CIAO DATE: 04/05

Managing Change: The Reform and Democratic Control of the Security Sector And International Order

Abstract

When the Berlin Wall came crashing down and the Cold War reluctantly proved, to everybody's surprise, to be truly over, there was an apparent, almost embarrassing inability to define the key parameters that would mark the new era that had obviously dawned. Even to give it a name proved difficult. The best attempt still remains "Post Cold War World", i.e. a negative description (the absence of the Cold War) and not a positive analysis of what truly marks the emerging new international system.

Clearly, what followed the Cold War, was not the "New World Order" US President George Bush had proclaimed during the Gulf War. There was, during the Clinton Administration, a strengthening of the role of the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy (evidenced inter alia by the creation of Partnership for Peace and later the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council). Yet the interest of the United States, perceived now by many as a "hyper-power", in multilateral approaches proved ephemeral and - under the Administration of George W. Bush - highly selective as well as strongly driven by perceived US national interests. The United States would be an unpredictable hegemon, unwilling to underwrite a blank cheque as guarantor of any form of international order.

The objective therefore is clear. The question is how to achieve it. There is no single model. The way in which countries ensure democratic political control of their military vary greatly depending on the history, culture and constitutional arrangements of the country concerned. However, there are several principal features, principles and guidelines.

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