OSCE “Failed” in Georgia Warnings

This just in from BBC: “The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has been accused of failing to warn that this summer’s Russia-Georgia conflict was looming.”

A former senior OSCE official, Ryan Grist, told the BBC he had warned of Georgia’s military activity before its move into the South Ossetia region. He said it was an “absolute failure” reports were not passed on by bosses. Mr Grist said: “The OSCE had been working in South Ossetia for many many years. We were the one institution that knew, had a feel for what was going on there at the mission level. “There clearly wasn’t the eye on the ball on the higher diplomatic level I would say. Because it was clear that something was brewing.” He said he had made it “very clear” at a briefing to ambassadors there was a “severe escalation”. [...] “It would give the Russian Federation any excuse it needed in terms of trying to support its own troops,” Mr Grist said. Mr Stubb said the OSCE only had “diplomatic means” but admitted those means had failed.

Some personal observations:

• Information is shaped and revised as it percolates through the layers of a bureaucracy in both international and regional organizations, whether governmental or non-governmental.  In other words, “the inevitable problems of hierarchy (both formal and informal) include the filtering and distortion of information, a slower pace of decision making, and restricted or highly specified procedures for access to required resources.”  Since the “likelihood of information moving from one person to another is proportional to the strength of their relationship,” a hierarchical approach to early warning and response is unlikely to be effective. [This is an excerpt from my 2007 ISA paper: PDF].

UN & Early Warning in Kenya, Georgia

I just had a particularly interesting meeting at the UN with several well-placed and highly experienced colleagues. The topic of conversation, unsurprisingly, was conflict early warning and conflict prevention.  Academics have long drummed up the various albeit few ”successes” of early warning, so it was interesting that my UN colleagues cited Ghana, Guyana and Sierra Leone as their own recent success stories. Each intervention involved substantial prevention-related programs/projects, such as “social cohesion programs,” some one to three years prior to scheduled elections.

 

Equally interesting were the comments made in relation to Kenya and Georgia. In the case of the former, one senior colleague mentioned that,

 

Our own early warning ’systems’… or rather analyses, mislead us… they suggested that the most conflict prone places would be in the north of the country, so we focused our preventive, training efforts there to reduce the likelihood of escalating ethnic tensions… this was back in March 2007. What we didn’t realize or expect, was that the Rift Valley would become so volatile, let alone the coastal region of Kenya.

 

In the case of Georgia, another senior colleague commented on the fact that,

 

We knew full well what was about to happen, we had our teams in the field, reporting on the increasingly dicy situation several months ago. In fact, we were fully expecting the situation to escalate in August. The problem, again, was not early warning.

 

When I pressed my colleague further on how exactly they knew, i.e., whether they were using specific and/or sophisticated methodologies for their conflict monitoring and analysis, the answer was no. Situational awareness, fact finding, in-country missions, sharing of information between agencies/contacts in Georgia and regular meetings to discuss the situation was in effect what constituted their conflict early warning system.

The conclusion I take from this meeting is not that early warning is not important, but that “good enough” analysis is more important than sophisticated approaches to conflict early warning and forecasting.

 

 

 

Conflict Early Warning for Abkhazia & South Ossetia?

With 1,500 reported dead in clashes between Georgian and Russian forces, does anyone know whether any conflict early warning systems had already forecast the outbreak and escalation of violence? I wonder if DARPA’s Integrated Conflict Early Warning System (ICEWS) project accurately predicted this “Event of Interest” or EOI.

In any case, I did some quick research to identify potential “early warning” signs in the news back in January and February 2008 and came across these:

January 18: Moscow Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey:

Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh believes it is quite possible that Georgian President elect Mikhail Saakashvili could resort to increasing tensions between Tbilisi and the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in an attempt to consolidate the Georgian nation. “It is always extremely alarming when a neighboring country is in turmoil. You cannot be democratic for the outside world and undemocratic in your own country. Therefore, when the country is in such a situation, the only way to consolidate the nation is a small victorious war,” Bagapsh said on Russia’s Channel One television on Friday. “I cannot rule out the possibility that Georgia might resort to such a conflict,” he said. “A war in the Caucasus might start in regions, either in South Ossetia or in Abkhazia,” he said. Georgian opposition leader Giorgi Khaindrava, who also took part in the program, said, “we are used to the fact that people in both Sukhumi and Tskhinvali talk about war all the time. However, talk is one thing and reality is quite another.”

February 6: Moscow Nezavisimaya Gazeta in Russian:

South Ossetian Leader Believes Kokoyty’s Plans Could Lead to Major Russian-Georgian War. “In general, I have to say that Kokoyty is playing a very dangerous game. After all, South Ossetia joining Russia is in essence an annexation of Georgian territory. Given such a turn of events, a clash between Georgia and Russia would be inevitable and a major war could start in which everyone would suffer, above all the Ossetians. Not a stone would be left standing here. We are offering another way, which, first of all, would allow us to avoid that catastrophe and, secondly, would preserve the territory’s integrity. What Eduard Kokoyty is trying to bring about in his political goals is a dead end.

February 19: Tbilisi Rustavi-2 Television in Georgia:

The Abkhaz de-facto government has started a military exercise on (word indistinct) territory in Ochamchire (district). The training is being carried out near the settlement. Military hardware, armoured vehicles, howitzers, anti-tank missiles and guided devices are used in the exercise. Several families have been harmed as a result of the exercise. Representatives of the de-facto government are saying openly that they are getting ready for war and are training the population as reservists. The de-facto government is again urging the population to take Russian passports. An Abkhaz television (station) has circulated footage where the population welcomes Kosovo’s independence, saying that Abkhazia’s independence should have been recognized prior to Kosovo’s recognition.

And more recently, on July 15, the Washington Post wrote this piece entitled “A War the West Must Stop.” I’d say these early warning signs are rather clear. Which begs the following question: is conflict early warning really the problem, or is early response (a.k.a. political will, or lack thereof) the main barrier?