The following first appeared in The National on 10 December 2010
At the recent Manama Dialogue on Gulf Security in Bahrain, a brief debate between allies showed how the strategic posture of western nations in the Middle East is slowly changing. As a result, GCC states, working together, will have to play a more active role in the region’s security.
Dr Liam Fox, the UK secretary of state for defence, outlined the traditional stance while stating Britain’s policies of strategic reassurance and deterrence: a “flexible and agile” British military “providing nuclear and conventional deterrence” would not stand for “an Iranian nuclear weapons capability”. In short, the UK and others would intervene, militarily if necessary, should Iran obtain nuclear weapons.
In response, Jean-Claude Mallet, arguably France’s top national security strategist, asked a series of questions, which should serve as a wake-up call: “What does this mean to France, the UK and others to utter this sort of sentence? What is it we can say to them as we did in Europe here, in a different part of the world with different logic?”
The thrust of Mr Mallet’s question is that the UK and other western powers must be cautious in assuming that military intervention, nuclear or otherwise, is what this region wants. The subtext, of course, is that the Gulf is not Europe, the GCC is not Nato, and that the UK and France just signed an historic defence cooperation agreement. France would probably prefer its new partner not commit itself to war with a potentially nuclear armed enemy.
More importantly, though, is how Mr Mallet’s comments should be read by a region lacking military unity.
Greater GCC military cooperation should take on renewed urgency, not simply because of Iran’s ambiguous plans for its nuclear programme and its steady, if slow, mastery of ballistic missile technology. The GCC must improve the ability of their militaries to work in concert, because they are increasingly going to have to take greater responsibility for their own security.
That is happening gradually. The UAE’s purchase of advanced missile defence capabilities, its highly capable air force, increasing integration with Nato through deployments and joint training exercises, as well as its investment in surveillance aircraft and equipment, are all gradually transforming the Emirates into a deterrent force in its own right.
Other Gulf states have made similar expenditures, with Saudi Arabia spending far more on its armed forces than any regional country. Yet little has been done to unite these forces in an effective manner.
There has been talk of a Gulf missile defence shield for some time, most recently at the Middle East Missile and Air Defence Symposium, which ran concurrently with the GCC summit. With Kuwait and Saudi Arabia planning to join the UAE in purchasing the latest version of the Patriot missile, something approaching a unified missile defence infrastructure looks to be occuring.
To date, though, Gulf security has been backed chiefly by the United States, while the UK, France and Australia also maintain a sizable military presence in the region. A domestic regional security infrastructure has never grown out of infancy.
Reliance on the US and other allies to guarantee the stability of a region surrounded by volatile neighbours has worked thus far, but Mr Mallet’s words is a reminder that Gulf States will play a much greater role in the region’s stability. They have to live with the consequences of regional hostilities in a way the French, the British and the Americans don’t.
Furthermore, the reductions in the size of European militaries should lend an additional sense of urgency. The US went through its own round of reductions after the end of the Cold War, and it too concentrated on building what Dr Fox called a “flexible and agile force”.
Admittedly, the current cuts to the UK and French militaries are not crippling, but they do represent the broader trend.
The main goal of both Gulf and foreign forces in the region is the deterrence of enemies and the reassurance of allies. Deterrence requires an enemy that sees a credible opponent, and reassurance is effective only if your allies believe you can deliver on those threats. Recent conflicts have shown the region – and especially Iran – the limits of the West’s military capabilities.
In the game of nuclear brinkmanship, the perceived cracks in western military power may have changed the calculus of Iran’s strategic thinking. For many reasons, Iran is feeling emboldened and its regional ambitions have broadened as a result.
Where deterrence falls short, those gaps must be filled by indigenous military prowess, working not just individually, but in concert. This is not simply because it is proper, but also because the West is looking for them to do so. As the British government and military leadership were keen to emphasise, western powers rarely go to war alone, therefore they don’t need huge armies anymore. The trend may reverse itself at some point, but for now, as Mr Mallet reminded us in Bahrain, multilateralism is the watchword of the West.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
UAE sets peaceful precedent in nuclear design
The following first appeared in The National on August 23, 2010
When the nuclear reactor in Braka begins generating electricity sometime in 2017, the UAE will not only be the first Arab nation to produce nuclear energy. It will also have the first nuclear programme in the world that is "peaceful by design".
This phrase has been used to describe a nuclear programme that cannot produce nuclear weapons. According to a UAE official involved in the programme, this was the government's intent when it set about to bring nuclear energy to the UAE. "We wanted to make our programme not only safe and transparent but completely proliferation-proof." This is an important consideration in a region long considered a hub and possible source for the proliferation of nuclear materials.
Some members of the US Congress gave proliferation concerns as reasons to block the US-UAE nuclear co-operation agreement. That is one reason why nuclear energy has taken so long to catch on in a rapidly growing and energy-hungry Middle East. But according to Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, fear of proliferation is not the main reason for the region's relative slowness to join the nuclear energy club.
"There is just as much, if not more fear, of proliferation today as there was then. If it were a contributing factor, it would be more relevant today when the proliferation concerns are more real," he said. According to Mr Fitzpatrick, the real reasons are much more practical. Nuclear energy is expensive and some projects in the Middle East ran into financial difficulty. "In addition, nuclear energy was not a high priority given the abundance of oil and gas resources in much of the Middle East." However, with rising oil prices and diminishing oil and gas reserves, nuclear energy is becoming more attractive.
Nevertheless, proliferation is a fear the UAE wished to allay. To meet the peaceful-by-design standard, the UAE had to forgo the right to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel. "If you look at nuclear technology for peaceful purposes there are two cross-overs where the technology that is used in the peaceful, civil nuclear industry is also used in military nuclear weapons. Those two points are enrichment and reprocessing," said the UAE official, who declined to be named.
The UAE's decision to forgo enrichment and reprocessing has had a profound effect on other Arab countries wishing to develop nuclear energy. It has set a precedent that helps ensure the eventual success of any nuclear energy programme in the region: US co-operation. A Middle Eastern country hoping to develop nuclear energy can seek technology from a country other than the US. But to run a safe and economically feasible programme, a nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington is considered essential. Without it, the UAE official said, "you find yourself in a licensing scenario where every component and every piece of material has to be licensed separately. It is very difficult to manage a project in those circumstances."
Before it signed a deal with South Korea in December for its nuclear technology, for instance, the UAE reached an agreement with the US, "because ultimately much of the technology has a US thumbprint on it," the UAE official said. In entering a nuclear accord with the US, Abu Dhabi has set the "gold standard for American nuclear co-operation with other countries", said Mr Fitzpatrick. "When the UAE first agreed to [the nuclear pact with Washington], it had an immediate positive ripple effect. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia both agreed to similar undertakings in their preliminary nuclear co-operation agreements with the United States."
Of all the countries in the region pursuing nuclear energy, only Jordan appears reluctant to embrace the UAE precedent of "peaceful by design" as a cornerstone of its fledgling nuclear energy programme. "Jordan has said that it does not want to give up its rights under Article four of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium in the future, because it has uranium resources it wants to exploit", said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Nuclear Policy Program.
The need for Jordan to sign on to the same deal as the UAE creates problems for the US, according to Mr Hibbs. "In the context of the US-UAE agreement, it was framed giving the UAE most-favoured-nation status, should the US in the future negotiate an agreement that would be more favourable to another country, whether it be Saudi, Jordan or what have you, then the UAE would feel it had the right to renegotiate its agreement with the US."
The UAE official admits this is a possible scenario, but believes it has been exaggerated. "A lot of people worry about this, I think disproportionately so." While the UAE would have the right under the terms of the agreement to petition for a new negotiation on nuclear cooperation, "as a practical matter, the UAE is not going to ask for that right. We've made the decision not because it was imposed on us. We made the decision because it was our sovereign choice."
"For somebody to suspect that just because some other country in the Middle East decided that it wanted to have this right [to enrich uranium], that we would abandon our aspiration is not logical. We adopted that policy because we thought it was the right policy for us." But for Mr Hibbs, the issue is not simply whether the UAE chooses to embrace enrichment if Jordan does. "The concern is whether or not this agreement will sustain itself as the standard for such agreements worldwide, the answer is at this point very uncertain."
However, there are other, more practical reasons why Jordan may yet decide to forgo enrichment rights. The UAE did not simply set aside those rights to set a good example for the rest of the world. "Aside from the moral high road and the nonproliferation consideration, there is a cold hard calculation underpinning all of this: enrichment facilities are extremely expensive and developing these facilities doesn't make any sense," said the UAE official. Enriching uranium "would be a financial burden on the programme and would simply lead to higher-cost electricity."
Enriching uranium produces fuel that is more than twice the price of fuel on the open market. It makes sense for only large-scale operations and for energy security. According to Mr Fitzpatrick, "the economies of scale dictate that one have something around 10 reactors before it makes economic sense to produce one's own enriched uranium fuel rather than buying it from the international marketplace, where it is readily available."
Additionally, requirements set by many nuclear supplier states would hamper a country's ability to import technology and materials should they embrace enrichment. Since enrichment is used in both civil and military purposes, many countries would find it politically difficult to work with a country that does not forgo enrichment. Again, this would lead to higher costs of electricity since it would limit the pool of potential suppliers.
This is yet another reason why the UAE decided not to pursue enrichment, the UAE official said. "The UAE's strategy has always been to have access to all of the major nuclear suppliers, both in terms of technology and also materials and fuel, so that we can ensure the long-term sustainability of the programme and stability of supply, components, know-how and fuel." All eyes will be on the UAE as it makes its foray into the world of nuclear energy. Not only has it set a new standard for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but it will test the practicality of civilian nuclear energy development in a volatile region.
Mr Hibbs said the UAE must closely guard the technology and materials. "One of the dangers is that it is much easier to disguise illicit nuclear trade if it happens in a country where there is a budding nuclear energy development project. That permits a lot of goods to flow in and out. This can be used to camouflage illicit activity that is unrelated to the nuclear energy development project, but has to be stopped to prevent the country from being misused as an entrepôt for proliferation."
According to the official involved with the project, the UAE is well aware of the increased scrutiny. "The UAE is trying to demonstrate the advantages of a system that hopefully other countries will independently choose. Some will and some won't, but if 40 per cent of the countries that adopt nuclear power for the first time in the next decade adopt the UAE model, it will have been a massive contribution to nonproliferation. Even if it is 10 per cent or even just one, it will have had a tangible effect on nuclear security."
When the nuclear reactor in Braka begins generating electricity sometime in 2017, the UAE will not only be the first Arab nation to produce nuclear energy. It will also have the first nuclear programme in the world that is "peaceful by design".
This phrase has been used to describe a nuclear programme that cannot produce nuclear weapons. According to a UAE official involved in the programme, this was the government's intent when it set about to bring nuclear energy to the UAE. "We wanted to make our programme not only safe and transparent but completely proliferation-proof." This is an important consideration in a region long considered a hub and possible source for the proliferation of nuclear materials.
Some members of the US Congress gave proliferation concerns as reasons to block the US-UAE nuclear co-operation agreement. That is one reason why nuclear energy has taken so long to catch on in a rapidly growing and energy-hungry Middle East. But according to Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, fear of proliferation is not the main reason for the region's relative slowness to join the nuclear energy club.
"There is just as much, if not more fear, of proliferation today as there was then. If it were a contributing factor, it would be more relevant today when the proliferation concerns are more real," he said. According to Mr Fitzpatrick, the real reasons are much more practical. Nuclear energy is expensive and some projects in the Middle East ran into financial difficulty. "In addition, nuclear energy was not a high priority given the abundance of oil and gas resources in much of the Middle East." However, with rising oil prices and diminishing oil and gas reserves, nuclear energy is becoming more attractive.
Nevertheless, proliferation is a fear the UAE wished to allay. To meet the peaceful-by-design standard, the UAE had to forgo the right to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel. "If you look at nuclear technology for peaceful purposes there are two cross-overs where the technology that is used in the peaceful, civil nuclear industry is also used in military nuclear weapons. Those two points are enrichment and reprocessing," said the UAE official, who declined to be named.
The UAE's decision to forgo enrichment and reprocessing has had a profound effect on other Arab countries wishing to develop nuclear energy. It has set a precedent that helps ensure the eventual success of any nuclear energy programme in the region: US co-operation. A Middle Eastern country hoping to develop nuclear energy can seek technology from a country other than the US. But to run a safe and economically feasible programme, a nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington is considered essential. Without it, the UAE official said, "you find yourself in a licensing scenario where every component and every piece of material has to be licensed separately. It is very difficult to manage a project in those circumstances."
Before it signed a deal with South Korea in December for its nuclear technology, for instance, the UAE reached an agreement with the US, "because ultimately much of the technology has a US thumbprint on it," the UAE official said. In entering a nuclear accord with the US, Abu Dhabi has set the "gold standard for American nuclear co-operation with other countries", said Mr Fitzpatrick. "When the UAE first agreed to [the nuclear pact with Washington], it had an immediate positive ripple effect. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia both agreed to similar undertakings in their preliminary nuclear co-operation agreements with the United States."
Of all the countries in the region pursuing nuclear energy, only Jordan appears reluctant to embrace the UAE precedent of "peaceful by design" as a cornerstone of its fledgling nuclear energy programme. "Jordan has said that it does not want to give up its rights under Article four of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium in the future, because it has uranium resources it wants to exploit", said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Nuclear Policy Program.
The need for Jordan to sign on to the same deal as the UAE creates problems for the US, according to Mr Hibbs. "In the context of the US-UAE agreement, it was framed giving the UAE most-favoured-nation status, should the US in the future negotiate an agreement that would be more favourable to another country, whether it be Saudi, Jordan or what have you, then the UAE would feel it had the right to renegotiate its agreement with the US."
The UAE official admits this is a possible scenario, but believes it has been exaggerated. "A lot of people worry about this, I think disproportionately so." While the UAE would have the right under the terms of the agreement to petition for a new negotiation on nuclear cooperation, "as a practical matter, the UAE is not going to ask for that right. We've made the decision not because it was imposed on us. We made the decision because it was our sovereign choice."
"For somebody to suspect that just because some other country in the Middle East decided that it wanted to have this right [to enrich uranium], that we would abandon our aspiration is not logical. We adopted that policy because we thought it was the right policy for us." But for Mr Hibbs, the issue is not simply whether the UAE chooses to embrace enrichment if Jordan does. "The concern is whether or not this agreement will sustain itself as the standard for such agreements worldwide, the answer is at this point very uncertain."
However, there are other, more practical reasons why Jordan may yet decide to forgo enrichment rights. The UAE did not simply set aside those rights to set a good example for the rest of the world. "Aside from the moral high road and the nonproliferation consideration, there is a cold hard calculation underpinning all of this: enrichment facilities are extremely expensive and developing these facilities doesn't make any sense," said the UAE official. Enriching uranium "would be a financial burden on the programme and would simply lead to higher-cost electricity."
Enriching uranium produces fuel that is more than twice the price of fuel on the open market. It makes sense for only large-scale operations and for energy security. According to Mr Fitzpatrick, "the economies of scale dictate that one have something around 10 reactors before it makes economic sense to produce one's own enriched uranium fuel rather than buying it from the international marketplace, where it is readily available."
Additionally, requirements set by many nuclear supplier states would hamper a country's ability to import technology and materials should they embrace enrichment. Since enrichment is used in both civil and military purposes, many countries would find it politically difficult to work with a country that does not forgo enrichment. Again, this would lead to higher costs of electricity since it would limit the pool of potential suppliers.
This is yet another reason why the UAE decided not to pursue enrichment, the UAE official said. "The UAE's strategy has always been to have access to all of the major nuclear suppliers, both in terms of technology and also materials and fuel, so that we can ensure the long-term sustainability of the programme and stability of supply, components, know-how and fuel." All eyes will be on the UAE as it makes its foray into the world of nuclear energy. Not only has it set a new standard for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but it will test the practicality of civilian nuclear energy development in a volatile region.
Mr Hibbs said the UAE must closely guard the technology and materials. "One of the dangers is that it is much easier to disguise illicit nuclear trade if it happens in a country where there is a budding nuclear energy development project. That permits a lot of goods to flow in and out. This can be used to camouflage illicit activity that is unrelated to the nuclear energy development project, but has to be stopped to prevent the country from being misused as an entrepôt for proliferation."
According to the official involved with the project, the UAE is well aware of the increased scrutiny. "The UAE is trying to demonstrate the advantages of a system that hopefully other countries will independently choose. Some will and some won't, but if 40 per cent of the countries that adopt nuclear power for the first time in the next decade adopt the UAE model, it will have been a massive contribution to nonproliferation. Even if it is 10 per cent or even just one, it will have had a tangible effect on nuclear security."
UK and France join forces - and the US army pays the price
The following first appeared in The National on November 5, 2010
The UK-France defence pact announcement on Tuesday raised a few eyebrows, but it really should not have come as a shock to anyone paying attention to the trends.
It may not be surprising, but it is still a concern. As Europe whittles away at its military capability, more and more responsibility devolves on the already dominant United States. It is a trend that should be worrying for the US, Europe and the rest of the world.
The spending cuts have been on the horizon for some time. Last month, the UK released its Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). The document sets defence spending priorities - the first such review since 1998. It called for drastic cuts in spending and a reduction in troop levels, the worst of which are being put off until the UK withdraws from Afghanistan.
In short, Britain, faced with a burdensome level of public debt, cannot afford its army any longer. Neither, it seems, can the French. It is cutting defence spending by €3.5 billion (Dh18.5 billion) over the next three years.
Add to this both nations struggle to stay competitive in global foreign defence sales and the deal appears to make sense. As the British prime minister David Cameron put it in his address following the signing ceremony: "It is about sharing development and equipment costs, eliminating unnecessary duplication, coordinating logistics, and aligning our research programmes."
Despite all the bluster and jokes about Napoleon and Lord Nelson rolling in their graves, the two defence agreements signed by Mr Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy contain little that should immediately concern either the UK's chief ally, the United States, or the rest of the world. A pact between the third and fourth largest defence spenders will undoubtedly boost the capabilities of both, and neither country sacrifices any significant level of military sovereignty by agreeing to share aircraft carriers. In fact, modifications made to the new British carriers to support foreign planes will actually make them more useful.
Coordinated defence research makes sense for two countries swiftly falling behind the curve in terms of technology and capabilities. A joint nuclear testing facility will allow both cash-strapped nations to maintain their nuclear deterrent while saving them quite a few euros or pounds.
The pact, however, can not simply be viewed through the lens of cold, hard economic necessity. There are wider, more troubling implications for global security. What is most concerning about this agreement are the rather parochial and short-sighted motivations that drive it.
When asked whether fissions could arise in the event of another war in the Falklands, for example, Mr Cameron said that they undoubtedly would. "Obviously we would only jointly commit a task force if we jointly agreed on the mission," he said, which begs the question: what, then, is the point? If an alliance only works until problems arise, then the alliance is not worth much.
More seriously, there is a troubling trend in the composition of military forces worldwide that is mirrored in the defence agreement. It began in the US. Closures of military bases and what amounted to mass redundancies in the armed forces in the mid-1990s were driven by a new military ideology which focused on technology at the expense of troop levels. Troops are expensive, bullets are not, and increasing the effectiveness of individual soldiers through the use of better technology saved money and created a cheaper, more effective and highly mobile military force.
This has only become more attractive in light of the emerging threat from stateless militias and terrorism, which challenge the armies of the West that are better constituted for land battles on the plains of western Europe than firefights in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the SDSR, the UK cited the need to restructure the army for higher mobility and flexibility while decreasing the total number of forces. Likewise, a key component of the UK-France defence pact is the creation of joint expeditionary unit capable of rapid deployment.
Unfortunately, the UK and France are behind the times. If anything, the war in Afghanistan has taught the world the limits of multilateralism and the importance of the individual soldier, not his equipment. A diverse and confusing melange of troops, capabilities and rules governing the use of force have hamstrung the coalition's capabilities to secure the country. The greatest need in that fight is not better arms, but more boots on the ground. Meanwhile, the UK's decision to cut troop levels leaves it with fewer total troops than the US marine corps, that country's rapid deployment force.
In the long-term, this should be concerning the US. It has been the only serious guarantor of global security since the fall of the Soviet Union. This pact formalises that role. Its fleets patrol the deep water shipping lanes, and its army is entrusted with stability across the globe.
This is not a situation that can persist forever. In addition to other countries' reservations about this overwhelming force, the US has its own issues with maintaining a level of defence spending that is larger than all other countries combined.
The UK and France may indeed be taking steps to make their nations more capable of countering new threats, but each new threat seems to have a funny way of resembling old ones - even a ragtag army of radical militants in Iraq and Afghanistan are fought through mass deployments of troops. For, while Europe may never see another Hundred Years War, that does not mean that the conflicts of the future will be fought in a different way.
The UK-France defence pact announcement on Tuesday raised a few eyebrows, but it really should not have come as a shock to anyone paying attention to the trends.
It may not be surprising, but it is still a concern. As Europe whittles away at its military capability, more and more responsibility devolves on the already dominant United States. It is a trend that should be worrying for the US, Europe and the rest of the world.
The spending cuts have been on the horizon for some time. Last month, the UK released its Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). The document sets defence spending priorities - the first such review since 1998. It called for drastic cuts in spending and a reduction in troop levels, the worst of which are being put off until the UK withdraws from Afghanistan.
In short, Britain, faced with a burdensome level of public debt, cannot afford its army any longer. Neither, it seems, can the French. It is cutting defence spending by €3.5 billion (Dh18.5 billion) over the next three years.
Add to this both nations struggle to stay competitive in global foreign defence sales and the deal appears to make sense. As the British prime minister David Cameron put it in his address following the signing ceremony: "It is about sharing development and equipment costs, eliminating unnecessary duplication, coordinating logistics, and aligning our research programmes."
Despite all the bluster and jokes about Napoleon and Lord Nelson rolling in their graves, the two defence agreements signed by Mr Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy contain little that should immediately concern either the UK's chief ally, the United States, or the rest of the world. A pact between the third and fourth largest defence spenders will undoubtedly boost the capabilities of both, and neither country sacrifices any significant level of military sovereignty by agreeing to share aircraft carriers. In fact, modifications made to the new British carriers to support foreign planes will actually make them more useful.
Coordinated defence research makes sense for two countries swiftly falling behind the curve in terms of technology and capabilities. A joint nuclear testing facility will allow both cash-strapped nations to maintain their nuclear deterrent while saving them quite a few euros or pounds.
The pact, however, can not simply be viewed through the lens of cold, hard economic necessity. There are wider, more troubling implications for global security. What is most concerning about this agreement are the rather parochial and short-sighted motivations that drive it.
When asked whether fissions could arise in the event of another war in the Falklands, for example, Mr Cameron said that they undoubtedly would. "Obviously we would only jointly commit a task force if we jointly agreed on the mission," he said, which begs the question: what, then, is the point? If an alliance only works until problems arise, then the alliance is not worth much.
More seriously, there is a troubling trend in the composition of military forces worldwide that is mirrored in the defence agreement. It began in the US. Closures of military bases and what amounted to mass redundancies in the armed forces in the mid-1990s were driven by a new military ideology which focused on technology at the expense of troop levels. Troops are expensive, bullets are not, and increasing the effectiveness of individual soldiers through the use of better technology saved money and created a cheaper, more effective and highly mobile military force.
This has only become more attractive in light of the emerging threat from stateless militias and terrorism, which challenge the armies of the West that are better constituted for land battles on the plains of western Europe than firefights in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the SDSR, the UK cited the need to restructure the army for higher mobility and flexibility while decreasing the total number of forces. Likewise, a key component of the UK-France defence pact is the creation of joint expeditionary unit capable of rapid deployment.
Unfortunately, the UK and France are behind the times. If anything, the war in Afghanistan has taught the world the limits of multilateralism and the importance of the individual soldier, not his equipment. A diverse and confusing melange of troops, capabilities and rules governing the use of force have hamstrung the coalition's capabilities to secure the country. The greatest need in that fight is not better arms, but more boots on the ground. Meanwhile, the UK's decision to cut troop levels leaves it with fewer total troops than the US marine corps, that country's rapid deployment force.
In the long-term, this should be concerning the US. It has been the only serious guarantor of global security since the fall of the Soviet Union. This pact formalises that role. Its fleets patrol the deep water shipping lanes, and its army is entrusted with stability across the globe.
This is not a situation that can persist forever. In addition to other countries' reservations about this overwhelming force, the US has its own issues with maintaining a level of defence spending that is larger than all other countries combined.
The UK and France may indeed be taking steps to make their nations more capable of countering new threats, but each new threat seems to have a funny way of resembling old ones - even a ragtag army of radical militants in Iraq and Afghanistan are fought through mass deployments of troops. For, while Europe may never see another Hundred Years War, that does not mean that the conflicts of the future will be fought in a different way.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Pakistan’s governance gap filled by overzealous courts
The following first appeared in The National on 23 February 2010.
In one small village in Pakistan’s tribal areas, parents became alarmed when their children came home from the only school available, a madrasa, and told them that they were not “real Muslims”.
The predominant Pashtun society of the tribal areas takes a dim view of a maulvi (religious scholar) interfering with non-religious matters. The community decided to set up their own school to provide their children a proper education. But after failing to obtain funding from the government or charities, they had little choice: they had to send their children back to the madrasa.
I heard many variations of this story while on a recent trip to Pakistan. In the absence of effective governance, the people are often left to fend for themselves – or must permit more insidious forces to fend for them.
It is not that the inhabitants of the tribal areas are diehard Taliban supporters – most are not. They have the same aspirations of any parent, that their children have a better life than they, but the avenues for advancement are limited at best.
American diplomats and pundits have been warning that the Pakistan is dangerously close to becoming a failed stated. It is not, not yet.
Certainly, Pakistan’s struggles with security, with corruption, with high inflation, unemployment and with social unrest, paint an image of a nation in turmoil, and it is.
But there is a more worrying issue facing Pakistan. If allowed to continue, it could indeed threaten the integrity of the state. If you ask any Pakistani what their federal government does for them, the answer is likely to be: nothing.
Governance is absent or barely present in much of the country; politicians are seen as almost universally corrupt, rapacious, and/or populist demagogues; electricity brownouts are common, leading both to frustration and a hamstrung manufacturing sector; gas for cooking and heating is rationed in most cities and villages; tax collection is almost as spotty as the services the government provides. All of these problems have been exacerbated by the problem of militancy.
There is an undeniable anger at the state of affairs among the people, but it is shrouded in despair at the lack of apparent solutions. Throughout the country’s history, Pakistan has struggled with corruption and incompetence in civilian administration. The solution always lies with the army, seen by most Pakistanis as competent by comparison and above the petty politicking and avaricious nature of their civilian governments. At least, this was true until Pervez Musharraf took over.
For many Pakistanis, Mr Musharraf’s time in office exploded a myth that the military was more competent at administration than civilians and that it was not corrupt. Today, the central government is more than simply ineffective in Pakistan, it is disillusioning. There is no obvious solution to any of these problems.
Any of these issues, taken separately, would not amount to an existential threat. It is their combination that may prove so deadly. Worryingly, Pakistan seems to lack either the capacity or will to treat its disease. The executive branch is seen as corrupt and is the subject of mockery by the people. The legislative branch is atrophying. No MP or political party wants to be the one to take up the task of solving any of the myriad problems knowing that they will require difficult and, at times, unpopular policies. There are no votes to be had in doing so.
The only functioning branch of the government appears to be the judiciary led by the chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and this carries its own peril. It is no secret that the president Asif Ali Zardari opposed the reinstitution of Mr Chaudhry, who was sacked during the latter days of the Musharraf presidency. A series of standoffs between the judiciary and the executive have shown exactly what Mr Zardari feared.
Mr Chaudhry declared the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) unconstitutional late last year, which withdrew corruption charges and convictions against hundreds of Pakistanis, but most notably Mr Zardari. He spent time in prison for corruption and could, in theory, be ineligible to hold office without the protections offered by the NRO. Thus far, the chief justice has declined to rule on the issue of Mr Zardari’s eligibility to hold public office. The threat of a ruling hangs like the Sword of Damocles over the executive, however, as was no doubt intended.
The president is not the only one under the watchful eye of the chief justice. He has the power to take what is called suo moto (of his own accord) notice of an issue, meaning that he takes on a case without it first being offered by a petitioner. Mr Chaudhry has exercised this special jurisdiction to tackle any number of human rights issues, including old cases of people suspected of disappearing for political reasons. The result has been greater attention by all branches of government and the bureaucracy to their duties.
The consequences have been sometimes bizarre. When bomb blasts went off during the Shiite celebration of Muharram in Karachi this month, the leadership of the dominant party in the city the Muttahida Qaumi Movement asked the chief justice to take suo moto notice of the bombing and the security lapses. It is illustrative of Pakistan’s problems that a party that is part of the ruling coalition of the Sindh province where Karachi is located should ask the judiciary to handle issues that are its responsibility.
Despite the seemingly well-intentioned nature of Mr Chaudhry’s tenure, there are worrying tendencies toward advocacy that, in the absence of a functioning legislative and executive branch, are creating a dependency on him to perform duties nominally outside of his job description.
Pakistan needs institutional reform to tackle its many issues, and one man is not an institution. Eventually, Pakistan’s leadership will have to face the fact that its problems are growing worse the longer they are ignored. Unfortunately, it seems that they are all waiting for someone else to do it first. Meanwhile Pakistanis are left to fend for themselves, as best they can.
In one small village in Pakistan’s tribal areas, parents became alarmed when their children came home from the only school available, a madrasa, and told them that they were not “real Muslims”.
The predominant Pashtun society of the tribal areas takes a dim view of a maulvi (religious scholar) interfering with non-religious matters. The community decided to set up their own school to provide their children a proper education. But after failing to obtain funding from the government or charities, they had little choice: they had to send their children back to the madrasa.
I heard many variations of this story while on a recent trip to Pakistan. In the absence of effective governance, the people are often left to fend for themselves – or must permit more insidious forces to fend for them.
It is not that the inhabitants of the tribal areas are diehard Taliban supporters – most are not. They have the same aspirations of any parent, that their children have a better life than they, but the avenues for advancement are limited at best.
American diplomats and pundits have been warning that the Pakistan is dangerously close to becoming a failed stated. It is not, not yet.
Certainly, Pakistan’s struggles with security, with corruption, with high inflation, unemployment and with social unrest, paint an image of a nation in turmoil, and it is.
But there is a more worrying issue facing Pakistan. If allowed to continue, it could indeed threaten the integrity of the state. If you ask any Pakistani what their federal government does for them, the answer is likely to be: nothing.
Governance is absent or barely present in much of the country; politicians are seen as almost universally corrupt, rapacious, and/or populist demagogues; electricity brownouts are common, leading both to frustration and a hamstrung manufacturing sector; gas for cooking and heating is rationed in most cities and villages; tax collection is almost as spotty as the services the government provides. All of these problems have been exacerbated by the problem of militancy.
There is an undeniable anger at the state of affairs among the people, but it is shrouded in despair at the lack of apparent solutions. Throughout the country’s history, Pakistan has struggled with corruption and incompetence in civilian administration. The solution always lies with the army, seen by most Pakistanis as competent by comparison and above the petty politicking and avaricious nature of their civilian governments. At least, this was true until Pervez Musharraf took over.
For many Pakistanis, Mr Musharraf’s time in office exploded a myth that the military was more competent at administration than civilians and that it was not corrupt. Today, the central government is more than simply ineffective in Pakistan, it is disillusioning. There is no obvious solution to any of these problems.
Any of these issues, taken separately, would not amount to an existential threat. It is their combination that may prove so deadly. Worryingly, Pakistan seems to lack either the capacity or will to treat its disease. The executive branch is seen as corrupt and is the subject of mockery by the people. The legislative branch is atrophying. No MP or political party wants to be the one to take up the task of solving any of the myriad problems knowing that they will require difficult and, at times, unpopular policies. There are no votes to be had in doing so.
The only functioning branch of the government appears to be the judiciary led by the chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and this carries its own peril. It is no secret that the president Asif Ali Zardari opposed the reinstitution of Mr Chaudhry, who was sacked during the latter days of the Musharraf presidency. A series of standoffs between the judiciary and the executive have shown exactly what Mr Zardari feared.
Mr Chaudhry declared the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) unconstitutional late last year, which withdrew corruption charges and convictions against hundreds of Pakistanis, but most notably Mr Zardari. He spent time in prison for corruption and could, in theory, be ineligible to hold office without the protections offered by the NRO. Thus far, the chief justice has declined to rule on the issue of Mr Zardari’s eligibility to hold public office. The threat of a ruling hangs like the Sword of Damocles over the executive, however, as was no doubt intended.
The president is not the only one under the watchful eye of the chief justice. He has the power to take what is called suo moto (of his own accord) notice of an issue, meaning that he takes on a case without it first being offered by a petitioner. Mr Chaudhry has exercised this special jurisdiction to tackle any number of human rights issues, including old cases of people suspected of disappearing for political reasons. The result has been greater attention by all branches of government and the bureaucracy to their duties.
The consequences have been sometimes bizarre. When bomb blasts went off during the Shiite celebration of Muharram in Karachi this month, the leadership of the dominant party in the city the Muttahida Qaumi Movement asked the chief justice to take suo moto notice of the bombing and the security lapses. It is illustrative of Pakistan’s problems that a party that is part of the ruling coalition of the Sindh province where Karachi is located should ask the judiciary to handle issues that are its responsibility.
Despite the seemingly well-intentioned nature of Mr Chaudhry’s tenure, there are worrying tendencies toward advocacy that, in the absence of a functioning legislative and executive branch, are creating a dependency on him to perform duties nominally outside of his job description.
Pakistan needs institutional reform to tackle its many issues, and one man is not an institution. Eventually, Pakistan’s leadership will have to face the fact that its problems are growing worse the longer they are ignored. Unfortunately, it seems that they are all waiting for someone else to do it first. Meanwhile Pakistanis are left to fend for themselves, as best they can.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Change we can believe in? Maybe – just not quite yet
The following first appeared in The National on January 20, 2010.
American presidents are almost always failures in their first year. The gap between their campaign promises and reality is too far to bridge in only 12 months. Barack Obama’s first year in the White House has been no different.
New poll data from The Washington Post and ABC News shows that barely one third of the American public thinks that their country is headed in the right direction. Mr Obama’s campaign message may have been one of hope and change, but as a president he seems to have fallen short of most American’s expectations.
On terrorism and the war in Afghanistan, his policies enjoy popular support but his domestic politics have been less favourably received. Since April he has steadily lost support for his work on the economy, the budget deficit and health care. The amount of government spending is a particular worry and most Americans now favour a smaller government that offers fewer services.
But polls are only snapshots, and public opinion is a poor measure of the correctness of one’s actions. Regardless of what one thinks of Mr Obama’s politics, he has set out to solve many of America’s most persistent problems with an energy rarely seen in any US president. The problem is that he has failed to make significant headway on any one issue, leading many to accuse him of “dithering”, or worse.
The financial crisis left Mr Obama with the weakest economy of any incoming president in decades, but Mr Obama managed to prevent the recession from turning into a depression. Cash injections into the banking system have proven controversial, but the alternative was an implosion of the financial sector. We may never know what would have happened if Mr Obama had allowed many banks or borrowers to reap the fruit of their own poor judgment, but the consequences were too dire to risk. But now, with banks making record profits, people blame Mr Obama, despite the fact that the bank rebound is probably only a good thing.
The health care debate has also inflamed partisan tensions, a situation not helped by dismissive pundits on the Left and populist ranting on the Right. In the debate over public health insurance, the right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh has framed the battle as one of himself and the founding fathers standing against Comrade Obama. Popular debate on the subject has been reduced to its basest form.
Mr Obama has only himself to blame for this situation. His message of change had the ability to inspire both at home and abroad, and it won him an election, but it also set him up for a massive fall. Normal campaign promises are difficult enough to keep, his are almost certain to go unfulfilled. Too much of his authority derives from his personal appeal and his oratorical strength, too little on his ability to execute the demands of his office. Yes, people like Mr Obama, but he’s not what they hoped he’d be.
This is all the more tragic given that it is difficult to fault Mr Obama for what he has done in his first year. He inherited a financial disaster, two mismanaged wars, a damaged US image abroad and a nation divided ideologically after eight years of a controversial president. His policies have been shaped not by the need to reshape the way Washington does business, as he had promised, but by what he believes will work. On Iraq, this has worked to his favour. On Guantanamo Bay, this has earned him the ire of both human rights groups and the Muslim world.
This is of course what every president does, but people do not want Mr Obama to be like every other president. The people who voted for him want him to be something more, and the people who did not, gloat. But should Mr Obama continue on his current course, he may survive his critics and may even do some good in the world.
The concern is that the expectations of the people will come back to haunt him. His first test comes in Massachusetts where a long-time Democratic Senate seat is threatened by a Republican upstart. Should the Republicans win, it could be a dire portent for the November legislative elections. Mr Obama was in the state to rally support for the Democratic candidate: “If you were fired up in the last election, I need you more fired up in this election.” The problem is that the fire seems to have gone out of Mr Obama’s message. He is no longer the young visionary candidate who inspired rapturous crowds; he is now a president, and so far an unimpressive one at that. This should worry him more than most who have held the office for one year.
As ordinary as Mr Obama has been as president, he is not an ordinary president. History has conspired with his race and his message to propel him into the White House. The world was tired of the way things were, they were looking for a change and Mr Obama promised it. What he has delivered instead is competent management.
It would be a mistake to misjudge Mr Obama’s style of politics as a betrayal of his ultimate goals. The essential problem facing Mr Obama is that Washington, the US and the world not only do not want change, they do not need it. What is needed is a better health care plan and a better role for the world’s most powerful nation in global affairs. These are massive undertakings, but they hardly constitute a revolutionary new way of doing things.
But a revolution is what was imagined by his wide-eyed supporters and what his detractors are preparing to defend against. Mr Obama may very well have become the hero in a Greek tragedy of his own creation. And given the scope of the expectations placed on his presidency, Mr Obama may still be a failure in four years, regardless of what polls might say.
American presidents are almost always failures in their first year. The gap between their campaign promises and reality is too far to bridge in only 12 months. Barack Obama’s first year in the White House has been no different.
New poll data from The Washington Post and ABC News shows that barely one third of the American public thinks that their country is headed in the right direction. Mr Obama’s campaign message may have been one of hope and change, but as a president he seems to have fallen short of most American’s expectations.
On terrorism and the war in Afghanistan, his policies enjoy popular support but his domestic politics have been less favourably received. Since April he has steadily lost support for his work on the economy, the budget deficit and health care. The amount of government spending is a particular worry and most Americans now favour a smaller government that offers fewer services.
But polls are only snapshots, and public opinion is a poor measure of the correctness of one’s actions. Regardless of what one thinks of Mr Obama’s politics, he has set out to solve many of America’s most persistent problems with an energy rarely seen in any US president. The problem is that he has failed to make significant headway on any one issue, leading many to accuse him of “dithering”, or worse.
The financial crisis left Mr Obama with the weakest economy of any incoming president in decades, but Mr Obama managed to prevent the recession from turning into a depression. Cash injections into the banking system have proven controversial, but the alternative was an implosion of the financial sector. We may never know what would have happened if Mr Obama had allowed many banks or borrowers to reap the fruit of their own poor judgment, but the consequences were too dire to risk. But now, with banks making record profits, people blame Mr Obama, despite the fact that the bank rebound is probably only a good thing.
The health care debate has also inflamed partisan tensions, a situation not helped by dismissive pundits on the Left and populist ranting on the Right. In the debate over public health insurance, the right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh has framed the battle as one of himself and the founding fathers standing against Comrade Obama. Popular debate on the subject has been reduced to its basest form.
Mr Obama has only himself to blame for this situation. His message of change had the ability to inspire both at home and abroad, and it won him an election, but it also set him up for a massive fall. Normal campaign promises are difficult enough to keep, his are almost certain to go unfulfilled. Too much of his authority derives from his personal appeal and his oratorical strength, too little on his ability to execute the demands of his office. Yes, people like Mr Obama, but he’s not what they hoped he’d be.
This is all the more tragic given that it is difficult to fault Mr Obama for what he has done in his first year. He inherited a financial disaster, two mismanaged wars, a damaged US image abroad and a nation divided ideologically after eight years of a controversial president. His policies have been shaped not by the need to reshape the way Washington does business, as he had promised, but by what he believes will work. On Iraq, this has worked to his favour. On Guantanamo Bay, this has earned him the ire of both human rights groups and the Muslim world.
This is of course what every president does, but people do not want Mr Obama to be like every other president. The people who voted for him want him to be something more, and the people who did not, gloat. But should Mr Obama continue on his current course, he may survive his critics and may even do some good in the world.
The concern is that the expectations of the people will come back to haunt him. His first test comes in Massachusetts where a long-time Democratic Senate seat is threatened by a Republican upstart. Should the Republicans win, it could be a dire portent for the November legislative elections. Mr Obama was in the state to rally support for the Democratic candidate: “If you were fired up in the last election, I need you more fired up in this election.” The problem is that the fire seems to have gone out of Mr Obama’s message. He is no longer the young visionary candidate who inspired rapturous crowds; he is now a president, and so far an unimpressive one at that. This should worry him more than most who have held the office for one year.
As ordinary as Mr Obama has been as president, he is not an ordinary president. History has conspired with his race and his message to propel him into the White House. The world was tired of the way things were, they were looking for a change and Mr Obama promised it. What he has delivered instead is competent management.
It would be a mistake to misjudge Mr Obama’s style of politics as a betrayal of his ultimate goals. The essential problem facing Mr Obama is that Washington, the US and the world not only do not want change, they do not need it. What is needed is a better health care plan and a better role for the world’s most powerful nation in global affairs. These are massive undertakings, but they hardly constitute a revolutionary new way of doing things.
But a revolution is what was imagined by his wide-eyed supporters and what his detractors are preparing to defend against. Mr Obama may very well have become the hero in a Greek tragedy of his own creation. And given the scope of the expectations placed on his presidency, Mr Obama may still be a failure in four years, regardless of what polls might say.
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