Joschka Fischer
Humans love to suppress abstract dangers. They react only after they get their fingers burned. In handling nuclear risks, however, we can hardly get away with such childlike behaviour.
To begin with, the old system of nuclear deterrence, which has survived particularly in the US and Russia since the cold war's end, still involves lots of risks and dangers. While the international public largely ignores this fact, the risks remain.
To be sure, in the 1990's the US and Russia reduced their nuclear arsenals from 65,000 to approximately 26,000 weapons. But this number is still almost unimaginable and beyond any rational level needed for deterrence. Moreover, there are another 1,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of other nuclear states.
A second cause for worry is that the world is poised to enter a new nuclear age that threatens to be even more dangerous and expensive than the cold war era of mutually assured destruction. Indeed, the outlines of this new nuclear age are already visible: the connection between terrorism and nuclear weapons; a nuclear-armed North Korea; the risk of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran's nuclear program; a new definition of state sovereignty as "nuclear sovereignty", accompanied by a massive increase in the number of small and medium-sized nuclear states; possible collapse of public order in nuclear Pakistan; the illegal proliferation of military nuclear technology; the legal proliferation of civilian nuclear technology and an increase in the number of "civilian" nuclear states; the nuclearisation of space, triggering an arms race among large nuclear powers.
Important political leaders, especially in the two biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, know today's existing risks and tomorrow's emerging ones all too well. Yet nothing is being done to control, contain, or eliminate them. On the contrary, the situation is worsening.
Vital pillars of the old arms-control and anti-proliferation regime have either been destroyed - as was the case with the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty - or substantially weakened, as with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Responsibility for this lies largely with the Bush administration, which, by terminating the ABM treaty, not only weakened the international control systems for nuclear weapons, but also sat on its hands when confronted with the NPT's imminent collapse.
At the beginning of the 21st century, proliferation of military nuclear technology is one of the major threats to humanity, particularly if this technology falls into terrorists' hands. The use of nuclear weapons by terrorists would not only result in a major humanitarian tragedy, but also would most likely move the world beyond the threshold for actually waging a nuclear war. The consequences would be horrific.
Nearly equally worrisome is the nuclear redefinition of state sovereignty because it will not only lead to a large number of small, politically unstable nuclear powers, but will also increase the risk of proliferation at the hands of terrorists. Pakistan would, most likely, no longer be an isolated case.
An international initiative for the renewal and improvement of the international control regime, led by both big nuclear powers, is urgently needed to meet these and all other risks of the new nuclear age. For, if disarmament is to become effective, the signal must come from the top - the US and Russia. Here the commitment to disarmament, as agreed in the NPT, is of prime importance.
The NPT - a bedrock of peace for more than three decades - is based on a political agreement between nuclear and non-nuclear states: the latter abstain from obtaining nuclear weapons while the former destroy their arsenals. Unfortunately, only the first part of this agreement was realised (though not completely), while the second part still awaits fulfilment.
The NPT remains indispensable and needs urgent revision. However, this central pillar of international proliferation control is on the brink of collapse. The most recent review conference in New York, in May 2005, ended virtually without any result.
The essential defect of the NPT is now visible in the nuclear dispute between Iran and the United Nations Security Council: the treaty permits the development of all nuclear components indispensable for military use - particularly uranium enrichment - so long as there is no outright nuclear weapons program. This means that in emerging nuclear countries only one single political decision is required to "weaponise" a nuclear program. This kind of "security" is not sufficient.
Another controversial issue also has also come to the fore in connection with the current nuclear conflict with Iran: discrimination-free access to nuclear technology. Solving this problem will require the internationalisation of access to civilian nuclear technology, along with filling the security gap under the existing NPT and substantially more far-reaching monitoring of all states that want to be part of such a system.
Leaders around the world know the dangers of a new nuclear age; they also know how to minimise them. But the political will to act decisively is not there, because the public does not regard nuclear disarmament and arms control as a political priority.
This must change. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are not questions of the past. They need to be addressed today if they are not to become the most dangerous threats tomorrow.
Project Syndicate, 2008.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Those who control oil and water will control the world
John Gray
History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is not only oil that is at stake.
It was Rudyard Kipling who brought the idea of the Great Game into the public mind in Kim, his cloak-and-dagger novel of espionage and imperial geopolitics in the time of the Raj. Then, the main players were Britain and Russia and the object of the game was control of central Asia's oil. Now, Britain hardly matters and India and China, which were subjugated countries during the last round of the game, have emerged as key players. The struggle is no longer focused mainly on central Asian oil. It stretches from the Persian Gulf to Africa, Latin America, even the polar caps, and it is also a struggle for water and depleting supplies of vital minerals. Above all, global warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources. The Great Game that is afoot today is more intractable and more dangerous than the last.
The biggest new player in the game is China and it is there that the emerging pattern is clearest. China's rulers have staked everything on economic growth. Without improving living standards, there would be large-scale unrest, which could pose a threat to their power. Moreover, China is in the middle of the largest and fastest move from the countryside to the city in history, a process that cannot be stopped.
There is no alternative to continuing growth, but it comes with deadly side-effects. Overused in industry and agriculture, and under threat from the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers, water is becoming a non-renewable resource. Two-thirds of China's cities face shortages, while deserts are eating up arable land. Breakneck industrialisation is worsening this environmental breakdown, as many more power plants are being built and run on high-polluting coal that accelerates global warming. There is a vicious circle at work here and not only in China. Because ongoing growth requires massive inputs of energy and minerals, Chinese companies are scouring the world for supplies. The result is unstoppable rising demand for resources that are unalterably finite.
Although oil reserves may not have peaked in any literal sense, the days when conventional oil was cheap have gone forever. Countries are reacting by trying to secure the remaining reserves, not least those that are being opened up by climate change. Canada is building bases to counter Russian claims on the melting Arctic icecap, parts of which are also claimed by Norway, Denmark and the US. Britain is staking out claims on areas around the South Pole.
The scramble for energy is shaping many of the conflicts we can expect in the present century. The danger is not just another oil shock that impacts on industrial production, but a threat of famine. Without a drip feed of petroleum to highly mechanised farms, many of the food shelves in the supermarkets would be empty. Far from the world weaning itself off oil, it is more addicted to the stuff than ever. It is hardly surprising that powerful states are gearing up to seize their share.
This new round of the Great Game did not start yesterday. It began with the last big conflict of the 20th century, which was an oil war and nothing else. No one pretended the first Gulf War was fought to combat terrorism or spread democracy. As George Bush Snr and John Major admitted at the time, it was aimed at securing global oil supplies, pure and simple. Despite the denials of a less honest generation of politicians, there can be no doubt that controlling the country's oil was one of the objectives of the later invasion of Iraq.
Oil remains at the heart of the game and, if anything, it is even more important than before. With their complex logistics and heavy reliance on air power, high-tech armies are extremely energy-intensive. According to a Pentagon report, the amount of petroleum needed for each soldier each day increased four times between the Second World War and the Gulf War and quadrupled again when the US invaded Iraq. Recent estimates suggest the amount used per soldier has jumped again in the five years since the invasion.
Whereas Western countries dominated the last round of the Great Game, this time they rely on increasingly self-assertive producer countries. Mr Putin's well-honed contempt for world opinion might grate on European ears, but Europe is heavily dependent on his energy. Hugo Chávez might be an object of hate for George W Bush, but Venezuela still supplies around 10 per cent of America's imported oil. President Ahmadinejad is seen by some as the devil incarnate, but with oil at more than a $100 a barrel, any Western attempt to topple him would be horrendously risky.
While Western power declines, the rising powers are at odds with each other. China and India are rivals for oil and natural gas in central Asia. Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia have clashed over underwater oil reserves in the South China Sea. Saudi Arabia and Iran are rivals in the Gulf, while Iran and Turkey are eyeing Iraq. Greater international co-operation seems the obvious solution, but the reality is that as the resources crunch bites more deeply, the world is becoming steadily more fragmented and divided.
We are a long way from the fantasy world of only a decade ago, when fashionable gurus were talking sagely of the knowledge economy. Then, we were told material resources did not matter any more - it was ideas that drove economic development. The business cycle had been left behind and an era of endless growth had arrived. Actually, the knowledge economy was an illusion created by cheap oil and cheap money and everlasting booms always end in tears. This is not the end of the world or of global capitalism, just history as usual.
What is different this time is climate change. Rising sea levels reduce food and fresh-water supplies, which may trigger large-scale movements of refugees from Africa and Asia into Europe. Global warming threatens energy supplies. As the fossil fuels of the past become more expensive, others, such as tar sands, are becoming more economically viable, but these alternative fuels are also dirtier than conventional oil.
In this round of the Great Game, energy shortage and global warming are reinforcing each another. The result can only be a growing risk of conflict. There were around 1.65 billion people in the world when the last round was played out. At the start of the 21st century, there are four times as many, struggling to secure their future in a world being changed out of recognition by climate change. It would be wise to plan for some more of history's rhymes.
· John Gray is author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, published by Allen Lane in paperback on 24 April
Source: The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/30/fossilfuels.water
History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is not only oil that is at stake.
It was Rudyard Kipling who brought the idea of the Great Game into the public mind in Kim, his cloak-and-dagger novel of espionage and imperial geopolitics in the time of the Raj. Then, the main players were Britain and Russia and the object of the game was control of central Asia's oil. Now, Britain hardly matters and India and China, which were subjugated countries during the last round of the game, have emerged as key players. The struggle is no longer focused mainly on central Asian oil. It stretches from the Persian Gulf to Africa, Latin America, even the polar caps, and it is also a struggle for water and depleting supplies of vital minerals. Above all, global warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources. The Great Game that is afoot today is more intractable and more dangerous than the last.
The biggest new player in the game is China and it is there that the emerging pattern is clearest. China's rulers have staked everything on economic growth. Without improving living standards, there would be large-scale unrest, which could pose a threat to their power. Moreover, China is in the middle of the largest and fastest move from the countryside to the city in history, a process that cannot be stopped.
There is no alternative to continuing growth, but it comes with deadly side-effects. Overused in industry and agriculture, and under threat from the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers, water is becoming a non-renewable resource. Two-thirds of China's cities face shortages, while deserts are eating up arable land. Breakneck industrialisation is worsening this environmental breakdown, as many more power plants are being built and run on high-polluting coal that accelerates global warming. There is a vicious circle at work here and not only in China. Because ongoing growth requires massive inputs of energy and minerals, Chinese companies are scouring the world for supplies. The result is unstoppable rising demand for resources that are unalterably finite.
Although oil reserves may not have peaked in any literal sense, the days when conventional oil was cheap have gone forever. Countries are reacting by trying to secure the remaining reserves, not least those that are being opened up by climate change. Canada is building bases to counter Russian claims on the melting Arctic icecap, parts of which are also claimed by Norway, Denmark and the US. Britain is staking out claims on areas around the South Pole.
The scramble for energy is shaping many of the conflicts we can expect in the present century. The danger is not just another oil shock that impacts on industrial production, but a threat of famine. Without a drip feed of petroleum to highly mechanised farms, many of the food shelves in the supermarkets would be empty. Far from the world weaning itself off oil, it is more addicted to the stuff than ever. It is hardly surprising that powerful states are gearing up to seize their share.
This new round of the Great Game did not start yesterday. It began with the last big conflict of the 20th century, which was an oil war and nothing else. No one pretended the first Gulf War was fought to combat terrorism or spread democracy. As George Bush Snr and John Major admitted at the time, it was aimed at securing global oil supplies, pure and simple. Despite the denials of a less honest generation of politicians, there can be no doubt that controlling the country's oil was one of the objectives of the later invasion of Iraq.
Oil remains at the heart of the game and, if anything, it is even more important than before. With their complex logistics and heavy reliance on air power, high-tech armies are extremely energy-intensive. According to a Pentagon report, the amount of petroleum needed for each soldier each day increased four times between the Second World War and the Gulf War and quadrupled again when the US invaded Iraq. Recent estimates suggest the amount used per soldier has jumped again in the five years since the invasion.
Whereas Western countries dominated the last round of the Great Game, this time they rely on increasingly self-assertive producer countries. Mr Putin's well-honed contempt for world opinion might grate on European ears, but Europe is heavily dependent on his energy. Hugo Chávez might be an object of hate for George W Bush, but Venezuela still supplies around 10 per cent of America's imported oil. President Ahmadinejad is seen by some as the devil incarnate, but with oil at more than a $100 a barrel, any Western attempt to topple him would be horrendously risky.
While Western power declines, the rising powers are at odds with each other. China and India are rivals for oil and natural gas in central Asia. Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia have clashed over underwater oil reserves in the South China Sea. Saudi Arabia and Iran are rivals in the Gulf, while Iran and Turkey are eyeing Iraq. Greater international co-operation seems the obvious solution, but the reality is that as the resources crunch bites more deeply, the world is becoming steadily more fragmented and divided.
We are a long way from the fantasy world of only a decade ago, when fashionable gurus were talking sagely of the knowledge economy. Then, we were told material resources did not matter any more - it was ideas that drove economic development. The business cycle had been left behind and an era of endless growth had arrived. Actually, the knowledge economy was an illusion created by cheap oil and cheap money and everlasting booms always end in tears. This is not the end of the world or of global capitalism, just history as usual.
What is different this time is climate change. Rising sea levels reduce food and fresh-water supplies, which may trigger large-scale movements of refugees from Africa and Asia into Europe. Global warming threatens energy supplies. As the fossil fuels of the past become more expensive, others, such as tar sands, are becoming more economically viable, but these alternative fuels are also dirtier than conventional oil.
In this round of the Great Game, energy shortage and global warming are reinforcing each another. The result can only be a growing risk of conflict. There were around 1.65 billion people in the world when the last round was played out. At the start of the 21st century, there are four times as many, struggling to secure their future in a world being changed out of recognition by climate change. It would be wise to plan for some more of history's rhymes.
· John Gray is author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, published by Allen Lane in paperback on 24 April
Source: The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/30/fossilfuels.water
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Is Nationalism Good for You?
Gustavo de las Casas
Think of "nationalism," and you might think of a country brainwashed to hate its neighbors. You might imagine thousands of people sacrificing themselves for a power-hungry dictator. You wouldn't be alone. Albert Einstein himself called nationalism "an infantile disease, the measles of mankind."
Political scientists blame it for civil wars and territorial ambitions, from Rwanda and Yugoslavia to Nazi Germany and Napoleonic France. Many economists view it as an irrational distraction from free-market principles, impeding growth and promoting corruption across the developing world. When war broke out in the past, nationalism was often automatically assumed to be a party to the crime, either as a tool that would allow leaders to seduce die masses into fighting, or as fuel that stoked popular outrage. There is no denying it: nationalism has got a bad name.
But this negative publicity confuses what is more often than not an innocuous sentiment. Nationalism is a feeling of unity with a group beyond one's immediate family and friends. In and of itself, it is not conducive to disastrous wars. The bad rap on nationalism relies almost exclusively on cherry-picked exceptions. These conclusions were drawn without considering the far-more-common cases in which nationalism was not the root of some evil. Moreover, many previous studies on the causes of war lacked one key component: an adequate measure of nationalism. Absent this measure, it is impossible to tell if the brand of nationalism of, say, the Axis powers was more intense than others in the years leading up to 1939. Yet, scholars are quick to blame nationalism for a host of ills.
Why this haste? Part of the reason lies in the scholarly reverence to homo economicus, the coolheaded and self-interested person thought to make optimal decisions at all times. This assumed rational egoist stands in direct opposition to the stereotypical nationalist. After all, the nationalist is often anything but coolheaded. And, being willing to die for his compatriots if need be, he isn't selfish either. Thus, many scholars conclude, if nationalism does exist, it would only disturb the God-given rationality of humanity, and that meant trouble in politics and economics.
But the deeper roots of antinationalism seem to lie in the value system of scholars. Success in academia is often gauged by how coldly logical one can be. Intense emotional content is frowned upon. So your run-of-the-mill academic, devoted to library stays, will naturally view nationalism as unintelligent and primal. And being so, nationalism could not possibly produce better countries. Or could it?
MY NATION, MYSELF
Modern political science generally holds that nationalism predisposes a nation's members to see outsiders as potentially inferior and evil. This perception is supposed to make it easier for nationalists to, say, curtail trade with others and even wage war. But there is a problem with this logic. If nothing else, nationalism is a sense of collective unity that turns large groups into extended families. In itself, this says nothing about how one nation should treat another. In everyday life, we usually love and identify with our own family. That certainly does not make us believe that neighboring families pose a threat. The same goes for nationalism. It does not manufacture hatred for others, just concern for one's fellow citizens. By believing that everyone is in a national endeavor together, citizens value each other's welfare as well as their own. In other words, nationalism makes people less selfish. Granted, the altruism that nationalism provides is not the cosmopolitan sort that philosophers dream about. Members of a nation may not care about all the people in the world, but they do exhibit a selective altruism in caring about their fellow compatriots. And this selective altruism, when shared by all citizens, makes for a better country than one populated by purely selfish individuals.
Consider economic life, where self-interest is assumed to reign supreme. Any economy comprises millions of everyday transactions. In many of these transactions, a citizen can easily shortchange another and get away with it. Yes, cheaters are somewhat deterred by the law and the fear of gaining a bad reputation. But there are many ways to skim off the top without getting caught. A simple case: Your favorite restaurant can charge you higher prices-say, from a few cents to a dollar-than those printed on the menu. If caught, your waiter can say it was a mistake. But how many people ever bother to remember the exact menu prices when the bill lands on the table? Very few, if any. This window of opportunity for cheating exists in thousands of activities in every conceivable industry. And if citizens actually exploited it, interpersonal trust would disintegrate. Business activity would slow to an inefficient crawl as people spent additional time and effort deterring cheaters.
On the other hand, when citizens are nationalistic, those who might cheat will face an unpleasant trade-off: to help themselves at the expense of their brethren. Surely, nationalism will never stop all cheating. But in countries with a mature sense of nationalism, this trade-off will significantly discourage cheating and promote economic growth. Meanwhile, without nationalism, citizens do not hesitate to abuse each other, and the threat of underhanded cheating destroys the trust necessary for economic development. One need only recall the fall of the Soviet Union and how the crisis of national identity suffered by its citizens presaged endemic corruption and economic underdevelopment across the post-Soviet states. In cases such as these, the economy degenerates into a swarm of flies, with each citizen relatively oblivious to others' welfare. By contrast, the nationalist economy resembles a colony of bees, with members mindful of the group's well-being.
THE CASE FOR NATIONALISM
The benefits of nationalism could have just remained another untested theory in the pantheon of social science. But today, we have the tools to test it systematically. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), we can track levels of nationalism across countries. In 1995 and 2003, the Norway-based ISSP carried out surveys of national identity across 23 and 34 countries, respectively, ranging from established democracies like Australia and the United States to younger ones such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the polls, people were asked about the degree to which they agreed that their country is better than most. The stronger this sense of national superiority, the higher the level of nationalism.
One finding is immediately apparent: Across the board, countries with a higher average level of nationalism were consistendy wealthier. This evidence flies in the face of the antinationalism harbored by many economists. In truth, though, the problem with many poorer countries is that their citizens are not nationalistic enough. Consider Eastern European states such as Latvia and Slovenia, which many fear contain the seeds of hypernationalism. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, these countries are actually among the least nationalistic of the group. And rich Western countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, score as the most nationalistic. It's a fair bet your economist never taught you that.
The virtues of nationalism also transcend citizens' bank accounts. If nationalism fosters altruism, its effects should be visible in political and social life as well. Consider corruption. Research in this area is still relatively scant, but it is apparent that there is a broad relationship between nationalism and the ability to keep corruption in check. Using corruption estimates from the World Bank and the same survey data on nationalism, another positive effect of nationalism emerges: Corruption is consistently lower in countries with higher levels of nationalism.
How does nationalism reduce corruption? For many of the same reasons that it improves the economy. Just like parties to a business transaction, public servants who contemplate corruption face an unsavory trade-off: to profit at the expense of fellow nationals. So, if bureaucrats are highly nationalistic, they are also more sensitive to any damage to society, and less prone to abuse public office. Nationalism also changes the mind-set of those affected by corruption. A nationalistic public is less likely to accept government corruption and simply look the other way. On the other hand, without nationalism, the purely selfish citizen might not care about corruption at all. To this person, the diluted cost of corruption in his or her life is minimal compared with the effort required to fight it. But a nationalistic citizenry gauges the effect of corruption on the entire nation, and this greater concern for potential abuse triggers the collective response that keeps corruption in check. In social life, fly too, nationalism makes its presence felt. As nationalistic citizens care more about each other, they are less likely to break the law and violate the rights of others. Using World Bank data on citizens' adherence to laws, another striking relationship becomes evident. The countries endowed with a higher level of nationalism tend to have a stronger rule of law. For all nationalism's supposed faults, it is incredibly-and consistentlyassociated with things we value in economics, politics, and society.
CLEARING THE RECORD
So what about the cases of nationalism gone bad? Do they tell us anything useful? Yes and no. From power-hungry Napoleonic France to Serbia during the 1990s, these cases show that nationalist aberrations are possible only when other forces are at play. One such factor is military power. When technological advances and military tactics allow for the easy conquest of other countries, nationalism might be tempted to expand. In the 19th century, the many innovations of Napoleon's Grand Army-such as fast and flexible troop formations with fully integrated artillery-convinced the French nation that expansion was a viable proposition. Similarly, Adolf Hitler exploited German nationalism at a time when blitzkrieg tactics could prove devastating.
Nationalism can also be dangerous whenever a single territory is contested by many nations, especially when there is a history of violence among them. When these conditions exist, as in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, civil war is a real possibility. Young democracies are also at a higher risk of virulent nationalism. In these democratizing states, ambitious leaders might pursue risky strategies-such as invading a neighbor-to boost the immature nationalism of their people for their own motives. And nationalism can turn ugly if it mixes with a belief that one's nation is beyond any standard of morality. That was possibly the case of Nazi Germany, because the German people's love for their nation was not counterbalanced by a moral doctrine that valued self-control and compassion.
However, the important thing about these unsavory forms of nationalism is how rare and sporadic they really are. To cite a few cases as proof that nationalism is always harmful or barbaric is to confuse the exception with the rule. Most developed strains of nationalism do not promote aggressive expansionism or the abuse of minorities within their borders. That is because contemporary nations are usually missing these other, high-risk conditions. They exist in a world where war is expensive, borders are largely settled, and the actions of nations are usually tied to some moral code. As a result, nationalism today often leads citizens to look inward and focus their energies on bettering their countries.
If social science is to gain relevance beyond the ivory tower, it must help derive policies that make the most of a country's assets. With nationalism, this is clearly not happening. What's worse, instead of seeing its potential for progress, scholars largely dismiss nationalism as an ill. To be sure, the broad relationships outlined here ought to be further dissected. Perhaps nationalism does not matter much when we account for a host of other factors, such as educational levels and natural resources. A debate could be had about whether nationalism is helpful or simply harmless. At the very least, though, we must move past the simplistic notion that nationalism is only dangerous. What it is, is misunderstood.
Of course, scholars can persist in looking down on nationahsm as a backward, unevolved reflex, and governments could continue to fail to develop policies that harness its potential. But this alternative carries a heavy cost. It allows opportunistic leaders and demagogues to control the future of nationalism. If responsible policymakers have in their hands something proven to encourage increased wealth, lower levels of corruption, and higher obedience to the rule of law, they would only be wise to use it.
Source: Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
Think of "nationalism," and you might think of a country brainwashed to hate its neighbors. You might imagine thousands of people sacrificing themselves for a power-hungry dictator. You wouldn't be alone. Albert Einstein himself called nationalism "an infantile disease, the measles of mankind."
Political scientists blame it for civil wars and territorial ambitions, from Rwanda and Yugoslavia to Nazi Germany and Napoleonic France. Many economists view it as an irrational distraction from free-market principles, impeding growth and promoting corruption across the developing world. When war broke out in the past, nationalism was often automatically assumed to be a party to the crime, either as a tool that would allow leaders to seduce die masses into fighting, or as fuel that stoked popular outrage. There is no denying it: nationalism has got a bad name.
But this negative publicity confuses what is more often than not an innocuous sentiment. Nationalism is a feeling of unity with a group beyond one's immediate family and friends. In and of itself, it is not conducive to disastrous wars. The bad rap on nationalism relies almost exclusively on cherry-picked exceptions. These conclusions were drawn without considering the far-more-common cases in which nationalism was not the root of some evil. Moreover, many previous studies on the causes of war lacked one key component: an adequate measure of nationalism. Absent this measure, it is impossible to tell if the brand of nationalism of, say, the Axis powers was more intense than others in the years leading up to 1939. Yet, scholars are quick to blame nationalism for a host of ills.
Why this haste? Part of the reason lies in the scholarly reverence to homo economicus, the coolheaded and self-interested person thought to make optimal decisions at all times. This assumed rational egoist stands in direct opposition to the stereotypical nationalist. After all, the nationalist is often anything but coolheaded. And, being willing to die for his compatriots if need be, he isn't selfish either. Thus, many scholars conclude, if nationalism does exist, it would only disturb the God-given rationality of humanity, and that meant trouble in politics and economics.
But the deeper roots of antinationalism seem to lie in the value system of scholars. Success in academia is often gauged by how coldly logical one can be. Intense emotional content is frowned upon. So your run-of-the-mill academic, devoted to library stays, will naturally view nationalism as unintelligent and primal. And being so, nationalism could not possibly produce better countries. Or could it?
MY NATION, MYSELF
Modern political science generally holds that nationalism predisposes a nation's members to see outsiders as potentially inferior and evil. This perception is supposed to make it easier for nationalists to, say, curtail trade with others and even wage war. But there is a problem with this logic. If nothing else, nationalism is a sense of collective unity that turns large groups into extended families. In itself, this says nothing about how one nation should treat another. In everyday life, we usually love and identify with our own family. That certainly does not make us believe that neighboring families pose a threat. The same goes for nationalism. It does not manufacture hatred for others, just concern for one's fellow citizens. By believing that everyone is in a national endeavor together, citizens value each other's welfare as well as their own. In other words, nationalism makes people less selfish. Granted, the altruism that nationalism provides is not the cosmopolitan sort that philosophers dream about. Members of a nation may not care about all the people in the world, but they do exhibit a selective altruism in caring about their fellow compatriots. And this selective altruism, when shared by all citizens, makes for a better country than one populated by purely selfish individuals.
Consider economic life, where self-interest is assumed to reign supreme. Any economy comprises millions of everyday transactions. In many of these transactions, a citizen can easily shortchange another and get away with it. Yes, cheaters are somewhat deterred by the law and the fear of gaining a bad reputation. But there are many ways to skim off the top without getting caught. A simple case: Your favorite restaurant can charge you higher prices-say, from a few cents to a dollar-than those printed on the menu. If caught, your waiter can say it was a mistake. But how many people ever bother to remember the exact menu prices when the bill lands on the table? Very few, if any. This window of opportunity for cheating exists in thousands of activities in every conceivable industry. And if citizens actually exploited it, interpersonal trust would disintegrate. Business activity would slow to an inefficient crawl as people spent additional time and effort deterring cheaters.
On the other hand, when citizens are nationalistic, those who might cheat will face an unpleasant trade-off: to help themselves at the expense of their brethren. Surely, nationalism will never stop all cheating. But in countries with a mature sense of nationalism, this trade-off will significantly discourage cheating and promote economic growth. Meanwhile, without nationalism, citizens do not hesitate to abuse each other, and the threat of underhanded cheating destroys the trust necessary for economic development. One need only recall the fall of the Soviet Union and how the crisis of national identity suffered by its citizens presaged endemic corruption and economic underdevelopment across the post-Soviet states. In cases such as these, the economy degenerates into a swarm of flies, with each citizen relatively oblivious to others' welfare. By contrast, the nationalist economy resembles a colony of bees, with members mindful of the group's well-being.
THE CASE FOR NATIONALISM
The benefits of nationalism could have just remained another untested theory in the pantheon of social science. But today, we have the tools to test it systematically. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), we can track levels of nationalism across countries. In 1995 and 2003, the Norway-based ISSP carried out surveys of national identity across 23 and 34 countries, respectively, ranging from established democracies like Australia and the United States to younger ones such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the polls, people were asked about the degree to which they agreed that their country is better than most. The stronger this sense of national superiority, the higher the level of nationalism.
One finding is immediately apparent: Across the board, countries with a higher average level of nationalism were consistendy wealthier. This evidence flies in the face of the antinationalism harbored by many economists. In truth, though, the problem with many poorer countries is that their citizens are not nationalistic enough. Consider Eastern European states such as Latvia and Slovenia, which many fear contain the seeds of hypernationalism. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, these countries are actually among the least nationalistic of the group. And rich Western countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, score as the most nationalistic. It's a fair bet your economist never taught you that.
The virtues of nationalism also transcend citizens' bank accounts. If nationalism fosters altruism, its effects should be visible in political and social life as well. Consider corruption. Research in this area is still relatively scant, but it is apparent that there is a broad relationship between nationalism and the ability to keep corruption in check. Using corruption estimates from the World Bank and the same survey data on nationalism, another positive effect of nationalism emerges: Corruption is consistently lower in countries with higher levels of nationalism.
How does nationalism reduce corruption? For many of the same reasons that it improves the economy. Just like parties to a business transaction, public servants who contemplate corruption face an unsavory trade-off: to profit at the expense of fellow nationals. So, if bureaucrats are highly nationalistic, they are also more sensitive to any damage to society, and less prone to abuse public office. Nationalism also changes the mind-set of those affected by corruption. A nationalistic public is less likely to accept government corruption and simply look the other way. On the other hand, without nationalism, the purely selfish citizen might not care about corruption at all. To this person, the diluted cost of corruption in his or her life is minimal compared with the effort required to fight it. But a nationalistic citizenry gauges the effect of corruption on the entire nation, and this greater concern for potential abuse triggers the collective response that keeps corruption in check. In social life, fly too, nationalism makes its presence felt. As nationalistic citizens care more about each other, they are less likely to break the law and violate the rights of others. Using World Bank data on citizens' adherence to laws, another striking relationship becomes evident. The countries endowed with a higher level of nationalism tend to have a stronger rule of law. For all nationalism's supposed faults, it is incredibly-and consistentlyassociated with things we value in economics, politics, and society.
CLEARING THE RECORD
So what about the cases of nationalism gone bad? Do they tell us anything useful? Yes and no. From power-hungry Napoleonic France to Serbia during the 1990s, these cases show that nationalist aberrations are possible only when other forces are at play. One such factor is military power. When technological advances and military tactics allow for the easy conquest of other countries, nationalism might be tempted to expand. In the 19th century, the many innovations of Napoleon's Grand Army-such as fast and flexible troop formations with fully integrated artillery-convinced the French nation that expansion was a viable proposition. Similarly, Adolf Hitler exploited German nationalism at a time when blitzkrieg tactics could prove devastating.
Nationalism can also be dangerous whenever a single territory is contested by many nations, especially when there is a history of violence among them. When these conditions exist, as in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, civil war is a real possibility. Young democracies are also at a higher risk of virulent nationalism. In these democratizing states, ambitious leaders might pursue risky strategies-such as invading a neighbor-to boost the immature nationalism of their people for their own motives. And nationalism can turn ugly if it mixes with a belief that one's nation is beyond any standard of morality. That was possibly the case of Nazi Germany, because the German people's love for their nation was not counterbalanced by a moral doctrine that valued self-control and compassion.
However, the important thing about these unsavory forms of nationalism is how rare and sporadic they really are. To cite a few cases as proof that nationalism is always harmful or barbaric is to confuse the exception with the rule. Most developed strains of nationalism do not promote aggressive expansionism or the abuse of minorities within their borders. That is because contemporary nations are usually missing these other, high-risk conditions. They exist in a world where war is expensive, borders are largely settled, and the actions of nations are usually tied to some moral code. As a result, nationalism today often leads citizens to look inward and focus their energies on bettering their countries.
If social science is to gain relevance beyond the ivory tower, it must help derive policies that make the most of a country's assets. With nationalism, this is clearly not happening. What's worse, instead of seeing its potential for progress, scholars largely dismiss nationalism as an ill. To be sure, the broad relationships outlined here ought to be further dissected. Perhaps nationalism does not matter much when we account for a host of other factors, such as educational levels and natural resources. A debate could be had about whether nationalism is helpful or simply harmless. At the very least, though, we must move past the simplistic notion that nationalism is only dangerous. What it is, is misunderstood.
Of course, scholars can persist in looking down on nationahsm as a backward, unevolved reflex, and governments could continue to fail to develop policies that harness its potential. But this alternative carries a heavy cost. It allows opportunistic leaders and demagogues to control the future of nationalism. If responsible policymakers have in their hands something proven to encourage increased wealth, lower levels of corruption, and higher obedience to the rule of law, they would only be wise to use it.
Source: Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
Inside Track: Desperately Seeking Stability
by Caitlin B. Doherty
AS NATO military operations in Afghanistan face setbacks and President Musharaff’s political clout recedes, crucial U.S. interests in the war on terror are at stake. To address American policy in these evolving times, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Ambassador Richard Boucher, led a discussion at the Nixon Center yesterday. Kris Elftmann, chairman of the Richard Nixon Birthplace and Library Foundation, moderated the discussion.
“Stabilizing the center of [South and Central Asia]—Afghanistan, Pakistan—is a matter of some very, very high priority and considerable urgency,” Boucher declared.
The ambassador first explained that U.S. involvement in Pakistan and Afghanistan was a matter of necessity. Because of the number of terrorist attacks that have originated from the region, the stakes are particularly high. Boucher also noted that the United States has an opportunity “to change the picture strategically for every single country in the region.”
The ambassador then explained that the United States has also been presented with an opportunity of historical proportions. “For the last several hundred years Afghanistan has been a buffer, a barrier, between South Asia and Central Asia. It’s been an obstacle to commerce and energy and ideas, people flowing back and forth in this part of the world. And we have an opportunity now—with Afghanistan being an open place, a stabilizing place—to start back a flow that used to exist through hundreds and hundreds of years of history,” stated Boucher.
With these optimistic opening statements, Boucher then admitted that these opportunities are in addition to the challenges that must be faced. “There’s an awful lot going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan that doesn’t respond to historic opportunity or strategic necessity,” he stated.
Pakistan
IF THE DESIRED outcome in Pakistan is a stable center from which to fight extremism, then, according to Ambassador Boucher, progress has been made in achieving that goal. In the past ten years, Pakistan has developed its civil society and media. Currently, the country is transitioning to an elected civilian government that is about to take office. Boucher noted that the United States will work with the new government and respect its right to form its own policies. Furthermore, the speaker pointed out that a significant factor in fighting extremism lies in creating political and economic alternatives for people in the tribal areas where terrorist groups have taken hold. By expanding and reforming the education system and the judicial system, and creating more economic opportunities for people throughout the country—particularly in tribal areas—terrorist groups will come under pressure.
Although the United States provides generous aid to Pakistan—in the hundreds of millions—anti-Americanism continues to be pervasive in the country. When asked how the United States addresses this troubling phenomenon, the ambassador explained that although the U.S. government does its best to make its involvements clear, they are often misinterpreted and misunderstood by the Pakistani people. Much of the anti-Americanism stems from the sense that the U.S. is interfering, when, in fact, it provides much needed aid. Boucher noted, “The $125 million a year spent on the [Pakistani] education system is under-appreciated… We hope we get more appreciation for the support we give.”
When asked how the United States should deal with the current power divide of Pakistan, the ambassador replied, “It’s no different than France.” Elaborating, he explained that the situation was no different than dealing with any other country. It is not strange or unusual to work with political leaders from various sides of the political spectrum of a nation, which is how American diplomats will be involved with Pakistan.
The ambassador also pointed out that the Islamist parties lost “big time” in the election and lost most of their seats to secular nationalists. Whether this was due to their performance in government or their ideology is up for debate, but Boucher made it clear that there is “a movement away from Islamist parties in the new legislature.”
Ambassador Boucher outlined a discontent and “worry” among the general population regarding the “Talibanization” of settled areas of Pakistan. Boucher gave the example of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, which he described as a “tragic loss for the whole society.” Furthermore, the act was “probably perpetrated by Baitullah Mahsud—the head of a Taliban organization” the ambassador explained. The population is reacting against this type of violence instigated by extremist groups.
“When we talk to all the parties about dealing with extremism as a whole in all these different ways, part of that [conversation] is to keep up the pressure against the most dangerous elements of those extremists, which are going to have to be fought with military, as well as other, means,” he said.
“What matters to us are the outcomes,” Boucher summarized.
Afghanistan
IN AFGHANISTAN, Ambassador Boucher explained that there is “an opportunity to achieve a new kind of momentum.” Although there is an array of difficulties in stabilizing Afghanistan, Boucher reminded his audience that progress was being made, albeit slowly. Coalition forces have been successful at keeping the Taliban at bay, which has then allowed the Afghan government to establish itself and implement successful civil initiatives in areas such as health and education.
Although there is a long way to go in Afghanistan, Boucher explained that the key to stability is still expanding and enhancing the quality of the government. In response to an audience member questioning the progress that has been made in Afghanistan, Boucher gave an anecdote from his visit to Afghanistan in 2002 with Colin Powell. “The government was a bunch of people having lunch around a table with no money in the bank, no money in vault in the central bank, no computers, no telephones, no funding—they had nothing.”
He continued, “Now you have some very capable ministries that are able to go out and run schools and who are able to build wells and dig irrigation ditches for people, who are able to provide policemen in certain areas. Not necessarily thoroughly and completely around the country, but I would say… when I went to see the minister of Reconstruction and Development, the national solidarity program that he runs is doing 35,000 projects in 25,000 villages.”
As well, approximately 82 percent of the country has access to health care. In applying that statistic, Boucher estimated that improved medical care has saved the lives of 8,500 Afghan children, who would have died as little as five years previous.
The export of opium is still a huge problem, though the most rampant production occurs in the south, where the Taliban has its strongholds. Once stability is achieved, there’s considerably more potential for improvement.
“THE BEST we can do is stabilize and create a direction in these places,” said Boucher. Noting that current U.S. officials are conscious of the fact that the Bush administration is in its last year, Boucher expressed a desire of his office to give the next administration a platform to work from and to put forth plans that will stand up well in future years.
The ambassador concluded, “A lot of these programs, even though they’re beginning or expanding this year, are designed to give something to the next administration to carry through and to really start the transformation that they’re going to want to complete and benefit from in terms of the stability it can provide.”
Caitlin B. Doherty is an apprentice editor at The National Interest.
Source: National Interest
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17102
AS NATO military operations in Afghanistan face setbacks and President Musharaff’s political clout recedes, crucial U.S. interests in the war on terror are at stake. To address American policy in these evolving times, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Ambassador Richard Boucher, led a discussion at the Nixon Center yesterday. Kris Elftmann, chairman of the Richard Nixon Birthplace and Library Foundation, moderated the discussion.
“Stabilizing the center of [South and Central Asia]—Afghanistan, Pakistan—is a matter of some very, very high priority and considerable urgency,” Boucher declared.
The ambassador first explained that U.S. involvement in Pakistan and Afghanistan was a matter of necessity. Because of the number of terrorist attacks that have originated from the region, the stakes are particularly high. Boucher also noted that the United States has an opportunity “to change the picture strategically for every single country in the region.”
The ambassador then explained that the United States has also been presented with an opportunity of historical proportions. “For the last several hundred years Afghanistan has been a buffer, a barrier, between South Asia and Central Asia. It’s been an obstacle to commerce and energy and ideas, people flowing back and forth in this part of the world. And we have an opportunity now—with Afghanistan being an open place, a stabilizing place—to start back a flow that used to exist through hundreds and hundreds of years of history,” stated Boucher.
With these optimistic opening statements, Boucher then admitted that these opportunities are in addition to the challenges that must be faced. “There’s an awful lot going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan that doesn’t respond to historic opportunity or strategic necessity,” he stated.
Pakistan
IF THE DESIRED outcome in Pakistan is a stable center from which to fight extremism, then, according to Ambassador Boucher, progress has been made in achieving that goal. In the past ten years, Pakistan has developed its civil society and media. Currently, the country is transitioning to an elected civilian government that is about to take office. Boucher noted that the United States will work with the new government and respect its right to form its own policies. Furthermore, the speaker pointed out that a significant factor in fighting extremism lies in creating political and economic alternatives for people in the tribal areas where terrorist groups have taken hold. By expanding and reforming the education system and the judicial system, and creating more economic opportunities for people throughout the country—particularly in tribal areas—terrorist groups will come under pressure.
Although the United States provides generous aid to Pakistan—in the hundreds of millions—anti-Americanism continues to be pervasive in the country. When asked how the United States addresses this troubling phenomenon, the ambassador explained that although the U.S. government does its best to make its involvements clear, they are often misinterpreted and misunderstood by the Pakistani people. Much of the anti-Americanism stems from the sense that the U.S. is interfering, when, in fact, it provides much needed aid. Boucher noted, “The $125 million a year spent on the [Pakistani] education system is under-appreciated… We hope we get more appreciation for the support we give.”
When asked how the United States should deal with the current power divide of Pakistan, the ambassador replied, “It’s no different than France.” Elaborating, he explained that the situation was no different than dealing with any other country. It is not strange or unusual to work with political leaders from various sides of the political spectrum of a nation, which is how American diplomats will be involved with Pakistan.
The ambassador also pointed out that the Islamist parties lost “big time” in the election and lost most of their seats to secular nationalists. Whether this was due to their performance in government or their ideology is up for debate, but Boucher made it clear that there is “a movement away from Islamist parties in the new legislature.”
Ambassador Boucher outlined a discontent and “worry” among the general population regarding the “Talibanization” of settled areas of Pakistan. Boucher gave the example of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, which he described as a “tragic loss for the whole society.” Furthermore, the act was “probably perpetrated by Baitullah Mahsud—the head of a Taliban organization” the ambassador explained. The population is reacting against this type of violence instigated by extremist groups.
“When we talk to all the parties about dealing with extremism as a whole in all these different ways, part of that [conversation] is to keep up the pressure against the most dangerous elements of those extremists, which are going to have to be fought with military, as well as other, means,” he said.
“What matters to us are the outcomes,” Boucher summarized.
Afghanistan
IN AFGHANISTAN, Ambassador Boucher explained that there is “an opportunity to achieve a new kind of momentum.” Although there is an array of difficulties in stabilizing Afghanistan, Boucher reminded his audience that progress was being made, albeit slowly. Coalition forces have been successful at keeping the Taliban at bay, which has then allowed the Afghan government to establish itself and implement successful civil initiatives in areas such as health and education.
Although there is a long way to go in Afghanistan, Boucher explained that the key to stability is still expanding and enhancing the quality of the government. In response to an audience member questioning the progress that has been made in Afghanistan, Boucher gave an anecdote from his visit to Afghanistan in 2002 with Colin Powell. “The government was a bunch of people having lunch around a table with no money in the bank, no money in vault in the central bank, no computers, no telephones, no funding—they had nothing.”
He continued, “Now you have some very capable ministries that are able to go out and run schools and who are able to build wells and dig irrigation ditches for people, who are able to provide policemen in certain areas. Not necessarily thoroughly and completely around the country, but I would say… when I went to see the minister of Reconstruction and Development, the national solidarity program that he runs is doing 35,000 projects in 25,000 villages.”
As well, approximately 82 percent of the country has access to health care. In applying that statistic, Boucher estimated that improved medical care has saved the lives of 8,500 Afghan children, who would have died as little as five years previous.
The export of opium is still a huge problem, though the most rampant production occurs in the south, where the Taliban has its strongholds. Once stability is achieved, there’s considerably more potential for improvement.
“THE BEST we can do is stabilize and create a direction in these places,” said Boucher. Noting that current U.S. officials are conscious of the fact that the Bush administration is in its last year, Boucher expressed a desire of his office to give the next administration a platform to work from and to put forth plans that will stand up well in future years.
The ambassador concluded, “A lot of these programs, even though they’re beginning or expanding this year, are designed to give something to the next administration to carry through and to really start the transformation that they’re going to want to complete and benefit from in terms of the stability it can provide.”
Caitlin B. Doherty is an apprentice editor at The National Interest.
Source: National Interest
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17102
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Lions for Lambs: Baloch Political Dissidents Victim of Diplomatic Bargaining
By Belaar Baloch
Despite Westminster’s disavowal that the detention of Baloch human right activists under Terrorism Act 2000 has no link to the move to extradite Rashid Rauf, a terror suspect who was at the centre of the plot to blow up mid-air transatlantic flights in the summer of 2006, the predominant factor that compelled British authorities to act was pressure from Pakistan. On December 4, 2007, British authorities arrested Hayrbeyar Marri and Faiz Baloch, two prominent activists in Britain. Though Hayrbeyar Marri was released on conditional bail over three months later, Faiz Baloch is still imprisoned in Belmarsh, a notorious prison known as the Guantanamo Bay of the U.K.
At present, the whole Baloch region is effectively sealed off by the Pakistani army, so why is the regime in Islamabad desperate to harass Baloch dissidents, even when they are living abroad? It is the growing media interest in the West over its military’s oppressive policies that worries Islamabad and the Baloch diasporas has played a significant role in bringing the human rights abuses of the Pakistani military to the fore. Faiz Baloch, a student with meager resources, successfully organized campaigns and arranged meetings with local human rights campaigners to highlight the misconduct of Pakistan’s military in British newspapers. Similarly, Hayrbeyar Marri was in the forefront organizing the conference in the Parliament House under the auspices of the Foreign Policy Centre which later produced the landmark paper: ‘Baluchis of Pakistan: on the margin of history.’
The chronology of diplomatic wrangling between Islamabad and London suggests that Pakistan, in classic diplomatic bargaining, desperately attempted to link the fate of Rauf to that of Baloch exiles by demanding the extradition of seven Baloch dissidents living in the U.K including Mehran Baloch, a prominent Baloch human rights activist, who regularly participates and intervenes in the U.N and E.U sponsored human rights conferences held in Geneva and Brussels.
The stealthy negotiation started in early March 2007, when officials of the British Crown Prosecution travelled to Pakistan in order to initiate Mr. Rauf’s extradition process. Later that same month, British attorney general Lord Goldsmith met several ministers, including Pakistan’s prime minister Shoukat Aziz. In a quid pro move, Pakistani authorities obdurately asked their counterparts for “something in return.” This request was confirmed by the U.K daily The Guardian that subsequently leaked key parts of this “proposed swap deal” struck between London and Islamabad.
When faced with a barrage of criticism by human rights groups over its extra legal initiatives, London took the legal route, not only to fulfil domestic legal requirements but also send a signal to Islamabad that it was ready to play ball by detaining Hyerbeyar Marri and Faiz Baloch. But it was Islamabad that retreated and failed to fulfil its part when it facilitated the escape of Rashid Rauf, reported by the British daily The Times.
For centuries, London has remained the capital city of exiles and dissidents, who fled from authoritarian and totalitarian regimes for hosts of reasons, mainly fear of persecution at the hands of brutal regimes. Accepting and integrating dissidents, a proud tradition, is deeply entrenched in British values. Even at the height the Cold War, Soviet dissidents, particularly writers, human rights activists, and defected KGB intelligence operatives, were given safe sanctuaries in the U.K. Despite fierce reactions from Moscow, London stood firm on its policy of protecting and giving sanctuary to asylum seekers.
Nevertheless, upholding the norms of human rights is only one part of this truth: security and strategic imperatives, economic benefits, and more importantly, power and influence wielded by powerful individuals in the domestic politics of their countries of origin also dictates day-to-day policy. In recent years, a surge of wealthy dissidents from Moscow to Harare, with their mega fortunes have come to Britain. Some of them have sought asylum under human rights law and continue their political activities in order to influence the politics of their home countries.
Baloch dissidents, by contrast, possess neither enormous wealth which could enable them to buy political influence, nor does the small size of their community make them attractive to British electoral politics. Given their secular profiles which make them detached from the so-called Muslim leaders and their brand of politics, they are even less attractive to the champions of Muslim rights who claim to be the guardian of “umah.” Indeed, these organisations, including Muslim MPs, are forefront in defending the extradition case of Mr. Babur – an Islamic terror suspect, wanted by the U.S for his alleged involvement in terrorist activities.
In a face-saving exercise, the Home Office justified its charges against Hyerbeyar Marri and Faiz Baloch on the grounds that they were both involved in “fomenting acts of terrorism outside Britain.” Meanwhile its prosecutors are struggling to defend their flimsy evidence in court and are relying on various tactics to prolong the detention of the activists in order to satisfy Pakistani intelligence services. In defence of the charges against Mr. Marri and Baloch, the Home Office denied any political motivation, however, it is worth considering a couple of similar examples from the recent past:
The case of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian tycoon who is wanted by Moscow on corruption charges, has recently become a bone of contention between Moscow and London. In April of last year, the oligarch openly threatened the Kremlin with his rhetoric that “violence was necessary to change the regime in Moscow.” He further boasted, “it isn’t possible to change this regime (Putin’s government) through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure.” Having invoked the use of force to bring down the authority of a sovereign nation, Mr. Berezovsky blatantly broke the British law. Ironically, London turned a blind eye and denied Moscow’s demand to extradite the oligarch; they also declined to prosecute him under the new terrorism laws.
Consider, too, that Westminster remained silent over the May 12th carnage in Karachi in which more than fifty political activists perished in its streets. The perpetrators were caught on camera—thugs of the Mutahida Qoumi Movement (MQM). Altaf Hussein, the leader of MQM, is often described by the British media as a ‘gangster politician’ and remains at liberty in a posh suburb of London, despite the fact that some Pakistani opposition politicians brought serious charges against him in the British courts. Yet, the Home Office paid no heed. With a firm grip on the largest Pakistani city and a strong showing in recent elections, small wonder why the Home Office is unable to bring him before the court of law.
At present, the Pakistani state is suffering deep political turmoil and is embroiled in internal civil strife. Despite recent elections, the crisis is so intense that western policy experts view it as the most dangerous state on earth and edging towards disintegration. It is true that Pakistan commits internal atrocities and external aggression against its neighbours, be it India or Afghanistan. Islamist terrorism is its chief export commodity and most terrorist attacks have direct or indirect links to Pakistan’s intelligence services. From the London Underground bombing to Heathrow terror plot, the groundwork was laid in Pakistan. Its clandestine intelligence services harbour some of the most dangerous terrorists within its borders. It represses members of civil society including judges, lawyers, media reporters and political activists, as well as the people of Balochistan, who are perceived by Islamabad as a national security threat. Despite the recent elections in which moderate parties gained considerable seats in the parliament, military intelligence still retains control over Balochistan’s affairs and so far, there are no signs that the elected government will be taken into confidence by the military and its intelligence services.
But what exactly prompted British authorities to act against Baloch dissidents, thereby placating the Pakistani military, despite its gross human rights abuses in Balochistan?
To put it simply, crude pursuit of national interests drive the policymakers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in the process they overlook human suffering. They deny this harsh fact; however, it is discernible when one analyses both internal and external spheres of British policy in the broader context of the war on terror. Pakistan’s frontline status makes the West regard it as a linchpin state. The West perceives Pakistan’s cooperation as vital for success in the war on terror. It is this very status which gives Islamabad an extra edge which it, in turn, is able to temporarily exploit, notwithstanding its current position as a third-rate power whose sovereignty is being questioned not only by its own citizens, but also constantly violated by the Americans when conducting aerial bombings in the tribal areas. The British, however, are masters of old tactics and well convinced that appeasement still works in the case of Pakistan. Given the security imperative in Afghanistan where its 7,800 troops face a Taliban-led insurgency, as well as its own internal security threats emanating from British citizens of Pakistani origin whose sympathies lie with Islamist causes, it does not take much insight to see why British policymakers are kowtowing to Pakistan’s illegitimate demands.
From intelligence sharing to supply routes to the troops stationed in southern Afghanistan, Britain is increasingly dependent on Pakistani cooperation and it is precisely this status Islamabad exploits for its own ends. Much the same holds true when it comes to the domestic threat posed by Pakistani descended British citizens. Nearly 40,000 of them pay visits to Pakistan every year. This provides al-Qaeda and its patrons a potential pool of recruits for violent jihadi networks in Britain and other European cities. The footprints of every terrorist incident leads to Pakistan’s doorstep, including that of Rashid Rauf and Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the 7/7 suicide bombing in London and the masterminds of a foiled attack in Germany in 2006, where the alleged targets were the U.S. army base in Ramstein and the Frankfurt airport.
What is constantly ignored by the West is the paradoxical role of Pakistan’s military in the war on terror, particularly its roguish role in controlling the cross-border movements of Taliban insurgents. Generally speaking, stability in Afghanistan is not on Islamabad’s priority list. In fact, a stable and peaceful Afghanistan directly contradicts its ambitious doctrine of defence depth against India.
Far from condemning Pakistan’s human rights abuses, America and Britain have rewarded its military with modern weapons and cash. Moreover, they have turned a wholly blind eye to the use of this hardware on Baloch civilians and have instead extended their support for policies that a London-based human rights campaigner characterized as ‘collaboration with war crimes.’ In a recent policy speech foreign secretary David Miliband boasted of the moral credentials of British foreign policy because an “interventionist foreign policy” is at the heart of British foreign policy goals. Unfortunately, when it comes to Pakistan’s gruesome actions in Balochistan, Britain has run out of moral capital and the price is being paid by the Baloch.
belaar3@yahoo.com
Despite Westminster’s disavowal that the detention of Baloch human right activists under Terrorism Act 2000 has no link to the move to extradite Rashid Rauf, a terror suspect who was at the centre of the plot to blow up mid-air transatlantic flights in the summer of 2006, the predominant factor that compelled British authorities to act was pressure from Pakistan. On December 4, 2007, British authorities arrested Hayrbeyar Marri and Faiz Baloch, two prominent activists in Britain. Though Hayrbeyar Marri was released on conditional bail over three months later, Faiz Baloch is still imprisoned in Belmarsh, a notorious prison known as the Guantanamo Bay of the U.K.
At present, the whole Baloch region is effectively sealed off by the Pakistani army, so why is the regime in Islamabad desperate to harass Baloch dissidents, even when they are living abroad? It is the growing media interest in the West over its military’s oppressive policies that worries Islamabad and the Baloch diasporas has played a significant role in bringing the human rights abuses of the Pakistani military to the fore. Faiz Baloch, a student with meager resources, successfully organized campaigns and arranged meetings with local human rights campaigners to highlight the misconduct of Pakistan’s military in British newspapers. Similarly, Hayrbeyar Marri was in the forefront organizing the conference in the Parliament House under the auspices of the Foreign Policy Centre which later produced the landmark paper: ‘Baluchis of Pakistan: on the margin of history.’
The chronology of diplomatic wrangling between Islamabad and London suggests that Pakistan, in classic diplomatic bargaining, desperately attempted to link the fate of Rauf to that of Baloch exiles by demanding the extradition of seven Baloch dissidents living in the U.K including Mehran Baloch, a prominent Baloch human rights activist, who regularly participates and intervenes in the U.N and E.U sponsored human rights conferences held in Geneva and Brussels.
The stealthy negotiation started in early March 2007, when officials of the British Crown Prosecution travelled to Pakistan in order to initiate Mr. Rauf’s extradition process. Later that same month, British attorney general Lord Goldsmith met several ministers, including Pakistan’s prime minister Shoukat Aziz. In a quid pro move, Pakistani authorities obdurately asked their counterparts for “something in return.” This request was confirmed by the U.K daily The Guardian that subsequently leaked key parts of this “proposed swap deal” struck between London and Islamabad.
When faced with a barrage of criticism by human rights groups over its extra legal initiatives, London took the legal route, not only to fulfil domestic legal requirements but also send a signal to Islamabad that it was ready to play ball by detaining Hyerbeyar Marri and Faiz Baloch. But it was Islamabad that retreated and failed to fulfil its part when it facilitated the escape of Rashid Rauf, reported by the British daily The Times.
For centuries, London has remained the capital city of exiles and dissidents, who fled from authoritarian and totalitarian regimes for hosts of reasons, mainly fear of persecution at the hands of brutal regimes. Accepting and integrating dissidents, a proud tradition, is deeply entrenched in British values. Even at the height the Cold War, Soviet dissidents, particularly writers, human rights activists, and defected KGB intelligence operatives, were given safe sanctuaries in the U.K. Despite fierce reactions from Moscow, London stood firm on its policy of protecting and giving sanctuary to asylum seekers.
Nevertheless, upholding the norms of human rights is only one part of this truth: security and strategic imperatives, economic benefits, and more importantly, power and influence wielded by powerful individuals in the domestic politics of their countries of origin also dictates day-to-day policy. In recent years, a surge of wealthy dissidents from Moscow to Harare, with their mega fortunes have come to Britain. Some of them have sought asylum under human rights law and continue their political activities in order to influence the politics of their home countries.
Baloch dissidents, by contrast, possess neither enormous wealth which could enable them to buy political influence, nor does the small size of their community make them attractive to British electoral politics. Given their secular profiles which make them detached from the so-called Muslim leaders and their brand of politics, they are even less attractive to the champions of Muslim rights who claim to be the guardian of “umah.” Indeed, these organisations, including Muslim MPs, are forefront in defending the extradition case of Mr. Babur – an Islamic terror suspect, wanted by the U.S for his alleged involvement in terrorist activities.
In a face-saving exercise, the Home Office justified its charges against Hyerbeyar Marri and Faiz Baloch on the grounds that they were both involved in “fomenting acts of terrorism outside Britain.” Meanwhile its prosecutors are struggling to defend their flimsy evidence in court and are relying on various tactics to prolong the detention of the activists in order to satisfy Pakistani intelligence services. In defence of the charges against Mr. Marri and Baloch, the Home Office denied any political motivation, however, it is worth considering a couple of similar examples from the recent past:
The case of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian tycoon who is wanted by Moscow on corruption charges, has recently become a bone of contention between Moscow and London. In April of last year, the oligarch openly threatened the Kremlin with his rhetoric that “violence was necessary to change the regime in Moscow.” He further boasted, “it isn’t possible to change this regime (Putin’s government) through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure.” Having invoked the use of force to bring down the authority of a sovereign nation, Mr. Berezovsky blatantly broke the British law. Ironically, London turned a blind eye and denied Moscow’s demand to extradite the oligarch; they also declined to prosecute him under the new terrorism laws.
Consider, too, that Westminster remained silent over the May 12th carnage in Karachi in which more than fifty political activists perished in its streets. The perpetrators were caught on camera—thugs of the Mutahida Qoumi Movement (MQM). Altaf Hussein, the leader of MQM, is often described by the British media as a ‘gangster politician’ and remains at liberty in a posh suburb of London, despite the fact that some Pakistani opposition politicians brought serious charges against him in the British courts. Yet, the Home Office paid no heed. With a firm grip on the largest Pakistani city and a strong showing in recent elections, small wonder why the Home Office is unable to bring him before the court of law.
At present, the Pakistani state is suffering deep political turmoil and is embroiled in internal civil strife. Despite recent elections, the crisis is so intense that western policy experts view it as the most dangerous state on earth and edging towards disintegration. It is true that Pakistan commits internal atrocities and external aggression against its neighbours, be it India or Afghanistan. Islamist terrorism is its chief export commodity and most terrorist attacks have direct or indirect links to Pakistan’s intelligence services. From the London Underground bombing to Heathrow terror plot, the groundwork was laid in Pakistan. Its clandestine intelligence services harbour some of the most dangerous terrorists within its borders. It represses members of civil society including judges, lawyers, media reporters and political activists, as well as the people of Balochistan, who are perceived by Islamabad as a national security threat. Despite the recent elections in which moderate parties gained considerable seats in the parliament, military intelligence still retains control over Balochistan’s affairs and so far, there are no signs that the elected government will be taken into confidence by the military and its intelligence services.
But what exactly prompted British authorities to act against Baloch dissidents, thereby placating the Pakistani military, despite its gross human rights abuses in Balochistan?
To put it simply, crude pursuit of national interests drive the policymakers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in the process they overlook human suffering. They deny this harsh fact; however, it is discernible when one analyses both internal and external spheres of British policy in the broader context of the war on terror. Pakistan’s frontline status makes the West regard it as a linchpin state. The West perceives Pakistan’s cooperation as vital for success in the war on terror. It is this very status which gives Islamabad an extra edge which it, in turn, is able to temporarily exploit, notwithstanding its current position as a third-rate power whose sovereignty is being questioned not only by its own citizens, but also constantly violated by the Americans when conducting aerial bombings in the tribal areas. The British, however, are masters of old tactics and well convinced that appeasement still works in the case of Pakistan. Given the security imperative in Afghanistan where its 7,800 troops face a Taliban-led insurgency, as well as its own internal security threats emanating from British citizens of Pakistani origin whose sympathies lie with Islamist causes, it does not take much insight to see why British policymakers are kowtowing to Pakistan’s illegitimate demands.
From intelligence sharing to supply routes to the troops stationed in southern Afghanistan, Britain is increasingly dependent on Pakistani cooperation and it is precisely this status Islamabad exploits for its own ends. Much the same holds true when it comes to the domestic threat posed by Pakistani descended British citizens. Nearly 40,000 of them pay visits to Pakistan every year. This provides al-Qaeda and its patrons a potential pool of recruits for violent jihadi networks in Britain and other European cities. The footprints of every terrorist incident leads to Pakistan’s doorstep, including that of Rashid Rauf and Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the 7/7 suicide bombing in London and the masterminds of a foiled attack in Germany in 2006, where the alleged targets were the U.S. army base in Ramstein and the Frankfurt airport.
What is constantly ignored by the West is the paradoxical role of Pakistan’s military in the war on terror, particularly its roguish role in controlling the cross-border movements of Taliban insurgents. Generally speaking, stability in Afghanistan is not on Islamabad’s priority list. In fact, a stable and peaceful Afghanistan directly contradicts its ambitious doctrine of defence depth against India.
Far from condemning Pakistan’s human rights abuses, America and Britain have rewarded its military with modern weapons and cash. Moreover, they have turned a wholly blind eye to the use of this hardware on Baloch civilians and have instead extended their support for policies that a London-based human rights campaigner characterized as ‘collaboration with war crimes.’ In a recent policy speech foreign secretary David Miliband boasted of the moral credentials of British foreign policy because an “interventionist foreign policy” is at the heart of British foreign policy goals. Unfortunately, when it comes to Pakistan’s gruesome actions in Balochistan, Britain has run out of moral capital and the price is being paid by the Baloch.
belaar3@yahoo.com
Friday, March 21, 2008
Bismarck for President
by Dimitri K. Simes and Paul J. Saunders
DIPLOMATS HAVE been referred to as “honest men sent to lie abroad” and hardly anyone is surprised when politicians take liberties with the truth. Former President Ronald Reagan, an icon among Republicans who well understood the power of a good story, was not above a little mythmaking. And former-President Bill Clinton could look Americans in their collective eyes on national television and lie without particular damage to his long-term standing among Democrats. But while we may be able to get away with lying to foreign governments, and even to one another, the price of continuing to lie to ourselves could be staggering.
A new conventional wisdom has emerged after the U.S. victory in the cold war in which history no longer matters and we no longer need to understand others’ interests or perspectives so long as we remain on the side of righteousness—and, of course, so long as we can count on overwhelming military and economic power. And in this spirit of vain self-congratulation, we have increasingly lost the ability to look squarely in the mirror before judging others and taking them to task.
After all, despite being on the right side of history, American leaders have taken their own share of ruthless, and even brutal, decisions. Each had its own logic, and most seem strategically justified in retrospect, but few continue to play a role in our public debates. Remember that the United States was the first and only nation to use atomic weapons—and used them against cities. Washington used napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam. American leaders supported known-thug Saddam Hussein at a time when his regime used chemical weapons not only in its bloody war with Iran but against its own people.
Such decisions, while obviously regrettable, were the result of the types of difficult choices that great powers must often make. But then it behooves us not to preach too loudly about our own sense of morality. It also means that, in crafting an effective foreign policy, we shouldn’t be blinded by our own rhetorical claims to ethical perfection—or to fail to recognize that many states see us as a “normal country”—one that pursues its own interests by any means necessary and often makes moral judgments about others that appear influenced by those interests.
So those people who expressed disgust and outrage over the use of Russian airpower against civilian targets in the Caucasus were prepared to overlook Israel’s use of cluster bombs and other indiscriminate bombardment in southern Lebanon. They loudly condemn Tehran’s disregard of the United Nations Security Council one day, but feel it is perfectly appropriate to ignore this body to secure independence for Kosovo.
Supporting one’s friends while condemning one’s opponents is nothing new; but when that is combined with a messianic predisposition to view the world as divided into the children of light and the children of darkness—with no need to compromise with, understand the motives of or address the concerns of those deemed opponents—this becomes truly dangerous. The refusal of most politicians to acknowledge the clear connection between U.S. conduct in the Middle East and the hatred of the United States among Islamist extremists that motivated the September 11 attacks is a case in point. The United States has had serious reasons for pursuing the types of policies it has—but it is foolhardy to ignore the evidence that there are costs. The Arab-Israeli dispute is clearly a key litmus test of American policy for many Muslims—but this fact has not been a subject of discussion, even after being raised in the Republican presidential debates. And while plenty of experts on the region have made this argument, it is not reflected where it counts: among political leaders or even most of the mainstream media.
There is a similar inability to develop a serious approach to China, which is likely to be the paramount U.S. relationship of the twenty-first century. China is an emerging superpower whose dramatic growth and rapid technological progress could rival America’s economy in just a few decades and is already an important driver of global growth. Moreover, it is becoming clear that no major international initiative—such as imposing meaningful sanctions on Iran—can take place without Chinese involvement.
Yet there is no discussion outside academic circles of the consequences of Washington’s unwillingness to settle for anything short of unquestioned global military dominance, something former–Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was by no means alone in expecting Beijing to accept, even in their own neighborhood. But major powers are rarely prepared to count on someone else’s goodwill to protect their interests, especially when their relationship with the other party is not trouble free. So why is it unexpected that China has responded with what is still by U.S. standards a limited—even if disturbing—military buildup?
Late last year, the Dalai Lama was celebrated in Washington almost without politicians or anyone in the mainstream media asking whether the enthusiastic and very public U.S. hero’s welcome to someone seen by China as a separatist leader would have any consequences. And after he was saluted not at the National Cathedral but in the Capitol Building—sending a clear message that he was being received as a political leader, even a freedom fighter, rather than as a religious figure—the same people expressed surprise when Beijing refused a port call by the U.S. Navy in Hong Kong and when leading Chinese politicians made it clear that if the United States did something that harmed Beijing’s interests, they should not count on support from China on issues of concern to Washington. Most Americans clearly view the Dalai Lama in a fundamentally different way than Beijing does. The point is not who is right, but rather that few acknowledge that publicly embracing him will come at a predictable cost in America’s relationship with China.
None of this would matter much if the United States enjoyed an absolute preponderance of power and didn’t require the aid of others. That is, sadly, not the case. The cost of the war in Iraq alone is estimated at some $500 billion—and it is far from over—and other countries are not lightening any of Washington’s burden. There will be no multilateral rescue from America’s unilateral action. Maintaining a crusading approach to foreign policy will saddle America with immense burdens and is inconsistent with efforts to balance budgets, cut taxes, reduce the size of the federal government, save the Social Security system or provide universal health care. This kind of global strategic and financial overstretch undermines the fundamental health of the American economy and a central pillar of our international leadership. It is bizarre to think that Americans can indefinitely absorb the costs of global empire without collecting any of its traditional economic benefits.
Moreover, the radical utopianism advanced by far too many advisors to leading Republican and Democratic candidates is not only misguided and costly, but doomed to fail. Americans may be interested in creating a utopia for the world but are not prepared to pay for it, and our democratic system is structurally incapable of building or sustaining a global imperium. And the responses such a policy generates—from terrorists and others—predictably drive domestic decisions that undermine our own precious democracy.
Skeptics of utopian globalism are often accused of being too pessimistic. After all, have not political changes in Europe brought to power leaders more friendly to the United States? Neoconservative and interventionist-liberal utopians excitedly predict a new alignment in favor of their approach.
But the global balance of power is evolving. Whenever American and European presidents and prime ministers do anything together, they claim to do it in the name of the “international community”—but it is increasingly apparent that a majority of the world’s citizens and a number of its major powers—including not only China and Russia, but even democratic India—think otherwise. Indeed, these states are starting to carry more economic and political weight in the global arena. European support remains very important to sustaining U.S. global leadership. It should be a cause for satisfaction—but not validation, much less euphoria.
Moreover, American utopians aren’t listening too closely. On some issues, there is a definite transatlantic consensus. But not on others. “Sarkozy the American,” for example, has taken a different approach to relations with Russia and dealing with “rogue states” like Libya than the one preferred by most of the leading U.S. candidates.
We can’t—and shouldn’t—take Europe for granted. Nor should we abandon what has been a key strategic goal of the United States since Richard Nixon’s opening to China: ensuring that Beijing and Moscow have been more interested in good relations with Washington than in courting one another or rogue states. Changes in this balance—even shifts well short of formal alliances—could profoundly undermine America’s ability to pursue its international goals. We could—and did—get away with a lot in this area in the 1990s, when the United States was riding high. America can ill afford the same errors in the changing environment of the early-twenty-first century.
Some will argue that anyone who makes a case like this—for understanding our foes and rivals, and admitting our errors, at least to ourselves—is blaming America first. We do nothing of the sort. There is a profound difference between identifying with one’s opponents and engaging in a sober and penetrating analysis of one’s own conduct in order to be more effective. The latter is essential to a foreign-policy strategy that will allow America to come out on top when it matters most.
Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who was the architect of Germany’s empire, was hardly a self-doubting liberal and was by no means reluctant to use military force, as his enemies in France and Austria-Hungary learned painfully. But Bismarck did have a discerning analytical mind and was hesitant to provoke Russia into joining a potential coalition against Berlin. That was one of the reasons that he famously said “the Balkans are not worth the healthy bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.”
After Bismarck’s death, Kaiser Wilhelm II did not have similar inhibitions. Persuaded of the superiority of his monarchial form of government, angered by French assertiveness, disappointed with Russia’s reluctance to follow his lead, convinced that Russia was still weak after the disastrous war with Japan, hopeful that England would not join Russia and France in a conflict with Germany, and assuming that the United States was too far away to be counted, he boldly supported the Austro-Hungarian drive for supremacy in the Balkans. What followed, of course, was the defeat of Germany, the end of his dynasty, and great upheavals in Europe that eventually led to the triumph of Bolshevism in Russia, Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice likes to believe that the world has transcended such thinking, but what seems more likely is that even as most other governments continue to view the world in terms of power and interests, America’s elites, overwhelmed by the sense of our righteousness, have difficulty defining rational and achievable priorities. While much in Bismarck’s policies is ill suited to modern-day America, we could do far worse in foreign policy than to discard arrogant triumphalism in favor of his romantic yet steely and selective pragmatism.
Dimitri K. Simes is the president of The Nixon Center and publisher of The National Interest. Paul J. Saunders is the executive director of The Nixon Center and associate publisher of The National Interest.
Source: National Interest
DIPLOMATS HAVE been referred to as “honest men sent to lie abroad” and hardly anyone is surprised when politicians take liberties with the truth. Former President Ronald Reagan, an icon among Republicans who well understood the power of a good story, was not above a little mythmaking. And former-President Bill Clinton could look Americans in their collective eyes on national television and lie without particular damage to his long-term standing among Democrats. But while we may be able to get away with lying to foreign governments, and even to one another, the price of continuing to lie to ourselves could be staggering.
A new conventional wisdom has emerged after the U.S. victory in the cold war in which history no longer matters and we no longer need to understand others’ interests or perspectives so long as we remain on the side of righteousness—and, of course, so long as we can count on overwhelming military and economic power. And in this spirit of vain self-congratulation, we have increasingly lost the ability to look squarely in the mirror before judging others and taking them to task.
After all, despite being on the right side of history, American leaders have taken their own share of ruthless, and even brutal, decisions. Each had its own logic, and most seem strategically justified in retrospect, but few continue to play a role in our public debates. Remember that the United States was the first and only nation to use atomic weapons—and used them against cities. Washington used napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam. American leaders supported known-thug Saddam Hussein at a time when his regime used chemical weapons not only in its bloody war with Iran but against its own people.
Such decisions, while obviously regrettable, were the result of the types of difficult choices that great powers must often make. But then it behooves us not to preach too loudly about our own sense of morality. It also means that, in crafting an effective foreign policy, we shouldn’t be blinded by our own rhetorical claims to ethical perfection—or to fail to recognize that many states see us as a “normal country”—one that pursues its own interests by any means necessary and often makes moral judgments about others that appear influenced by those interests.
So those people who expressed disgust and outrage over the use of Russian airpower against civilian targets in the Caucasus were prepared to overlook Israel’s use of cluster bombs and other indiscriminate bombardment in southern Lebanon. They loudly condemn Tehran’s disregard of the United Nations Security Council one day, but feel it is perfectly appropriate to ignore this body to secure independence for Kosovo.
Supporting one’s friends while condemning one’s opponents is nothing new; but when that is combined with a messianic predisposition to view the world as divided into the children of light and the children of darkness—with no need to compromise with, understand the motives of or address the concerns of those deemed opponents—this becomes truly dangerous. The refusal of most politicians to acknowledge the clear connection between U.S. conduct in the Middle East and the hatred of the United States among Islamist extremists that motivated the September 11 attacks is a case in point. The United States has had serious reasons for pursuing the types of policies it has—but it is foolhardy to ignore the evidence that there are costs. The Arab-Israeli dispute is clearly a key litmus test of American policy for many Muslims—but this fact has not been a subject of discussion, even after being raised in the Republican presidential debates. And while plenty of experts on the region have made this argument, it is not reflected where it counts: among political leaders or even most of the mainstream media.
There is a similar inability to develop a serious approach to China, which is likely to be the paramount U.S. relationship of the twenty-first century. China is an emerging superpower whose dramatic growth and rapid technological progress could rival America’s economy in just a few decades and is already an important driver of global growth. Moreover, it is becoming clear that no major international initiative—such as imposing meaningful sanctions on Iran—can take place without Chinese involvement.
Yet there is no discussion outside academic circles of the consequences of Washington’s unwillingness to settle for anything short of unquestioned global military dominance, something former–Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was by no means alone in expecting Beijing to accept, even in their own neighborhood. But major powers are rarely prepared to count on someone else’s goodwill to protect their interests, especially when their relationship with the other party is not trouble free. So why is it unexpected that China has responded with what is still by U.S. standards a limited—even if disturbing—military buildup?
Late last year, the Dalai Lama was celebrated in Washington almost without politicians or anyone in the mainstream media asking whether the enthusiastic and very public U.S. hero’s welcome to someone seen by China as a separatist leader would have any consequences. And after he was saluted not at the National Cathedral but in the Capitol Building—sending a clear message that he was being received as a political leader, even a freedom fighter, rather than as a religious figure—the same people expressed surprise when Beijing refused a port call by the U.S. Navy in Hong Kong and when leading Chinese politicians made it clear that if the United States did something that harmed Beijing’s interests, they should not count on support from China on issues of concern to Washington. Most Americans clearly view the Dalai Lama in a fundamentally different way than Beijing does. The point is not who is right, but rather that few acknowledge that publicly embracing him will come at a predictable cost in America’s relationship with China.
None of this would matter much if the United States enjoyed an absolute preponderance of power and didn’t require the aid of others. That is, sadly, not the case. The cost of the war in Iraq alone is estimated at some $500 billion—and it is far from over—and other countries are not lightening any of Washington’s burden. There will be no multilateral rescue from America’s unilateral action. Maintaining a crusading approach to foreign policy will saddle America with immense burdens and is inconsistent with efforts to balance budgets, cut taxes, reduce the size of the federal government, save the Social Security system or provide universal health care. This kind of global strategic and financial overstretch undermines the fundamental health of the American economy and a central pillar of our international leadership. It is bizarre to think that Americans can indefinitely absorb the costs of global empire without collecting any of its traditional economic benefits.
Moreover, the radical utopianism advanced by far too many advisors to leading Republican and Democratic candidates is not only misguided and costly, but doomed to fail. Americans may be interested in creating a utopia for the world but are not prepared to pay for it, and our democratic system is structurally incapable of building or sustaining a global imperium. And the responses such a policy generates—from terrorists and others—predictably drive domestic decisions that undermine our own precious democracy.
Skeptics of utopian globalism are often accused of being too pessimistic. After all, have not political changes in Europe brought to power leaders more friendly to the United States? Neoconservative and interventionist-liberal utopians excitedly predict a new alignment in favor of their approach.
But the global balance of power is evolving. Whenever American and European presidents and prime ministers do anything together, they claim to do it in the name of the “international community”—but it is increasingly apparent that a majority of the world’s citizens and a number of its major powers—including not only China and Russia, but even democratic India—think otherwise. Indeed, these states are starting to carry more economic and political weight in the global arena. European support remains very important to sustaining U.S. global leadership. It should be a cause for satisfaction—but not validation, much less euphoria.
Moreover, American utopians aren’t listening too closely. On some issues, there is a definite transatlantic consensus. But not on others. “Sarkozy the American,” for example, has taken a different approach to relations with Russia and dealing with “rogue states” like Libya than the one preferred by most of the leading U.S. candidates.
We can’t—and shouldn’t—take Europe for granted. Nor should we abandon what has been a key strategic goal of the United States since Richard Nixon’s opening to China: ensuring that Beijing and Moscow have been more interested in good relations with Washington than in courting one another or rogue states. Changes in this balance—even shifts well short of formal alliances—could profoundly undermine America’s ability to pursue its international goals. We could—and did—get away with a lot in this area in the 1990s, when the United States was riding high. America can ill afford the same errors in the changing environment of the early-twenty-first century.
Some will argue that anyone who makes a case like this—for understanding our foes and rivals, and admitting our errors, at least to ourselves—is blaming America first. We do nothing of the sort. There is a profound difference between identifying with one’s opponents and engaging in a sober and penetrating analysis of one’s own conduct in order to be more effective. The latter is essential to a foreign-policy strategy that will allow America to come out on top when it matters most.
Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who was the architect of Germany’s empire, was hardly a self-doubting liberal and was by no means reluctant to use military force, as his enemies in France and Austria-Hungary learned painfully. But Bismarck did have a discerning analytical mind and was hesitant to provoke Russia into joining a potential coalition against Berlin. That was one of the reasons that he famously said “the Balkans are not worth the healthy bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.”
After Bismarck’s death, Kaiser Wilhelm II did not have similar inhibitions. Persuaded of the superiority of his monarchial form of government, angered by French assertiveness, disappointed with Russia’s reluctance to follow his lead, convinced that Russia was still weak after the disastrous war with Japan, hopeful that England would not join Russia and France in a conflict with Germany, and assuming that the United States was too far away to be counted, he boldly supported the Austro-Hungarian drive for supremacy in the Balkans. What followed, of course, was the defeat of Germany, the end of his dynasty, and great upheavals in Europe that eventually led to the triumph of Bolshevism in Russia, Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice likes to believe that the world has transcended such thinking, but what seems more likely is that even as most other governments continue to view the world in terms of power and interests, America’s elites, overwhelmed by the sense of our righteousness, have difficulty defining rational and achievable priorities. While much in Bismarck’s policies is ill suited to modern-day America, we could do far worse in foreign policy than to discard arrogant triumphalism in favor of his romantic yet steely and selective pragmatism.
Dimitri K. Simes is the president of The Nixon Center and publisher of The National Interest. Paul J. Saunders is the executive director of The Nixon Center and associate publisher of The National Interest.
Source: National Interest
Myths and the mujahideen
Simon Tisdall
Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, is a hilariously simplistic, enjoyable Hollywood romp through the vicious 1980s struggle between Afghanistan's US-backed mujahideen guerrillas and the occupying Red Army. On one level, its inanities make Mel Gibson's Braveheart look like a thoughtful documentary about 13th century Anglo-Scottish relations.
But entertainment aside, the film performs a serious function, too, by highlighting crucial issues of current concern. They include the winnability of asymmetric wars, the wisdom of military intervention, the rise of al-Qaida and Islamist fundamentalism, and Nato's present-day campaign in Afghanistan against the Taliban.
One of those who played a real-time role in the ultimately successful fight to eject the Soviet Union was Morton Abramowitz. He was assistant secretary of state for intelligence in the Reagan administration from 1985-89, when the $1bn covert CIA drive to arm the mujahideen described in Charlie Wilson's War was at its peak. Over a long career, his interventionist credentials were impeccable - and he knew most of what went on in Afghanistan in the 80s.
Speaking after a screening of the film at the Policy Exchange thinktank in London, Abramowitz offered several factual corrections to the storyline. Wilson, the hard-drinking, womanising Texas congressman played by Hanks, was not the first to urge sending weapons to the Afghan resistance, he said. That idea originated in 1980 with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
By his own account, Brzezinski travelled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan after the Soviet invasion, winning financial and logistical support for an effort to arm the mujahideen. Assistance was also forthcoming from Britain's MI6, Egypt, China and even Warsaw pact Czechoslovakia.
Abramowitz said that, contrary to claims made in the film, Mikhail Gorbachev, who became general-secretary of the Soviet communist party in 1985, decided to withdraw as early as 1986, believing the occupation could not be sustained. His decision actually preceded the deployment of the first US-supplied Stinger missiles whose devastating use against Soviet aircraft supposedly broke Russia's will.
The former intelligence chief was also dismissive of the film's suggestion that Wilson foresaw that anti-American fundamentalists and jihadis from around the Muslim world would move in and exploit the post-withdrawal power vacuum in Afghanistan. "Charlie Wilson did absolutely nothing about the problems of post-war reconstruction," he said. The failure to help rebuild once the Russians left was collective - and its fateful consequences were only understood much later.
Ali Jalali, a leading mujahideen fighter who later became Afghanistan's interior minister under President Hamid Karzai, told the Policy Exchange the commonly held idea that the Soviet retreat in 1989 was the moment al-Qaida and the Taliban, inadvertently armed by Washington, came into being was mistaken.
"The perception now is that the war created al-Qaida. But the spread of fundamentalism started long before, at the point when the Arab socialism movements of the 1950s and 1960s failed," Jalali said. Another little understood factor was Pakistan's dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, who insisted that all weapons destined for the mujahideen be channelled though his inter-services intelligence agency. Zia, widely seen now as prime mover in Pakistan's evolution into an Islamic state, wanted an Afghan government that Islamabad could control.
General Charles Guthrie, former SAS commandant and Tony Blair's envoy to Pakistan's current president, Pervez Musharraf, also said Zia's role was problematic. Zia's favouring of his proxies meant that more able, less anti-western mujahideen commanders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud, the "Lion of the Panjshir", murdered by al-Qaida two days before 9/11, received fewer weapons and supplies.
Abramowitz, Guthrie and Paddy Ashdown, the former Bosnia international administrator whose hopes of a top diplomatic role in Afghanistan were recently dashed by Karzai, all suggested the asymmetrical warfare that defeated the Russians could yet defeat Nato forces there.
"You cannot impose democracy by lethal force," Ashdown said. "We will not beat the Taliban. Only the Afghan people will defeat the Taliban." And that would take more time than "short-termist" western governments were likely to allow. As Rudyard Kipling had noted in Arithmetic on the Frontier, expensive weaponry and superior education did not guarantee success: "Strike hard who cares - shoot straight who can - The odds are on the cheaper man."
The experience of Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s, and today, plus what has happened in Iraq, had reduced his enthusiasm for and confidence in military intervention, Abramowitz said. "When I think about intervention now, I am much more modest in saying what we can achieve. To tell you the truth, talk of intervention makes me skittish."
Source: The Guardian
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2008/03/myths_and_the_mujahideen.html
Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, is a hilariously simplistic, enjoyable Hollywood romp through the vicious 1980s struggle between Afghanistan's US-backed mujahideen guerrillas and the occupying Red Army. On one level, its inanities make Mel Gibson's Braveheart look like a thoughtful documentary about 13th century Anglo-Scottish relations.
But entertainment aside, the film performs a serious function, too, by highlighting crucial issues of current concern. They include the winnability of asymmetric wars, the wisdom of military intervention, the rise of al-Qaida and Islamist fundamentalism, and Nato's present-day campaign in Afghanistan against the Taliban.
One of those who played a real-time role in the ultimately successful fight to eject the Soviet Union was Morton Abramowitz. He was assistant secretary of state for intelligence in the Reagan administration from 1985-89, when the $1bn covert CIA drive to arm the mujahideen described in Charlie Wilson's War was at its peak. Over a long career, his interventionist credentials were impeccable - and he knew most of what went on in Afghanistan in the 80s.
Speaking after a screening of the film at the Policy Exchange thinktank in London, Abramowitz offered several factual corrections to the storyline. Wilson, the hard-drinking, womanising Texas congressman played by Hanks, was not the first to urge sending weapons to the Afghan resistance, he said. That idea originated in 1980 with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
By his own account, Brzezinski travelled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan after the Soviet invasion, winning financial and logistical support for an effort to arm the mujahideen. Assistance was also forthcoming from Britain's MI6, Egypt, China and even Warsaw pact Czechoslovakia.
Abramowitz said that, contrary to claims made in the film, Mikhail Gorbachev, who became general-secretary of the Soviet communist party in 1985, decided to withdraw as early as 1986, believing the occupation could not be sustained. His decision actually preceded the deployment of the first US-supplied Stinger missiles whose devastating use against Soviet aircraft supposedly broke Russia's will.
The former intelligence chief was also dismissive of the film's suggestion that Wilson foresaw that anti-American fundamentalists and jihadis from around the Muslim world would move in and exploit the post-withdrawal power vacuum in Afghanistan. "Charlie Wilson did absolutely nothing about the problems of post-war reconstruction," he said. The failure to help rebuild once the Russians left was collective - and its fateful consequences were only understood much later.
Ali Jalali, a leading mujahideen fighter who later became Afghanistan's interior minister under President Hamid Karzai, told the Policy Exchange the commonly held idea that the Soviet retreat in 1989 was the moment al-Qaida and the Taliban, inadvertently armed by Washington, came into being was mistaken.
"The perception now is that the war created al-Qaida. But the spread of fundamentalism started long before, at the point when the Arab socialism movements of the 1950s and 1960s failed," Jalali said. Another little understood factor was Pakistan's dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, who insisted that all weapons destined for the mujahideen be channelled though his inter-services intelligence agency. Zia, widely seen now as prime mover in Pakistan's evolution into an Islamic state, wanted an Afghan government that Islamabad could control.
General Charles Guthrie, former SAS commandant and Tony Blair's envoy to Pakistan's current president, Pervez Musharraf, also said Zia's role was problematic. Zia's favouring of his proxies meant that more able, less anti-western mujahideen commanders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud, the "Lion of the Panjshir", murdered by al-Qaida two days before 9/11, received fewer weapons and supplies.
Abramowitz, Guthrie and Paddy Ashdown, the former Bosnia international administrator whose hopes of a top diplomatic role in Afghanistan were recently dashed by Karzai, all suggested the asymmetrical warfare that defeated the Russians could yet defeat Nato forces there.
"You cannot impose democracy by lethal force," Ashdown said. "We will not beat the Taliban. Only the Afghan people will defeat the Taliban." And that would take more time than "short-termist" western governments were likely to allow. As Rudyard Kipling had noted in Arithmetic on the Frontier, expensive weaponry and superior education did not guarantee success: "Strike hard who cares - shoot straight who can - The odds are on the cheaper man."
The experience of Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s, and today, plus what has happened in Iraq, had reduced his enthusiasm for and confidence in military intervention, Abramowitz said. "When I think about intervention now, I am much more modest in saying what we can achieve. To tell you the truth, talk of intervention makes me skittish."
Source: The Guardian
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2008/03/myths_and_the_mujahideen.html
Tibet: try the Hong Kong solution
Malcolm Rifkind
It is easy to get depressed about the trauma of Tibet and the suppression of Tibetan cultural and political aspirations. It is, after all, almost half a century since the Dalai Lama fled his country. He has never been able to return and recent events make it highly unlikely that he will in the foreseeable future.
Over that half century the Soviet Union has collapsed into 15 independent states, apartheid has been defeated in South Africa, colonial empires have disappeared, and the United States could be about to elect its first black president. But Tibet and the Tibetans remain under the iron hand of Beijing, denied not just self-government but also the free expression of their unique cultural and religious identity.
Pessimism about the future may seem inevitable but it need not be. A solution is already available that would not only meet Tibetan aspirations but would do so in a way that should be acceptable to China.
China is the country that invented the concept of two systems in one country. It did so in order to absorb Hong Kong back into the motherland without killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It was the inspiration of Deng Xiaoping and it has been brilliantly successful.
Instead of insisting that the Hong Kong Chinese had to accept a communist economic system combined with political uniformity, the people of Hong Kong have been able to continue to live as a Western, capitalist enclave within the Chinese body politic.
Although there are clear limits to its freedom and democratic rights, Hong Kong enjoys real autonomy, a functioning rule of law and a liberal press and media that have no equivalent in most of China.
Similar freedoms have been conceded to the former Portuguese colony of Macao. Nor is there any doubt that the Chinese Government would be delighted to conclude a similar arrangement with the Taiwanese if the latter could be persuaded to accept reunification with mainland China in the years to come.
If China is, therefore, able to live with genuine autonomy and cultural freedom in Hong Kong and Macao, and if it would be only too happy to concede it to Taiwan, why can a similar offer not be made to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people?
The answer is that, until now, the Chinese have not considered it to be necessary. They have assumed that they could make the Dalai Lama a non-person, gradually forgotten by his fellow Tibetans. They have hoped that a substantial and growing migration of Han Chinese into Tibet would transform the demographic composition of the territory and make the Tibetans an ethnic minority in their own land.
China now has to acknowledge that these objectives have totally failed. Far from marginalising the Dalai Lama, they have seen him transformed into an Asian Nelson Mandela, fêted around the world and revered by his people as a symbol as well as a leader.
Young Tibetans have become radicalised as people do in the modern world wherever the denial of freedom is seen as being combined with foreign occupation. Tibet looks likely to become a cause c鬦egrave;bre for protest movements around the world and public opinion in the West wants their leaders to do what they can to help the Tibetan cause.
An autonomous, self-governing Tibet within China should not be that difficult for the Chinese to accept. The Dalai Lama has made it clear that he is not seeking independence and, while that will disappoint many of his followers, the vast majority would accept his authority and be delighted and relieved if some genuine self-government was to be introduced.
The Chinese, for their part, would find that their reputation in the world as a whole was transformed. At present they appear, and behave, as if they were the world's last colonial empire. The internet and the mobile phone have made it impossible for them to seal off
Tibet from the outside world. Increased repression or political and cultural reform are the only choices left available to them and the price they would pay if they opt for repression will be high and will grow.
We should not be naive. Whatever the price, the Chinese would be willing to pay it if they saw Tibet breaking away from China and becoming a separate state. That will not be even a distant possibility unless and until China itself embraces democratic reform.
But a Tibetan province with cultural freedom and a significant degree of political autonomy would be no more than is already enjoyed by Hong Kong and Macao. It would be a Chinese solution to a Chinese problem and all the better for it.
The Chinese are planning that the Olympic torch should, in the run-up to the Olympic Games, be carried through Tibet on its way to Beijing. In current circumstances that would constitute a shameful betrayal of the Olympic ideal.
But if the Chinese Government means what it says when it offers a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in exchange for a renunciation of independence and violence, there could be a transformation in the current poisonous atmosphere.
A serious offer of political and cultural reform would not only delight the Tibetans and impress the world, it would also make the Beijing Olympics a unique opportunity to welcome the new China to its rightful place in the pantheon of nations.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, MP, was Foreign Secretary, 1995-97
Source: The Times online
www.thetimes.com
It is easy to get depressed about the trauma of Tibet and the suppression of Tibetan cultural and political aspirations. It is, after all, almost half a century since the Dalai Lama fled his country. He has never been able to return and recent events make it highly unlikely that he will in the foreseeable future.
Over that half century the Soviet Union has collapsed into 15 independent states, apartheid has been defeated in South Africa, colonial empires have disappeared, and the United States could be about to elect its first black president. But Tibet and the Tibetans remain under the iron hand of Beijing, denied not just self-government but also the free expression of their unique cultural and religious identity.
Pessimism about the future may seem inevitable but it need not be. A solution is already available that would not only meet Tibetan aspirations but would do so in a way that should be acceptable to China.
China is the country that invented the concept of two systems in one country. It did so in order to absorb Hong Kong back into the motherland without killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It was the inspiration of Deng Xiaoping and it has been brilliantly successful.
Instead of insisting that the Hong Kong Chinese had to accept a communist economic system combined with political uniformity, the people of Hong Kong have been able to continue to live as a Western, capitalist enclave within the Chinese body politic.
Although there are clear limits to its freedom and democratic rights, Hong Kong enjoys real autonomy, a functioning rule of law and a liberal press and media that have no equivalent in most of China.
Similar freedoms have been conceded to the former Portuguese colony of Macao. Nor is there any doubt that the Chinese Government would be delighted to conclude a similar arrangement with the Taiwanese if the latter could be persuaded to accept reunification with mainland China in the years to come.
If China is, therefore, able to live with genuine autonomy and cultural freedom in Hong Kong and Macao, and if it would be only too happy to concede it to Taiwan, why can a similar offer not be made to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people?
The answer is that, until now, the Chinese have not considered it to be necessary. They have assumed that they could make the Dalai Lama a non-person, gradually forgotten by his fellow Tibetans. They have hoped that a substantial and growing migration of Han Chinese into Tibet would transform the demographic composition of the territory and make the Tibetans an ethnic minority in their own land.
China now has to acknowledge that these objectives have totally failed. Far from marginalising the Dalai Lama, they have seen him transformed into an Asian Nelson Mandela, fêted around the world and revered by his people as a symbol as well as a leader.
Young Tibetans have become radicalised as people do in the modern world wherever the denial of freedom is seen as being combined with foreign occupation. Tibet looks likely to become a cause c鬦egrave;bre for protest movements around the world and public opinion in the West wants their leaders to do what they can to help the Tibetan cause.
An autonomous, self-governing Tibet within China should not be that difficult for the Chinese to accept. The Dalai Lama has made it clear that he is not seeking independence and, while that will disappoint many of his followers, the vast majority would accept his authority and be delighted and relieved if some genuine self-government was to be introduced.
The Chinese, for their part, would find that their reputation in the world as a whole was transformed. At present they appear, and behave, as if they were the world's last colonial empire. The internet and the mobile phone have made it impossible for them to seal off
Tibet from the outside world. Increased repression or political and cultural reform are the only choices left available to them and the price they would pay if they opt for repression will be high and will grow.
We should not be naive. Whatever the price, the Chinese would be willing to pay it if they saw Tibet breaking away from China and becoming a separate state. That will not be even a distant possibility unless and until China itself embraces democratic reform.
But a Tibetan province with cultural freedom and a significant degree of political autonomy would be no more than is already enjoyed by Hong Kong and Macao. It would be a Chinese solution to a Chinese problem and all the better for it.
The Chinese are planning that the Olympic torch should, in the run-up to the Olympic Games, be carried through Tibet on its way to Beijing. In current circumstances that would constitute a shameful betrayal of the Olympic ideal.
But if the Chinese Government means what it says when it offers a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in exchange for a renunciation of independence and violence, there could be a transformation in the current poisonous atmosphere.
A serious offer of political and cultural reform would not only delight the Tibetans and impress the world, it would also make the Beijing Olympics a unique opportunity to welcome the new China to its rightful place in the pantheon of nations.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, MP, was Foreign Secretary, 1995-97
Source: The Times online
www.thetimes.com
Saturday, March 1, 2008
With friends like Musharraf...
Anita Inder Singh
Afghanistan is the frontline state against terrorism. It is where America's legal overthrow of the Taliban in November 2001 marked victory in the first battle against terrorism. But more than six years later Nato seems to be at risk of losing the war, for many reasons. These include an uncoordinated Nato strategy and an alliance with a Pakistan whose export of extremists to Afghanistan has frustrated Nato's campaign.
Western officials, including Lieutenant General David Richards, the former Nato commander in Afghanistan, and America's director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, regard the Taliban's safe haven in Pakistan as the key to success.
That means, among other things, that Nato and Pakistan are allies with conflicting goals. Curious, isn't it? It is also curious that the evidence provided by Nato and UN officials of Pakistan's terrorist-training activities has not dissuaded George Bush, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from continually lauding General Musharraf as a steadfast ally.
Since 2001, the US has bestowed more than $10bn (£5bn) on Pakistan to combat terrorism, but there is no sign that this aim is being achieved.
So how has the largesse been spent? Again, it is curious that Islamabad has got as much money as it has wanted from Washington every single month - without having to tell the Bush administration what has been done with the bounty. Most of the money is invested in anything from private houses and golf courses for the military to the hotel industry and cereals factories.
The smallest private enterprise, anywhere in the world, probably has a better-functioning accounting and bookkeeping system than the world's lone superpower and its Pakistani ally.
Dismayed at the foundering military campaign in Afghanistan, a watchful US Congress has raised some questions. Soon after Musharraf's declaration of emergency in November 2007, Congress withheld $50m of the $300m aid requested by the Bush government for Pakistan until Musharraf had restored civil liberties. The remaining $250m, Congress stipulated, could be used only to fight terrorism, al-Qaida and the Taliban.
But Musharraf took his American donors by surprise. He told them the fight was against the Taliban, not al-Qaida. Washington thought it had given him $10bn to fight al-Qaida, and has not responded to his assertion.
Clearly, the US and Pakistan disagree on war aims and military strategy. They may even be fighting for different things. But Washington has yet to grasp the nettle.
Having created the Taliban in the 1990s, Islamabad joined the campaign against it in 2001 only with reluctance. After the war, Pakistan allowed defeated Taliban militia to cross over into Pakistan for shelter and renewed sustenance.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the Taliban has been able to regroup over the last six years. Nato's campaign in Afghanistan has been hobbled by increasing numbers of Pakistani-trained Taliban fighters.
That situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, regardless of the political dispensation in Islamabad. Defence and foreign policy will remain in the hands of Pakistan's military and intelligence, which have sustained and exported extremism to Afghanistan.
The motives of the military and intelligence are complex. Musharraf regards the Talibanisation of Pakistan as a threat, but it is unclear whether this translates into a determination to root out the organisation. More significantly, perhaps, neither Musharraf nor General Kiyani, his successor as commander-in-chief, have committed Pakistan to quashing extremism.
The US is probably trapped in a political blind alley of its own making. Although recent elections in Pakistan revealed Musharraf's political unpopularity, Bush and Brown seem to want to him to continue orchestrating counter-terrorist policy.
Is this wise, considering the public mistrust he has earned since Benazir Bhutto's assassination last November? Shouldn't Nato decide whether Pakistan is with us or against us? And if the Nato and US really want to win out in Afghanistan, shouldn't they at least debate, and perhaps reconsider, their dependence on Pakistan as an ally in the anti-terrorist war?
Source: Guardian, CIF
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anita_inder_singh/2008/02/with_friends_like_musharraf_.html
Afghanistan is the frontline state against terrorism. It is where America's legal overthrow of the Taliban in November 2001 marked victory in the first battle against terrorism. But more than six years later Nato seems to be at risk of losing the war, for many reasons. These include an uncoordinated Nato strategy and an alliance with a Pakistan whose export of extremists to Afghanistan has frustrated Nato's campaign.
Western officials, including Lieutenant General David Richards, the former Nato commander in Afghanistan, and America's director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, regard the Taliban's safe haven in Pakistan as the key to success.
That means, among other things, that Nato and Pakistan are allies with conflicting goals. Curious, isn't it? It is also curious that the evidence provided by Nato and UN officials of Pakistan's terrorist-training activities has not dissuaded George Bush, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from continually lauding General Musharraf as a steadfast ally.
Since 2001, the US has bestowed more than $10bn (£5bn) on Pakistan to combat terrorism, but there is no sign that this aim is being achieved.
So how has the largesse been spent? Again, it is curious that Islamabad has got as much money as it has wanted from Washington every single month - without having to tell the Bush administration what has been done with the bounty. Most of the money is invested in anything from private houses and golf courses for the military to the hotel industry and cereals factories.
The smallest private enterprise, anywhere in the world, probably has a better-functioning accounting and bookkeeping system than the world's lone superpower and its Pakistani ally.
Dismayed at the foundering military campaign in Afghanistan, a watchful US Congress has raised some questions. Soon after Musharraf's declaration of emergency in November 2007, Congress withheld $50m of the $300m aid requested by the Bush government for Pakistan until Musharraf had restored civil liberties. The remaining $250m, Congress stipulated, could be used only to fight terrorism, al-Qaida and the Taliban.
But Musharraf took his American donors by surprise. He told them the fight was against the Taliban, not al-Qaida. Washington thought it had given him $10bn to fight al-Qaida, and has not responded to his assertion.
Clearly, the US and Pakistan disagree on war aims and military strategy. They may even be fighting for different things. But Washington has yet to grasp the nettle.
Having created the Taliban in the 1990s, Islamabad joined the campaign against it in 2001 only with reluctance. After the war, Pakistan allowed defeated Taliban militia to cross over into Pakistan for shelter and renewed sustenance.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the Taliban has been able to regroup over the last six years. Nato's campaign in Afghanistan has been hobbled by increasing numbers of Pakistani-trained Taliban fighters.
That situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, regardless of the political dispensation in Islamabad. Defence and foreign policy will remain in the hands of Pakistan's military and intelligence, which have sustained and exported extremism to Afghanistan.
The motives of the military and intelligence are complex. Musharraf regards the Talibanisation of Pakistan as a threat, but it is unclear whether this translates into a determination to root out the organisation. More significantly, perhaps, neither Musharraf nor General Kiyani, his successor as commander-in-chief, have committed Pakistan to quashing extremism.
The US is probably trapped in a political blind alley of its own making. Although recent elections in Pakistan revealed Musharraf's political unpopularity, Bush and Brown seem to want to him to continue orchestrating counter-terrorist policy.
Is this wise, considering the public mistrust he has earned since Benazir Bhutto's assassination last November? Shouldn't Nato decide whether Pakistan is with us or against us? And if the Nato and US really want to win out in Afghanistan, shouldn't they at least debate, and perhaps reconsider, their dependence on Pakistan as an ally in the anti-terrorist war?
Source: Guardian, CIF
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anita_inder_singh/2008/02/with_friends_like_musharraf_.html
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