The OSCE role in managing violent conflicts within or among its participating States has been significantly limited for several reasons. First, the consensus rule has allowed any State affected by violent conflict to deny authorization for any OSCE mission to be deployed on its territory. Second, the OSCE, unlike the UN or NATO, does not have access to instruments of coercion to enforce its proposals for ending violence, Third, the leadership of the OSCE, especially its Chairperson-in-Office and Secretary-General, are short-term appointments with limited executive authority. Therefore, the OSCE must rely on the willingness of a participating State experiencing violence to permit its engagement, usually based on its perceived legitimacy by the conflicting parties; for this reason, its primary method of engagement has been through diplomacy and third-party mediation. This process typically involves identifying possible compromise agreements, promoting trade-offs to create “package agreements” in which each party “wins” on issues of greatest importance for it, and on facilitating communications and reframing of conflicts to allow the parties to identify potential mutually beneficial agreements. The OSCE has engaged most actively in internal conflicts within two of its largest participating States, the Russian Federation (Chechnya) and Ukraine (Donbas).