CIAO DATE: 04/05

Former Soviet Union: Security Sector Reform in the Southern Caucasus

Abstract

The countries of the Southern Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) experienced seventy years of one-party centralized management of the security sector - a heritage they share with all other former Soviet Republics (though precise time spans vary). Independent state-building can be expected to be slow, and it has further been vexed by armed conflicts which are far from being permanently settled and which have led to considerable numbers of IDPs and refugees in Georgia and Azerbaijan[1]. This specific situation has naturally slowed the build-up of security sectors much different from the local post-Soviet replica of the once union-wide complex of security services.

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