields and requirements of defence policy for the creation of new strategic,
conceptual and planning documents in the field of defence of state.” http://www.mosr.sk/documenty/smernica_ob_pol.pdf
26
During the entire time after accession, the Ministry of Defence was under
the pressure of requirements from NATO, especially due to the fact that it was
given new tasks – Force Goals 2004. As a result the need has arisen to review
the Long-Term Plan of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic Structure
and Development 2010, and the Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic
commenced the preparation of Long-term Plan of Development of the MoD
with Outlook to 2015, substantiated by the changed requirements of NATO,
especially in connection with the Force Goals 2004. A certain starting point
was the preparation of the “Directive for Defence Policy”, approved by the
government in June 2004. The Directive was “to bridge” the deficits of new
strategic documents for security and defence of the Slovak Republic, first
of all the Security Strategy of the Slovak Republic and the Defence Strategy
of the Slovak Republic, which would respond to the changed security environment and new tasks, resulting for the Slovak Republic’s membership in
NATO and the EU.10
11Ibid, article 3.1 “Updating of aims of the defence policy.”
12Ibid, article 3. 4. 1 point c) “European Union, which shall strengthen the cooperation in the field of
security and defence policy and the solidarity; in internal and penal matters, it shall widen the possibilities, which can be used by the Slovak Republic for the defence and protection of its interests,
first of all in situations and regions, where NATO shall not be engaged.”
13Ibid, article 3. 4. 3 – changes in the process of reform of the armed forces of SR, point c). “in
this context, the fulfilment of commitments of the Slovak Republic against the NATO (Forces Goals
2004, PCC) is to be considered as the key priorities within the framework of financial coverage of
further process of reform of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic; however, it is necessary to
take into account also the conclusions resulting for the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic from
the process of creation of the military capacities of EU on the basis of the initiative of Headline Goal
2010.
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Security Strategy of the Slovak Republic 2005,
Defence Strategy of the Slovak Republic 2005
is acquiring the guarantees of political and economic stabilization and the
possibility of a share in the European security and defence policy (Security
strategy of the SR 2005, art. 10–11). In comparison with the Security Strategy
2001, active attitude of security policy against NATO and the EU are formulated in more concrete terms.
Both documents were elaborated in the same period and jointly submitted
to the Security Council of the Slovak Republic, to the Slovak government, as
well as for approval by the Slovak National Council. Both documents were approved by the Government on July 13Th 2005 and submitted to the Parliament.
NATO remains the main platform for development of cooperation in the
Euro-Atlantic space, and the Strategy underlines the need to preserve its internal unity, and the need of transformation and adaptation to new security
threats. The Strategy at the same time expresses an active approach to further development in NATO (Security strategy of the SR 2005, art. 68).15 In relation to the EU, an active attitude is expressed toward the joint creation and
implementation of Common Foreign and Security Policy and the building of
capacities of the European Security and Defence Policy, while maintaining
the complementarity with NATO (Security strategy of the SR 2005, art. 69).16
The Security Strategy of the Slovak Republic 2005 takes into account the
essential changes of the security environment and new commitments of
the Slovak Republic after the accession to NATO and the EU. In comparison
with the Security Strategy 2001, this shift is visible in the defined interests
of the Slovak Republic. The document specifically states: “The support of
the transatlantic alliance and the support for enlargement of NATO and
the EU remains the basic matter.14 In addition, the country’s position in the
security environment is understood in connection with the Euro-Atlantic
space, where the safety and stability of the Slovak Republic is guaranteed by
the allied commitments as part of NATO system of collective defense. The
document further states that… “with its entry to the EU, the Slovak Republic
14 Security strategy of the SR 2005, chapter 1, point 5 states among the interests: “to strengthen
the transatlantic strategic partnership, to be a joint guarantor of security of the allies; to improve the efficiency of international organisations, the member of which is also the Slovak
Republic, and to support the enlargement of NATO and EU.”
28
These documents were sufficiently interconnected and they address the
basic problems in the field of security and defence of the Slovak Republic,
being approved one year prior to the end of mandate of the governmental
coalition, their realization to a considerable degree left for the subsequent
government. However, their vulnerability was reduced and chances for acceptance increased by the fact that they were being approved by the parliament. In case of such a wide consensus, their realization can be problem-free
in spite of the fact that their binding character has until now not been sufficiently defined.
15 “Slovak Republic shall support transformation and adaptation of NATO to new kinds of threats
and challenges. It shall reform and build its security system in such a way, which enables the SR to
contribute to the development of required capabilities of NATO, including the participation in the
missions and operations of the Alliance outside the territory of its member countries. The SR shall
consider also in the future the enlargement of NATO as a way of strengthening the zone of security
and stability in the Euro-Atlantic space. The SR shall develop cooperation with countries involved
in the Euro-Atlantic partner structures and countries of the Mediterranean-Sea Dialogue and the
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The Slovak Republic shall support common meetings of NATO and
the EU at high level, as well as day-to-day working meetings as the expression of their key strategic
partnership. It shall support the development of an effective dialogue and cooperation of NATO
with further international institutions, first of all with the UN and the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe.
16 “Slovak Republic shall actively jointly form and implement the Common Foreign and Security Policy
of the EU. The SR shall contribute to the realisation of aims of European integration and the creation
of civilisation, civil, legal, internal-security and economic space, which shall be capable of own dynamic permanently sustainable development. The SR shall enforce the fulfilment of aims stipulated in
the European Security Strategy and it shall strengthen the capacities of crisis management with the
aim to contribute to the operations and missions led by the EU. It shall support the building of operating capacities of European security and defence policy, so that they are complementary to the
capacities of NATO. In accordance with the clause of solidarity of the EU, the SR shall help the countries attacked or threatened by terrorist attacks and hit by natural disasters. The SR shall support
the development of activities of the European Defence Agency, with an accent to full engagement
of the Slovak industrial and technological base to the building of European defence market. The SR
shall support further enlargement of the EU, which is one of the most effective ways to overcome the
instability and achieve the prosperity of unified Europe. The SR shall contribute to the creation and
realisation of common internal security policy, and asylum, migration and visa policies.”
29
In comparison with previous strategic documents, two elements become
evident in the strategic orientation, which were not mentioned before. It concerns a special position of relations of the Slovak Republic with the USA,
where the US is characterized as the strategic ally (Security strategy of the SR
2005, art.73), and the formulation of position to “ad-hoc coalitions” (Security strategy of the SR 2005, art. 63)17 Although the Security Strategy 2001 did
not consider ad-hoc coalitions, Slovakia has sent an engineer unit of armed
forces of the Slovak Republic to the operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, where it was fulfilling the tasks under the coalition command since
September 8, 2002. Another operation which saw the country’s participation
was the operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. On May 12, 2003, the Ministry of
Defence of the Slovak Republic received the invitation from Poland to take
part in a multinational division within the framework of stabilization forces
in the Iraqi Republic. On the basis of resolution of the National Council No.
332 from 19 June 2003, an engineer unit was sent to this operation with unlimited mandate concerning the length of deployment.
17 The response of the SR to new security threats and the unpredictability of security environment shall be also the support for a purposeful formation of political or military partnerships
and coalitions with the aim to discourage these possible threats or to defend against them
effectively.
30
The building of capabilities respects the order of priority of the commitments to NATO18 and envisions the increasing of the level of applicability
and operational readiness of the armed forces through the Defence Planning
harmonized with the NATO Defence Planning. These priorities were also
outlined in the plan of the utilization of the armed forces. According to the
Defence Strategy, the armed forces should be used (The SR Defence Strategy
2005, Art. 25):
• Within full scope in high-intensity operations for the defence of the Slovak Republic;
• Within a very large scale by the provision of forces up to the size of a brigade
in high-intensity allied operations for the collective defence in NATO,
• Within a large scale by the provision of forces the size of a battalion in common operations conducted without geographical limits under the command of NATO,
• Within a medium scale in the size of a motorized battalion in operations
for the support of peace under the command of NATO or the EU,
• Within a small scale in operations for the support of peace and humanitarian operations under the command of UNO, EU or an international coalition in the form of a long-term contribution the size of a platoon.
The Defence Strategy 2005 replaced the Defence and Military Strategy during the period of the transition from individual to collective defence and
concentrates the attention of the Slovak Republic as a member of the North
Atlantic Alliance and the European Union to the fulfilment of the commitments and to the effective utilization of possibilities provided to it by the
membership in these organizations. It elaborates the conclusions of Security
Strategy with regard to issues of defence. According to Article 12 “it will implement the basic objective of the defence policy of the Slovak Republic from
the position of the Euro-Atlantic orientation. The membership in NATO and
the EU is regarded as decisive in terms of guarantees for the country’s security. It agrees with primary objectives and functions that result from the
NATO Strategic Conception and from the European Security Strategy. This orientation gives rise to two out of four primary objectives of the defence policy (The Defence Strategy 2005, art. 18).
• To fulfil all commitments of the NATO member,
• To fulfil commitments of the EU member within the framework of the
European Security and Defence Policy.
18 Before the end of 2010 to adequately contribute to the defence capabilities of the collective defence of NATO and to military capabilities of the EU; by 2015 to increase the ability to
make full-fledged contributions within NATO and the EU to the prevention of conflicts and
the solution of global crises; after 2015 to achieve the level of applicability to the wide range
of operations of NATO and other international organisations (The SR Defence Strategy 2005,
Art. 21).
31
In comparison with the Defence Strategy 2001 and the Military Strategy
2001 the tasks resulting from the membership in NATO and EU are specified
and better react to the European Security Strategy and the European Security
and Defence Policy. Already in the period of the preparation of the Defence
Strategy 2005 the Slovak Republic took into account the fact that in December 2003 the EU Security Strategy was adopted and that on the basis of the
new ambition defined therein the Headline Goal 2010 (HG 2010) was drawn
up. During 2004 the Slovak Republic started to reassess its existing contribution for the purposes of the EU military crisis management. This was due to
two main reasons: first, the Slovak Republic declared at the political level
that it would reserve for the purposes of the EU equal forces and resources as
it reserved for NATO. At the same time, on 23 June 2004 the Resolution of the
Government No. 608/2004 approved the “Force Goals 2004” and the subsequent Resolution of the Government No. 133 from 25 February 2003 changed
the timetable of the implementation of the reforms. As a result, a motorized
battalion team, the RCHBO battalion, the movement control team (all from
the year 2008), as well as 4 Mi-17 helicopters (from 2007) were provided for
EU military crisis management for the purpose of the performance of tasks
within the European Security and Defence Policy.
32
One of the biggest present challenges of the political elite as well as expert
community in Slovak strategic thinking is to prepare new security policy
documents, notably Security and Defence and/or Military Strategy. As mentioned above, the currently available ones were adopted in 2005 and are
limited in their depth, scope and approach to current realities. While this
fact is widely known by the expert community, the media, and partially also
by the political elite, there was no critical mass of pressure to persuade the
decision-makers to launch the process of preparation of new strategic documents. This will be one of the most important tasks of the new Slovak government which will emerge from the parliamentary election in March 2016
(Ondrejcsák 2014).
In 2004 the Slovak Republic started to pay more attention to the issues of the
EU civilian crisis management and its potential involvement in this area. This
specific area of specialization is more difficult than military crisis management which is also documented by the deliberations of the Slovak Government on this issue from 10 November 2004: “While in the framework of the
EU military crisis management the objectives and priorities are fairly clearly
defined the area of the civil crisis management remained underdeveloped
and the capacity rather non-transparent for a long period.” In the framework of the preparation to the EU Conference on Capacity of Civil Crisis
Management that was held on 22 November 2004 the Slovak Republic analyzed its potential participation in this type of operations. However, during
the process of preparation of Slovakia’s contribution, several problems were
identified that presently do not allow the Slovak Republic to declare with
responsibility such contribution that would adequately correspond to its actual possibilities and position within the EU.
Although the Slovak Republic has been involved in the EU civilian crisis management since 1993 in the form of the participation in the Monitoring Mission (ECMM) and in 2000 (and repeatedly in May 2001), it officially declared
its commitment to reserve for the EU the capacity of 50 police personnel no
later than by the end of 2003, however it did not fulfil this commitment by
the end of 2004.19 On the basis of the analysis of the situation, the Slovak
Government by its Resolution 1070 from 10 November 2004 approved the
country’s contribution to the capacity of the EU civil crisis management.
19 Report on the involvement of the Slovak Republic in the building of the capacity of the EU civil
crisis management: http://www.rokovania.sk/appl/material.nsf/0/CC2CB2DFF3F9C336C1256
F46004B276B/$FILE/Zdroj.html
33
Modernization of Slovak Armed Forces:
Reasons, main weapons systems, principles
and challenges
Modernization should be driven by several principles, such as prioritization,
real and sustained economic planning, and should be harmonized with international trends and the evolution of the security environment, as well
as to reflect the political commitments of the Slovak Republic. In addition,
modernization should be carried out in line with transparency, efficiency,
and political and professional consensus. When defining modernization programs, there is a necessity to prioritize, due to limited available resources. Of
course, it will never be possible to achieve everything, to fulfill every need,
just because the resources will always be limited, even with a top-level political support for the armed forces. Therefore, the priorities must be defined, as
is customary in most militaries around the world.
That the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic are on the verge of technological collapse is relatively well known by the general public. Already in 2011,
when the first outcomes of the Strategic Defense Review were published,
the document publicly pointed out the lamentable conditions of the armed
forces and provoked a long debate on the need of modernization. Among the
available data in support of this claim, we could for instance mention the
level of interoperability with allied troops, which stands at 54%. In addition,
alarming was that the main capabilities of mechanized troops reach approximately 62% of NATO’s requirements, engineer units achieve only 39% of
NATO’s standards, and the capabilities of the MiG-29 tactical aircraft, performing tasks in NATINADS system fulfill NATO criteria at the level of just
66%. What’s more, approximately 90% of all the ammunition in depot storages was at the end of its service life, but also the same applied for 100%
of tanks and BVP-1 armored vehicles. Overall, more than 70% of weapons
systems of the ground forces were past service life and this number only increased over the last years.
The overall costs of replacement of all needed weapons systems, without accounting for the replacement of supersonic aircraft, are estimated at 3 billion Eur within a 10-year horizon. In others words, just this fixed expenditure comes to 300 million Eur per year, a sum which Slovakia clearly cannot
afford given that it would consume a disproportionate part of the annual
budget for defense, which is approximately 800 million Eur per year. And this
without the final tally being complete − as there is talk of replacing 18 multipurpose helicopters (e.g. Black Hawk), 12 supersonic jets (e.g. Gripen), 90–120
armored transporters, and 2–3 tactical medium-range transport aircraft (e.g.
Spartan). To sum up the Slovak Armed Forces cannot afford all of these expenditures in such a short term. So, there is an urgent need to set the priorities on the basis of the trends in the international security environment. For
example, it makes sense to focus on multi-purpose helicopters, which are
deployable in international operations, for domestic crisis management and
as a last resort, in a support role within territorial defense.
Even though the war returned the security questions to the global and political
radar screen, despite the widely-held opinion, war is not the main argument
for the modernization of armed forces. Of course, the need seems more urgent
and evident, but the main reason is their really poor condition, which has
to be resolved whether there is war or not. The core question that must be
resolved, however, is whether in the next decade we want Slovakia that has
functional armed forces or not. If so, modernization is a much needed process.
34
Along with these negative trends, the reality faced by the Slovak Armed Forces
is an almost 100% dependence on the weapons of Soviet or Russian origin,
which is detrimental not only in terms of technological, but also economic
and political considerations. And this dependence was already quite pronounced before the Ukrainian-Russian war.
From this point of view, purchase of transport aircraft seems less relevant,
because the capability to transport/deploy weapons systems and troops for
longer distances won’t be a priority, for Slovakia or for NATO. Yes, it will be
an important capability, but not a crucial one. Closely related is also the real
and sustained economic planning for the process of modernization. There is
a long history of excellent but unfortunately economically impracticable or
unrealized plans and models within Slovakia’s Ministry of Defense (Model
35
2010, Model 2015). Thus, we can conclude it’s not a good practice to promise,
and even enter into contracts related to the modernization programs, which
are not fiscally realistic to begin with. However, if it will happen again, practically any potential steps of the successive management of the ministry to
modify or mitigate the wrong decisions would be rendered ineffective, as no
maneuver space would be left. Regarding the long-term nature of these programs, even two successive political leaderships of the MoD after the 2016
parliamentary elections would not be able to adequately react to reverse the
situation.
In Slovakia’s case, neither change, nor discussion in this field is observed, an
attitude that creates several problems. Lack of transparency generates not
only the (political) questions, but also potentially significantly reduces the
efficiency of the money that is invested. The next problem is an absence of
conceptuality. The information is missing as for the type of equipment purchased or whether there is a conception for its deployment, for what missions it is intended, and why priority is given to a particular equipment or
specification. This is a handicap, which could be easily avoided and would
reduce the great number of questions and suggestions posed by security professionals.
Moreover, the Ministry did not react at all to the dramatic changes caused by
the Ukrainian-Russian war. There were no discussions about the conflict’s impact on our armed forces, on the erosion of their capabilities, the equipment
and modernization. The worst case scenario would be to continue along the
planning (including modernization) in accordance with the conditions before 2014, thus under completely different security environment.
Poland, the Baltic region but also other allies, and NATO as a whole, have
adopted changes, which dramatically shift the direction of their armed forces.
36
This could be prevented by searching for political and professional consensus on the basic questions of modernization. In Europe, there are several
good examples of this, e.g. Denmark, where the government and opposition
agree on the core principles and direction of the armed forces, and all the
important programs are based on consensus. Subsequently, no one has the
motivation to change the course or even deny their position on the key issues.
It would be a much welcome approach to apply this principle in Slovakia.
Unfortunately, the political leadership of the Ministry of Defense chose quite
the opposite path. What’s more, the approach seems to be marked by avoiding compromises, even unwillingness to communicate and refusal to publish
the conceptions, on which the modernization is based. What’s more, the
data relating to new weapons systems is kept hidden from public scrutiny,
including their specification, future deployment, and costs. In the case of Slovakia, the adherence to the principle of consensus, including the principle of
transparency is absolutely inapplicable.
Nevertheless the appeals on the conceptual solution or discussion are confronted with the communication barrier of the Ministry of Defense, given
that the responses of the Ministry to criticism, as constructive as it may be,
is of third-rate quality. We are often witnessing that even the noblest idea,
which would normally receive broad professional and political support, is
doomed to failure due to the wrong communication approach. To that are
related for instance problems with published figures on the purchases of the
new systems. For example, Slovakia is slated to purchase 9 multifunctional
helicopters, probably Black Hawks, when we know that we will need 16, maybe even 18. Nevertheless, the Ministry does not define whether 9 is the final
number, and consequently plans to reduce the final number of helicopters,
or whether it is only the first part of the procurement process. Likewise, according to available information, the number of supersonic jets would be 8,
yet military professionals put the minimum number of fighters (able to form
a separate unit) at about 12. With a 60% deployment rate, it means approximately 7 deployable jets, of which 2+1 deployed for permanent control of air
space (within the NATINADS system) and 2+2 for training purposes.
It is evident that with the planned 8 aircraft and their 60% standard deployment rate (4–5 units), it is not possible to ensure this allocation. And it does
not matter whether it is Gripen or F-16 fighters, the numbers needed remain
constant. One solution that presents itself could be in the form of an agreement on international cooperation on the provision of training on a regular
basis. Needless to say, there is no debate concerning this matter.
37
Instead of conclusion – challenges for the future
Moreover, in discussions about the armed forces, all Ministry’s communication is aimed at several modernization programs, but long-term development
is not mentioned at all. There is no debate about military bases, whether they
are needed or not, and if they are needed, what is the preferred type. Should
they be placed under the command or support structure? Needless to say,
the Ministry’s ambition should go beyond just making few – even if arguably
necessary – purchases. But this requires conceptual thinking and approach.
The problems, which have accumulated are exacerbated by the financial demands of modernization projects. Spartan aircraft could be financed only
from the defense budget, without additional sources. But fighter jets, helicopters and other purchases are not able to be financed this way. Under the
actual state of things, it seems that even if the minister signs the contracts,
the actual process of payment will pass to the successor cabinet, without any
initiated discussion on the subject. The statement by Prime Minister Fico,
who should be concerned about such strategic and financially challenging
projects, is missing. Until now, his statements seem to go directly counter
to his minister of defense when he proclaimed that there won’t be any fullrange modernization and any one-off increases in the defense budget. At the
same time, his minister of defense was talking about modernization costing several hundreds of millions eur. The old “guns versus butter” dilemma
seems to be alive and well – after all it would be difficult to defend a purchase
of helicopters for the army, when this money could be used on much more
“useful” social packages. But once the contracts are signed, it is essential that
they are upheld.
38
Currently the Slovak security policy elites are facing several crucial issues
which need to be resolved. Among the most important ones are:
• No adopted legislation and institutions on the security system as a whole.
Lack of programming and conceptual documents at the state level, as well
as at the level of Ministry of Defence.
• Underfinanced armed forces (in contrary to the police under the Ministry
of Interior) – de facto the ability to gain proper financial support depends
on political priorities and political weight of ministers heading the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Interior. In case of Slovakia, the Minister
of Interior is traditionally stronger, which resulted in the budget of the
Ministry of Interior gradually surpassing that of MoD’s.
• International obligations, both in terms of finances and Force Goals. Even
if Slovakia committed itself at NATO’s Wales summit to commit 1.6% of
GDP to defence by 2020, the current trends are showing the opposite.
• Security sector reform became one of the flagship topics of the Slovak diplomacy, including Slovakia’s non-permanent membership in the United
Nations. There are relatively well-prepared experts both from state institutions, ministries (MoD, MFA, Interior, etc.), but there is lack of overall
support, including resources to really turn this potential into an intellectual and mainly political hub, or global driving force of the SSR.
39
REFERENCE
Ondrejcsák, Róbert. 2015. Modernization of Slovak Armed Forces: Reasons, main weapons systems,
principles and challenges. CENAA Policy Papers. http://cenaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/
PP-Ondrejcsák_2015_2.pdf.
Ondrejcsák, Róbert. 2014. “Slovak national security strategy is outdated and needs a change.” In
CENAA Policy Papers. http://cenaa.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Robo-PP1.pdf.
Alner, J. 2002. ”A Brief Evaluation of the Slovak Foreign Policy.” In Euroreport No. 48, 46–47. Bratislava, 2002.
Ondrejcsák, Róbert, Vladimír Tarasovič, and Elemír Nečej (Eds.). 2008. Experiences from Transatlantic Integration and Security Sector Reform and implications for partner countries. Centre for
European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA), Bratislava 2008, 116
Army of the SR, and MoD SR Bratislava. 2001. „Department of defence in 2001.“
Bugajski, Janusz, and Alexander Duleba. 2001. Security and Foreign-Policy Strategy of Slovakia.
White Paper, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Washington D.C., Slovak Society
for Foreign Policy, May 2001, Bratislava, 11.
Samson, Ivo. 2001. Slovakia 2000, A Summary Report on the State of Society, Chapter Defense. Bratislava 2001, 421–436.
Samson, Ivo. 1997. The Integration of Slovakia into the Security System of the West (Security specifics
and Specific Risks of Uncertainties). Research Centre of the Slovak Society for Foreign Policy, No
3/1997, Bratislava, 1997, 72.
Security Strategy of the SR. 2001. Article 4.
Security Strategy of the SR. 2001. Article 59–62.
Bruncko, Martin, and Pavol Lukáč. 2001. Slovensko 2000, A Summary Report on the State of Society.
Chapter Major Trends in the Foreign Policy of the SR. IVO, Bratislava 2001, 326.
Constitution of the SR. Article 7 paragraph 2.
Defence strategy of the SR. 2001. Article 19: „Basic aims of defence policy.“
Security strategy of the SR. 2005. Article 10–11.
Duleba, Alexander, Pavol Lukáč, and Miroslav Wlachovský. 1998. Foreign Policy of the Slovak Republic. Issues, Situation and Perspectives. Research Centre of the Slovak Society for Foreign Policy,
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Bratislava, 1998, p. 11.
Security strategy of the SR. 2005. Article 63.
Kmec, Vladimír, Korba Matúš, and Róbert Ondrejcsák. 2004. Transformácia NATO a bezpečnostná
a obranná politika SR. Centrum bezpečnostných štúdií, Bratislava, 2004, 113.
Security strategy of the SR. 2005. Chapter 1, point 5.
Korba, Matúš, and Marek Šťastný. 2004. ”External Security and Defense.” In Kollár, M., and
Mesežnikov, G. (eds.): Slovakia 2004, A Summary Report on the State of Society, IVO, Bratislava
2004, 462.
The Defence Strategy. 2005. Article 21.
Security strategy of the SR. 2005. Article 68–69.
Security strategy of the SR. 2005. Article 73.
Korba, Matúš, and Marek Šťastný. 2004. ”External Security and Defense.” In Kollár, M., and
Mesežnikov, G. (eds.): Slovakia 2004, A Summary Report on the State of Society, IVO, Bratislava
2004, 462–463.
Marušiak, Juraj, Alexander Duleba, and Zuzana Bates-Melišová. 2002. Slovakia 2002, A Summary
Report on the State of Society. Chapter Foreign Policy of the SR: Major Trends… IVO, Bratislava
2002, 347.
Military strategy of the SR. 2001. Part III – Strategy article 1.3– 1. 6.
Military strategy SR. 2001. Chapter IV, part 2 „Mission and tasks of the armed forces.“
Ministry of Defense of Slovak republic. 2002. Annual Bulletin of the Ministry of Defense of SR
2002, 11.
Nečej, Elemír. 2004. “Bezpečnostná stratégia SR 2001.“ In Ondrejcsák, R. : Odporúčania pre aktualizáciu Bezpečnostnej stratégie SR, IBOŠ MO SR, Bratislava, January 2004. http://www.mosr.sk/
ibos/docs/zb_bs.pdf.
40
Lukáč, Pavol, Ivo Samson, and Alexander Duleba. 2001. Slovakia 2000, A Summary Report on the
State of Society. Chapter Visegrad Cooperation, Regional Initiatives and Relations of the SR
with Neighbouring States. Bratislava 2001, 368.
41
Introduction
In October 2000, almost a million Serbian citizens took to the streets of Belgrade and overthrew President Slobodan Milošević, one of the last dictators
of Europe widely known as the “butcher of the Balkans”.1 Only a week before,
he had lost the presidential election but wasn’t ready to accept the outcome.
In the backstage of “the revolution”, opposition leaders negotiated the terms
of regime change with the highest echelons of the Serbian security sector.
Left in the cold, Slobodan Milošević stepped down from power in a bloodless
coup. The regime change set in motion twin processes of democratization
and Europeanization which have been the driving forces of Security Sector
Reform (SSR) in Serbia ever since. However, the pacts that were made in the
wake of October 5 as well as numerous unresolved territorial issues inherited from the Yugoslav implosion shaped the future trajectory of Security
Sector Reform (SSR) in Serbia. Reserved domains within the security sector,
uncertainty about the federation with Montenegro and the future status of
Kosovo as well as deep political divisions over both the past and the future,
hampered reforms of the security sector for years to come.
Muddling Through a Rocky Road:
Security Sector Reforms in Serbia
42
S e c ur i ty S e c to r Reform: Glo bal Cas e Stud ies
Filip Ejdus
This chapter aims to analyze, in broad brushes, SSR in Serbia during the first
15 years of democratization (2000–2015). With that goal in mind, I first discuss the initial situation and the mode of extrication from the previous regime in October 2000. Then I outline the driving forces of democratization
and Europeanization. In the third section I shift my focus on the context of
SSR in Serbia and I pay particular attention to obstacles stemming from it.
The last three sections zoom into defence, police and intelligence reforms in
Serbia. Overall, the chapter demonstrates that due to difficult legacy and the
mode of extrication from the previous regime, SSR in Serbia has been a very
slow, highly contested and meandering process. Instead of having a clear
strategy and a list of priorities for SSR, political leaders in Serbia have been
muddling through a rocky road of a very difficult political transition.
1 This article is loosely based on a chapter first prepared for DCAF volume Security Sector Reform
and Democratization (forthcoming).
43
Initial situation
The early phase of the political transition was characterized by informal and
secretive pacts made between DOS and high security officials. Needless to
say, DOS was a very heterogeneous coalition composed of parties with different ideological backgrounds from centre left to centre right. Soon after
the takeover of power, DOS split into two camps. The first one was led by
the President of the rump Yugoslav federation Vojislav Koštunica who was
in control of the Yugoslav Military and its intelligence agencies. At the helm
of the second camp was the Prime Minister of Serbia Zoran Djndjić who
controlled the police and State Security Service (SDB). The two leaders had
conflicting visions of the democratic transition in Serbia. While Djindjić was
a liberal, who was professing radical break with the former regime, Koštunica
was (and still is) conservative politician advocating a rather incremental and
“legalistic” approach to democratic transformation.
The first serious crack within the old regime occurred in November 1997 when
Milošević tried to rig local elections in major Serbian cities. The military defeat against NATO over Kosovo in 1999, in combination with the increasing
domestic and international pressures for regime change, further eroded his
legitimacy. In September 2000 Milošević lost presidential elections to Vojislav Koštunica but was not ready to admit the defeat. On October 5, almost
a million protesters took to the streets of Belgrade and other major cities in
Serbia. With his back against the wall, Slobodan Milošević admitted the victory of Koštunica and a provisional government was formed. The coalition of
eighteen parties – the Democratic opposition of Serbia (DOS), soon won the
landslide victory in parliamentary elections held in December 2000 marking the end of Milošević’s regime.
44
The end of the Cold War set in motion a violent implosion of Yugoslavia
which started in Slovenia in 1991 and ended in Macedonia a decade later.
The emerging post-Yugoslav states abandoned communism only to replace
it with yet another illiberal form of governance – “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Way 2002, 2010; Vladisavljević 2010). This hybrid political regime is characterized by the existence of formal democratic institutions
and political competition. However, the competition within competitive authoritarianism is so unfair and heavily skewed in favour of the ruling party
that the political process fails to meet minimum standards of democracy. In
Serbia, holding elections was the primary means of gaining power but they
were often rigged in favour of Slobodan Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). Opposition parties were allowed to compete, even enter the parliament, but not to take over the executive power. Their leaders were harassed,
beaten up, and sometimes even killed. State run media was a powerful tool
of regime’s propaganda while independent media was constantly supressed
through financial, legal and other pressures. Serbia’s highly criminalized security sector was under the direct control of Milošević and his clique who
used it as an instrument of war and repression.
In the wake of the regime change, each of the two camps negotiated with the
highest echelons of security sector the terms of the peaceful change and the
set-up for the day after. In return for their buy-in, major actors within the
military and intelligence services were promised to remain in their positions
and to be sheltered from political or criminal accountability. Zoran Djindjić,
the President of the Democratic party (DS) and future Serbia’s Prime Minister,
met with the commander of Special Operations Unit (JSO) Milorad Luković
“Legija” in the wake and amidst the mass protests.2 Luković assured Djindjić
that he will not intervene against the protesters in the streets. In return, it
is widely believed that Djindjić promised not to take action against JSO’s interests once he is in office (Pond 2006, 214). Zoran Djindjić denied that any
such deals were struck, but the fact that JSO was allowed to operate for such
a long time after Milošević’s fall suggests otherwise. The newly elected president Vojislav Koštunica also struck informal deals with security-providing
2JSO also known as Red Berets was established within SDB in 1996 by merging several paramilitary groups together. It was heavily involved in the Kosovo war (1998–1999) and its aftermath
in the South Serbia. Its commander from 1999 to 2002 was Milorad Luković who earned nom
the guerre ‘Legija’ due to his service in the French Foreign Legion during the late 1980 s.
45
institutions. He was the only member of the DOS coalition who was against
the removal and the arrest of Milošević cronies in the security sector such
as the director of SDB, Radomir Marković and the Chief-of-Staff, Nebojša
Pavković.3 President Koštunica established particularly cordial connection
with the Head of Military Security Service Aca Tomić, who remained in office until March 2003 (Edmunds 2008, 34). Partly because of the deals he
made and partly out of deep conviction, Koštunica was opposing initiatives
within DOS to make a radical break with the former regime with significant
implications for the future course of SSR.
liberal democracy is a system in which “contending interests and values may
be expressed and compete through ongoing processes of articulation and
representation, beyond periodic elections” (Diamond 2003, 35). Democratization is a process of getting there.
In Serbia, the process of transition from competitive authoritarianism to liberal democracy began in October 2000. Fifteen years on, it is questionable
whether Serbia can be regarded as a fully consolidated democracy. It is an
elective democracy as it passed through several rounds of free and fair elections and peaceful transfers of power. Moreover, the institutions for democratic governance have been established although many of them still await
full implementation. Finally, Serbia has yet to pass the “two turnover test”
(Huntington 1993, 266) or the question whether the old elites that ruled prior
to democratization will be ready to peacefully transfer the power after their
comeback in 2012. Moreover, many illiberal practices that mushroomed under Milošević survived his downfall. As Timothy Edmunds argues, despite
democratic reforms, “illiberal interests, actors and networks of governance
have found new ways to adapt, survive and even thrive“ (Edmunds 2009, 129).
These informal networks, corruption, clientelism and illiberal political culture may not necessarily jeopardize the newly established democratic rules
of the game but can prevent them from consolidation. Political parties are
still stronger than state institutions, and executive power still dominates
over the legislative and judicial power. In spite of these setbacks, democratization process has been the driving force behind SSR, through developing
structures for democratic security sector governance including civilian and
parliamentary control, judicial scrutiny and public oversight (Ejdus 2010).
In October 2000 Slobodan Milošević was ousted from power and Serbia embarked on two mutually constitutive processes which have been the driving
forces of SSR in Serbia ever since. The first one is the process of democratization. Democracy is a contested term. It is often defined as an “institutional
arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire
the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote”
(Schumpeter 1947, 296). However, such a minimalist definition, which reduces democracy to free and fair elections, still doesn’t say much about the
rule between the elections, especially the rule over the security sector. That
is why a “liberal” definition of democracy, which goes beyond elections and
includes checks and balances, accountability, pluralism as well as human
rights and civil liberties, is more warranted. According to Larry Diamond,
3 Radomir Marković was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment in 2008.
Nebojša Pavković was extradited to the Hague Tribunal in 2005 and sentenced to twenty two
years of prison.
46
The Driving Forces of SSR
In theory, the democratization process empowered the Serbian Parliament
and significantly expanded its mandate to scrutinize the security sector. In
reality, however, the Serbian Parliament has not been able to exhibit many of
its newly acquired competences. Instead, it has remained a rubber stamp institution subordinated to the executive power and political party structures.
Although it does not lack formal competences, it does lack resources to conduct effective parliamentary oversight over the state and non-state securityproviding institutions. Members of the Parliament lack political autonomy,
47
authority and knowledge necessary for the effective scrutiny of the security
institutions. For security sector, a particularly important element of democratization was the establishment of independent regulatory agencies such as
the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data
Protection (2004), State Audit Institution (2005), Ombudsman (2007) and
Anti-Corruption Agency (2009). Although these institutions are still facing
challenges and limitations, their contribution to public oversight of security
sector is crucial. Finally, the democratization process significantly empowered Serbia’s civil society to play active role in democratic oversight through
research, education and advocacy.
In spite of these challenges and the gradual return of Milošević-era parties
to power, Serbia has remained on track of gradual convergence with the European norms enshrined in EU treaties and the legal and political acquis. Together with democratization, from which it is inseparable, Europeanization
has been the key driving force of SSR, most importantly in the field of rule of
law, police reforms and democratic governance. Other aspects of security sector, such as defence and intelligence sectors, although not directly linked to
Europeanization process, have also been indirectly shaped by it. By cajoling
Serbian authorities, either with carrots or with sticks, to cooperate with the
Hague Tribunal, develop parliamentary capacities, reform justice or build
independent institutions, the EU indirectly fostered reforms in the security
sector too. In sum, both democratization and Europeanization were set in
motion with the departure of Milošević in 2000 and have been the driving
forces of SSR ever since. However, these two processes have been operating
in a context which was uniquely complex in the post-Communist world.
The second process which has been driving SSR in Serbia has been Europeanization. In the context of the Western Balkans, as Soren Keil notes Europeanization, as the process of the preparation of the countries in the Western
Balkans for their membership in the EU, therefore focuses on the establishment of efficient state structures, including the reconstruction of economic
and welfare systems after violent conflicts in the region (Keil 2013, 345). In
the past fifteen years, Serbia went a long way from a pariah state to an EU
candidate which opened negotiation of the first chapters in 2015. The Europeanization process started with the downfall of Milošević in October 2000
when the EU membership was declared as the new foreign policy priority
of Serbia. Since then, the state changed both its shape and its name several
times, leaders changed, but the EU membership remained the single most
important foreign policy goal.
48
Serbia’s relationship with Europe is far from uncontroversial though. In contrast to other post-communist countries, Serbia’s political identity has been
partly defined in opposition to Europe (Subotić 2011). Whereas majority of
citizens prefer joining the EU, they still have negative opinion of NATO. In
December 2007, Serbia became the only European post-communist country to declare military neutrality. Moreover, Serbia has a special relationship
with Russia, which backs Serbia’s interests over Kosovo in the UN Security
Council. Serbia is one of the very few countries in Europe which didn’t join
EU’s sanctions against Russia imposed as the reaction to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.
The Context of SSR
The context of SSR in Serbia had four major characteristics. First, the SSR in
Serbia was post-conflict. During the 1990 s, Serbia was involved in four armed
conflicts and faced an armed rebellion as a spill over from the war in Macedonia in 2001. The post-conflict environment necessitated tasks such as demobilization, disarmament and reintegration. Particularly difficult was the
issue of transitional justice and cooperation with the Hague Tribunal (ICTY).
In March 2003, the first Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić was assasinated by the
members of the security sector in an operation codenamed “Stop Hague”.
Second, Serbia was a post-authoritarian country. The competitive authoritarian nature of the previous regime has rendered SSR in Serbia more difficult.
In October 2000 Serbia had a constitution that formally provided for free
49
elections, checks and balances and human rights, although not in practice.
In addition to that, there were a number of political parties, developed civil
society, and several independent media outlets. However, this seemingly favourable starting position actually turned into a disadvantage. Instead of making a sharp break with the past, the new democratic government inherited
old structures as well as the accompanying bureaucratic apparatus. Instead
of starting from clean slate, as countries from Central and Eastern Europe
did after 1989, the new political elites in Serbia were absorbed into the existing institutional design and its deeply embedded illiberal practices.
from the above depicted context, efforts to reform the security sector during the first years of democrtization were haphazard, fragmented and shortlived. Post-Milošević political elites lacked a strategy for SSR and had very
few priorities other than to muddle through the political transition by using
the security apparatus for the purpose of outfoxing their political opponents.
The clouds started to clear after Montenegro (2006) and Kosovo (2008) declared independence and pro-European forces in Serbia gained the upper
hand with President Boris Tadić at the helm. By 2010, the normative framework for the security sector was by and large established including strategic
documents outlining the priorities for SSR.4 With this, the first generation
of reforms had been accomplished and the second generation of “establishing effective structures for the democratic governance of the defence and
security sectors” started (Cottey et al. 2002, 32). Nevertheless, the return of
Milošević-era politicians to power in 2012 not only slowed down the second
generation reforms but also led to a gradual backslide of the first generation
reforms. The next three sections outline key elements of defence, police and
intelligence reforms in Serbia.
Third, the mode of extrication from the previous regime complicated the trajectory of SSR in Serbia. Informal pacts and negotiations undoubtedly eased
the peaceful regime change. Nevertheless, they also led to the creation of reserved domains, policy areas in which elected officials don’t have effective
control, within the intelligence agencies (Pavlović and Antonić 2007). The informal promises given by various members of the DOS coalition to the top
security sector echelon immunized those structures from any far-reaching
reforms later on. By precluding the elected officials from effectively subsuming the security sector under political control, the informal pacts led to the
creation of defective democracy between 2000 and 2003. Moreover, this
transition under the influence of the pacts helped created a highly partified
security sector. The deals forged client-patron relationship between political
parties and security provision institutions.
In sum, these four characteristics make the context of SSR in Serbia uniquely
complicated in the post-Communist world. Due to the difficulties stemming
50
Fourth, Serbia was facing unresolved statehood issues which further hampered its SSR. The fate of the federation with Montenegro lingered until
Montenegro’s independence in 2006. This delayed the beginning of defence
reforms for six years as the military was under the purview of the federal
authorities. Another unresolved issue has been the status of Kosovo. This
former Serbian province declared independence in 2008, a move which Serbia fiercely opposed. By permanently fanning the flames of nationalism, this
issue has been dragging the democratization process, including SSR.
Defence Reforms
In October 2000 when democratization started, Serbia didn’t have its own
military but relied on the Yugoslav Military for its defence. In 2002, Yugoslavia transformed into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (SCG).
During this period, defence reforms were modest. Although the armed insurgency in South Serbia was defeated in 2001, the unresolved status of
4 These are National Security Strategy (2009), White book on Defence (2010) and Strategy for
the Development of Ministry of Interior 2011–2016 (2010).
51
signed two important agreements with the EU in order to initiate its engagement with the CSDP.5 In the spring of 2012, membership negotiations were
started with the European Defence Agency while the Serbian Armed Forces
(SAF) made its first ever contribution to an EU crisis management operation.
In parallel to this, the process of professionalization continued unabated
and was completed in 2011 when conscription was fully abolished. In April
2009, “National Security Strategy” and “Defence Strategy” were adopted
thus setting guidelines for defence and security policy although providing
little directions for SSR. Finally, in October 2009, the last package of defence
legislation was passed regulating peacekeeping operations, military intelligence services, data confidentiality and civilian service.6 The Military Academy system was reformed, opened for women cadets and transformed into
a Military University in 2011. With this, the first generation of defence reforms was accomplished, i.e. the establishment of formal mechanisms of an
effective and accountable defence sector. The civilian leadership had built
a formal framework for a professional and democratically controlled military. Nonetheless, oversight institutions remained fragile, civilian control
highly politicized, while the officer corps had yet to fully endorse the new
mind-set of democratic soldiering.
Kosovo kept threatening to spill over instability into the “Preševo Valley”.
Also, uncertainty about the State Union continuously delayed comprehensive
defence reforms. In the first two years, the military was merely reorganized
through the introduction of the corps system. The first institutional reform
came with the adoption of the Constitutional Charter of the SCG in 2003
stipulating that the military is under the democratic-civilian control. This
was followed by the adoption of the first strategic documents such as the Defence Strategy (2004) and White Paper on Defence (2005). An important step
in this period was also the subordination of the General Staff to the Ministry
of Defence in 2004.
The momentum for military reforms was created after the State Union ceased
to exist and Serbia acquired competences over the defence affairs in May
2006. The Strategic Defence Review was adopted in June 2006 and defined
a number of priorities. For the first time in Serbia’s military history, the objective was set to develop a fully professional military of 21,000 soldiers by
2010. On 29 November 2006, Serbia was invited to join the Partnership for
Peace. This opened space for NATO’s assistance to Serbia’s defence reforms
through the Defence Reform Group (DRG). The new Constitution of Serbia,
adopted in December 2006 further advanced the normative framework by
reconfirming the principles of democratic-civilian control as well as by introducing conscientious objection. The normative framework was significantly improved with the adoption of the Law on the Military and the Law
on Defence in 2007.
52
The unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo provisional institutions in February 2008 created a new challenge for SSR in Serbia. Anticipating the move of Kosovo Albanians, the Serbian Parliament declared military
neutrality in December 2007 and suspended most NATO-related activities,
including the DRG. The very term “Euroatlantic integration” was removed
from the official discourse as a foreign policy objective and replaced with the
term “European integration”. Accession to NATO was put off the table while
PfP activities were kept at the lowest possible level. However, in spite of this
suspension of NATO-related activities, Serbia kept a keen interest in EU and
its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In 2011, for example, Serbia
In June 2012, the new government was formed solely out of Milošević-era
leaders. For the first time since democratic transition had started, the security sector came under the control of one party – Serbian Progressive Party under the strong grip of one man, Aleksandar Vučić. This was an opportunity
for comprehensive defence and security reforms unhindered by political tug
of war but also a challenge due to unprecedented concentration of power in
5 ‘Agreement on Security Procedures for the Exchange and Protection of Classified Information’
and ‘Agreement on Establishing a framework for the Participation of the Republic of Serbia in
European Union Crisis Management Operations’.
6Law on Civilian Service (2009); Law on Participation of the Serbian Armed Forces and Other
Defence Forces in Multinational Operations Outside the Borders of the Republic of Serbia
(2009); Law on the Military Security Agency and Military Intelligence Agency (2009); Law on
Data Secrecy (2009).
53
Early on the Ministry of Interior (MUP) started to tackle some of the most
difficult security challenges facing Serbia at the time. The Government of
Serbia established the Special Squad for the Fight Against Corruption and
Organized Crime (POSKOK) in November 2001. In a very short space of time,
the unit collected evidence about the involvement of JSO and SDB in political assassinations during the previous regime and compiled the White Book
on organized crime that clearly defined the “Zemun Clan” as one of the most
notorious groups in Serbia. However the Government, intimidated by the
JSO, shut down POSKOK and replaced it with the Organized Crime Directorate (UBPOK). UBPOK didn’t prioritize the fight against the “Zemun Clan”
in spite of the fact that the White Book had clearly identified it as one of
the most dangerous groups in the country. This demonstrates that although
there was an early attempt to reform the police, the reserved domains within
the intelligence sector coupled with partified management of the police severely limited the capacity of the government to fight organized crime.
Police Reforms
The next phase in the police reform started already during the state of emergency and operation “Sabre” which followed the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić on 12 March 2003. In April, MUP presented “The Vision
Document”, almost 600-paper long comprehensive analysis of the situation
in the Serbia’s police with concrete policy recommendations. Also, the success of the operation “Sabre” recovered its status and self-confidence, significantly eroded during the period of Milošević rule (Ryan 2008, 18). The
next step in police reforms was made in November 2005 when the new “Law
on Police” was adopted. The law demilitarized the police and introduced the
post of Director General of Police, civil servant appointed by the Government for the period of five years. Very important for further police reforms
was the process of EU visa liberalization. In April 2008, the European Commission presented to the Serbian Government the “Road Map”. It consisted
of a set of reforms that Serbia needed to implement in order to accede to the
so-called white Schengen list. The reforms concerned security of personal
documents, illegal immigration and readmission, public order and security
and foreign relations. By the end of 2009, MUP successfully implemented
all the tasks from the “Road Map”. As a result, Serbia was granted visa-free
regime in December 2009.
During the 1990 s Slobodan Milošević never fully trusted the Yugoslav Military and relied on police as an instrument of repression and regime protection. In October 2000, Serbia’s police was a militarized, oversized and criminalized force with a very bad public image. The DOS coalition in its program
envisioned comprehensive police reforms including democratic control, professionalization and role transformation from politicized police force to law
enforcement service. In contrast to the military or intelligence agencies, the
first democratic reforms of the police were undertaken early on, as soon as
the Albanian insurgency in South Serbia was quelled in May 2001. To begin
with, top police management was almost entirely removed soon after the
Milošević regime was toppled. Moreover, formal mechanisms of horizontal
and vertical accountability were erected. For example, in March 2001, Inspector General Office was introduced as a mechanism of internal control
although it took two years to actually appoint somebody. Finally, in contrast
to the military, police reintegrated rather quickly into schemes of international cooperation.
54
the hands of one man, who is heading the party, the government and has an
effective control over the entire security sector. As years passed by and the
Progressive Party consolidated its control over the security and defence sectors, little further reforms if any were achieved. In March 2015, an incident
in which a military helicopter crashed killing nine people, exposed that the
partification of the chain of command within the armed forces only consolidated over the years. Moreover, the military establishment grew increasingly
uncooperative with independent regulatory organs and civil society thus
rolling back years of hard work. This culminated in 2015 when pro-Vučić media launched a smear campaign against the Ombudsman after he publically
called Defence Minister to accountability on a number of counts.
55
International police cooperation was also stepped up with the signing of “Police Cooperation Convention for SEE” (2006), “Strategic Cooperation Agreement with Europol” (2008), and many other bilateral and multilateral agreements. Finally MUP forces have also participated in the international civilian
missions in Liberia (UNMIL), Haiti (MINUSTAH) and most recently Cyprus
(UNFICYP). In the period between 2006 and 2010 the build-up of the normative and policy framework was completed with the adoption of large number
of laws and strategies.7 The latest in the row, and arguably the most important one is the “MUP Development Strategy 2011–2016” adopted in December 2010. The Strategy identified four key areas of strategic importance in
the future development of MUP that largely converge with the 2nd generation
of SSR. These are: organization and management; human, societal and state
security; national, regional and international partnerships; internal and external oversight, transparency and accountability (MUP 2010).
of minority groups towards police (Radoman et. al. 2011). Finally, Police is
still susceptible to corruption, which was also recognized in EU screening reports (Elek et al. 2015, 6). Any reforms in the future will be impossible without seriously tackling the problems of partification, corruption and lack of
transparency in the Serbian police.
Intelligence Reforms
After the fall of Milošević, Yugoslavia had six intelligence services. Each republic (Serbia and Montenegro) had its own SDB. At the federal level there
were two military intelligence agencies: the Department of Security (UDB)
and the Intelligence Department (UB) and two intelligence agencies within
the Foreign Ministry: the Research and Documentation Centre (SID) and Security Service (SB).8 Although the entire intelligence community had a long
tradition of being political secret police, the most powerful ones were the
SDBs and UDB.9 The former was heavily involved in political assassinations,
organized crime and corruption while the latter was implicated in war crimes
during the 1990 s. But the most notorious of all was the JSO, officially part of
the SDB but in reality a detached paramilitary unit subordinated only to its
director. Before coming to power, the DOS coalition promised a comprehensive intelligence reform including the opening of the secret files and effective
parliamentary oversight. This proved to be easier said than done.
7 Strategies: ‘Strategy on Combating Human Trafficking’ (2006), ‘National Strategy on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism’ (2008), ‘National Strategy Against Organized Crime’ (2009), ‘National Strategy Against Drugs for the period 2009–2013’ (2009),
‘National Strategy Against Illegal Migrations for the period 2009–2014’ (2009), ‘Strategy of
Development of MoI 2011–2016’ (2010). Laws: ‘Law on Identity Card’ (2006), ‘Law on Travel Documents’ (2007), ‘Law on Asylum’ (2007), ‘Law on Protection of State Borders’ (2008); ‘Law on
Foreigners’ (2008); ‘Law on Personal Data Protection’ (2009).
56
On the negative side, police reforms are still burdened with a set of challenges.
Police is a highly centralized institution where top political leadership micromanages operational activities at the lower levels of authority. This enables
political instrumentalization of police, most recently in the smear campaign
against Serbian Ombudsman. Moreover, illiberal practices within the Serbian
Police also survived the fall of Milošević. The international reports have on
a number of occasions pointed out that police in Serbia is still using methods
of torture of persons who are apprehended, arrested or jailed. Another case
in point is the role of police in obstructing the organization of Pride Parade,
highly controversial event which took place peacefully for the first time in
2014 (Ejdus and Božović 2016). The reluctance of the Serbian police to protect LGBT population only enhanced an already existing lack of confidence
8 Currently Serbia has three intelligence services; one civilian, the Security Information Service
(BIA), and two military, the Military Intelligence Service (VOA) and the Military Security Agency
(VBA).
9 SDB was part of the police until 2002 when it was renamed into Security Information Agency
(BIA) and established as an autonomous agency subordinated directly to the republican Government. SID and SB gradually marginalized and ultimately disbanded in 2009.
57
The pacts that made the peaceful transition possible created reserved domain in the intelligence sector. The most resilient of them was created within
the JSO. This paramilitary unit nicknamed the “Red Berets”, was tightly connected to the criminal underworld and consistently undermined all the efforts of the new government to deal in an effective way with organized crime,
corruption, political assassinations or war crimes from the past.10 Out of fear
of “Legija” and his JSO, Djindjić’s government avoided direct investigation of
the unit’s involvement in political assassinations and its links with organized
crime. However, it could not resist the pressure exerted by the international
community to cooperate with the ICTY, stepping inevitably on the toe of JSO.
When its de facto commander “Legija” started to worry that he and members of JSO unit could be arrested and extradited to the ICTY, they organized
a mutiny from 9 to 17 of November 2001.11 Protesting the arrest of suspected
war criminals and their extradition to the ICTY, the JSO which was second in
strength only to the Yugoslav military, blocked the highway in Belgrade. The
government fulfilled most of their demands. One of the outcomes was the
forced resignation of SDB Director and his deputy and their replacement by
the cadres proposed by JSO and the “Zemun Clan”.
10 Most prominently, SDB was involved in assassination of the opposition leader Ivan Stambolić,
journalist Slavko Ćuruvija and two assassination attempts of opposition leader Vuk Drašković
in the late 1990 s.
11Legija was appointed the commander of the JSO in 1999. In June 2001 he officially resigned but
remained its de facto leader until its dismemberment in March 2003.
58
Unfortunately, this was too little too late. With its people running BIA, the
“Zemun Clan” had eyes and ears inside the government. In order to preempt
the crackdown on it, the “Zemun Clan”, tightly connected with both JSO and
BIA, assassinated the Prime Minister Djindjić on 12 March, 2003. Following
the assassination, a state of emergency was declared and operation Sabre
was launched, lasting until April 22. Its main goal was to arrest the members
of JSO and Zemun Clan, which were immediately identified as the key conspirators. During the operation, more than 10,000 people were taken into
custody among them high-ranking military officials, opposition politicians,
journalists and even pop stars. The government of Serbia, relying on the Police in general and Gendarmerie in particular, arrested most of “Zemun Klan”
members and disbanded JSO thus removing from security sector one of the
most sinister heritages of Milošević regime.12
The government of Serbia was humiliated but not entirely defeated. Realizing to what extent the reserved domain in the JSO and its links to mobsters
blocked SSR across the board, the government decided to step up intelligence reform and its efforts to fight organized crime. In July 2002, two laws
on intelligence agencies were passed placing them under the nominal democratic control for the first time in Serbia’s history. The first one was the “Law
on Security Services” regulating military intelligence agencies at the federal
level and placing it under the oversight of the mostly defunct Yugoslav Parliament. The second one was the “Law on BIA” that renamed and reorganized
SDB, previously integral part of MUP, into an autonomous Security Information Agency (BIA) subordinated directly to the government and formally
accountable to the Serbia’s National Assembly.
Soon after Djindjić’s assassination, the opposing blocks shuffled their competences. On the one hand, Vojislav Koštunica became the Prime Minister
and his Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) formed the Government of Serbia
in March 2004 thus taking hold of the police and the civilian intelligence.
Koštunica immediately appointed his confidante Rade Bulatović as the director of BIA. Although the major reserved domain (JSO) was removed during the operation “Sabre”, partification of BIA continued. This was facilitated
by sympathies of Koštunica’s government for nationalist policies of the
1990 s in which SDB was heavily involved. Although a number of war crime
suspects were extradited to the ICTY, Koštunica’s government insisted these
were “voluntary surrenders”. The arrest of the key war crime suspects such
as Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, who were on the run in defiance of
the Hague Tribunal, was not the priority.
12 Milorad Ulemek ‘Legija’ was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2007.
59
Conclusion
As the EU conditioned further negotiations of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with progress in Serbia’s cooperation with the ICTY,
president Tadić, who was of pro-European orientation, initiated the establishment of the National Security Council (SNB) in January 2006.13 Its function was to coordinate civilian and military intelligence services with the
goal of locating, arresting and extraditing the suspected war criminals that
were still at large. President of Serbia became its ex officio chair while the
position of SNB’s secretary as well as that of the director of Bureau for the
Coordination of Intelligence Services was reserved for the president’s chief
of staff. With such an institutional design, President Tadić aimed at achieving stronger control of the entire intelligence community. These institutional
changes bore some fruit. After the elections held in May 2008, for the first
time since the beginning of the democratic transition, a government was
formed without Koštunica and his DSS. The newly formed government led
by DS appointed new head of BIA in July. Only couple of days later, Radovan
Karadžić was arrested. The last two remaining war crime suspects, Ratko
Mladić and Goran Hadžić were arrested in 2011.
13It was introduced into legislation in The Law on Regulating Security Services of the Republic of
Serbia adopted in December 2007.
60
The nature of the previous regime, as argued above, proved to be a hindering
factor for SSR. In contrast to most other countries in transition which had to
build their political systems (including security forces) from scratch, Serbia
simply inherited the institutional set-up built during the 1990 s and then
slowly reformed it. Also, the pacts struck in the wake of October 5 2000 eased
the peaceful regime change but created reserved domains and defective democracy for years to come. Against such a background, democratization and
Europeanization, set in motion by the departure of Milošević, slowly but
surely drove SSR forward. In the next fifteen years democratization thoroughly transformed the Serbian society. An important aspect of this process
has been the establishment of a normative framework for the democratic
governance of the security sector. Europeanization agenda, pushed from the
outside through conditionality but also endorsed on the inside by the proEuropean public opinion, gave SSR a crucial impetus.
In sum, the intelligence sector, with the most resilient reserved domain embedded in it, proved to be the hardest to reform. Although the reserve domain in the intelligence agencies seems to have been eradicated by 2011, the
normative framework for the democratic control of intelligence agencies has
yet to be fully implemented, especially when the parliamentary control is
concerned. In addition to weak parliamentary oversight and partified control, the biggest burden of intelligence reforms remains the fact that lustration never took place while secret dossiers were not fully opened to the public. The government led by the Prime Minister Vučić unfortunately missed
the opportunity to resolve these problems and became part of them.
The end of the Cold War had uneven consequences. While the rest of the
post-Communist word embarked on a transition to liberal democracy, Yugoslavia plunged into violent disintegration and ethnic conflicts. When Serbia started democratization in 2000, all odds were against easy reforms of
the security sector. With unclear borders, deeply polarized political system,
armed rebellion in the south and deep-state structures beyond effective control of elected politicians, Serbia looked like a ticking bomb. In hindsight, its
gradual and partial reforms don’t look so terrible given the sheer amount of
challenges that country had to face at the beginning of transition.
During the first few years, the bulk of political energy in Serbia was invested
in political struggles over the future course of the country. With Montenegro and Kosovo gone their way, Serbia’s decision makers finally turned their
attention towards building institutions of democratic governance including
the security sector. In the period between 2008 and 2012, the lion’s share of
reforms in the security sector was achieved and the current legal and institutional design was set up. With the first generation of SSR accomplished, high
61
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Radoman, Jelena, Marija Radoman, Svetlana Djurdjević-Lukić and Branka Anđelković. 2011. LGBT
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63
Security sector reforms in Ukraine have a long track marked with some
progress and shortcomings taking into consideration the internal and external circumstances. In general, one might distinguish specific phases along
the way of development and reforms of the security and defense system not
only due to temporal aspects, but rather due to specific approaches adopted
by authorities towards strategic and institutional outline of armed forces,
law enforcement agencies and security services.
Phase I (1991–1996) is characterized by initial efforts of the young Ukrainian
authorities to form their own security sector based on the remnants of vast
human and technical resources of the Soviet security machine. Ukraine inherited approximately 40% of Soviet Army manpower (Cairns 2000, 26–36),
strong apparatus of KGB and militia. In August 1991 the Verkhovna Rada of
Ukraine (VRU) adopted the decree to subordinate to Ukrainian parliament all
the armed units, located on the territory of Ukraine, to form Ministry of Defense (MoD), to launch the creation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). By
the end of 1991 the initial legislative base for security sector was formed. The
Conception for Defense and Organization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
the resolution On Security Council of Ukraine”, Laws of Ukraine “On Defense of Ukraine”, “On the Armed Forces of Ukraine” were the key founding
documents that were all introduced in this initial phase of state-building.
The Conception envisaged the basic principles outlining Ukraine’s security
sector organization and principles: to become a neutral nuclear-free state.
It also defined the basic guidelines for the AFU formation and the competences of the MoD and the General Staff (GF) (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
2016a). The strategic vision for the security sector was demonstrated in the
Military doctrine in 1993.
The Initial Situation
Before Conducting SSR
in the Ukraine
64
Maksym Bugriy
Hennadiy Maksak
In 1992–1996 the active process of the AFU development was in place with
arms and personnel reductions, along with international treaties. In 1993
the total number of the AFU personnel was defined at the level of 455 thousand with a tendency for further scaling down (by the end of 1995 the total
number was 400 thousands). In 1996 Ukraine completed its nuclear disarmament in exchange for security guarantees under the Budapest memorandum, signed in 1994.
65
the size of the Armed Forces was approved at the level of 400 thousand (310
thousand military and 90 thousand civil personnel) (Ministry of Defense of
Ukraine 2016).
Simultaneously with building of the AFU other elements of security sector
underwent changes as well: National Security Service of Ukraine (from 1992
on the Security Service of Ukraine, SBU), State Committee for Border Protection (SCBP), Border Guard Forces and Department for State Protection. The
intelligence community was formed with participation of intelligence units
of SBU, MOD and SCBP. The National Security Council was active as an advisory body under the President of Ukraine in the period of 1992–1996.
In 1999 the President of Ukraine declared the necessity for optimizing the
structure and number of military units subordinated to other law enforcement agencies, namely, to the Ministry of Interior, SBU and Border Guard
Forces (Razumkov Center 2000, 14–27).
Phase II (1997–2000) began in 1997 and was accompanied by re-drafting of
some strategic documents, redistribution of powers in the security sector
(under the Constitution of Ukraine, newly adopted in 1996), and expansion
of cooperation with NATO. In 1996 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) was established as a constitutional body for coordination and control of executive institutions in the security sector. In 1997
the Conception of National Security of Ukraine laid down the principles and
strategic vision of security sector activity relating to the set of internal and
external threats.
Phase III (2000–2004) was characterized by extended attention towards
other elements of the security sector against the backdrop of Ukrainian commitments in cooperation with NATO (within the framework of the UkraineNATO Action Plan, 2002).
The new State Program of Reform and Development of the Armed Forces
of Ukraine by 2005 was adopted long before the previous document has come
to end of life. Inter alia, the provisions of this document proposed to introduce
functional structures such as the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces, Main Defense
Forces and Strategic Reserve. In 2002 a step toward professionalization of
the AFU appeared with the adoption of the State Program of Transition to
Manning of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Contract Basis by 2015.
In 1997 the State Program for Building and Development of the Armed Forces
of Ukraine 2005 was adopted, as well as special regulations for MOD and GS
were elaborated and approved. These documents have clarified the powers
of the institutions and paved the way for the democratic civil control in the
defense sector. The very same year for the first time the cycle of strategic
planning has taken place. On its basis the Strategic Decision for the Application of the Armed Forces has been made by President L. Kuchma. In 1998
a new military-administrative division of the territory of Ukraine was introduced, with the substitution of military districts with operational command
divisions, as well as improvements to the logistics system. At the end of 1999
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Furthermore, in 1997 the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between NATO
and Ukraine was signed. Under the framework of intensified cooperation
the joint working group for defense reform was organized by the end of that
year. Ukraine also started to actively participate in the peacekeeping missions (IFOR, SFOR, KFOR) which naturally contributed to approximation to
some NATO standards.
In 2001 the Commission for Law Enforcement Agencies Reform was established by the president of Ukraine. It has been operational for the period up
to 2004. Although any conceptual document has not been elaborated as for
the whole sector, some agencies have experienced positive transformations.
In 2000 a state program was adopted with the task to develop the Border
Guard Forces. As a direct result of the program the State Border Guard Service
was created in the 2003 with a more European profile in structure and functions. In 2001 the Law “On Intelligence Bodies of Ukraine” was adopted and
in 2004–2005 the Foreign Intelligence Service was established by separating
the relevant body from the SSU. It has been also done to follow European
experience. Besides the intelligence activity, some legal steps have been undertaken to describe the scope of the counter-intelligence (2002) and antiterrorist activity (2003) (Pylypchuk 2013, 115–121). In the 2002–2003 period,
67
place in 2005–2008 towards implementing NATO standards in the defense
sector, chronic underfunding of the reform process put the Armed Forces on
the brink of early irreversible collapse (Gorbulin 2009). In 2008 the second
defense review was set in motion in order to identify required capabilities
and a perspective model of defense system to be implemented in the new
development program for 2011–2016.
the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Emergency Situation has undergone a reform process in terms of its structure and the number of personnel.
New Laws “On National Security of Ukraine” and “On Democratic Civil Control Over the Military Organization and Law Enforcement Bodies of the
State” were passed in 2003, revamping and strengthening the legal basis that
formed the principles of the democratic control over security governance.
In 2003–2004 the defense review was conducted with an aim to bring defense planning to the benchmarks of leading countries. The Strategic Defense Bulletin has been issued as a result, demonstrating the level of the
AFU’s relevance to the current military-strategic situation, identifying the
official vision of the future model of the Armed Forces, gradual transformation towards the achievement of the ultimate goals of the military reform
(Razumkov Center 2004, 2–26). Correspondingly, in June 2014 a new Military Doctrine of Ukraine was approved with clear indication for the EU and
NATO membership aspirations. Nevertheless, already in July 2004 the text
of the Doctrine was changed, eliminating the pledge for membership as an
outcome of the change of the foreign policy orientation of the Ukrainian authorities.
In 2005 the State Program for Development of the Armed Forces for 2006–
2011 was elaborated. Scholars agree that for the first time it has been based
on the projected indicators of the financial and resource support. The list of
threats has been constructed according to specific scenarios with relevant
specific terms of preparation, indicating the capabilities needed to perform
the tasks (Melnyk 2010, 42–45). But despite the positive changes which tool
68
Phase V (2010–2013) was featured with a new shift in foreign policy orientation against the backdrop of Yanukovich’s coming into presidential office. In
2010 the Law “On Domestic and Foreign Policy” declared neutral status of
Ukraine. The reinstating of the Constitution of Ukraine in its 1996 version
has narrowed the possibility for parliamentary control over the security sector. In 2012 new National Security Strategy and Military Doctrine of Ukraine
emerged. Strategic Defense Bulletin was issued in 2012, two years after its
completion (2010) with major corrections justifying the changes in security
policy. Furthermore, new Conception for Reform and Development of the
Armed Forces of Ukraine by 2017 was introduced.
Phase IV (2005–2009) was focused on the intensification of cooperation
with the EU and NATO, transition to the European form of strategic assessment and planning, in addition to strengthening of democratic civil control
at the strategic level due as a result of constitutional changes (parliamentarypresidential model of governance). With Yushchenko’s election to the presidential post, in April 2005 the Military Doctrine of Ukraine was changed
again to bring back the provision of NATO membership as a goal and security
prerequisite.
In 2007 in joint efforts of the NSDC and some law enforcement agencies the
Comprehensive Review of Security Sector of Ukraine has taken place. The
National Security Strategy of Ukraine, the Conception for Reform of the
Security Service of Ukraine, the Conception for Reform of the State Border
Guard Agency has been worked out on the provisions of the review. In the
end however, some of the conceptions did not lead to tangible results due to
lack of the financial resources.
On the declaratory level, there were plans to introduce also a new conception for the reform of law enforcement agencies but by the end of 2013 it has
failed to materialize. Contrary to vows to stabilize the armed forces the shift
of preference towards other elements of the security sector was noticeable.
For instance, the state budget 2013 foresaw the reduction of the MoD expenditures by 7% while there was an increase in spending of the MoI (3%), the
SSU (4. 4%) and the General Prosecutor’s Office (17.2%). Such a distortion in
funding has been accompanied by appointing of senior officials in the security sector on the basis of personal loyalty and belonging to the Yanukovich
69
• Frequent changes in foreign policy orientation of Ukraine under pressure
from Russia vis-à-vis political, economic and energy leverages.
“family” clan. Their readiness to apply security services and law enforcement agencies for private and political reasons was amply demonstrated
during the tragic Maidan events in 2013–2014 with bloody crackdowns on
the protesters, killing hundreds of unarmed citizens.
Amid all the shortcomings mentioned above the previous defense sector
reform experience has also shaped in some ways the outline of the current
approach to the transformations undertaken in the AFU and the MoD. First,
the basic legal framework has been already in place and steps in strategic
planning and comprehensive defense sector review have been taken as well.
Phase VI (2014 – present) started against the backdrop of sharp political crisis in Ukraine, Russian military aggression in Crimea and later Donbass, with
the Yanukovych’s ousting as president and subsequent escape to Russia with
the assistance of Russian security services. This period is characterized as
civic-sector driven reflection on the past reform failures and hence realization of the need for change. Initial reform efforts were concentrated at the
level of vision and pilot projects in selected areas, with the government lacking the political will to spearhead deeper changes.
Before the start of the current phase in 2014, the low level of the implementation of security sector reforms was determined by the following factors:
• Predominately declarative strategic documents in the field of security and
defense, the lack of clear definition of sources of threats, absence of scenario-based approach in strategic planning, vague identification of the
problems the Armed Forces and other elements of the security sector
were facing;
• Permanent underfunding of the reform programs (state, target, sectorbased) for security sector, imbalanced defense budgets.
• Strong powers of the President embedded in the Constitution which hindered the establishing of relevant democratic civil control over security
sector from the side of the parliament and government, let alone the civil
society.
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The main driving forces and
motivation for the reform
The Russian annexation of Crimea and covert occupation of the territory of
the Donbass region have triggered a new demand for reforms in the security
sector. Compared to previous phases before 2014 this time Ukrainian authorities faced a real military threat stemming from the aggressive military
policy of Russia. On the verge of survival, the crisis situation prompted new
elites to produce unusual solutions under unusual circumstances. Ukrainian
society realized that the Armed Forces and security agencies failed to perform because of chronic underfunding, but also because of wrong strategic
threat assessment. The first step was to put in place parallel efforts to defend
the Ukrainian territory and to unleash a reform process in the security sector. Both tracks were indispensable as the capabilities of defense and lawenforcement agencies and the AFU were not adequate to tackle the military
and security challenges. In fact, since 2010 Russia by virtue of various tools
has directly contributed to the deplorable situation in the defense and security sector (National Institute for Strategic Studies 2016, 19). Nevertheless,
this bitter experience of overcoming the current crisis, detection and correction of errors in strategic and tactical planning, military command and
interoperability in performing the tasks now serves as a reference point for
creating a new security and defense architecture for Ukraine.
The second motivation to go ahead with security sector reform in Ukraine
was the pro-European and pro-Euroatlantic orientation of new political
elites which came into office with the pledges to enhance cooperation with
the EU and NATO, to restore sovereignty and territorial integrity, to begin an
overall reform process in the country with urgent focus on introducing European models for the defense sector. Many of the Ukrainian efforts in this
71
in Donbass and Crimea. Grassroots determination played a crucial role in
blocking the spread of the Russian hybrid warfare tactics in Ukraine’s southern and western regions. That said, public’s engagement has been registered
in two main areas: volunteer movement in Ukraine as a continuation of the
Revolution of Dignity (also known as Euroamidan protests). Many civic activists ventured to the areas of anti-terrorist operation as part of the mobilization process to empower military resilience, restore public order and provide
logistical support. In this vein, one should not forget the donations from vast
number of Ukrainian businesses and private individuals to cover the needs
of the AFU and other military formations. These efforts have helped considerably in reforming the logistics system and saving many lives of Ukrainian
servicemen and civilians alike.
realm would never become a reality without international assistance from
several partner countries and international organizations. Ukraine’s clear
orientation towards the Western allies in modernizing its outdated military
structures in conjunction with their readiness to continue to provide comprehensive assistance is a good precondition for the reform’s progress. Along
these lines, the draft Strategic Defense Bulletin of Ukraine envisages several
areas of cooperation as defense reform’s driving forces:
• Engagement of military and civic personnel trained in NATO and EU military schools;
• Financial and technical assistance from the USA, NATO and EU memberstates, as stated in the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between Ukraine
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with regards to support for
the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine;
• Enhanced cooperation with NATO, the introduction of NATO standards
in all spheres of military activities and achievements of the criteria required for membership in this organization under direct support of foreign experts, advisers on defense issues (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
2016, ch.4).
As yet another driving force, there was a strong demand from the civil society for a reliable defense sector capable to counteract Russian incursions
72
Another facet of civil society’s involvement appeared in the form of strong
interest of Ukrainian expert community to take part in elaboration of security sector’s reform and the monitoring of its progress. Scholars and experts
from prominent Ukrainian think-tanks, namely, from the Razumkov Center,
the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, some other analytic institutions with profound portfolio in defense and security sector studies have been engaged in the consultation process (Razumkov Center 2015).
Robust peacekeeping experience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in different
forms and shapes of peacekeeping missions under umbrellas of UN, NATO,
OSCE and UE creates good precedents for joint capabilities initiatives. Around
40,000 of Ukrainian troops, military and security experts have participated
in more than 30 international peacekeeping missions around the globe since
gaining independence in 1991. Now Ukraine is present in 10 missions (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 2016). Despite such an active involvement this conflict-prevention and conflict-resolution activity was not enough for Ukraine
to generate the potential to prevent the Russian aggression. Nevertheless,
one should admit that it created the basic preconditions for the adoption of
some NATO standards with regard to reaching high interoperability level in
fields of common responsibility with partner-countries.
Others have joined volunteer battalions to assist regular Armed Forces units
in fighting the Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
To respond to such a strong appeal from society and to regain state control
over the military machine, the Ukrainian authorities had to bring these battalions into fold of legitimate security sector institutions, which has contributed crucially to the pace of the defense reform undertaken in 2014–2015.
Within the framework of the Reanimation Package of Reforms, a joint initiative of civic activists and experts was established. These have united in 2014
under the banner of a working group on national security and defense to
facilitate implementation of reforms in Ukraine. The experts from this group
are involved in assessment of the legislative support for security sector reform (Reanimation Package of Reforms 2016).
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Domestic political and international context
In 2014 in order to shape the new foreign policy and security orientation of
Ukraine, which would contribute to the strengthening of security and ability
to restore its territorial integrity, the decision was made to reject the nonblock status of Ukraine. This helped to enact more effective mechanisms of
cooperation with external partners, including assistance in security sector
reforms (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 2015).
Compared to the past phases when there was a clear lack of political engagement in security sector reform, the situation has changed drastically with
high-profile post-Maidan political figures coming to power in February 2014.
Partly due to the open military aggression of Russia, partly taking into consideration the civil sector’s pressure on the agenda-setting, the issue of comprehensive and deep security sector reform has made it onto the official priority list. In May 2014 during the pre-term presidential elections in Ukraine,
Petro Poroshenko, the then Minister of Trade and Economic Development
vowed to increase significantly funding for restoration, modernization and
strengthening of the Armed Forces and other structures which take part in
defending Ukraine against external aggression. At the same time the need
for reform of law enforcement agencies has been articulated as well.
Nevertheless, the remnants of the corrupt bureaucratic system made the
reform process still protracted and painful when it came to the real political decisions to be implemented. It resulted in the delaying of some crucial
decisions or in misunderstanding between different institutions involved in
security sector reform.
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But there are some shortcomings, which were revealed along the way related to the strategic vision. One of them is an absence of the overall strategy
for security sector reforms. By the end of 2015, the comprehensive security
sector review has not been conducted yet. And this document is crucial to
launch reforms in specific security resorts (Butusov 2015). One of the main
reasons of the slow rate of reform is the absence of the political will, with the
government as the main stakeholder.
Moreover, all the parliamentary political parties which have formed the “European Ukraine” coalition in the VRU in their election manifests addressed
the issue of strengthening the country’s defense. In the coalition agreement
the mention of security sector reform came first with special stress on: reform
of the security system, reform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reform of the
military-industrial complex, optimization of the National Guard of Ukraine
and the Security Service of Ukraine, definition of the status of temporarily
occupied territories (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine 2014, ch.1). In terms of democratic oversight and parliamentary control over the security sector, some
representatives of political factions in the Committee on National Security
and Defense demonstrated real interest to be actively involved in the reform
process and be advised by experts from the civil society.
In line with this decision, in the spring of 2014, the Comprehensive Security Sector Review started but later was narrowed to the defense sector only.
Other security sector resorts have initiated their own plans and programs
for reforms. In 2015 new National Security Strategy and Military Doctrine of
Ukraine came into action. What one can consider as positive, these strategic
documents openly state that Ukraine regards the policy of Russian Federation as a source of military threat (Razumkov Center 2016).
Moreover, there is the slow pace in introducing the regulatory framework in
the security sector in terms of consistency and compliance with real threats,
which under the on-going military aggression against the country is very
dangerous. Thus, for example, by the end of 2015 the State Program of Armament and Military Equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was still
under development.
Experts of the Razumkov Center point out the following problems which are
still on the agenda and hamper the overall progress: structural excessiveness
and functional insufficiency as regards to the current threats the Ukrainian institutions face; insufficient manning with professional staff; narrow
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Priorities, principles, goals
of Security Sector Reform
departmental approach to the development and introduction of compatibility
mechanisms (Razumkov Center 2016).
One might distinguish within the international political and security environment both challenges and opportunities for the security sector reform in
Ukraine. Among the core challenges are:
• Complete disregard of Russian authorities for international order and territorial integrity guarantees under the Final Helsinki Act of 1975, constant
interference in internal affairs of neighboring states;
• Inability of the universal and regional security organizations, namely the
UN and OSCE, to prevent and resolve conflicts, connected to aggressive
policy of Russia in the region of the Eastern Europe and Southern Caucasus;
• Underestimation by the international actors in the region (the EU and
NATO) of Russia’s resolve to counteract any integration attempt towards
the states in post-Soviet space with economic, energy and military means.
• Failure to fulfill international obligations to guarantee security to Ukraine
by signatories (the USA, the Great Britain, let alone Russian Federation)
under Budapest memorandum (Memorandum on Security Assurances in
connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) of 1994;
• Uncomfortable dilemma for international actors like the European Union
and the USA to exert pressure on Russia and to cooperate with it on other
security issues of global and regional scale;
76
The National Security Strategy adopted in May 2015 acknowledges that
Ukraine’s security sector is not yet in place – its goal is “to complete the formation” of effective and efficient security sector (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
2015). The overall quality of strategic documents improved in 2014–2015 and
Ukraine ceased following the Russian planning school of thought – instead
it keeps “going westward”. The Military Doctrine adopted in September 2015
was an important step forward in the nation’s strategic planning as it was
more oriented towards Western defense strategies, rather than Russia’s military doctrine. Furthermore, government experts drafted key documents with
the inputs from international and domestic civil society experts.
To existing opportunities one may add confirmation of position in support
of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine from the side of the
UN, OSCE, NATO, EU, individual member states and their groups. They remain consistent in providing full support to developing the defense capabilities and strengthening the Armed Forces in Ukraine.
Despite Ukraine’s previous reform efforts over the 25 years of country’s independence, the current stage of the security sector and defense reform resembles a starting point. Ukraine has to define some key concepts and develop
the vision and strategy of reform beginning with the very definition of the
‘security and defense sector’ as opposite to the Soviet and Russian concept
of “military organization of the state”. Experts of the National Institute for
Strategic Studies Presidential think tank stated that the ‘security and defense
sector is unitarily managed assembly of state government bodies, law enforcement agencies and special bodies and services, whose activities are directed at the protection of national interests from external and internal threats
through the conduct of special measures, lawful coercion, or the use of arms
within the assigned authority” (Reznikova, Tsiukalo, and Payvoda 2015).
One may infer that Ukraine applies the following reform priorities and principles to its Security and Defense Sector Reform:
• Russia as the source of long-term security threat – therefore the security
sector should be able to oppose this threat. Additionally, the provision of
security is also to address internal security and respond to the transnational and global threats affecting Ukraine.
• Self-reliance: Ukraine acknowledges that it will not be a member of any
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Some principles of the Security Sector Reform were recently defined in the
National Security and Defense Sector Development Concept Document adopted by the NSDC on March 4 and approved by Presidential Order (President of Ukraine official website 2016 a):
• The concept document was based on comprehensive security and defense sector review and is based on a mid-term planning horizon
• Crisis management framework of security provision was introduced, with
Russia viewed as a the most significant long-term source of security threat
• Two quantitative goals stipulated the security and defense expenditure to
be not less than 5 percent of the GDP, the national defense expenditures
no less than 3 percent and the defense industry expenditures no less than
0.5 percent of the GDP.
• Among the objectives of the SSR were the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, cyber security and individual security. The latter emphasis
on the individual remarkably separates Ukraine from Russia that puts
state security as its top priority. Among other likely threats were global
threats of terrorism, proliferation of nuclear weapons and transnational
and organized crime.
collective security system in the mid-term and has to provide security
mainly from its own resources.
• Combination of effectiveness and efficiency in the security and defense
sector. Ukraine acknowledges limited economic, and essentially also
knowledge and cadre resources, at its disposal at this stage and seeks to
reform the framework in accordance with such resource scarcity.
• The primacy of human security over state security. This signifies notable
value difference from Russia, which has the opposite hierarchy.
• Euroatlantic orientation. While Ukraine is not a member of Western military alliances, it strives to qualify for NATO membership and cooperates
with EU security institutions.
EU member states’ discourse on the comprehensive approach to national security and defense was not yet fully adopted in Ukrainian security discourse.
But one characteristic of the reform is that the civil society is playing strong
and often the leading role in this regard. This shapes in a specific way the
society-wide approach in Ukraine to national security.
It is also true that Ukraine’s security sector reform is currently first and foremost driven by functional need for the nation to have effective and efficient
Armed Forces and other elements of the security sector capable to counter
Russian aggression, provide deterrent capabilities, and assure that Russia is
not able to take the advantage of the malfunctioning internal security system.
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Ukraine moving westward seems to be a shared vision among the government,
experts and activists. While before 2014, cooperation with NATO continued
despite the former president Viktor Yanukovych’s non-bloc policy, NATO was
regarded by the security establishment during Yanukovych’s administration
largely as provider of scarce financial and material resources for training and
exercise. Presently, Ukraine’s elites realize that Ukraine has to rely primarily
on its own defense capabilities, thus NATO integration became the synonym
of standards of excellence for Ukraine to reform its security and defense sector. The National Security Strategy stipulated that Ukraine should deepen
its cooperation with NATO in order to reach the criteria to qualify for NATO
membership.
Ukraine is also revisiting its commitments to adopting the basic principles of
democratic control and oversight of the security sector. Creating practical instruments for implementing democratic governance principles and civilian
governance in the security and defense sector has become one of the main
priorities of the Security Sector Reform.
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The institutions involved, their role,
position and status
At the level of ministries, the reform efforts were concentrated in advisory
councils. The Ministry of Defense established a formal Council of Reforms.
Under pressure from civic activists, it also established the Office of Reforms,
which was able to implement several pilot reform projects. Advisory Council, where active role was played by Minister Avakov, experts and human
rights activist Yevhen Zakharov of Kharkiv Justice Defense Center, Kyiv Center
of Law Enforcement and assisted by the EU civil security reform advisory
mission EUAM, is reforming the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Zakharov and
Hryvniak 2015). Yet the flagship project of the patrol police reform was
implemented not directly following from the Council’s work, but rather
through the transfer of Georgian police model. The Law on National Police
was generally received positively, however it had some deficiencies. While
the perception of the new police has been positive, as was a project to reform investigation and other police services in Sambir, Lviv oblast, deeper
changes, including massive attestation of police force encounter difficulties
(UNIAN 2016a).
Even though formally Ukraine created several institutions to design and
implement security and defense sector reform, they have not yet matured as
a functional institutional system. It is likely that some of these institutions
may be restructured, while some new are being created as part of a trial-anderror process. Some reform coordination bodies were also created driven by
civic society volunteers, while some government-established institutions
have duplicate tasks, e.g. the National Reform Council and the NSDC Staff.
The National Reform Council was created as the central coordination reform
office to ensure political consensus during the reform process. It consists of
representatives of all of Ukraine’s main stakeholders and was designed to act
as a platform for reaching consensus and decision-making. At the same time,
in the security and defense sector, such functions duplicate that of NSDC
as a constitutionally mandated multi-stakeholder coordinating body. The
activity of this council has not been effective and its meetings were rather
sparse. The priority seems to be given to quantitative criteria for the implementation of reforms: according to the Council’s website (National Reforms
Council 2015), the security and defense sector’s reform remains ‘on schedule’
and 63 percent complete through the end of 2015.
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NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov and the former Georgian defense official Archil Tsyntsadze head the reform task force. The task force on the security and defense sector reform also includes civil servants from the NSDC Staff
and government and independent experts. Given the overlap of functions
with the NSDC staff, despite the existence of the SSR Reform Task Force, there
still are expert discussions as to which agency should be the central coordinating unit: many experts agree that logically, the central place for such
a unit is with the NSDC staff (Razumkov Center 2016 c). NSDC is constitutionally mandated to develop national security and defense policy recommendations for the President of Ukraine and coordinate executive government agencies activities in the area of national security and defense.
With the signing of the new national Security and Defense Development
Concept on March 4, it becomes clear that the President views NSDC as a reform center. The Concept Document reiterated the legal status of NSDC as
“coordination body on national security and defense issues under the President of Ukraine”. One notable NSDC initiative was to establish a system of
Situation Centers in Kyiv and regions (oblasts) throughout Ukraine to serve
as crisis management nods. Clear strategy for these centers is not yet in
place, but notably institutionally, they connect NSDC in Kyiv with regional
administrations. NSDC also hosts a re-created Joint Intelligence Committee.
The Security and Defense Sector Reform has not formally addressed the constitutional discrepancy of the split of control and oversight between the
President, Parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers headed by Prime Minister.
Even though the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has the approval and dismissal
authority over the posts of the Chairman of the State Security Service and
the Minister of Defense nominated by the President of Ukraine, neither parliamentary approval, nor committee vetting has recourse when it comes to
senior professional cadre. The accountability issue has also to be addressed,
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EUAM, multinational training task force provided over $3.3 billion in technical assistance to Ukraine through September 2015 (Hlukhovskyi 2015).
as presently committee hearings are not mandatory for government officials,
the SSU Chairman, and the Minister of Defense are only obliged to submit
annual reports to the Verkhovna Rada. The VRU also has authority to approve
the sate defense budget, but it lacks the procedures that make such work effective at the level of the committees. The Rada’s Accounting Chamber on the
other hand has significant authority. Parliamentary control has to contend
with having to coordinate the agenda among several institutions: the Committees on National Security and Defense, Committee on Law Enforcement and
Committee on Legal Policy and Judiciary. Additionally, specific issues are being addressed in the Committees on Combating Corruption and the Budgetary
Committee. Furthermore, the Rada does not have any success stories to show
for when it comes to the work of parliamentary investigative commissions,
which, which hints to yet another area in need of reform. A growing role in
the democratic governance reform is played by relatively well-functioning
Ombuds-institution appointed only in February 2016, with a role to oversee
the rights of military personnel.
Certain Ukrainian institutions were created anew in 2015. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) was designed to combat corruption
and high-level crime, while the State Bureau of Investigations was set up as
the central executive authority, which performs law enforcement activities
with a goal to identify, investigate and solve the most dangerous crimes and
crimes committed by specific entities. Even though NABU demonstrates some
activity, its work is too early to be assessed (Razumkov Center 2016 d).
Reform issues are also widely discussed in media and on social networks,
such as for example international Facebook Group (Ukraine Defense Reform
2015). It is estimated that international institutions: NATO Trust Funds, NLO,
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Furthermore, international and domestic think tanks promote the reform
of democratic oversight. On March 16, 2016, Iryna Friz, deputy head of the
Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense announced
the creation of international advisory task force with the participation of
DCAF Geneva, Razumkov centre, George Marshall Centre and NATO liaison
Office, Kyiv (Euronews 2016).
In Security and Defense Sector Development Concept 2016 (President of
Ukraine official website 2016 b), the Office of the President listed the elements of the Security and Defense Sector. Remarkably, the absence of the
second-order agencies, e.g. those under the Ministry of Internal Affairs may
indicate that the President seeks the highest level of authority over all agencies, yet the President was also defined as one of the units of the Security and
Defense Sector:
• President of Ukraine;
• National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine;
• Ministry of Defense of Ukraine;
• Armed Forces of Ukraine;
• The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine;
• National Guard of Ukraine;
• National Police of Ukraine;
• State Border Service of Ukraine;
• State Migration Service of Ukraine;
• State Emergency Service of Ukraine;
• Security Service of Ukraine;
• The State Guard of Ukraine (security of the President and other high-level
offices);
• State Special Communications Service of Ukraine (security of government
communications);
• State Special Transport Service, which should be integrated with the armed
Forces in the future;
• Coordinating body for the intelligence of the President of Ukraine and intelligence agencies of Ukraine;
• The staff of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine;
• Central executive body to form and implement the national military-industrial policy;
• Other components, as defined by the laws of Ukraine This item includes
volunteer resource support organizations and non-governmental think
tanks.
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Reform of the Armed Forces
during six rounds in 2014–2015. President Petro Poroshenko said in October 2015 that 210,000 soldiers were drafted and 35,000 volunteered for the
Armed Forces. The draftees were called to serve for 12 months, with applied
extensions for one to three additional months. The total number of the
Armed Forces military and civilians was established as 250,000 (Poroshenko
2015) including 204,000 military personnel. In the interim period, where the
seventh round of mobilization soon is expected to be announced and the
former draft round soldiers still continue to serve, the actual force may be
even higher. The General Staff thus focused to date on the force size as the
main principle of maintaining the military balance against Russian-separatist forces.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces were perhaps the most urgent element of the security and defense sector in need of reform as their readiness and even the
quantity – assessed by Minister of Defense Ihor Teniukh at 5,000 – was inadequate during the Crimea annexation (Committee on National Security and
Defence 2016). Thus, efforts of volunteers were of utmost importance in the
replacement of resources, transfer of new logistics practices and basic modern military knowledge – from close quarter combat tactics to surveillance
drones. The government implanted one volunteer team into the Department
of Defense in March 2014 – its team was focused mostly on procurement and
logistics improvements (Ringis 2015).
A special center was set up dedicated to the development of new logistics
and procurement system. It was able to develop new Ukrainian NATO standard-compliant uniform and gear and organize the bids, where the Armed
Forces bought 440,000 uniforms and 380,000 boots in 2015 (Poltorak 2016).
The manpower challenge was addressed in large-scale drafts (mobilization)
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The Minister of Defense Reform Council as advisory body was established in
August 2015. Its executive branch, the Reforms Office headed by volunteer
and entrepreneur Andriy Zahorodniuk, was responsible for the improvements in several areas:
The most notable accomplishments in the procurement reform was the
introduction of transparent electronic bidding system – in 2014, the military complained that there was corruption and deliberate price premiums
charged even in the time of war. The Reform Office also introduced IT systems in some selected segments: a database of medical records in several nation’s military hospitals and selected application of SAP accounting software
that the Ministry bought in 2005. In addition, the procurement NATO STANAG codification system was introduced. The Reform Office began the experiment in three units in buffet-style meals service and introduced Ukrainian
Meals Ready to Eat soldier kits. They also introduced warehousing software
not in use before (Ukraine’s MOD Reforms Office 2015).
Ukraine reinstated conscription in December 2014 with 11,000 conscripts
recruited for 1–1.5 years in the autumn round (Ukrainian Radio 2015). According to the General Staff, as of August 2015 Ukraine’s 73,000 forces were
deployed to the Anti-Terrorist Organization (ATO) area comprised of 25 brigades and regiments and 150 battalions. They were using 360 tanks, 1,400
APCs, 230 and 800 artillery system (Tyzhden website 2015).
Mixed qualitative record of the draft versus the recruitment of professional soldiers led the defense authorities to arrive at a decision that Ukraine
should have a core professional Armed Forces. On January 20, the government in a bold move raised the soldier salaries to a minimum of UAH 7000
while the official average salary was UAH 4195 at the end of 2015. Commanders’ salaries were also significantly increased (Ukraine’s MOD Office 2016 b).
As a result, the number of contract soldiers began to surge – the MoD estimates 9,000 applied and 7,000 soldiers were recruited in January 2016, while
a typical rate was less than 500 soldiers per month before the salary raise.
MoD plans to recruit 5–6,000 soldiers monthly (Viiskova panorama a, 2016).
In the February–March period, the rate of recruitment seems to have slowed
down, but still remains high and in total 13,000 contract soldiers were recruited from the beginning of the year (Ukraine’s MOD Office 2016 a).
Furthermore, there were some improvements in the supply of both domestic
and non-lethal foreign weapons and the improvement of training with the
85
rial defense system in cooperation with the General Staff. Expert an advisory
support is being provided internationally: by Estonia that successfully built
its Kaitseliit force and by international and Ukrainian think tanks, e.g. DCAF
Geneva and Razumkov Centre.
help of domestic volunteers and international aid, e.g. in tactical medicine.
At the same time, communications were also improved using the modern
hardware systems and procedures including satellite communications, Motorola and Falcon III sets (Turovets 2016). Among various training assistance
programs, the US assists Ukraine in training the newly created Special Operation Forces (SOF) with the training administered by the Special Operations Command. US aid to Ukraine was estimated at $ 266 million (Uainfo.
org 2016). To resolve the issue of inadequate officer training, Ukraine created
simplified career paths and three-month courses for accelerated training of
mobilized and contracted officers. The first officers graduated on December
14, 2015 (Ukraine’s MOD Office 2015). Thus, these separate improvements
in training are leading at this stage to the rethink of the entire training and
Command and Control system of the Armed Forces: from post-Soviet hierarchy to Western military professionalism.
New SSR Concept Document defines the following objectives of the reform of
the Armed Forces. In the distribution of the military units in Ukraine’s territory, the government corrected the strategic mistake, where Ukraine disproportionally skewed the Armed Forces to the West as if countering the Western
threat in the Cold War times, while Eastern and Northern directions bordering Russia had less troops. In February 2016, Ukraine created new system of
military commands. According to military analyst Romanenko, this would
allow to improve the mobilization and territorial defense (Segodnya 2016).
The Concept Document further stated the need for the refurbishment of
weapons and military transport in stock, its modernization, improvement
of the troop training, supplies, logistics and procurement and achieve the
compatibility in joint activities according to determined scenarios. It also
declared that the Armed Forces should also be approximated to the NATO
standards.
The lessons of the war with combined Russian-separatist forces raised the
issue of reserve forces, but also territorial defense. Ukraine introduced compulsory “operational reserve” formed of demobilized soldiers and volunteer
reservists that could be quickly raised in case of need. The concept of territorial defense is being developed driven by self-organized citizens that
participate in tactics training and volunteer public order associations. The
government encourages some of these civic groups to become district-based
territorial defense units that have the status of the Armed Forces. The association called RUKH 100 serves as the backbone for creating such territo-
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The changes also affected the weapons supply. According to Ukroboronprom
defense industry holding company, 1,441 new and modernized weapons and
armor entered the force, while even more substantial number was repaired,
including three aviation vehicles and three radar stations (Ukroboronprom
2015). Ukraine thereby attempts to streamline its high-potential, albeit poorly managed defense industry. An important mid-term project was to create
Sapsan, a multifunctional tactical missile complex with the range of operation between 50–480 kilometers – it will cover both the air defense, where
Ukraine is relying on Soviet design S300 missiles and serve for ground artillery purposes (Viiskova panorama 2016 b).
The specific reforms roadmap is supposed to be generated in March 2016 at
the Ministry of Defense by the new Committee of Reforms created on the
basis of the Office of Reforms. The new Committee will work alongside the
Advisory Council and the Office of Reforms and was established to oversee
the reform of the following institutions: the MoD itself, the General Staff,
personnel, logistics and certain other areas, for example Military Police. The
new plan envisions reforming the Ministry of Defense by 2018 and the General Staff and the Armed Forces by 2020. In the Armed Forces, the quantitative criteria have been set that 90 percent of units should conform to
STANAG NATO standards (Poltorak and Ukraine’s MOD Office 2016). There
is a risk that the task to reform the Armed Forces is still not given due attention. Nor is it certain that the Ministry of Defense will be able to successfully
manage the committee designed to reform it vis-à-vis the resistance to reforms from within.
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Current situation, tasks and challenges
for the future
A special issue in the reform of the Armed Forces was the existence of volunteer paramilitaries and other military-like units and services that were not
part of the Armed Forces. The volunteer battalions Azov, Donbas Ukraine
and others were formally integrated into the Armed Forces and the prospects
of their retention as such are good as the state is taking on more responsibilities to provide resources for these units. The issue of the National Guard
was discussed by experts, as it is the “Third Force”, which has both military
and police functions. President Poroshenko increased control over the National Guard formerly subordinated to the Interior Ministry by making the
National Guard Commander answerable to the President. According to the
new concept, the National Guard would be gendarmerie-like, while it would
operate under the Ministry of Defense in wartime. Interesting intiative in the
National Guard is the pilot project of light infantry brigade trained according
to modern Western standards and NATO-interoperable (Arieli 2016 a).A debated issue was the future of the State Border Guard Service, which was reformed as professional border police service thus unable to provide military
response to the Russian-separatist attacks that included mortars and shelling. The new Concept stipulates that the State Border Guard Service would
be supported by the National Guard and the Armed Forces in case of need.
Some developments over the past two years prompted positive assessment
of Ukraine’s progress: one of the best Ukraine’s scholars Professor Alexander
Motyl proudly entitled his article: “At Last, Military Reform Makes Headway
in Ukraine”. Motyl cited as the argument justifying his view the clear planning – something Ukraine lacked in the past, engagement of outside experts
to discuss the reform and not only praise its accomplishments and taking
NATO standards as concrete obligations (Motyl 2016).
Yet, it is also true that the main accomplishment of the reform in 2015–2016
was gradual formulation of the reforms’ vision and separate improvements in
some selected areas. The slow pace indicates the level of the leadership’s political will, which generally favors stability and functionality over real change.
It is also a reflection of relatively marginal Western support for Ukraine’s reforms. Thus, the reforms can also be viewed as a longer-term process. Establishment of functioning defense and security institutions in 2014 was meant
to make them relatively effective as deterrence force to withstand the combined Russian-separatist Armed Forces. However, currently the goal of reform should be to embrace standards of excellence to the extent possible due
to limited resources to deter Russia from further actions.
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The policy regarding the country’s Air Force has been mainly concentrated at
maintaining its viable fleet primarily comprised of Mig 29 and Su 27 and 24
models, but also on pilot training that increased from 30 hours to 150 hours
(Skaretnoi 2016). While in the case of the Navy, the program of its reform
triggered the debate among military experts and naval commanders (Kyiv
Post 2015).
In these circumstances the reform continues to be a society-driven effort.
The volunteers introduced to the security sector knowledge and business
skills already available in the private sector: logistics, project and operations
management and accounting. What’s more, the involvement of many volunteers has allowed for the transfer of Western management know-how.
Still, Ukraine faces substantial leadership and management challenges as
the government stops short of radical reforms. As Butusov notes, changing
of military hardware and training takes time. But “to change the administrative system, to replace our absolutely ineffective administrative formula
89
to cooperate primarily in turbojet aircraft engines, radars, military communications technologies and navigation systems. “There will be partnerships
in designing, developing and manufacturing those systems,” he said (Burak
Ege Bekdil 2016).
with NATO’s decentralized system of decision-making and greater leadership responsibility does not require many resources or time. We have the
cadres. We know how to do it” (Motyl 2016).
The difficulty of Ukraine’s reform lies in the weak state of many management structures in place. Foreign advisors working with the Ukrainian military note the inadequacy of the command and control. Israeli Instructor Tzvi
Areli working with the National Guard wrote, “In Ukraine, today, the ranks
absolutely do not correlate with real military knowledge” (Arieli 2016 b).
Moreover, Ukraine is likely to have increased number of exercises with international partners and some interoperability projects, but the country’s contribution would be restricted by the lack of resources. The interoperability
and Ukraine’s military security contribution should be further enhanced by
the creation of Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian brigade announced on January
25. Two Ukrainian ships Hetman Sahaidachniy frigate and Balta auxiliary
delivered Turkish military aid and had the first exercise beyond the Black
Sea in two years (5.ua 2016).
The Ministry of Defense is responding to activist pressure by demonstrative
administrative initiatives. Addressing personnel reform issues, the Minister
of Defense ordered the performance review (UNIAN 2016 b) and staff reduction of all MoD staff that would also include polygraph screening that became one of the tools to help with the ministry’s personnel integrity. The
changes also have to address the issue of the overlaps between the General
Staff and the MoD. As such, the challenge is to change post-Soviet culture
of bureaucracy characterized by the lack of initiative and excessive hierarchy thus expecting decisions to be made only by higher-ranked officers and
authorities.
Razumkov Centre’s Oleksiy Melnyk and Mykola Sungurovskiy pointed to the
challenges ahead, including the issues of national cohesion, among others:
• Declining consolidation of society, intensifying destructive processes
within the nation’s leadership, rebounding influence of political successors of the Party of the Regions and pro-Russian forces in some regions,
and attempts to restore their influence on the nationwide level;
• Depletion of resources (economic, financial, human, intellectual and time)
needed to secure a victory, stabilise the situation and reform the country
fundamentally;
• Growing mistrust of the government on the part of the civil society, mounting (albeit not always constructive) pressure from the civil society on the
nation’s leaders on the account of reforms, resolution of the armed conflict in the Donbas and reclamation of Crimea (Razumkov Centre 2016 e).
Another major challenge is calculating the real costs of the security and defense sector reform and operations. In the weapons sector, Ukraine has to
replace Russia as the key military supplier of new systems and parts for existing weapons systems. Defense group Ukroboronprom has signed a deal with
German producer Deutz AG to acquire engines for the armored personnel
carriers (APC) used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The new engines will replace Russian gear, which are to be discarded (Adamowski 2016). Senior official in the Turkish prime minister’s delegation said Turkey and Ukraine hope
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In a number of key aspects, Ukraine still lacks a clear and comprehensive
strategic vision and concept. As an example, the debate about the naval
strategies split those that believe that the Ukrainian Navy should have blue
water capacity and build corvettes, or just focus on protecting littoral waters
and have a small-boat strategy (Kabanenko 2016).
The reform of some segments of the security sector is yet to be pursued.
An area of increased interest is the reform of intelligence and special services agencies – the segment that was not at the forefront of reform. Melnyk
and Sungurovsky believe that in investigative and special services agencies,
changes will most likely be limited to improving the mechanisms of democratic control and providing more professional human resources for administrative and executive agencies. While in the law enforcement system the
91
References
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Introduction
After more than fifteen years of substantial international engagement in Afghanistan, the newly born Afghan National Security Forces – the most important “child” of Security Sector Reform process initiated in this country –
are still facing multiple daunting challenges of fighting Taleban’s ongoing
rebellion (accompanied by attacks form other groups as Daesh or local militias
of different origin), stabilizing still volatile provinces and sustaining a sufficient level of manpower. The latter may prove to be extremely difficult, as all
statistics show that ranks of the Afghan National Army (ANA) are shrinking
dramatically. However, as many assessments show, in many provinces ANA
has reached a high level of maturity and efficiency in combating insurgency.
Moreover, for the first time in the modern history of Afghanistan, the armed
forces are praised and trusted among the society, which puts a lot of hope
in the national military establishment. However, lack of good governance
practices, unstable political situation, and lack of substantial support from
the international community may annihilate most of the achievements of
Security Sector Reform, which was implemented with great effort by the international community.
Security Sector Reform
in Post-conflict Environment
— The Case of Afghanistan
Beata Górka-Winter
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Security Sector Reform in post-conflict environments
In the most general sense, the goal of Security Sector Reform is to ensure that
security sector institutions in a given country operate in an efficient and effective manner and can carry out the tasks assigned to them, key among them
being the protection of people from violence inflicted by different actors (state
and non-state; internal and external) according to the “human security paradigm” and “governance paradigm”. While the objective of SSR is by and large
universal, it will nonetheless focus on different issues depending on different states. Security deficits in a given country can result from vastly different
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According to the prevalent view, one of the most important factors when
considering goals and directions of a security sector reform is the context in
which it will be carried out (Bryden and Hänggi 2005). The activities which
jointly constitute the SSR, the number and types of actors subject to it, objectives of the SSR and methods for achieving them, the types of instruments
to be used, the sequence of actions and benchmarks for measuring their effectiveness all depend on unique conditions in which the state finds itself.
The principal criteria used for determining the context for implementing the
SSR concern the type of the political system (democracy, autocracy, a system
in transition to democracy), the level of economic and social development and
the security situation in a given country – this criterion is particularly important to isolate the group of countries in a post-conflict situation. They allow for
singling out four groups of countries in which the security sector reform will
take certain, specific forms – these refer to developing countries, countries
undergoing transition toward a democratic political system, countries undergoing reconstruction following an armed conflict and developed countries, or
so-called Western democracies, with a stable internal security situation. This
classification, although much simplified, points to great diversity of conditions
for security sector reform (Ball 2002). Whereas in case of developed countries, initiating an SSR will serve the purpose of improving the functionality
of security institutions in face of emerging threats in a still changing security
environment, the SSR in a post-conflict state will be driven by serious internal instability and dysfunction of security sector institutions. In sum, the
goals of an SSR can be quite diverse, ranging from creation of conditions for
economic development, prevention of resurgence of an armed conflict, to
the safeguarding the security of the people (Edmunds 2002).2
1 The most important of them, such as e.g.: under-investment (or in contrast – earmarking too
much funding for functioning of security sector institutions), lack of control over security sector institutions (army, police intelligence services) (Security Sector Reform, 6).
2 T. Edmunds writes e.g. about consecutive generations of SSR.
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Especially in post-conflict environment SSR is an extremely complex and
multidimensional process (Bryden and Hänggi 2004).3 Its characteristics, contrary to the countries with a stable political situation, must include a much
wider range of factors, which must be taken into account in the analysis of
SSR than in other political environments. The political, economic and social
conditions in post-conflict environment are to some extent unpredictable and
farthest from being ideal (Schnabel 2009, 13–16).4 In this group of countries
an extremely volatile security situation is a crucial factor. Despite the formal
cessation of hostilities, very rarely the fighting ends throughout the country immediately after the declaration of cease-fire and the situation in post2001 Afghanistan proves this assumption is right (Law 2006, 2).
phenomena, thus the SSR will necessarily have to begin with the elimination
of the gravest pathologies that pose the greatest threat to the physical survival of citizens (Law 2004, 26).1
In the post-conflict environment the dynamics and hierarchy of the objectives of SSR are defined by a number of different factors. As mentioned, the
most important among them is the current security situation in the country
since the “culture of violence” is dominating in the post-conflict environment as a natural consequence of conflict. Thus, the priority is to cope with
the deficit of physical safety of the citizens in as much large territory of the
country as possible. According to D. Law, the short-term goal of the SSR in
the post-conflict environment is to create an environment in which main
stakeholders could initiate their transformational agenda (Law 2006, 2–3).
In the longer term, a maximum goal for SSR is the construction of security sector institutions, which will be able to prevent the recurrence of armed
conflict and lead to the re-establishing of state control over the use of armed
forces, what is a sine qua non condition for putting the country on a path to the
lasting peace (Wulf 2006). As highlighted in a compendium on SSR issued by
Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the goal of SSR in the post-conflict environment
includes the effective provision of security and justice (OECD DAC 2007).
3 As a criterion for determining post-conflict country is recent cessation of hostilities, truce or
signing a peace agreement.
4 An ideal environment for SSR is depicted as a situation when the hostilities ended, the agreement on disarmament and implementing SSR was reached and all parties agreed to compete
for power by peaceful means.
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Armed forces in the post-conflict context
Consequently, one of the key factors in the analysis of the SSR process is an
appropriate identification of the security actors in the country, which encompass not only the newly-established government or state-licensed institutions
(so-called core security actors) but also the entire spectrum of non-state actors
whose activities affect the security situation in the country (Van Veen 2008).
As emphasized by A. Schnabel and H.G. Erhart, in the post-conflict context
the armed forces play a key role in initiating SSR. Most commonly they must
be built from scratch or transformed from the formation which jeopardizes
the security of the state to entity which protects it and in the long run (especially after the withdrawal of international forces, such as ISAF) they have to
take on the responsibility for the maintenance of peace and order.
The second category of actors includes armed non-state actors (non-statutory actors), which are functioning outside the legal system of the state. Their
position, scope, influence and a network of informal relationships they sustain
forms a highly diverse mosaic, complicating the context of SSR in post-conflict
countries. The third category of actors includes external actors – international
organizations, donors, and in particular the peacekeeping/peace-building or
stabilization operation HQ. Post-conflict context in which state institutions
are not able, at least initially, to take on the tasks assigned to them makes the
performance of these entities crucial in initiating the reform of the security
sector. In some states, their role and influence is even strengthened in the
long-term perspective.
5It is worth to underline that in some countries, depending on historical, political and cultural
context, other formations than the armed forces would be the focal point of the SSR.
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In this context, especially three categories of actors should be pointed out, as
they have a crucial impact on the fulfillment of the transformational agenda
in post-conflict countries, especially in the initial period of reforms. The first
category encompasses state institutions authorized to use force, and the
armed forces in particular.5 In the post-conflict environment, most often than
not the official institutions within a security sector are influencing a decision-making process and/or are managed inefficiently including lack of effective system of remuneration. They are also creating a deficit of physical
safety for citizens, not only directly, through a tendency to violent behavior
against civilians, but also indirectly, when, as a result of lack of professionalism, inappropriate training or the necessary equipment, they are not able to
provide the protection (Ebo 2007, 27–60).
The formation of legitimate armed forces in post-conflict countries can be
carried out according to different models. Much depends here on the political, cultural, social, military premises in a given country as well as the threat
perception of its political elites and the state military budget (Chuter 2006,
10–11). Traditionally experts point to the need for extensive reduction of warriors under arms (under the assumption that the situation of conflict has led
to the enormous mobilization and increased the army/militias strength and
volume). Another factor is the establishment of civic control over the army,
the provision (in the case of multinational states) of the respective minority
(ethnic, religious) balance (including the right number of higher command
positions for minorities). In many cases it will be necessary to dissolve existing
formations (militias, guerillas etc.) and face the fact that sometimes these
groups are refusing to go under control of the official authorities. Their social perception is also an important factor here as they may be considered
as a serious threat to the society given their behavior during the conflict or
even be associated with war crimes that had been committed in the times of
conflict but also their previous action may be praised by the society (as was
the case in Afghanistan where some warlords or mujahedeens were appreciated for their anti-Soviet fighting).
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Non-state actors
given more or less substantial (moral and logistical) support by the communities they represent, as well as they are sometimes encouraged by foreign governments or non-state organizations;
• Militias (paramilitary formations) – these are irregular military units
acting on behalf of the authorities, or at least tolerated by them, their task
is to fight the rebels, depending on the circumstances; sometimes, in the
course of armed conflict they become independent and start to pursue
their own political agenda (Zürcher 2009, 139–148); 7
• Clan leaders – they are traditional, local authorities, which are leading
various tribes, clans, ethnic or religious groups; usually they owe their position to tradition, heritage or to possessing specific characteristics (age,
special authority to lead a group), usually their influence is geographically
limited; they usually control peripheral regions in the country with the use
of armed groups recruited from the local community they lead;
• Warlords – local tycoons, controlling a specific part of the territory of the
country during the conflict, and for some time afterwards; they have their
own armed formations (private armies), and are usually benefiting from
the conflicting situations (mineral resources exploitation, drug trafficking,
illegal taxing of the local population8) (Reno 1999; Marten 2006/7, 48–58);
it is emphasized by experts that the classification of some leaders as warlords is sometimes ambiguous, since by the part of the community they
may be perceived as legitimate political leaders, especially when the government is weak and unable to protect population in the whole or part
of the country; as K. Marten emphasizes, the petrification of warlordism
phenomenon may have serious consequences for the country’s stability;
It indicates that we are dealing most often with eight groups of actors:
• Rebels/partisans or guerrillas – a main motivation of these groups is to
achieve specific policy goals – most often the liberation of particular social
or ethnic group by the overthrow of the existing government (or at the time
of colonialism – the colonial administration), the secession of the region
etc.; in case of success they laid the foundation for future legitimate armed
forces of the new state, in the course of military action they are usually
6 As OECD data shows, non-state actors and informal structures are securing about 80–90 % of
the population in post-conflict countries but also in the countries where the public sector is
underdeveloped.
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The situation of conflict is a very favorable time for the formation of numerous groups of non-state actors, with different positions and influence (Schlichte 2009, 246–264; Davis n.d., 221–245; Wulf 2006, 12–14). This generates questions about the need for their inclusion (or the contrary – absolute isolation)
in the SSR process, especially because rather seldom they constitute a unified group. They also vary in terms of their attitude and relationship to the
governmental authorities. The links between them themselves are also of
different nature. Their importance for the success (or failure) of the process of
SSR is undisputed, and even if the process of determining their actual status
in the country, motivation or political interference may be extremely complicated, it is also necessary to develop effective methods of dealing with them.
Many authors emphasize that the non-state actors should be the most important point of reference in terms of the SSR program. B. Baker and E. Schey
underline that the majority of security providers in post-conflict contexts are
non-state actors, operating at the local level and they even may be more efficient (also in terms of cost) in securing local populations than state actors
(OECD 2007, 27).6 Programs in the area of SSR must take this reality into account (Baker and Scheye n.d., 503–528). The typology of non-state actors
provided by Ulrich Schneckener is one of the most accurate for post-conflict
environments (Schneckener 2006, 23–40).
7 As an example we can point out the Mkhedrioni group, which was fighting against Abkhazian
separatists in the first half of the 90 s. being at the same time outside of the state control.
8 See an in-depth monograph of William Reno, where the warlordism phenomenon was explored on the example of four African countries (e.g. Liberia, Sierra Leone, DRC, and Nigeria).
A very detailed analysis of the warlordism phenomenon in the comparative perspective was
also done by K. Marten. He points out that warlords show certain specifics. Firstly, they profit
from disintegration of central authorities taking over the control of relatively small pieces of
state territory. Secondly, they are motivated by financial profits. Thirdly, their influence stems
from the fact that they provide protection (patronate) over some societies. Fourthly, their activities are disrupting the state order – politically, economically etc.
105
•
•
•
In post-2001 Afghanistan most of these groups constituted a highly complicated security landscape and the multiplicity of non-state security actors affected the implementation of the SSR program to a much higher degree than
other factors (financial, societal etc.). The necessity of dealing with all these
groups proved to be extremely difficult and after many years of enormous
effort made especially by the international community engaged both – COIN
and stabilization operations – the effects of these actions are rather meagre.
Non-state actors proved to be much stronger than newly-born institutions
of state, which were struggling with limits constituted by unstable internal
environment, lack of good-quality recruits, parallel security forces formed in
different provinces, lack of stable financing and “good governance culture”.
106
As many of the latest American Department of Defence reports show, the
Afghan National Security Forces, which are considered a cornerstone of the
country’s security, are increasingly demonstrating “their ability to plan and
conduct independent and combined operations that employed multiple ANSF
capabilities, disrupted the insurgency, and protected the populace”. Currently, they quite successfully operate without support from the ISAF (though still
relying much on the American support in most volatile provinces), which
were finally withdrawn in the end of 2014. The Afghan National Army is also
currently enjoying unprecedented popular support from the population (almost 67% of Afghans consider ANA as an effective force) (Department of Defence 2014, 25).
The Taleban, as well as growing Daesh forces continue to challenge the
ANSF, sometimes quite successfully as it was the case in Kunduz, where in
October 2015 serious clashes between the Afghan National Security Forces
(ANSF) and the U.S. troops on one side and the Taleban on the other in the
Afghan city of Kunduz exposed fundamental shortcomings in the current
counter-insurgency strategy as well as the weakness of the Afghan troops
dislocated in this province (Górka-Winter 2015).
•
SSR implementation in Afghanistan
experts also point out that warlords are against the state structures and
peace processes since they are usually losing their profits generated by conflict situations (Jung and Schlichte 1999, 47);
Terrorist groups – their primary motivation is to achieve certain political
objectives (formulated in the context of specific ideology) by intimidation
of society (kidnapping, hostage-taking, sabotage, suicide attacks, bombings, etc.); they are generally organized in groups with structure that is
often hard to identify; they are diverse in number and range of influence;
Criminal groups – they include all kinds of mafia structures, syndicates,
gangs, forgers, smugglers, pirates, etc. These groups are primarily motivated
by financial gains, but also have certain political interests (especially in the
case of organized crime groups which desire to influence the state organizations to ensure the impunity and freedom of action through intimidation, bribery, murder, etc.); their activity is based on the illegal trade of
various goods, fraud, smuggling etc.
Mercenaries and private military companies/private security companies – they recruit volunteers who provide their services in the sphere
of protection (especially in unstable areas where ongoing military operations hinder business activities), training, logistical support; their employers are: state institutions, other private companies, warlords etc.
Marauders – these groups are recruited from the ranks of demobilized
armed formations; they are usually poorly organized, surviving on plunder
carried out against the civilian population.
Indeed, the Afghan National Security Forces, even if not from the very beginning as the international coalition forces intervened in Afghanistan in the
aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks, were considered a key element for providing a sustainable security situation in the country. After the final withdrawal
of the ISAF in 2014, they were considered fully prepared to take over the
whole responsibility for the country’s stability. By the end of December 2014
they numbered around 186,000 which was more or less a level which was
considered sufficient to replace the forces of international coalition. Their
operational effectiveness was also assessed as satisfactory (the number of
operations the Afghan army successfully led multiplied in the course of
the last years), though it is worth to remind that some criteria according to
which they were certified were substantially lowered as the time of the ISAF
107
withdrawal approached (Cordesman 2014). What is even most important,
the drawdown of international troops left ANA with some critical gaps considered crucial to their effective performance against insurgency (logistics,
critical enablers, medical assistance for soldiers etc.). What is worrisome,
their ranks are shrinking dramatically leaving some battalions (kandaks)
severely undermanned (in 2014 attrition rate was 33%! meaning that 1/3 of
ANA soldiers – around 60,000 troops – are leaving their bases yearly) (Smith
2011). ANA is still relying heavily on international donor assistance, as Afghanistan’s economic standing does not allow the government to allocate
substantial financial resources for security purposes (Górka-Winter 2015).
as minister of defence and he currently serves as acting Minister of Defence).
A difficult power-sharing exercise, even if much praised by many commentators as a peaceful transition of power, resulted in resurgence of forces which
have already pushed Afghanistan twice into civil turmoil (in the 90 s, after
the fall of Najibullah government and in the 2000 after the intervention of
international coalition). Potent warlords as Abdurrashid Dostum (backing
president Ashraf Ghani and being nominated vice-president in 2014) and
Muhammad Mohaqiq, together with Muhammad Atta Noor (supporters of
Abdullah Abdullah) are once again emerging as most influential political figures, having numerous private militias under their command.
The effective performance of ANA is not hampered only by structural and
“technical problems”. Volatile political situation has disastrous consequences
for the governance in the security sector and lowered capability of successful confrontation with the Taleban and other insurgencies. All these factors
may finally result in decomposing the achievements of security sector reform in Afghanistan and lead to progressive fragmentation of the security
governance sphere.
It is worth mentioning that the presence of warlords activities on the political
and military scene in Afghanistan (sustaining private militias as parallel
security structures to the Afghan National Security Forces) met with a various
degree of acceptance over the whole period of international community’s
presence in the country. After an intervention in the aftermath of 9/11, the
U.S. forces introduced so called “light footprint” approach meaning dislocating a rather small contingent of American boots on the ground and relying
on some warlord’s militias in terms of gathering intelligence, counter-terrorist operations, mobilizing local support for chasing Al-Qaida and Taliban in
the face of lack of formal local security structures. After the Bonn agreement
in 2001, the first concept of forming the Afghan security forces – Afghan
Military Forces (AMF) was assuming integration of warlord’s militias into
the military forces under the MoD command. Only after this strategy proved
to be unsustainable (due to more and more frequent clashes between rival
groupings and growing social discontent pointing at serious crimes some
warlords committed in their provinces against civil population and women
especially9), the U.S. adopted a brand new approach of dissolving all existing
groups and forming the ANSF from scratch. This exercise ended in half-hearted
An unstable political situation which emerged after the last year’s presidential election with a final creation of the government of national unity with
Ashraf Ghani finally nominated the President of the country and Abdullah
Abdullah assuming the post of “chief executive” proved to be extremely detrimental to the Security Sector Reform achievements and for security of the
country in particular. Most importantly, the candidate for the new Minister of Defence is still not agreed, leaving the Afghan MoD without so much
needed leadership for a prolonged period of time (after four attempts Masum
Stankanzai, ethinc Pasthun and Cambridge graduate was finally presented
108
Warlord’s political offensive
9 Among them, the most serious allegations were against Abdul Rashid Dostum for committing crimes against the Pashtun population in the North in 2001, shortly after the intervention
against the Taliban government was initiated. The U.S. administration tried to isolate Dostum
from his influences with diplomatic and military pressure, but with no apparent success.
109
Secondly, some of the current soldiers, in the face of progressive weakening of formal ANA structures, may leave army to support parallel security
formations, for financial (but also ideological) reasons. This perspective is
especially valid in the face of the fact that only limited part of Afghan National Army is strongly identifying itself with a state (Special Forces among
them). This is a new phenomenon in Afghanistan, where only over the last
few years the government in Kabul with the substantial assistance of international community managed to encourage some “national ethos” in the security structures against the backdrop of traditional habit of placing loyalty
into non-state patronage networks (warlordism culture), going along ethnic
and political lines.
success as the most influential strongmen (Ismail Khan, Gul Aga Sherzai,
Hazrat Ali and the like) were given an important “window of opportunity” to
secure their position and were able to keep their clientelism networks even in
the situation of being transferred from the provinces to the governmental positions. Moreover, in the most volatile areas some new strongmen emerged
(as Bacha Khan or Matiullah Khan in Uruzgan province, where their militias
were hired to secure convoys from Kandahar province).
110
After the ISAF withdrawal – crucial gaps in ANA operational capabilities
A gloomy perspective of possible disintegration of ANA is even more realistic
in the current situation, in which the Taleban movement continue to be a major spoiler of the security situation in the country, as proved for example by
heavy offensive of Taleban troops in the Logar, Badakhshan, Faryab, and
Helmand provinces in 2014 and in Kunduz in 2015. Once the Afghan National
Army took over the responsibility for the conduct of anti-Taleban campaign
from the ISAF forces, the critical gaps (air support, logistics, and medical assistance) in the armed forces are even more visible. The international community effort over the last few years (with Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams
and the U.S. Embedded Training Teams being placed at the forefront of this effort) concentrated mostly on speeding up the recruitment process to assure
ANA will be able to rely on its manpower after ISAF withdrawal and on appropriate training of the troops, denying, however, ANA officers’ access to the
most crucial tasks as planning and leading the counterinsurgency operations.
In the current political situation when some of the most prominent (but also
controversial figures) are back in the game, the ANA may be disrupted at least
in two ways. First of all, some militias may be incorporated into its ranks, but
their loyalty will not be placed in formal command structures. In the crisis
situation (for example over access to the rich natural resources which are
now exploited only to a very limited extent), they will follow their informal patronage chain of command, which would lead to disintegration of the formal
structures or even appropriating some critical abilities. Also a decision taken
on September 8, 2015 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Salahuddin Rabbani
to establish local defence councils composed of former mujahedeens neighboring Kunduz provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar should be seen rather as
a serious challenge to stabilization of the country. Local commanders were
obliged to cooperate with the governmental security forces in fighting the
insurgency. On the one hand appointment of councils and authorizing local
commanders to undertake military actions means no more than sanctioning
a common practice of using local militias to fight insurgency. On the other
hand, however, it will lead to deepening of the existing chaos in commanding and coordination of troops on the battlefield. Existence of the de facto
parallel forces to the ANSF may disrupt the latter totally since the local commanders often generate their revenues from illegal trade (smuggling, extortion, robberies) and they can afford to offer much better financial conditions
for the recruits. Such situation may finally lead to a significant strengthening
of political position of some militia commanders, particularly if they manage
to persuade best trained and equipped ANA troops to join their private formations. Such a scenario may result in disintegration of the existing structures
and gradual collapse of the concept of apolitical, national armed forces built
around the ethos of serving the state, not local commanders.
These concerns were expressed as early as 2009 by former U.S. ambassador
to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, who stated: “We are not collecting enough
lessons learned from the field detailing and documenting how this Army
truly fights, we are not asking the ANA commanders in the field what is right,
nor are we involving the right people in doctrine development. We are attempting to shape the ANA through doctrine that does not take the ‘boots
on the ground’ realities fully into account” (Eikenberry 2009). In addition,
111
also subject to rotations according to internal MoD schedules, which were
not coordinated with the cycle of ANA battalions trainings. According to IHS
Jane’s service, also the problems of ensuring security for training crews had
a significant impact on the effectiveness of the ANA and its operational capabilities in the field. An example of this, IHS is pointing at the lack of adequate protection for employees of the company Textron – combat vehicles
provider for the ANA, who were not able to train crews on the ground due
to the inability to protect them against insurgent attacks (Wasserbly 2014).
the Canadian government reports revealed that the ability of the Afghan
Army to take a lead in operations against insurgency is very limited or even
diminishing, after the Canadians changed the mandate of their engagement
from stabilization activities to mere mentoring and training. In the Kandahar province, before 2011 ANA troops had already played a leadership role in
around 45 % of operations, and in 2011 this level was not higher than 10%.
Perhaps crucially, the training system of ANA soldiers met with serious criticism from military experts. As the international community was focused
mainly on achieving quick results, the recruits initially underwent only short
ten-month training, which was evaluated as not sufficient to acquire the relevant qualifications. Part of the problem was a permanent lack of qualified
trainers – despite the efforts of the U.S. and NATO-led operation NTM-A,
they failed to provide enough mentors to be embedded with ANA. Many of
them were also subjected to significant restrictions – according to reports
of the International Crisis Group, approximately half of the then existing
OMLT teams could not have been deployed in the field, so their actual influence on the process of training was extremely limited. These teams were
112
These critical assessments are still valid among expert communities. They
stress that Afghan forces have permanently failed to achieve the ability to operate independently because its commanders were de-facto isolated from
both the planning and operational activities (for the sake of short-term success of the operation) depriving ANA troops and commanders the ability to
operate effectively without external assistance. In 2007, ANA conducted
independently approximately 45% of operations, and in 2008 this ratio increased to 62%. As a result, military plans implemented by General John
Allen, commander of ISAF and US forces in Afghanistan, in 2012 assumed
reduction of the combat role of international coalition troops. However, as
early as 2011, although president Hamid Karzai’s administration expressed
satisfaction with the fact that ISAF would soon withdraw from the country,
at the same time many representatives of the local governments and elders
councils in the southern provinces in Afghanistan seriously questioned ANA
capabilities to effectively combat the Taleban movement and expressed concerns about the return of the Taleban to power in these provinces.
The ability to effectively conduct operations by the Afghan army has been
significantly delayed by serious deficiencies in shortages in equipment and
mismanagement of the existing capabilities. After several decades of war, the
Afghan security sector faced major shortages in equipment and weaponry,
and after 2001 its replenishment was initiated (mostly thanks to the assistance of the international community in financial and material means). However, these efforts were not systematic and appropriately planned as a result
of both: low capability of the Afghan Ministry of Defense to undertake systematic planning in this sphere, as well as the absence of such planning by
the international community. Only in 2009–2011 approximately $7.7 billion
was invested in Afghanistan in equipment and weapons. However, according to one of the recent SIGAR reports, a significant waste of resources in
this area was revealed. The report highlights the lack of adequate records
of weapons and armaments supplied to Afghanistan, which could be transferred to non-state actors. A lack of due diligence in the development of infrastructure (barracks, stations) is also criticized. One of the glaring examples
of this was, for example, building of a massive military campus in the district
of Washir Leatherneck (which consumed approximately $ 34 million) which
was not used for operational purposes or an unused waste incinerator in Operational Forward Base (FOB) in Sharan sourced for $ 5.4 million. Another,
even more serious example of mismanagement of resources was the launching of the so-called Mobile Strike Force. Although the ANA forces received
most of the vehicles for these units, there are serious problems with manning their crews, providing their training and proper supply of spare parts.
SIGAR has also recommended cancellation of the planned delivery of two
Hercules transport aircraft C-130 precisely because of expected problems
113
with their maintenance. The same is true of support for the airplanes for
the Special Mission Wing of the ANA. As estimated, in order to effectively
fulfill its mission SMW needs approximately 48 new machines (in addition
to the current 30, which, however, are already obsolete or borrowed from
the Air Force). Lack of sufficient number of pilots and mechanics who could
handle the equipment puts in question the rationale behind delivery of such
a number of machines. According to the authors of the Report, in January 2013
only 7 out of 47 pilots have been able to undertake their tasks (SIGAR 2013).
budget proposals and its implementation, the equipment and weaponry
acquisition process – including complicated bureaucratic procedures, infrastructure management, human resource management) are especially low
rated. A number of well-trained soldiers and technicians have already left
the ranks of the army in search of better paid and less danger-prone employment (it is worth noting that after the ISAF withdrawal the casualty ratio
among Afghan troops has risen dramatically – in the summer of 2014 around
100 ANA soldiers and policemen were shot dead weekly as a result of clashes
with the Taleban). Most experts also point to the phenomenon of corruption
(in fact, at every level of MoD structures, as well as among private Afghan
and foreign contractors), which prevents proper management and distribution of resources (supplies of fuel, spare parts, etc.) (Checchia 2012).
These shortcomings are not confronting only the ANA’s ability to successfully
crush the Taleban fighters, but also influence their image among the population. Lack of proper training, illiteracy (the estimate is that less than half the
soldiers have literacy skills at the satisfactory level or can identify sites on
the map) results in mistakes that lead to targeting of civilians, which in the
longer-term perspective may lead to eroding of the hard-won public support.
According to a Western military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity “In the first four months of 2015, more than 1,800 soldiers and police
officers were killed in action, and another 3,400 were wounded. Those casualties are more than 65 percent higher than the amount during the same period last year, the official said” (Mashal, Goldstein and Sukhanyarmay 2015).
These governance shortcomings are proving that the effort of international
community in this particular dimension was dramatically neglected for the
sake of short-term operational goals. Unfortunately, it left the Afghan army
strongly dependent on foreign assistance and especially prone to the disintegration process in the future.
Conclusions
As independent assessments show, many problems draining the Afghan National Army’s capabilities remain unresolved despite serious international
effort in implementing the best practices of security sector reform – both
in the area of management (“governance”), as well as in the sphere of operational and technical support. The capacities of the Ministry of Defence
in management (including strategic planning, operational planning, drafting
114
Security governance in Afghanistan
Uncertain fate of the Afghan security structures shows that there exists
a strong call for the prolonged international community assistance in Afghanistan to complete the efforts undertaken under the security sector reform agenda. On the one hand, a final withdrawal of the ISAF forces must be
perceived as a necessary step forward in the process of creating independent
Afghan capabilities in the sphere of managing its own security problems. As
historical evidence shows (with other post-conflict countries with Bosnia
and Herzegovina as the most striking example), a prolonged dependency on
115
military establishment should be exerted to keep ethnic balance and fair
representation of all ethnic groups among the officer staff and cadets in the
ADU.
the external factors, especially in the sphere of governance, denies the society
of the “host county” the possibility of learning how to govern own country
and usually has disastrous consequences when foreign assistance finally
comes to an end.
Another challenge is to assure the ANA will be equipped suitably to perform
independent military operations in the future. In this context, the program
of weapon acquisition for the Air Force will be crucial to assuring the ability
of taking such actions especially in the context of the fact that in 2013 many
aircraft (mostly of Soviet origin) at the Afghan Air Force’s disposal were terminated. To alleviate the shortfalls in the area of “strategic enablers” (airlift,
communications etc.) as well as to assure the coverage of other expenses the
NATO-ANA Trust Fund should take a much more proactive stance when it
comes to collecting the sufficient level of funds. Assuring accessibility to
financial assistance for the Afghan government is also important when it
comes to its ability to maintain the level of salaries to avert further resignations, especially in the ANA and draining of soldiers to parallel military
structures created by wealthy warlords.
With all the above-mentioned indicators (slow pace of the security sector
reform, economic perturbations, uncertain political settlement with the Taleban and warlords being back in power) it is nonetheless unimaginable that
the international community could completely withdraw its interest in sustaining the progress which has been already achieved with such a paramount
military, human and financial effort. Politicians and experts agree that external support for Afghanistan will continue to be critical to alleviating shortfalls in infrastructure, human capacity, security, and anticipated government
budget revenues. In this context, a decision taken by NATO foreign ministers
on May 2015 to prolong the Alliance’s presence in the country with a new
mission (following “Resolute Support” training and mentoring operation) with
a predominantly civilian component must be praised as it shows a great feeling of responsibility of the international community. Also the deployment of
U.S. troops in most volatile provinces as decided by President Barack Obama
after Kunduz attacks must be seen as a positive signal form the international
community, which is ready to contribute to the country’s security.
116
From the Security Sector Reform perspective it will be crucial to sustain the
positive achievements of this process and alleviate the effects of the apparent shortcomings. More emphasis should go to support for higher military
education, which should be treated as an absolute priority. Afghanistan must
gain an ability to (re)create military elites by its own effort, so the well-educated officers could further mentor the ANA soldiers. To achieve this goal, not
only the broad possibilities of training Afghan officers at Western military
academies should be sustained, but also further investment in the alreadylaunched project of creating the Afghan Defence University (ADU) has to be
provided. This project is of extreme importance, considering that such institutions form not only military professionals but also forge national identity,
which is crucial for such a highly factionalized society, where severe ethnic
tensions will always persist. At the same time, the pressure on the Afghan
Afghan government must also follow through with the implementation of
“good governance” rules (transparency, efficacy and efficiency, rule of law,
inclusiveness etc.) to the security sector as it will be extremely difficult to
sustain positive achievements of the SSR if this process would be neglected.
117
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119
The Background
Security sector reform in Georgia started after so called Rose Revolution
(November 2003) which brought a new, young and ambitious government
aiming to bring the country to NATO and the EU. It has to be said that Georgia started to cooperate with NATO long before 2003 which implied some
changes and reforms in the security sector. However, before 2004 the changes
and reforms suggested by NATO and Georgia’s Western friends were hardly
ever implemented as the country was ruled by corrupt and senile elite that
had no will for radical changes and reforms. Therefore until 2004 Georgia’s security sector was a typical post-Soviet one hardly resembling those
of NATO member countries. Corruption was wide-spread in Georgia and the
security sector was no exclusion. Public servants received miserable salaries
that not only encouraged corruption but also triggered brain drain where
young and ambitious people tried to leave the country or at least to find a job
in foreign firms or international organizations. Even if public service carried
some degree of prestige, this could hardly be said of the country’s armed
forces and police.
Georgian Security
Sector Reform
120
Nodar Kharshiladze
Tornike Sharashenidze
The reforms undertaken after 2003 were triggered not only by an ambition
to bring the country to NATO (or at least closer to NATO). It was clear that
Georgia’s security system, including the armed forces and law enforcement
agencies, was weak and ineffective and hardly provided the needed services.
Reforming the security sector based on the corrupt post-Soviet model made
sense first of all because the country was in need of normal army, police and
security services. NATO (and the Western partners in general) were ready,
willing and able to help Georgia achieve this ambitious goal. By moving on
the reform of its security sector Georgia was becoming both stronger and
closer to NATO.
The eagerness of the new government to embark on the path of reforms and
transformations was not lost on NATO, which has led in 2004 to Georgia
receiving Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) from the alliance. Even
though Georgia was involved in negotiations with NATO on IPAP for quite
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The Ministry of Interior and Security Services
a while, before the Rose Revolution the alliance regarded rather sceptically Georgia’s willingness to undertake the necessary reforms. Indeed despite
the fact that Georgia received substantial assistance (in terms of both money
and expertise) the process of reforms under Shevardnadze had effectively
stalled. Changes in the security sector were limited to training of a few military units by the American instructors (so called Georgia Train and Equip
Program). There was more willingness for the American side to help further
Georgia but because of the absence of political will on the Georgian government’s side, the country was not able to benefit from the assistance from the
US and other partners. The government was not even able to adopt National
Security Concept – something the security sector reform could not do without since it was to define priorities and challenges for the country and its
state institutions.
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Soon a new security institution emerged. In early 1992 the first president of
independent Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia was overthrown in the aftermath
of the civil war and the power was taken over by Edward Shevardnadze, the
former leader of Soviet Georgia (formally the first secretary of Central Committee of Communist Party of Soviet Georgia) and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union. Fearing the Interior Ministry and MSS were not
fully reliable after the civil war, Shevardnadze founded a new agency called
Special State Protection Service (SSPS). This agency (which still operates in
Georgia) was entrusted with the task of protecting the governmental agencies and the high-ranking officials themselves. In many ways SSPS copied
the functions and responsibilities of MSS – a rather typical pattern for nondemocratic countries where the political leadership creates parallel security
structures thus ensuring rivalry among them and thus reducing the chances
for a coordinated coup d’état (something Shevardnadze was fearing after the
civil war).
The new government signalled its readiness to start the reforms without any
delay and from 2004 the country found itself in the midst of rapid changes
and transformations. Public service was reshuffled, corruption was eradicated, salaries raised and young professionals brought in. These positive
changes affected first of all the security sector – police, armed forces, state
security service. Ultimately, the Georgian security sector reforms became in
a way a model for the whole post-Soviet space. Of course the reform was not
a complete success – for example many an observer said that the reform of
the Ministry of Interior was more far-reaching than the reform of the Ministry of Defense – but still the overall positive change can hardly be underestimated as one of the poorest and the most corrupt post-Soviet republics managed to almost completely change and transform its security institutions.
However, once again it held true that reforms’ implementation had a varying
degree of success for different state agencies. Let us concentrate mainly on
two largest state institutions – Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense –
in addition to the security services and the National Security Council as the
main body tasked with coordinating the activities of the security structures.
The Ministry of Interior (MIA) was always considered the most powerful and
formidable state agency in Georgia. After regaining its independence in 1991,
Georgia established and developed a national security model in which the
Interior Ministry had always played a key role along with Ministry of State Security (MSS). The latter covered a far-reaching agenda, starting with counterintelligence all the way to spying on political opponents of the ruling regimes
(as it was no less as the successor of KGB), although in terms of influence it
was always second to MIA.
Eventually, SSPS functions never went beyond its initial assignments and it
hardly ever became a serious political tool. It simply carried out its responsibilities and the Shevardnadze government promptly accepted any kind of
Western assistance designed to make SSPS more effective (since it was protecting the Shevardnadze government). For those reasons SSPS never became a priority of the reforms started in 2004. It rather benefitted from the
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provided (or was available to provide) additional security – in case the army
challenged the ruling elite would be able to enlist the help of MIA troops. Despite recommendations from the Western advisors to disband it, this MIAaffiliated arm proved simply too strong to disband.
overall improvement of the economic situation, drastic reduction of corruption and reforms of agencies like MIA. But SSPS itself never changed much.
What’s more, it can be considered the most depoliticized institution relative
to state security, carrying out its functions under every new government and
staying out of domestic, partisan politics.
As a result of such a monstrous structure, the Interior Ministry was given
to mismanagement, corruption and lack of professionalism, and crime was
on the rise in Georgia, confounding the social situation for ordinary citizens
and also making Georgia less attractive for tourism and foreign investment.
Another, more or less depoliticized state institution is the Foreign Intelligence
Service. It operated under MSS but in 2005 was transformed into a separate
entity under the president of Georgia. Currently, after the constitutional
changes that saw the presidential office lose some of its powers, the Foreign
Intelligence Service has been re-assigned to answer to the prime minister.
Additionally, the Interior Ministry still had active elements of Soviet system,
such as the dedicated troops – based on the Soviet model of paramilitary
anti-riot force, making very structure of the Ministry incompatible with
democratic control. Needless to say, the Shevardnadze government felt quite
comfortable with this system allegedly because another parallel structure
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As for MIA, during the Shevardnadze period it managed to become a major actor in state security system, however it failed to provide its basic and
most important service – public safety. Extreme corruption and rampant
ineffectiveness of MIA and the whole law enforcement system supported
the strengthening of the so-called “thieves within law” – an institution allegedly created by monstrous Soviet secret services for the purpose of harassing political opponents and ensuring influence over the criminal world. The
“thieves within law” was a kind of mix of old-time Sicilian Mafia and modern
organized crime syndicate. Basically it step by step became an alternative
dispenser of justice, even managing to forge partnership with corrupt police officials. It is no wonder that during the Shevardnadze rule (1993–2003)
the public was extremely unhappy with police, considering it ineffective,
corrupt and dangerous. Most people would hesitate to contact police even
if such need occurred because the institution was notorious not only for
taking bribes but also for tortures and close connections with the criminal
world (“thieves within law” in the first place).
It is no wonder that reforming the MIA became one of the top priorities of
the Saakashvili government that came to power in late 2003. Thanks to radical and daring steps, the MIA reform became a milestone achievement in
the history of modern Georgia. The success came surprisingly quickly: Metaphorically speaking, the old police force was disbanded overnight and it was
replaced by new, non-corrupt, enthusiastic individuals that were trained by
the Western experts. The new police officers received generous salaries and
bonuses that minimized the risk of corruption and consequently helped the
new police to gain the public’s trust. As a result, in a very short period of time
(2–3 years) the reform resulted in the creation of modern, well equipped police force able to deliver the basic police services. It dramatically improved
public safety in Georgia and helped the country not only to attract foreign
investments and tourists but also to gain confidence and hope for the future
in general – something that the country had almost lost.
Police, especially Patrol Police department, gained trust of citizens and popularity. Effective functioning of patrol police units and application of basic police tactics produced very sound and positive results. Additionally, the state
conducted an aggressive, and according to some, brutal campaign against
“thieves within law,” various criminal organizations and non-law abiding
individuals. This campaign finally resulted in a total triumph not only over
the “thieves within law” but the criminal establishment as such. The combination of effectiveness and brutality (referred to as “zero tolerance policy”)
made Georgia one of the safest places in the world. Georgian police became
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mismanagement, absence of democratic control or some other reason, the
fact is that the reform of the security sector in Georgia was rather marred by
the merger of MIA and MSS.
not only a success story but even a legend in the post-Soviet zone. “Police
officers not taking bribes” sounded incredible especially for a country like
Georgia that used to be extremely corrupt even by the post-Soviet standards.
Counterintelligence service (under MIA) also distinguished itself, namely
it succeeded in exposing and tracking down GRU (Russian military intelligence) network in the country.
Further reforming of the MIA (and above all separating state security and
interior ministries) was one of the promises of the Georgian Dream, the
current ruling coalition that came to power in 2012. It took 3 years to fulfil
that promise – in 2015 MSS reappeared as a separate agency again (however
in the form of the State Security Service). There is still a number of questions regarding the scope of competences of the State Security Service (SSS),
namely, it is still suspected of being a tool for spying on political opponents.
Constitutional Security Department and Special Operative Department were
formally scrapped, when in fact they were simply merged, which still raises
concerns about the willingness of the current political leadership to transform the security service into a truly depoliticized institution. The situation
is confounded still by the fact that both MIA and SSS are presided over by
political appointees (currently the close affiliates of Bizina Ivanishvili, the
leader of the ruling coalition) which means that the division of powers is
rather a formal one and that both agencies are still controlled by a single political force. However even a formal division of a “monster” like the MIA instituted over the period of 2005–2015 into two entities should be considered
a step forward.
Moreover, Interior Ministry troops were finally removed from MIA and their
paramilitary functions transferred to the Ministry of Defense. However
there were a number of changes made to further strengthen and increase
the scope of duties for the MIA to truly monstrous proportions.
Transparency and accountability issues left aside there were also questions
of the agency’s ability to effectively function and manage such a large portfolio. Whatever the reasons, the facts speak for themselves: patrol police were
regarded as very effective and widely trusted by the public, in public opinion
polls often voted as one of the most popular state institutions, however at
the same time the state security units (such as Constitutional Security Department and Special Operative Department) were regarded as tools for spying on and harassing of the regime’s political opponents. Whether due to
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Namely, the Border Guard department, which was previously subordinated
to the Ministry of Interior, transferred to border police. This was a questionable decision, considering the number of considerable paramilitary threats
in the proximity of the Georgian border. In addition to that, in 2005 MSS was
absorbed by MIA, thus making the latter the largest state agency in the modern Georgia history. This was a rather controversial decision that haunted
the Saakashvili government to the very end since the creation of such a monstrous institution raised questions of democratic control and transparency.
Very soon, MIA’s activities became a major concern for human rights activists and watchdog organizations that traditionally regard with suspicion all
activities of law enforcement agencies and it was no surprise that they disliked such a formidable agency like the MIA in the Saakashvili government.
Eventually the ministry became not only feared but also less trusted by the
civic society representatives and ordinary citizens.
Currently, MIA is a major law enforcement agency of the country, with functions to ensure public order and citizens’ safety, reducing crime and offences,
protecting human rights in compliance with the democratic standards, ensuring road safety, border security, prevention and management of emergencies, management of migration, as well as combatting illegal drug trafficking
and addiction, human trafficking, corruption, terrorism and cybercrime.
MIA has three major functions, which could be divided up under independent
management, separate agencies or even ministries. Those are:
• Public safety and security
• Crisis management
• Border management and security
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Public safety is probably the most important function of MIA. After the
reform started in 2004 this component has been the most successful functional aspect of MIA. As a result Georgia has witnessed a dramatic decrease
of crime rate and also dramatic increase of public support and trust towards
MIA. Since the last reform in 2004, there are two major departments responsible for public safety and security: Patrol Police Department and Criminal
Police Department. Georgian Patrol Police is a state agency which ensures
freedom and security of each citizen and is accountable to the public. With
the purpose to maintain peace, public order and security, the police carry out
their duty in cooperation with the civil society. The main tasks of patrol police are:
• Implementation of legal and organizational-technical measures to regulate road traffic;
• Carrying out relevant measures to prevent and avoid traffic accidents;
• Protection of public order in case of car accidents, disasters, fires, natural
calamities and other emergency situations;
• Prevention and exposure of crime or any illegal activity as well as conduct
of investigation of such illegal activity at border checkpoints;
• Restriction or suspension of road traffic in compliance with the legislation of Georgia;
• Protection of state border regime at border checkpoints, inspection of civilians at border checkpoints, also fulfillment of the other requirements
of legislation on migration and the legal status of foreigners;
• Conduct of operational-search activities in order to prevent and expose
crimes or illegal conduct; Processing of administrative violations exposed
at the border checkpoints.
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Special and Emergency Measures Center is responsible for crisis management with the following scope of responsibilities: ensures safety, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state, regular borders, public order, objects
under the management of the Ministry, strategic pipelines crossing the territory of Georgia. In addition to that:
• Provides operative units of the Ministry with the relevant resources;
• Prevents emergency situations throughout the country;
• Controls legal shipments of nuclear and radioactive substances, uncovers
and prevents any illegal transportation of the mentioned substances and
participates in the implementation of respective security measures.
Border Police (a state agency subordinate to MIA) is responsible for border
management and security. The main tasks of Border Police are:
• Protection of the State border of Georgia as well as protection of territorial integrity, inviolability of the state border, the state, its citizens and
safety of their property along with other state agencies;
• In accordance with the legislation of Georgia ensuring prevention and uncovering of illegal acts at the state border crossings, the border line, border area, as well as the maritime security of Georgia and of vessels under
the jurisdiction of Georgia;
• Coordinates operations of border security entities at border crossing points,
determines the place, time and control of migration, customs and other
types of controls in coordination with the customs authority;
• Inspects Georgian and foreign citizens at the Georgian border, carries out
the procedures in line with the Law on Legal Status of Foreigners;
• Ensures safety of maritime navigation and boating in Georgia’s territorial
waters;
• Investigates maritime incidents within the scope of its competence;
• Protects and maintains the environment and natural resources and responds to the contamination within the border line, border zone and in
the maritime space of Georgia;
• Controls and coordinates the protection and safety measures of international airports and seaports;
• Conducts search and rescue operations at sea, within its borders, along
the zone, and in special cases – for the purpose of saving people’s life and
property – throughout the entire territory of Georgia;
MIA was originally also responsible for counter-intelligence activities but
this function has been transferred to SSS. The respective unit under SSS is
tasked with forecasting any threats to the country, identifying and responding to crime against the state, and ensuring protection of the constitutional
order.
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The Ministry of Defense
The main task of the counter-intelligence service is to ensure national security by collecting information, and detecting and neutralizing foreign spy
networks. There are no available open sources regarding the structure, personnel and major functions of these services and every bit of information
regarding the respective activities is strictly classified.
Since the change of government in 2003 Georgia has declared defense as its
top priority. Defense budget was significantly increased in the following 4
years (100 million USD in 2005 compared to 1 billion USD in 2008) and public support for the army was approximately 90%, making it the most popular
institution in the country (along with the police). Once again, these changes
were triggered by two major motives: Georgia’s unanimous decision to join
NATO and a clear need for strong defense in a very complicated strategic
environment.
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To sum up, the reform of the MIA was extremely successful. The eradication
of corruption in the agency, increasing of its effectiveness through adopting the best practices made the reform of Georgia’s police an exemplary undertaking. On the other hand there is a cautionary tale of MIA as a monster
taking over too many responsibilities and ultimately being regarded as a political tool of the ruling elite. It is no secret that Saakashvili’s government
was widely criticized for violating human rights and failure to strengthen
democratic institutions. Under his rule the parliament instead of ensuring
democratic control was an obedient instrument that would endorse any
decisions and initiatives of the president. Nevertheless, the advances made
in terms of eradicating corruption and the triumph over the criminal world
were achieved at the expense of violating democratic norms, which finally
greatly contributed to his the defeat in the 2012 parliamentarian elections.
The parliamentarian oversight and control over institutions such as MIA and
SSS still remains a problem today. Today’s parliament has a strong opposition in the form of former ruling party (Saakashvili’s party) but the majority
is controlled by the Georgian Dream party which is as obedient to Ivanishvili
as the former parliament majority was to Saakashvili.
Since 2004 Georgia’s defense reform had gained tremendous momentum
having enjoyed support on both the national and international level. Since
then, the defense spending was scaled up by 2.5–4% of GDP. What’s more,
Georgia’s defense reform was supported by many NATO member states,
including the US, Turkey, UK, Germany, France and many others that sent
their advisory and training missions to the country and also provided various
educational and training opportunities in their military colleges and training centers. A number of expert teams from NATO were involved in assisting
the institution-building in the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Georgia. The
ministry not only received assistance in terms of money and expertise from
NATO member countries but also hired distinguished foreign experts. As it
had some experience of working on strategic documents (The White Paper
was elaborated back in 2001 before the start of the reforms under Saakashvili) with the support from outside of the MoD, providing the basis for the
development of another stage of such documents as the Strategic Defense
Review. Eventually the ministry set a good example for hiring not only foreign but also domestic expert groups thus stimulating the development of
Georgian think tanks and academia.
Before the reform, the MoD was one of the most corrupt institutions. In addition, the financial assistance received from the Western partners allegedly
was embezzled and squandered. Georgia did not benefit as much from NATO
Partnership for Peace programs as it could have. In 2002 the US launched
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Western culture and standards into the armed forces. The scale of drafting
recruits was dramatically reduced as the army became close to 80% professional.
a milestone Georgia Train and Equip Program (mentioned above) aimed at
training and modernizing Georgian armed forces. It was the first case when
the US military entered the South Caucasus (the region Russia considered its
backyard), presenting a fantastic opportunity for Georgia to start rebuilding
its army with the American help. However, once again due to corruption and
rampant mismanagement the Georgian side failed to fully benefit from this
program.
However there were some serious outstanding concerns regarding human
rights, budget transparency and democratic oversight. During the Saakashvili era, the MoD remained a very closed-off institution that drew sharp
criticism from the political opposition. In addition to that it was lacking in
transparency, which made it into quite an unstable institution too because
unlike the MIA, MoD leadership changed very frequently, which had the effect of harming the reform process and the ministry in general. Georgia was
still plagued with the weakness of state institutions, among other problems.
Each new minister would try to bring in not only a new team of his affiliates
but also a new vision. Probably this was one of the reasons why the reform of
MoD and the armed forces was not as successful as that of the MIA.
Thanks to the rapid changes undertaken in 2004–2012 (the Saakashvili rule)
MoD of Georgia can boast of a very positive record of reducing corruption,
drastically raising salaries and in general improving the conditions for servicemen. What’s more, the MoD became a civilian agency (a necessary step to
establishing democratic control over the ministry), English language courses
were widely introduced in the armed forces and lots of Georgian officers were
offered opportunities to study at elite Western military colleges. It made
it possible to gradually replace the Soviet-educated officers and bring the
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The corruption affected the armed forces of Georgia in many ways. Young
people tried to avoid army service not only because it did not offer any special opportunities but also because it did not provide anything in terms of
basic human needs. Soldiers and even officers literally starved and suffered
from access to basic hygiene and healthcare. Under these circumstances
anyone who could afford it would simply bribe a way out of army service.
The army suffered from lack of qualified personnel and was filled with officers educated in the Soviet Union. The lack of knowledge of English was
a big challenge as well since it hampered cooperation with the Western partners. For these reasons cooperation with NATO effectively stalled. The Alliance strongly urged the MoD to undertake the necessary reforms but to
no avail. However only the MoD should not be blamed for this failure – it
was rather the fault of political leadership under the senile Shevardnadze
that had lost any sense for the changes. One of the vivid examples was the
failure to appoint a civilian minister of defense – something NATO strongly
recommended and the Shevardnadze government at least formally agreed to
but never implemented. Only after the reform had started this change was
finally made.
The history of reforms of the MIA and MoD in Georgia demonstrated the
importance and role of individuals in a transitional democracy with weak
and underdeveloped state institutions. The individuals can play a dominant
role, making any such undertaking either a success or failure. A case in point
is the MIA, which for most of its existence was ruled by Ivane Merabishvili,
Saakashvili’s close affiliate that turned out to be a very good manager. As was
mentioned, the MoD leadership had changed rather frequently but that was
for a reason. In 2004–2006 the MoD was ruled over by ambitious and charismatic Irakli Okruashvili, also one of very close affiliates of Saakashvili. No
doubt he was entrusted with a task of accomplishing yet another “miracle” –
to reform and strengthen the MoD and armed forces, along the same line of
Merabishvili with police and security forces.
However, as the MoD and the armed forces were becoming stronger, so grew
Okruashvili ambitions, leading to his dismissal in late 2006 when he was appointed Minister of Economy. Soon thereafter he resigned from there and in
2007 reappeared as one of the leaders of the opposition, accusing Saakashvili of power abuse. This led to a serious political turmoil, protest rallies and
ultimately Saakashvili’s resignation (although he won the early elections and
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The threats and challenges were severe especially because after the war Georgia started to suffer from the unofficial arms embargo (as the new American
government launched a reset policy with Russia the latter was able to persuade Georgia’s partners not to sell arms to the country). But this challenge
was somehow met as Georgia started to develop its own military industry.
Even though it was initially regarded with suspicion by the new government
that came to power in 2012 (as was the case with most of the achievements
under the Saakashvili government) it never was completely reversed, which
can be considered proof of some success.
became the president for the second term). These events naturally raised
questions about what could have been the outcome had Okruashvili not
been dismissed in 2006 and a man of his ambitions and influence kept the
MoD and armed forces under his control. There was more trouble when in
May 2009 the government made an announcement about supressing a mutiny in a military unit close to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.
These cases all illustrate the point that the MoD reform was not as smooth
as that of MIA. The reasons still have to be analysed, but one of them is that
Okruashvili was not another Merabishvili. Another reason is that replacing the police force turned out to be more achievable than replacing military servicemen. Therefore reforms in MoD never took as drastic a form and
scope as those in MIA.
The 2012 change of government affected the MoD similarly as it had affected the MIA. Namely, the new leadership tried to make the MoD into a more
transparent institution, which led to ensuring more transparency vis-à-vis
procurement. Plus, the new leadership got more actively involved in a dialog
with civil society which made the MoD at least appear like a more transparent institution under effective democratic oversight. The ministry continued
to participate in the peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and cooperation with NATO remained a top priority. A case in point is the 2015 launch of
NATO-Georgian Training and Evaluation Center. In addition, NATO multinational military exercises were held in Georgia in 2015 with the prospect of
more such activities in the future which only serves to underline the cooperation with NATO.
The experience and consequences of the 2008 war made the Georgian authorities reconsider their attitude toward the role of the armed forces. It
became clear that Georgia had to maintain both territorial and deployable
capabilities which required additional resources and certainly posed challenges. In view of the severe threats developed after the 2008 (first of all,
the deployment of the Russian military base close to Tbilisi) MoD developed
a National Military Strategy that stressed the problem of limited resources
and spoke of a need for “Coordinated actions of the armed forces, other
agencies and the population” in case of aggression against the country.
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Speaking of the reforms of the armed forces, they can be divided into two
major stages: before the 2008 war and after the 2008 war. Before 2008 Georgia focused on deployable capabilities with a special emphasis on compatibility with NATO and US-led coalition operations (Georgian military participated in peacekeeping operations in Iraq and after 2008 got actively involved
in peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan as well). Full scale military threat
to the country was considered more theoretically rather than practically. According to the National Security Concept the armed forces were not to expect an invasion (“While the likelihood of open military aggression against
Georgia is low” – said the document). Later after the war, the concept was
widely criticized for this miscalculation and soon it was rewritten.
Nevertheless, there are some drawback too. Namely, because of the economic slowdown and devaluation of the national currency, the MoD has started
to suffer from shortages of some resources. By doing rather less with less
(rather than more with less as a popular NATO slogan goes), the MoD has to
ensure that Georgian military capabilities do not degrade. To add to the complexity of the problem at hand, the current MoD leadership has announced
making the armed forces 100% professional, even though under the existing
financial constraints this plan looks rather controversial.
Also, there is a persisting problem in the defense sector, which has been plaguing the country for years: the failure to separate politics from the military.
The Okruashvili affair and the 2009 mutiny already indicated the gravity of
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empire in the early 19th century until the early 1990 s when the Soviet Union
collapsed. This meant that the country had to build everything from scratch,
whereas the MIA existed in the Soviet Georgia, which had laid down some
institutional traditions, knowledge and capacity. This may be considered another reason why in comparison the MoD reform looks less successful.
Georgia definitely has not come close to resolving the issue of civilian control
of the military in an effective way. The affair with the former head of general
staff is not an isolated case since senior officers are typically dismissed after
the change of political leadership in the country. Such practices definitely
don’t add to the development and growth of strong officer corps that should
serve as cornerstone for the armed forces. The problems do end there: it is
widely understood that servicemen are required (or even enforced) to vote
for the incumbent authorities in the elections, making the army involved in
domestic partisan politics.
The National Security Council
Once again the MoD reform comes across as less successful than the MIA
one. But still there is no comparing the armed forces of Georgia to their state
prior to 2004: poorly armed and ill-fed servicemen led by officers indoctrinated in the Soviet system; rampant corruption and nepotism; lack of any
opportunities. This stark comparison seems incredible now that Georgian
servicemen have access to not only food and healthcare but also good-quality education both abroad and in the country, as well as improved opportunities. In 2011 the National Defense Academy was reformed into a civil-military educational institution, providing education based on the curricula of
leading Western military colleges and involving leading professionals from
the Georgian academia. However, even in this aspect the MIA proved more
effective – it reformed the Police Academy years before.
Finally, in defense of the defense sector reform, it should be mentioned that
Georgia had no armed forces if its own since it became a part of the Russian
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this problem and after the 2012 elections it became obvious that the situation had not improved at all. Shortly after coming to power the new ruling
coalition took drastic measures to depose the head of general staff appointed
by Saakashvili (as the Georgian Dream coalition won the parliamentarian
elections in 2012 Saakashvili as president stayed in power until late 2013), finally putting him under arrest (later he was released as Saakashvili agreed to
dismiss him). This step not only damaged the armed forces but highlighted
(maybe unnecessarily) the lack of trust between the politicians and the military).
Under Shevardnadze the National Security Council (NSC) staff was mainly
involved in controlling rather than coordinating the activities of law enforcement agencies. This institution was turned simply into another tool for protecting the regime and in a way was regarded as another law enforcement
agency with no executive power but still a huge influence on security policy.
Some changes were already implemented in the NSC even before 2003: in
2002 the NSC leadership changed after Nugzar Sajaia, the National Security
Advisor, a very strong and influential figure close to Shevardnadze, committed suicide. The new National Security Advisor with experience of serving as Georgian ambassador to the US decided to reshape the organization
into a tool of presidential control over foreign rather than domestic security
policy (like in the US). NSC staff was also entrusted with the task of drafting
the National Security Concept. Thanks to the US assistance NSC recruited
young, Western-educated professional who received salaries higher than
those in the Georgian public service. In fact, after 2004 the salaries for public servants were increased substantially and young NSC staff recruits were
the highest paid employees in Georgian public service. But this attempt to
rejuvenate and reform NSC was overshadowed by the events that followed
the 2003 Rose Revolution: in most of the state institutions senior staffers
were dismissed and replaced with young, Western-educated recruits and the
Western assistance programs were launched, following a suit of other institutions given to refreshing its personnel thanks to Western assistance.
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change – Georgia has undergone a transformation form presidential to a mixed
(semi-parliamentarian) model. As a result the president had to share most of
his powers with the prime minister. Consequently NSC had lost its functions
and influence once again (and this time it was much more serious as it was
brought on by the change of the constitutional model, not by change of leadership). What followed is the prime minister created his own version of NSC
called Nationall Safety and Crisis Management Council.
The focus on foreign policy rather than on domestic security was more or
less preserved from 2002 onwards. However, the NSC continued to suffer
from the absence of institutional history, and therefore struggled to find its
place in the security sector and was highly dependent on the preferences and
influence of its leadership. To illustrate this, after the Rose Revolution it was
headed by Merabishvili who was mostly preoccupied with domestic issues.
His successor Gela Bezhuashvili (former minister of defense) was focused almost entirely on foreign policy. In late 2005 he became minister of foreign
affairs and his ministry almost monopolized the control over foreign policy
(along with the president). As for domestic security, it was already definitely
monopolized by the MIA. As the new NSC leadership lacked the necessary
political influence, the NSC was hardly able to influence the coordination of
and cooperation among national security agencies.
It goes without saying that Georgia’s national security policies do not benefit
from the existence of two similar institutions. Under Saakashvili the relationship between NSC and its counterpart was uneasy because the president
and the prime minister were from different political camps. Needless to say
things did not improve much after Georgian Dream candidate became president in 2013 as soon he fell out with Bizina Ivanishvili (the leader of the ruling coalition). Thus, the NSC remains highly dependent on politics and is
struggling to find its place within the security sector and state institutions in
general. Today’s NSC functions are mainly limited to defense sector (since
the president still maintains the authority of supreme commander of the
armed forces), but even here it can hardly affect things since the MoD reports
in the first place to the prime minister.
After the 2008 war, the NSC gradually regained some of its influence as there
was a need to rewrite the strategic documents, such as Threat Assessment
and the National Security Concept. The NSC staff were entrusted with these
new tasks which implied ensuring some cooperation among respective state
agencies as well. In addition, the organization’s leadership changed again
a few times until a new strong political figure was appointed that guaranteed
more or less stable development and certain influence over both foreign and
domestic policies.
The situation changed yet again after the 2012 elections that along with the
change of the ruling elite brought the enactment of important constitutional
138
Consequently, the institution had very soon degraded and lost its competences, its existence limited only to organizing and administering NSC meetings chaired by the president. However even those meetings were formalities, simply because Saakashvili normally made decisions in a narrow circle
of his close advisors (such as Merabishvili), which normally did not include
NSC members like chairman of the parliament or the minister of finance.
The NSC was actually limited to meetings among NSC members (president,
minister of defense, minister of foreign affairs, prime minister, etc.) and the
NSC as an institution was extremely weakened as a result.
The case of NSC in Georgia is a good example of a state institution that suffers from ill-defined function and place, as well as absence of institutional
traditions. Under the right guidance, the NSC could contribute to effective
development of the security sector ensuring coordination and cooperation
among respective agencies. However politics have hampered this process and
never allowed NSC to develop into this role. The failure to reform the NSC
can be explained once again by the same logic that applied o MoD. As was
shown, the MoD reform turned out to be more arduous than that of the MIA,
which was mainly due to Georgia’s lack of experience in the military sphere
before restoring its independence in the ’90 s. What’s more, the MoD was
“less of a traditional” institution than the MIA. Still, the NSC was even “less
traditional” than the MoD, which is why its place and role remains still rather
vague.
139
In Lieu of Conclusion
The security system reform in Georgia should be analysed within the full
context of the overall reform in the country that was aimed at eradicating
corruption, doing away with the Soviet mentality and introducing best practices. Actually, in some cases the Georgian reformers invented some of their
best practices, and not only in the security sector. One such example is the
Public Service Hall – an agency that provides all kinds of public services (notary, public register, civil register, etc.) based on a single window principle.
Nevertheless, the security sector reform attracted special attention since it
came under close scrutiny from NATO and also due to the fact that NATO
member countries assisted Georgia in these reforms.
The security sector reform in Georgia started when the country had regained
its independence and lasted more than ten years. During this period Georgia
fought a civil war and wars with separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
which were openly supported by Russia. As a result it lost control over some
of its territories and the country had to face poverty, corruption and widespread crime. After such a turbulent era, hardly anyone could expect any
success form the government that came to power in late 2003.
140
Weakness of state institutions was certainly a challenge for the reformers,
but only at the start of the reforms. On the contrary, if it were not for weak institutions, they would find it extremely difficult to reform the existing practices and bring in new mind-set and new culture. However in some ways the
reformers failed to strengthen the institutions since they presided over such
state agencies as the MIA for far too long thus making them too dependent
on individuals at their helm.
But at the same time the hardships, bitter experiences and disappointments
of 1990 s somehow contributed to the unexpected success. The people realized that something had to change or the country would finally collapse.
That’s why the Saakashvili government received a blank check to move and
change things and undertake the necessary reforms. Saakashvili’s team
brought together ambitious, Western-oriented visionaries that had no illusions or sentiments about the post-Soviet heritage and started to dismantle
this legacy altogether. That implied a certain risk but they were willing to
take it, especially when the West was ready to assist them in their endeavour.
Perhaps the transition for Georgia would have been easier if there was already some example of successful reforms in the neighbourhood or in the
whole post-Soviet zone (excluding the Baltic States, which took a completely
different path). Needless to say, learning from another country burdened with
the Soviet heritage would make the Georgian reforms even more successful.
Arguably, the Georgian case can help other post-Soviet countries to undertake similar reforms, such as the case of Ukraine, where Saakashvili himself
and some of his team members are offering their assistance. The jury is still
out on how the Georgian reformers will succeed in Ukraine. In addition, the
current Ukrainian leadership only asked for Georgian help (the reforms were
not entrusted to Ukrainians) after the Crimean disaster. We can argue that
Georgia’s example actually did not stimulate very much any other post-Soviet
country to introduce reforms and that what happened since 2003 in Georgia
was an isolated case of success not seen in the post-Soviet space since.
In late 2003, the brunt of the reformers were already well-experienced and
seasoned politicians and professionals, Saakashvili himself serving as minister of justice in Shevardnadze’s government. Another advantage was that the
reformers themselves were not burdened with the Soviet heritage as they
started their careers in independent Georgia. All of them worked under Shevardnadze, a shrewd and experienced politician. So the Rose Revolution did
not usher an entirely new political elite to power. Possibly that is why the
Georgian domestic political scene remained stable and the reformers were
able to undertake the necessary measures for change and modernization.
Although they succeeded in many ways, they did not succeed as much in
building a strong democracy which casts some shadow over their achievements. Nevertheless, the overall assessment of their reforms should definitely
be positive.
141
CENAA Team
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. 2005. International Security Advisory Board report. Accessed February 28,
2016. http://fes.ge/geo/images/Fes_Files/05Publications/isab_full_new.pdf.
Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. 2010. National Military Strategy of
Georgia. Accessed February 28, 2016. http://gfsis.org/media/download/GSAC/resources/NMS.
pdf.
Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA) is an independent non-governmental organization dealing with foreign policy and security. We pursue a range
of projects, including research, events and publications with partners from Slovakia
and abroad. Other important activities include transition projects with the countries
and regions not only neighbouring the EU and NATO. CENAA aims to contribute to the
strategic level discussion in Slovakia and the Euro-Atlantic area, to shape policies, and
to bring new ideas and recommendations to decision-makers. In addition, we actively
engage with the younger generation through education projects to prepare them for
a career in the area of foreign affairs and security. Our key activities are divided into
four programmes: Transatlantic Security Programme, Transition Programme, Emerging
Threats Programme, Publications and Education.
Parliament of Georgia. 2005. National Security Concept of Georgia. Accessed February 28, 2016.
http://www.parliament.ge/files/292_880_927746_concept_en.pdf.
142
(
We believe that our work
can make the world safer place
References
The main aim of the Transatlantic Security Programme is to contribute to the development of new concepts, solutions or ideas in the area of Transatlantic Security, NATO
Partnership and Enlargement Policy. Our Transition Programme champions the successful transition, stability and sustainable development in all regions and countries
where we are present with our projects (South Caucasus, Ukraine, East and Southeast
Europe, Afghanistan and Tunisia) in capacity-building, institutional development, education and training. Emerging Threats Programme addresses new security threats, including cyber security, issues related to energy security and internal security threats
such as extremism and radicalism. Within this programme, CENAA launched several
research and advocacy activities to define the most important challenges, in the field of
cyber security and right-wing extremist movements. Publication Programme includes
topical publications related to CENAAs activities as well as our flagship project Panorama of the Global Security Environment which engages Central European security and
foreign policy community in a strategic level discussion on security in world. We also
publish brief policy analyses on current issues in the foreign affairs and security called
Policy Papers.
Our flagship projects include unique international conferences – NATO 2020 which is
organized every year in Bratislava, and South Caucasus Security Forum which is organised every year in Tbilisi, Georgia.
143

Publication titled Security Sector Reform: Global Case Studies

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