Reform of the Security Sector

According to the available data, the security sector in Serbia and Montenegro has not been reformed yet. The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro cannot become a democratic state without the fundamental reform of the security sector inherited. At the same time, this requires the development of constitutional and legal procedures and instruments for democratic civil control of armed forces – the army, police, secret services and paramilitary formations. As solving of these two basic problems is getting faster, the better will be the perspectives for the security integration of Serbia and Montenegro into Euro-Atlantic community (EU and NATO).

According to the available data, the security sector in Serbia and Montenegro has not been reformed yet. This is, besides other things, the consequence of the fact that the new authorities still do not have a comprehensive strategy of social development so consequently they have no strategy for the reform of the security sector and armed forces. Above all, it seems that the authorities lack political will to start this complex, long lasting and expensive process. Moreover, there is no evidence that ruling elite and the institutions, which provide services for it, have enough competent knowledge to make the concept and accomplish the reform of the security sector.

The lack of knowledge is, among other things, caused by the long isolation of Serbian and Montenegrin community. Therefore, local elites were not able to get a valid theoretical and political insight into the contents, dimensions and goals of the reform of security sector. Their way of thinking and practicing security has been negatively influenced by the authoritarian civil-military heritage, which favours keeping the armed forces beyond democratic civil control. For the same reasons, the citizens of Serbia and Montenegro have not recognised yet the basic benefits they could have out of the reform of security sector. That is the reason why they missed to force, by political means, the authorities to accomplish this task. The evidence is also the restraint citizens showed, faced with numerous military-police incidents which occurred after the regime had been changed. Despite this, the incidents made the reform of security sector and armed forces, as well as the necessity of establishing democratic control over them, public issues in Serbia and Montenegro.

The prevailing public and media treatment of the security complex confirms the lack of expert and specialised knowledge. Therefore, the reform of security sector in Serbia and Montenegro calls for the systematic and various education of all possible subjects: members of parliament, officials in the ministry of defence, foreign and interior affairs, military and police officers, students and graduate students at the faculties of social science, activists in political parties and non-governmental organisations. Their (re) education should be based, first of all, at adopting contemporary theoretical knowledge and practical experiences and, secondly, at training for a quality analysis and projection of the security sector reform in Serbia and Montenegro. This, however, requires foreign and domestic experts to be included in the process of education for security sector reform.

The content of the Compendium is focused on two key topics: the security sector reform and the reform of armed forces. Therefore, it would be convenient to give here some starting definitions of both notions. The notion of the “security sector reform” is rather new and it was created under the influence of changes in modern societies of Euro-Atlantic community, as well as the process in countries in transition. All of these were, naturally, within radical changes of political configuration of Euro-Atlantic region and global community, caused, beside other things, by the changes in contents and list of security threats to the countries and/or their associations. In simple words, this notion was derived from the anthropocentric evolution of contemporary thinking about security, which put the individual (citizen) in the centre and then made him the purpose and the measure of security in the society and the state. Demilitarisation of security has been started within this process, so the security of the citizen, society and the state is being – more and more – thought of as of the resulting product of joint influence of internal, external, local, regional and global economic, social, political, cultural, spiritual, demographic and ecological forces. In security, understood in such way, military-police component loses dominance and monopoly. To put it in another words, the security of citizens (society and state) is not guaranteed any more exclusively by the army and police. In reaching security, army and police are, naturally, unavoidable instruments, but their number and equipment – as it was shown by the experiences of authoritarian regimes – do not necessarily lead to more secure and more liberated society and citizen.

The notion of “security sector” includes the whole society and its institutions so the reform of this sector means and requires: (1) the changes in the comprehension and practise of security, (2) the changes in constitutional and institutional arrangements – for the countries in transition it means establishing democratic institutions and related infrastructure, (3) establishing and development of democratic civil control of the armed forces, (4) redefining the purpose and tasks for the components and the whole of armed forces and, according to this, the changes of their structures and internal relations and, finally (5) various modes of international cooperation and higher level of security integration.

Following the changes which have been started, the notion of armed forces today include – along with their traditional constituents – army and police, all state organisations authorised to carry and use weapons, i.e. use force: border units, secret services, financial police, special – antiterrorist – units and custom service. In the case of Serbia and Montenegro, this list should also include paramilitary formations – parties’ and private armies – founded during the YU wars and lost without trace after

Milošević’s defeat. These forces, naturally, are not the subject of the reforms mentioned, but their public disarmament and abolishment followed by the sanctions for their members who fought in wars would be the key prerequisite for security normalisation of the Serbia and Montenegro.

The general lack of specialised knowledge can be compensate to some extent by collecting and publishing the most important findings of foreign and local authors on the reform of security sector and armed forces. Driven by this idea, G17 Institute and the Centre for Civil-Military Relations organised creation and publishing the compendium entitled “Reform of the Security Sector”. The content of the Compendium deals with two main topics: the reform of security sector and the reform of armed forces.

The editor had a task to select a number of relevant theoretical texts written by domestic and foreign authors and to arrange them according to the topics. The selected texts had to meet two basic demands: first, to be contemporary and, second, to be theoretically general to a sufficient level. Put together, these findings offer those who attended the School, but to other users also, an opportunity to start getting theoretical and methodological knowledge needed for more successful understanding and discussions about the modern problems of security. This is also the reason why monographic studies and analyses of contemporary security challenges and temptations have not been included. The emphasis is on the researches of the fundamental security processes in Euro-Atlantic community, where all post-socialist countries of Central and South Europe belong, Serbia and Montenegro included, no matter if they want it or not. Therefore, the selection of the texts includes only those which are sufficiently theoretical and, at the same time, general enough. Those are the texts that give theoretical analyses, syntheses and explanations for an abundant empirical data so they can serve as a (starting) theoretical-methodological guideline in understanding the security challenges faced by not only Serbia and Montenegro, but by the Southeast Europe and the whole Euro-Atlantic region. The selection, naturally, was limited by (un) availability of the contemporary literature.

The texts selected have been arranged into nine chapters, aimed to cover all the key topics but also to offer a relatively complete insight into the problem of security sector reform. The first chapter (“The notion and contents of security”) consists of the discussions dealing with various contents, manifestations and consequences of having and not having personal, group and collective security. There follows (chapter II: “The studies of security”) theoretical discussions about the topic and the range of the security studies. They also offer an outlook and brief discussion on the dominant theoretical approaches in research and views on security. In the third chapter (“New security risks”), among the findings on the new security challenges and risks, the central place is devoted to the research on terrorism, due to understandable reasons, so two of three texts here refer to this issue. This subject is followed by the papers in the fourth chapter (“New faces of the war”), focused on the numerous local armed conflicts, motivated by the joint influence of ethnic, religious, political and economic reasons. The chapter on “European security” (chapter V) is to draw attention of the readers to the (Euro-Atlantic) region within which Serbia and Montenegro should think over security today. This is also the range of the contemporary discussions about the reforms of security and armed forces (chapter VI) as well as theoretical discussions about the democratic control of armed forces (chapter VII). The additional narrowing in the Compendium comes in chapter VIII (“The transformation of post-communist armies”), which is to provide local readers with basis for comparison of the processes and accomplishments of (missing) reform in the Serbian and Montenegrin Army. This was also the idea for the last texts (in chapter IX) about the characteristics of civil-military relations in Serbia and Montenegro. The editor provided the original scientific references after each text so readers have a good guideline for further security studies. The organisers of the School and the editor decided to offer the texts in original, so there is no translation. Although they were forced to do so due to the lack of the money and time needed for translation, we hope that reading extracts will be useful for the students in their practising English.

It is easy to notice that the Compendium contains only two texts written by domestic authors. The main reason is the low level of development in security studies at Serbian and Montenegrin universities. This is also proved by the fact that it was recently (school year 2001/2002) when the subject “Global and National Security” was introduced at the Faculty of Political Science at Belgrade University, within the International Studies Department. The second reason is the consequence of the dominant ideological and “daily-political” comprehension of security and, therefore, a large number of texts written by domestic authors cannot meet the professional demands of this Compendium. The lack of a greater number of domestic authors is also caused by the fact that a compendium of authorised lectures on reform of security sector in Serbia and Montenegro will be published after the School has been finished. It is easy to notice that the Compendium contains only two texts written by domestic authors. The main reason is the low level of development in security studies at Serbian and Montenegrin universities. This is also proved by the fact that it was recently (school year 2001/2002) when the subject “Global and National Security” was introduced at the Faculty of Political Science at Belgrade University, within the International Studies Department. The second reason is the consequence of the dominant ideological and “daily-political” comprehension of security and, therefore, a large number of texts written by domestic authors cannot meet the professional demands of this Compendium. The lack of a greater number of domestic authors is also caused by the fact that a compendium of authorised lectures on reform of security sector in Serbia and Montenegro will be published after the School has been finished.

Two texts written by domestic authors were included into the Compendium for different reasons. Professor Vojin Dimitrijević discussed the meanings and contents of the notion of security in the introduction of his book published in 1973 (The notion of security in international relations, The Union of the Yugoslav Lawyers Association, Belgrade, 1973, p. 7-38), demonstrating a very modern theoretical approach. We have no doubt that a reader can easily recognise this, particularly if one compare the findings of professor Dimitrijević and the results of foreign authors, published later. The text written by professor Miroslav Hadžić was included into the Compendium, first of all, due to the methodological reasons. Namely, it offers an opportunity for the readers to apply or to check out the knowledge they have after the previous eight chapters, particularly on the characteristics of the civil-military relations in Serbia and Montenegro.

Despite the possible and expected failures of the Compendium, we feel free to recommend it to the students of the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade, as well as to their colleagues at faculties of a similar kind and academies which have the security studies within its direct or indirect range. We are positive that the Compendium can also be very useful for the non-governmental organisations dealing with various programmes of alternative education for civil society.

The technical part of the job, referring to the selection and preparation of the Compendium, was successfully done by Dejan Orlić, BA in political science, and an associate of the Centre for Civil-Military Relations and we express our full gratitude.

Belgrade, February 10 2003

Miroslav Hadžić