The CSCE/OSCE is linked in public opinion to one of the following headings: Helsinki Final Act and Cold War; arms control and disarmament; crisis management and conflict prevention. This picture is not completely incorrect in that it indicates more than 20 years of CSCE/OSCE history. Being no more than a series of conferences from 1973 to 1990, the ‘old’ CSCE attempted to bridge East and West, and it mainly contributed to developing military aspects of security in Europe. Following the collapse of the former Eastern bloc, the ‘new’ CSCE, later renamed the OSCE, was called upon to assist in managing the epochal change involving the resurgence of regional crises, and it has been equipped with a fully developed organizational and instrumental structure to that end. The most prominent examples of CSCE/OSCE activity in the areas of conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict peacebuilding, are places such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, or Albania.
