by Richard Gowan | Jul 24, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks
So, it’s not only me and my fellow-wonks who are worried about the state of peacekeeping. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, outgoing head of peace ops at the UN, pops up in today’s FT to ram it home. Here are the edited highlights:
The head of United Nations peacekeeping has urged the Security Council to satisfy itself there is a peace to keep before sending troops on further large-scale missions such as the one in Darfur.
“I would say very bluntly that there are good reasons to be hesitant,” said Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who leaves his post this month after eight years. “The danger is that you do something and then, if you go into a failure, you compromise an instrument that could make a real difference in other places. And so you haven’t helped really those you meant to help but you have done a disservice to all those where peacekeeping could make a real difference.”
Referring to Darfur, where the Security Council a year ago ordered the biggest deployment in UN peacekeeping history, he said: “I’ve always been worried about it. We’re reaching the outer limit of peacekeeping. But I do see the enormous plight of the people in Darfur.”
“The fundamental error is to think of UN forces as if they were the world police. I think very often now there’s an overemphasis on what force can achieve. The more troops I have had under my responsibility, the more convinced I’ve become that – on the one hand – they are very important in places where trust has been destroyed, but at the same time they are a means to an end, an instrument in a tool kit to build a political process and support that political process.”
Mr Guéhenno said the Security Council had to weigh the risks carefully before deciding on new deployments, noting armed force was not a universal medication that could be used in all circumstances. “One failure can damage the whole of UN peacekeeping … The Security Council faces tough decisions and it is not easy to say ‘no’. But it should never say ‘yes’ for the wrong reasons.”
He said he was concerned by growing division within the Security Council that has pitched Russia and China against its western members on a number of peacekeeping issues. “One big worry that I have today is the risk of a more divided Security Council. We can fudge a resolution, we can fudge a statement, we can’t fudge a strategy.”
But could we – to return to the point with which I conclude my most recent survey of the state of peacekeeping – start to think of how to develop minimalist but achievable strategies that even a divided Council might be able to live with?
I share JMG’s belief in the need for strategy, but there is sometimes a “strategic = bigger” mentality in the UN (as in all organizations). That results in the “Christmas Tree” approach to peace operations, which involves overloading a mission with unmeetable responsibilities. Better to do less, but do it credibly. That is, of course, what JMG is saying about Darfur here… I have a feeling that once he returns to civilian life, he is going to sweep the floor with insta-pundits like me.
by Alex Evans | Jul 24, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, North America
Last year, while she was still working as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and chair of international security at West Point – and shortly before she went to the State Department as deputy head of policy planning – Kori Schake wrote a pamphlet for the Center for European Reform entitled The US Elections and Europe: The coming crisis of high expectations.
In it, she argued that in order to avoid such a crisis, and to capitalise on the change of leadership in the US,
Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic need to adjust their sights. Any changes that the new American president introduces on issues that matter to Europe – Iran or climate change – will be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Europeans and Americans will need to find a way to talk about Iraq in terms that resonate with both sides and do not belittle the continuing US involvement. The US feels alone in bearing the burden of Iraq, and Americans tend to gloss over the political price their European allies paid for supporting the war.
Europeans will also need to find ways of reminding the US of their comparative value as allies. Americans are likely to enter into one of their periodic fits of searching for better allies than the Europeans.
As Europe waits breathlessly for Obama’s set-piece speech in Berlin, this sounds like sage advice (particularly given the gentle dressing down that the Germans can apparently expect on troop commitments in Afghanistan). But there’s another reason to read Kori’s pamphlet, too: she’s now one of the key foreign policy advisers to John McCain.
by Alex Evans | Jul 24, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence
As a general rule of thumb, my starting assumption is that we need new multilateral agencies like we need a hole in the head. But if there’s an exception to that rule, then energy has a pretty good claim to be it. As I argue in Multilateralism for an Age of Scarcity, there is no multilateral agency with a mandate to look at all aspects of the issue:
The International Energy Agency is supposed to represent major consumer countries, but its 27 members are all OECD countries – hence leaving out key emerging economies including China and India. Although the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is generally thought of as the major body representing producer states, in fact well over half of the world’s oil is produced by non-OPEC countries. Yet the most fundamental incoherence on energy is the obvious one: that with consumer and producer states represented by two different institutions in two different cities, it is wholly unclear where any discussions about a comprehensive approach encompassing both producer and consumer interests would take place.
Now, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has written a piece in the FT which starts from the same analysis, and goes on to argue that a new global energy organisation is indeed needed. What would it do?
“complement, not replace, bodies already active in the energy field … bring a vital inter-governmental perspective to bear on issues that cannot be left to market forces alone, such as the development of new energy technology, the role of nuclear power and renewables, and innovative solutions for reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions”;
“provide authoritative assessments of global energy demand and supply and bring under one roof energy data that are now dispersed and incomplete … speed the transfer of appropriate energy technology to poor countries and give them objective advice on an optimal energy mix that is safe, secure and environmentally sound”;
“develop a global mechanism to ensure energy supplies in crises and emergencies, and help countries run their energy services and even do it for them temporarily after a war or natural disaster … co-ordinate and fund research and development, especially for energy-poor countries whose needs are often overlooked by commercial R&D.”
He concludes, “the need for joint action to develop long-term solutions to the looming energy crisis is now undeniable. It is difficult to see how this can be done without an expert multinational body, underpinned perhaps by a global energy convention, with the authority to develop policies and practices to benefit rich and poor countries alike, equitably and fairly”.
So what to make of this call? A few thoughts.
First, I can’t see much in the first two paragraphs that isn’t already done by the IEA – with the possible exception of advising poor countries on their energy mix, which agencies including UNDP and the Bank already cover. True, most publicly available data on oil reserves is pretty suspect; but this new agency wouldn’t obviate that problem (which stems from internal machinations within OPEC).
The interesting element here is the idea of a global mechanism to ensure energy supplies in crises and emergencies (what could the head of the IAEA be thinking of?). When I was drafting Multilateralism for an Age of Scarcity, this seemed to me one of the real gaps in current multilateral capacities – both for dealing with short term spikes (attack on Iran leads to $200 oil) and long term stresses (peak oil). In those conditions, a regime for sharing access to what supplies there are will be essential for reducing the risk of competition and friction, and for providing (at least a degree of) predictability, to reduce wild market swings as much as can be.
What I think is missing from ElBaradei’s proposal is a proper account of where food fits in. There are plenty of major reasons why food prices and energy prices are ever more closely in synch: biofuels, input costs (especially fertiliser), and the fuel used to cultivate land, harvest crops, process, refrigerate, ship and distribute them. If energy costs keep going up over the long term (as looks likely, recent sharp falls notwithstanding), then food prices will do the same – making it more important than ever to effect a far more integrated international approach.
by Richard Gowan | Jul 24, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia, North America
While we while away the summer musing on fantasy cabinets, someone has more daring fantasies up their sleeve. A report in Izvestia that Russia wants to station nuclear-armed Tu-160 bombers on Cuba has created much excitement in the Washington Post (now this would boost McCain) and, er, the U.S. Air Force:
Gen. Norton Schwartz, whose nomination to become the Air Force’s top military officer is being considered by the Senate, was asked at his confirmation hearing what he would advise if Russia were to proceed with such a plan. “I certainly would offer best military advice that we should engage the Russians not to pursue that approach,” Schwartz told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “And if they did, I think we should stand strong and indicate that that is something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line for the United States of America.”
Russian Defense Ministry officials have tried to pour cold water on the report, saying the newspaper story was written under a false name and quoted a source at an organization that did not exist.
In case one was feeling cheated, Russia’s erstwhile top brass have been on excellent form:
“Russian strategic bombers have the right to use airfields in any country, including Cuba, if the leadership of that country does not object. Therefore, Gen Schwarz’ statement can only be described as inappropriate and childish,” Anatoliy Kornukov, former commander-in- chief of the Air-Force, told Interfax AVN on Wednesday. At the same time, A. Kornukov doubts that permanent presence of Russian strategic bombers in Cuba is expedient from the military point of view. “If one has in mind facilities on the territory of the USA, there is no need at all to base aircraft ‘under the Americans’ noses’, where they will be within the reach of conventional missiles. A Tu-160 can launch its ammunition when it is thousands of kilometres away from the set targets.”
That’s OK then. But no Russian bombardier would have U.S. targets in mind, surely? Certainly not Mikhail Oparin, former head of strategic air operations:
“First, no-one has said that our long-range aviation targets facilities on the territory of the USA. On the other hand, the existing Russian-American agreements on strategic arms do not bar Russia from stepping up the capabilities of its combat aviation systems.”
And why might you want to do that then?
“The use of airfields in Cuba as forward staging bases, or to base our refuelling aircraft to provide support to our strategic missile carriers, could substantially increase the capabilities of our combat systems in terms of reaching remote military-geographic areas,” Oparin said.
Areas like, I don’t know, darkest Peru? Oops, just being paranoid…
The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Col-Gen Leonid Ivashov, described Schwartz’s statement as blackmail of Russia. “Many American military men suffer from paranoia. They want to be in charge of the whole world and are trying to impose their conditions on everyone. As regards Russia, such blackmail – Mr Schwartz’ statement cannot be viewed in any other way – will not work.”
Who knows, this may be a step towards the apocalypse. Or maybe a generation of strategic air types in both Russia and the U.S. suddenly feel like they matter again after a few years of having to surrender the spotlight to those close air-support guys and helicopter pilots, traditionally some rungs down the ladder. Which is, of course, an excuse to recall what Clemenceau once said about war…
[Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY&feature=related]
