ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on defining the term “confidence building measures” and explores the “real lessons” of the European experience with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). It considers the regional role of the United Nations (UN), particularly the Kathmandu process, in facilitating the process of confidence building in the Asian Pacific region. The chapter examines both processes confidence building per se and the UN’s facilitation role to the broader institution building process of which these two are fundamental parts. The extensive European experience of confidence building through the CSCE process suggests that confidence building measures simply cannot work to build confidence in the absence of a political decision to attempt to fundamentally alter the security relationship between the relevant parties. The level of rhetoric and the sheer euphoria of participants in a process tended to obscure the actual state of development of the CSCE to that point.
