Terrorism and non-state actors are the biggest threat to world security today. The state system is in decline. Everything as we know it is changing irrevocably, and probably for the worse.
Such is the typical line of pessimist thinkers on today's international scene, and probably one this blog's writings strays into frequently. Critically, these trends point to a revolution in international affairs and the state system in particular. P. Michael Phillips, an Army liaison to the Pakistani armed forces, begs to differ. In "Deconstructing our Dark Age Future," he argues that yes, terrorism, mercenaries, and other non-state groups are problems and sovereignty is not so universally strong as we might prefer - but these are the same problems we've been dealing with all along.
The "Westphalian system" - a term theorists and use to describe an international system consists of sovereign, legally equal states whose internal affairs are not subject to intervention from others - is really a model, a way the world could work and the way we would like it to. In fact, many states are not absolutely sovereign, exercising supreme authority in their territory (Somalia), legally equal (Iraq) or immune from external intervention (Georgia). Alarmists assert these trends are dismantling our current system. Phillips instead shows how these problems have been endemic to the state system since Westphalia, and instead of overreacting to insoluble flaws to our model, we should change our model and our strategy accordingly. The article is well worth the read and only 17 pages.
I am inclined to agree with Phillips for the most part. Placing the Peace of Westphalia as the beginning of the state system overstates the importance of international law at the expense of power (Are not Thucydides and Machiavelli relevant today?), providing historical legitimacy for the expansion of international law's power, culminating in the League of Nations and UN. Unequal sovereignty and international interventions did not stop with Westphalia and have been part of the international system up until today.
However, I do think that the role of state-sponsorship in terrorism is more ambiguous than the article acknowledges. Like terrorism and "hostile non-state actors" in general, terrorism without state sponsorship has been with us for a long time too. Irish terrorist groups often collected money from diaspora, in the manner al Qaeda collects money from donors in Saudi Arabia. Many insurgencies and terrorist groups have local goals and do not attempt attacks on a Far Enemy. Over-attributing terrorism to state sponsorship has already lead to erroneous ideas about foreign policy (the supposed al Qaeda-Iraq link) and may still lead to overly bellicose responses in the future (Iran).
Sovereignty, like the Westphalian model, is "true" only insofar as they are supported by power. The power of the United States, perhaps, is in relative decline, and thus our ability to check breaches of sovereignty is too. But we have worked against sovereignty as often as we have tried to support it. We too use foreign intervention and take advantage of militia groups, like the Sons of Iraq. It is likely we will continue to undermine sovereignty in the future, as all strong (and truly sovereign) states can and sometimes must do. While we may not be entering a Dark Age, there are still plenty of questions about sovereignty, terrorism, and the role of the state left to answer. Just because answering them might change our preconceptions about the world, though, does not mean they change how the world itself works.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Following in the wrong footsteps?
After launching a massive assault to retake the Swat valley that has been a humanitarian disaster and a questionable military victory, Pakistan has rightly decided it needs some help with counterinsurgency. However, Pakistan might be learning from poor examples. Pakistan has requested Sri Lanka's aid in training its troops. Sri Lanka, which finally ended its decades-long struggle with the Tamil Tigers, is not the country Pakistan should be emulating. Chinese and Indian political pressure dampens international condemnation, but if the US, Israel, or any other western country ever emulated Sri Lanka, the world would recoil in horror.
From a moral standpoint, the indiscriminate use of artillery and airpower against civilian population centers is bad enough. Add to that things like the massacres of NGO personnel and destruction of hospitals and churches, and it's obvious we should be a little hesitant to support Sri Lankan doctrine. Sri Lanka is also notable for its suppression of journalism in the war zone and the assassinations of critical voices.
Pragmatically, these tactics are unlikely to be effective in Pakistan. Sri Lanka took three decades to eradicate the Tigers by force alone. It also had the geostrategic advantage of fighting on an island. Unlike the LTTE, the Taliban will not be content to linger on their side of the Durand Line. Brutal Pakistani offensives will merely push the Taliban to some other locale, such as Baluchistan or Afghanistan or another section of the FATA/NWFP, leaving the civilian population to bear the brunt of the casualties. The LTTE was also a different type of threat than the Taliban. While the LTTE pioneered terrorist tactics like suicide bombing and pursued guerrilla warfare, they were far more similar to a conventional military in organization than the Taliban. Killing LTTE leadership contributed to the victory against the insurgency. Meanwhile, assassinating Baitullah Meshud, much like the many successful Predator strikes we've conducted in previous years, have failed to noticeably weaken or deter the Taliban.
Having the military adopt Sri Lanka's counterinsurgency doctrine is not likely to bring success without significantly weakening Pakistan's civilian government and its democratic credentials. A campaign of intense military operations within Pakistani borders would require the Pakistani government to cede control of vast regions of the country to the military and curtail Pakistani liberties outside of the combat zones to suppress domestic opposition. Given the additional ethnic, geographic, and strategic complexity of the Taliban's insurgency and Pakistan itself, such an undertaking would usher in de facto, if not outright, military rule.
Of course, it'd be a mistake to read too much into this. But in the wake of the Swat valley campaign and increasing American pressure to "win" in South Asia, it's worth reminding that a new plan isn't always a better plan. Treating the Taliban like the Tamils would be a moral and strategic mistake.
From a moral standpoint, the indiscriminate use of artillery and airpower against civilian population centers is bad enough. Add to that things like the massacres of NGO personnel and destruction of hospitals and churches, and it's obvious we should be a little hesitant to support Sri Lankan doctrine. Sri Lanka is also notable for its suppression of journalism in the war zone and the assassinations of critical voices.
Pragmatically, these tactics are unlikely to be effective in Pakistan. Sri Lanka took three decades to eradicate the Tigers by force alone. It also had the geostrategic advantage of fighting on an island. Unlike the LTTE, the Taliban will not be content to linger on their side of the Durand Line. Brutal Pakistani offensives will merely push the Taliban to some other locale, such as Baluchistan or Afghanistan or another section of the FATA/NWFP, leaving the civilian population to bear the brunt of the casualties. The LTTE was also a different type of threat than the Taliban. While the LTTE pioneered terrorist tactics like suicide bombing and pursued guerrilla warfare, they were far more similar to a conventional military in organization than the Taliban. Killing LTTE leadership contributed to the victory against the insurgency. Meanwhile, assassinating Baitullah Meshud, much like the many successful Predator strikes we've conducted in previous years, have failed to noticeably weaken or deter the Taliban.
Having the military adopt Sri Lanka's counterinsurgency doctrine is not likely to bring success without significantly weakening Pakistan's civilian government and its democratic credentials. A campaign of intense military operations within Pakistani borders would require the Pakistani government to cede control of vast regions of the country to the military and curtail Pakistani liberties outside of the combat zones to suppress domestic opposition. Given the additional ethnic, geographic, and strategic complexity of the Taliban's insurgency and Pakistan itself, such an undertaking would usher in de facto, if not outright, military rule.
Of course, it'd be a mistake to read too much into this. But in the wake of the Swat valley campaign and increasing American pressure to "win" in South Asia, it's worth reminding that a new plan isn't always a better plan. Treating the Taliban like the Tamils would be a moral and strategic mistake.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What we meant by 'compromise...'
... Was Russia conceding to us. Joe Biden, after convincing the Arab media that we were going to let Israel go and bomb the Iranians, continues to tactlessly undermine Obama's diplomacy. This isn't a "good cop, bad cop" thing, this is a "good cop, incompetent cop" sort of thing. The headline in the WSJ says it all; Biden Says Weakened Russia will Bend to U.S. Money quote:
But please, did this sort of thing work in the '90s? Russia was weaker then and saying, "Well Russia, there are no more spheres of influence, your economy is in the toilet, you're just going to have to shut up and let us run things from here" got us to exactly where we are now. Just because we won the Cold War doesn't mean that Russia must ask "how high" when we say "jump." As far as making commitments or claims to influence countries don't have the influence to back up, could we note our continued commitment to let Georgia enter NATO? After all, how much value does NATO-membership have if we showed we clearly weren't interested in defending Georgia?
Now, I am not saying that the US must necessarily be so conciliatory as the "reset" policy requires. Frankly, if the US thinks "reset" is a way to solidify its primacy among the world powers, it is quite mistaken. "Resetting" would require a substantive acknowledgement of a multipolarity that Biden is clearly not interested in and that I do not think the American public is particularly interested in either. If we think we're going to try and play nice with Russia by simply dismantling BMD but still insisting on NATO expansion and criticizing the Russian government, we might fool ourselves but we will not fool Russia. Russians are not so enraptured by Obama as much of the world is, and we are quickly exhausting Russian goodwill with statements like this, and they will refuse to concede to save face for the weakness we have illuminated.
Now, never mind that Russia is still aiming (if not necessarily succeeding) to reestablish its sphere of influence and that we're not doing much about it but talking and expecting them to stop. Georgia proved that we didn't actually see our new NATO members as worth going to war, but now we're supposed to add them despite proof that we don't particularly care enough to die for them? We have to remember that part of what made NATO an effective deterrent was placing US soldiers in Europe. Are we going to commit the resources to show we're willing to defend Georgia or Ukraine in the future? I know I have advocated NATO expansion in the past, but my opinion is either we don't expand it or if we do, we make sure it actually has a deterring effect on war. A middle course is just kidding ourselves. I have similar views on the "reset." If we want Russia to concede out of weakness, we're playing hardball, not "resetting" anything. If we want to make concessions of our own, then a "reset" will seem realistic. But refusing to make concessions and then expecting Russia to "bend" will require putting more pressure on Russia than we are willing to pursue. The best Russia policy is an open question. I can definitely say it isn't the self-contradicting one Biden is advocating now.
"It won't work if we go in and say: 'Hey, you need us, man; belly up to the bar and pay your dues,' " he said. "It is never smart to embarrass an individual or a country when they're dealing with significant loss of face. My dad used to put it another way: Never put another man in a corner where the only way out is over you."This is correct. Usually, when the US wants to embarrass countries, this sort of thing only works after we've totally devastated them. So too is it correct to note that Russia's demographic situation is terrible, as we keep getting stories about campaigns for state-sponsored babymaking. It is also true that the economic crisis has cut the legs out from under Gazprom, and that trying to paper over chronic institutional failures to develop a market system that is not always prefaced with terms like "mafia" or "oligarchic" with resource revenues may not be a viable strategy.
But please, did this sort of thing work in the '90s? Russia was weaker then and saying, "Well Russia, there are no more spheres of influence, your economy is in the toilet, you're just going to have to shut up and let us run things from here" got us to exactly where we are now. Just because we won the Cold War doesn't mean that Russia must ask "how high" when we say "jump." As far as making commitments or claims to influence countries don't have the influence to back up, could we note our continued commitment to let Georgia enter NATO? After all, how much value does NATO-membership have if we showed we clearly weren't interested in defending Georgia?
Now, I am not saying that the US must necessarily be so conciliatory as the "reset" policy requires. Frankly, if the US thinks "reset" is a way to solidify its primacy among the world powers, it is quite mistaken. "Resetting" would require a substantive acknowledgement of a multipolarity that Biden is clearly not interested in and that I do not think the American public is particularly interested in either. If we think we're going to try and play nice with Russia by simply dismantling BMD but still insisting on NATO expansion and criticizing the Russian government, we might fool ourselves but we will not fool Russia. Russians are not so enraptured by Obama as much of the world is, and we are quickly exhausting Russian goodwill with statements like this, and they will refuse to concede to save face for the weakness we have illuminated.
Now, never mind that Russia is still aiming (if not necessarily succeeding) to reestablish its sphere of influence and that we're not doing much about it but talking and expecting them to stop. Georgia proved that we didn't actually see our new NATO members as worth going to war, but now we're supposed to add them despite proof that we don't particularly care enough to die for them? We have to remember that part of what made NATO an effective deterrent was placing US soldiers in Europe. Are we going to commit the resources to show we're willing to defend Georgia or Ukraine in the future? I know I have advocated NATO expansion in the past, but my opinion is either we don't expand it or if we do, we make sure it actually has a deterring effect on war. A middle course is just kidding ourselves. I have similar views on the "reset." If we want Russia to concede out of weakness, we're playing hardball, not "resetting" anything. If we want to make concessions of our own, then a "reset" will seem realistic. But refusing to make concessions and then expecting Russia to "bend" will require putting more pressure on Russia than we are willing to pursue. The best Russia policy is an open question. I can definitely say it isn't the self-contradicting one Biden is advocating now.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
This moment in geopolitics...
In the spirit of posts that aren't too long, here's some interesting news from places we haven't been hearing too much about in the mainstream news sources (with one exception for Pakistan and Afghanistan, which I hope everyone has been hearing about).
While Clinton has been touring Asia and making headlines about India and Iran, a few papers picked up on some of her comments about another possible nuclear threat to the region - Burma (Yes, I call it Burma). Though Clinton has tried to remain somewhat ambiguous about Burma's nuclear ambitions and capability, I can understand why we might not want to make too big of a fuss about this yet. After all, it wasn't too long ago Clinton lent credibility to a baseless conspiracy theory about Iran penetrating Central America through some sort of "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. While Burma is probably somewhat far off in terms of its technical capability, it is certainly something to be concerned about. North Korea will sell nuclear technology to just about anybody willing to pay, and Burma, a partner of Russia and China despite international calls in the wake of protests, devastating typhoons, and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, might be resistant to further isolation. After ratcheting calls for intervention or infringing on Burmese sovereignty after each incident (and the DPRK's mockery of international nonproliferation efforts), a nuke might look pretty attractive to Naypyidaw.
Elsewhere, the Hague arbitrated the Abyei dispute between Sudan proper (north Sudan) and south Sudan. While Darfur captures most international attention, problems between north and south Sudan are gaining more attention. Rightly so - the 2011 referendum on independence, and this disputed territory here discussed, could give us the 3rd Sudanese Civil War, a continuation of one of the post-WWII era's bloodiest conflicts. On top of that, both sides are rearming - with a bit of US training assistance for the south, too. Keep an eye on this one.
Biden, in addition to being the de facto "special envoy" to Iraq (a country he tried to all-but-dismember circa 2005-2006), is busy repeating the American line in Georgia. Biden argues that the notion of a sphere of influence belongs in the 19th century. I would argue in response that yes, we can wish that, but that naive hope we can prevent great powers (especially Russia) from believing they should pursue a sphere of influence when it is within their power without actual deterrence is a naive notion that belongs to the utopians of the late 20th century.
On to bigger things - the Pakistani military, after the near-debacle that was its counterinsurgency campaign in Swat, is not exactly eager to deal with Baluchistan or the retreating Taliban from the offensive in Afghanistan. The military still seems to be pushing for the "make India give up Kashmir" option. However, Obama's done a good job, like Bush, of resisting the absurd Kashmir scheme and pursuing constructive great power diplomacy with India. Dealing with Afghanistan isn't getting any easier...
Back to East Africa, it seems conflict from Somalia is spilling over its borders again. With the TFG holding something like a few blocks of territory in Mogadishu, it's no surprise to me that Al Shabab ("The Youth," or "The Lads") is looking to go after countries like Kenya which generally oppose the Islamist movements and fighters in the horn. Over a decade ago Kenya was the victim of a major attack that helped put AQ on the international radar - now it seems that violence might come from closer to home.
While Clinton has been touring Asia and making headlines about India and Iran, a few papers picked up on some of her comments about another possible nuclear threat to the region - Burma (Yes, I call it Burma). Though Clinton has tried to remain somewhat ambiguous about Burma's nuclear ambitions and capability, I can understand why we might not want to make too big of a fuss about this yet. After all, it wasn't too long ago Clinton lent credibility to a baseless conspiracy theory about Iran penetrating Central America through some sort of "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. While Burma is probably somewhat far off in terms of its technical capability, it is certainly something to be concerned about. North Korea will sell nuclear technology to just about anybody willing to pay, and Burma, a partner of Russia and China despite international calls in the wake of protests, devastating typhoons, and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, might be resistant to further isolation. After ratcheting calls for intervention or infringing on Burmese sovereignty after each incident (and the DPRK's mockery of international nonproliferation efforts), a nuke might look pretty attractive to Naypyidaw.
Elsewhere, the Hague arbitrated the Abyei dispute between Sudan proper (north Sudan) and south Sudan. While Darfur captures most international attention, problems between north and south Sudan are gaining more attention. Rightly so - the 2011 referendum on independence, and this disputed territory here discussed, could give us the 3rd Sudanese Civil War, a continuation of one of the post-WWII era's bloodiest conflicts. On top of that, both sides are rearming - with a bit of US training assistance for the south, too. Keep an eye on this one.
Biden, in addition to being the de facto "special envoy" to Iraq (a country he tried to all-but-dismember circa 2005-2006), is busy repeating the American line in Georgia. Biden argues that the notion of a sphere of influence belongs in the 19th century. I would argue in response that yes, we can wish that, but that naive hope we can prevent great powers (especially Russia) from believing they should pursue a sphere of influence when it is within their power without actual deterrence is a naive notion that belongs to the utopians of the late 20th century.
On to bigger things - the Pakistani military, after the near-debacle that was its counterinsurgency campaign in Swat, is not exactly eager to deal with Baluchistan or the retreating Taliban from the offensive in Afghanistan. The military still seems to be pushing for the "make India give up Kashmir" option. However, Obama's done a good job, like Bush, of resisting the absurd Kashmir scheme and pursuing constructive great power diplomacy with India. Dealing with Afghanistan isn't getting any easier...
Back to East Africa, it seems conflict from Somalia is spilling over its borders again. With the TFG holding something like a few blocks of territory in Mogadishu, it's no surprise to me that Al Shabab ("The Youth," or "The Lads") is looking to go after countries like Kenya which generally oppose the Islamist movements and fighters in the horn. Over a decade ago Kenya was the victim of a major attack that helped put AQ on the international radar - now it seems that violence might come from closer to home.
Hopefully the only thing I have to say about health care
So the big topic in DC is health care reform. Oh, joy of joys. I'll try and make this as quick and painless as possible. As usual, Obama sounds like a pretty reasonable guy when he talks about health care and Congress doesn't make any sense. Unfortunately, Obama is staking the party on health care reform, and I don't think he or any Democrats nervous about their seats in 2010 are going to let up, and will probably pass just about anything.
Of course, Obama has tried to emphasize cost control in his discussion of health care, which is very nice of him. Unfortunately, people ought to talk to Congress. The CBO has made it abundantly clear that universal health care will exacerbate health care cost problems, rather than solve them. As anybody who's been following Massachusetts knows, attempting to use mandatory or universal coverage to control costs has been a miserable failure, and now the state government is considering capitation - essentially putting a cost ceiling on how much money they are allowed to use on procedures. Expanding access will not reduce health care costs in any way. Obama's health care plan is more expensive and does nothing to cut increasing costs in both private health insurance and Medicare. Allowing people to switch from a private plan to a public option will not help either - either it receives public subsidies and runs into the cost growth problems, or it acts like a non-profit HMO and doesn't do much that non-profit HMOs already do, except give the Democrats credit.
So how exactly would we reduce the cost curve? I'm not going to go into the muddled and contradictory statistical argumenets both sides offer, but here's one reason why I'm skeptical we'll be able to. Doctors and technology. While Obama's plan is far from giving us something like the health care system in France, France is a perfect example of a country with good health outcomes and a much lower cost than the United States. This is pretty much undeniable. However, people ignore the fact that doctors make 3-4 times as much money in the United States as they do in France. Of course, reducing doctor pay is unthinkinable in the US. Medical students have to take on enormous debt loads to become doctors, and they need to pay them off. Our medical schools are the best in the world, and I'd be very skeptical that our government could step in and "solve things" there without negative effects on their quality. Doctor pay is a critical feature of the US health care system. There is a reason why we hear about foreign doctors coming to the US to learn and work, and why US doctors ususally go abroad as humanitarians.
Of course, maybe if we did have a system like France's, we wouldn't have to worry about doctor pay, right? Maybe, but many doctors (in particular the American College of Surgeons) support single-payer healthcare, price controls, or similar mechanisms for health care because they'd lock in high pay (and many oppose it for the opposite reason, knowing a financially sustainable national system would likely reduce their salaries). The health care bill comes with billions in new Medicare spending that will go into doctors' pockets. Tell me this doesn't have an effect on physicians' support for health care "reform." They are good people, they're just self-interested, like people who build F-22s*, auto dealers, or pretty much any American citizen tempted with the offer of more money. I don't see any meaningful reduction in the cost curve in the future without starting a huge fight with the AMA or ACS, and Obama has trouble enough as it is now.
Speaking of taking interest groups to the mat, Tyler Cowen points out something interesting - perhaps covering seniors through Medicare is an obstacle to health care reform. This does seem to make sense, and poll numbers show the elderly are not as behind health care reform, especially that which involves critical cuts to Medicare spending. To be fair, there are a lot of complicated issues in Medicare and ethical questions about treatment. But before trying to push a national system of health care on the US, the federal government will need to get its own house in order, too - and voting demographics don't bear that out.
To respond to Cowen's question about prospects for universal health care in the '70s in a world without Medicare, I'll go ahead and say we might. Actually, Nixon's plan included employer-mandated insurance and a federal plan based on Medicaid that Americans could also join.
*Speaking of F-22s, and to get back to this blog's usual topic, way to be Senate - Obama and Gates finally won one in the battle against unnecessary but cool and pork-tastic weapons projects.
Of course, Obama has tried to emphasize cost control in his discussion of health care, which is very nice of him. Unfortunately, people ought to talk to Congress. The CBO has made it abundantly clear that universal health care will exacerbate health care cost problems, rather than solve them. As anybody who's been following Massachusetts knows, attempting to use mandatory or universal coverage to control costs has been a miserable failure, and now the state government is considering capitation - essentially putting a cost ceiling on how much money they are allowed to use on procedures. Expanding access will not reduce health care costs in any way. Obama's health care plan is more expensive and does nothing to cut increasing costs in both private health insurance and Medicare. Allowing people to switch from a private plan to a public option will not help either - either it receives public subsidies and runs into the cost growth problems, or it acts like a non-profit HMO and doesn't do much that non-profit HMOs already do, except give the Democrats credit.
So how exactly would we reduce the cost curve? I'm not going to go into the muddled and contradictory statistical argumenets both sides offer, but here's one reason why I'm skeptical we'll be able to. Doctors and technology. While Obama's plan is far from giving us something like the health care system in France, France is a perfect example of a country with good health outcomes and a much lower cost than the United States. This is pretty much undeniable. However, people ignore the fact that doctors make 3-4 times as much money in the United States as they do in France. Of course, reducing doctor pay is unthinkinable in the US. Medical students have to take on enormous debt loads to become doctors, and they need to pay them off. Our medical schools are the best in the world, and I'd be very skeptical that our government could step in and "solve things" there without negative effects on their quality. Doctor pay is a critical feature of the US health care system. There is a reason why we hear about foreign doctors coming to the US to learn and work, and why US doctors ususally go abroad as humanitarians.
Of course, maybe if we did have a system like France's, we wouldn't have to worry about doctor pay, right? Maybe, but many doctors (in particular the American College of Surgeons) support single-payer healthcare, price controls, or similar mechanisms for health care because they'd lock in high pay (and many oppose it for the opposite reason, knowing a financially sustainable national system would likely reduce their salaries). The health care bill comes with billions in new Medicare spending that will go into doctors' pockets. Tell me this doesn't have an effect on physicians' support for health care "reform." They are good people, they're just self-interested, like people who build F-22s*, auto dealers, or pretty much any American citizen tempted with the offer of more money. I don't see any meaningful reduction in the cost curve in the future without starting a huge fight with the AMA or ACS, and Obama has trouble enough as it is now.
Speaking of taking interest groups to the mat, Tyler Cowen points out something interesting - perhaps covering seniors through Medicare is an obstacle to health care reform. This does seem to make sense, and poll numbers show the elderly are not as behind health care reform, especially that which involves critical cuts to Medicare spending. To be fair, there are a lot of complicated issues in Medicare and ethical questions about treatment. But before trying to push a national system of health care on the US, the federal government will need to get its own house in order, too - and voting demographics don't bear that out.
To respond to Cowen's question about prospects for universal health care in the '70s in a world without Medicare, I'll go ahead and say we might. Actually, Nixon's plan included employer-mandated insurance and a federal plan based on Medicaid that Americans could also join.
*Speaking of F-22s, and to get back to this blog's usual topic, way to be Senate - Obama and Gates finally won one in the battle against unnecessary but cool and pork-tastic weapons projects.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A few words on the crisis in Honduras
It may be tiring to hear of the constant critiques of democracy promotion and the "Obama effect," but a spate of recent events (some more recent than others - yes, this blog has been dormant for quite some time) helps put this misguided campaign into perspective. Criticism of democracy promotion has waned since its heyday in the Bush administration. The immediacy and scale of democracy promotion's flawed logic and human cost was much greater in 2003 than it is in 2009. That said, moving from a disastrous flawed policy to one that is merely weak and incoherent is not a substitute for policy change. Turning the volume down from 11 isn't enough.
Six months into the Obama presidency, it's time to remove the blinders of self-congratulation and take a frank look at the ideas and actions with which we wish to shape today's world. Teguicgalpa is one example. My aim here is not to side with those who claim Obama is in fact destroying democracy by promoting Chavismo. Instead, let's acknowledge a simple truth - we do not know what we are doing, and we are not fit to be picking sides nearly as often as what we do. For example, Zelaya violated the Constitution and ignored the Supreme Court and Congress of his country. The checks and balances in the Honduras, which allow democratic republics to function effectively, were undermined. Despite the provision of the Honduran constitution that Zelaya "immediately" (de inmediato) cease to function in his duties, the idea that a military intervention in civilian government might be constitutional unsettles us, and rightly so.
The reasons for the coup rest on two main lines of argument - firstly, the military must uphold the constitution of the Honduras and Zelaya would not have submitted to a civilian impeachment. This argument carries enough weight that it should make Obama and the OAS uncomfortable with their condemnation of the coup. For example, Article 272 of the Honduran constitution not only tasks the military with the protection of the constitution, but explicitly states that the military is responsible for ensuring the alternation of the Presidency. In fact, there is no clear legal process for impeachment. The Supreme Court thus resorted to the military's explict role in enforcing the constitution and in particular preventing continuismo, and in thus the coup is constitutional, if not "democratic."
The second argument for the use of the military is Zelaya's relations with ALBA, the Venezuelan-lead bloc of leftist countries. Many Hondurans believe that Nicaraguan and Venezuelan troops are either present in Honduras or mobilizing on the border with Nicaragua. This smacks of conspiracy, but Chavez isn't beyond mobilizing troops to coerce or intimidate his neighbors (on a side note, it is darkly amusing to find Chavez, who tried to seize power in 1992, denouncing a military coup). When Colombia launched a cross-border raid into Ecuador to kill FARC leaders, Chavez mobilized the army to the Colombian border. This, combined with Honduran entry into ALBA under Zelaya, gave many Hondurans the sense that their sovereignty was compromised and that Zelaya might call upon foreign allies to suppress internal dissent. Under these circumstances, it is understandable, if not necessarily right, that the military wished to get involved - they believed they were defending the sovereignty of Honduras, rightly or wrongly. Perhaps this prophecy was somewhat self-fulfilling, though - the coup lead Chavez to threaten a state of war with Honduras.
All this said, the new Honduran government, while constitutional, is less than admirable. While the new President is a member of Zelaya's party, the military has nevertheless cracked down on dissenting media outlets and used force against protesters, in contravention to the Constitution, which Congress has gotten around by declaring a state of emergency. They expatriated Zelaya to Costa Rica in a naked violation of Honduran law and may have denied him due process for arrest. The question is not whether the new government has done anything wrong, though; obviously it has violated Honduran law in the course of the coup, even if the coup itself is constitutional. The question is whether our proposed solution and demands on the Honduran government are all reasonable. I would say they are not.
Zelaya is not the legal President of Honduras. He cannot hold public office for 10 years. Insisting that he be the President of the Honduras is imposing a leader on the Honduras against the constitution. Perhaps, though, this is more democratic, since the Honduran constitution is undemocratic. It is certainly undemocratic for the military to arbitrate a political dispute. That said, what is so democratic or liberal about taking sides in a Honduran constitutional dispute? We claim to be doing it in the interest of democracy, not ideology, but at what point does this sort of intervention in the name of democracy become ideological? It is not as if Zelaya is particularly popular. He is, by some surveys, Latin America's least popular leader. He does not have the support of the majority of Hondurans, the Congress. Just because there are demonstrations does not mean he is the legitimate ruler any more than Mousavi is the legitmate President of Iran simply because there are demonstrations there.
However flawed the Honduran constitution might be, Zelaya cannot be President without violating the constitution and I hardly imagine restoring him to the Presidency will be productive in the least. If we want to support political resolutions to political dispute, Zelaya does not belong in executive office but in court upon his return. So too do the military officers who violated Honduran law in extraditing him. Identifying support of democracy or democratic institutions, though, with undermining the constitution of Honduras further will only further polarize Honduran society and cast more doubt on the legitimacy of the government.
The constitution, with the exception of the seven permanent articles, can be amended. In fact, it is amended quite frequently. Obviously it would be more democratic for the Honduras to provide some sort of civilian process for impeachment rather than directly delegating this power to the military. However, this is something for Hondurans to decide and the rest of the world to observe. Clearly, guaranteeing the fairness of this process will be difficult (the same goes the plebiscite Zelaya proposed), but election observers can play this role. Demanding the scrapping or directing the revision of the Honduran constitution, however, is little different than regime change. It is frustrating to acknowledge but there is not an easy way out of this one. As anyone who's read Federalist no. 10 knows, it can be hard to protect small republics from faction. Nor is a constitution imposed by foreign demands likely to solve the underlying problems of polarization in Honduras.
We can afford to screw up on this one because the days when banana republics factored into our national interest have passed. But with Iran and likely more protests of this nature to come, it's time to take a frank look at what we have a right to do as a state among states, and what is actually in our interests. Contra the President, we are not protecting democracy in any way in pursuit of Zelaya's reinstatement. Nor, however, would we be protecting it by simply letting the situation sit. Putting Zelaya back in power won't solve any of the factional problems undermining democracy in the Honduras, and undermining the constitution won't either. Nor does leaving Michletti in power. Democracy in the Honduras may in fact be something that we can't control or bring into being. It is one thing to condemn a coup as an undemocratic intervention in a country's government, it is another to think we have the right to intervene ourselves. For all our talk of empowering the demos, we are likely to hurt them if we continue suspending aid programs. Perhaps ending military aid to the Honduras is a good idea. But it seems silly that while we re-evaluate the efficacy of Cuban sanctions in regime change, we see renewed promise for them in Honduras.
Again, we're lucky this is happening in Honduras and not somewhere where our national interests come into play. Obama took the right stance by demanding a recall in Iran and keeping quiet since then, in recognition that interfering in Iranian domestic affairs (a la Operation Ajax) is counterproductive, and that our national interest in avoiding the success of the Iranian nuclear arms program or Iranian aggression must come first. There is no virtue in sacrificing all this for the sake of putting a somewhat less conservative and less anti-American candidate into a position that, as per the very undermocratic constitution of the Islamic Republic, has little meaningful power over Iran anyway.
Just because we think democracy is on the march does not mean we can command its ranks as an army. Institutions matter, interests matter, the conflicts that undermine democracy matter. We can't control some of these. If there's a force in history, it doesn't tell us that we're on the right side of it - it tells us we can't control it.
Six months into the Obama presidency, it's time to remove the blinders of self-congratulation and take a frank look at the ideas and actions with which we wish to shape today's world. Teguicgalpa is one example. My aim here is not to side with those who claim Obama is in fact destroying democracy by promoting Chavismo. Instead, let's acknowledge a simple truth - we do not know what we are doing, and we are not fit to be picking sides nearly as often as what we do. For example, Zelaya violated the Constitution and ignored the Supreme Court and Congress of his country. The checks and balances in the Honduras, which allow democratic republics to function effectively, were undermined. Despite the provision of the Honduran constitution that Zelaya "immediately" (de inmediato) cease to function in his duties, the idea that a military intervention in civilian government might be constitutional unsettles us, and rightly so.
The reasons for the coup rest on two main lines of argument - firstly, the military must uphold the constitution of the Honduras and Zelaya would not have submitted to a civilian impeachment. This argument carries enough weight that it should make Obama and the OAS uncomfortable with their condemnation of the coup. For example, Article 272 of the Honduran constitution not only tasks the military with the protection of the constitution, but explicitly states that the military is responsible for ensuring the alternation of the Presidency. In fact, there is no clear legal process for impeachment. The Supreme Court thus resorted to the military's explict role in enforcing the constitution and in particular preventing continuismo, and in thus the coup is constitutional, if not "democratic."
The second argument for the use of the military is Zelaya's relations with ALBA, the Venezuelan-lead bloc of leftist countries. Many Hondurans believe that Nicaraguan and Venezuelan troops are either present in Honduras or mobilizing on the border with Nicaragua. This smacks of conspiracy, but Chavez isn't beyond mobilizing troops to coerce or intimidate his neighbors (on a side note, it is darkly amusing to find Chavez, who tried to seize power in 1992, denouncing a military coup). When Colombia launched a cross-border raid into Ecuador to kill FARC leaders, Chavez mobilized the army to the Colombian border. This, combined with Honduran entry into ALBA under Zelaya, gave many Hondurans the sense that their sovereignty was compromised and that Zelaya might call upon foreign allies to suppress internal dissent. Under these circumstances, it is understandable, if not necessarily right, that the military wished to get involved - they believed they were defending the sovereignty of Honduras, rightly or wrongly. Perhaps this prophecy was somewhat self-fulfilling, though - the coup lead Chavez to threaten a state of war with Honduras.
All this said, the new Honduran government, while constitutional, is less than admirable. While the new President is a member of Zelaya's party, the military has nevertheless cracked down on dissenting media outlets and used force against protesters, in contravention to the Constitution, which Congress has gotten around by declaring a state of emergency. They expatriated Zelaya to Costa Rica in a naked violation of Honduran law and may have denied him due process for arrest. The question is not whether the new government has done anything wrong, though; obviously it has violated Honduran law in the course of the coup, even if the coup itself is constitutional. The question is whether our proposed solution and demands on the Honduran government are all reasonable. I would say they are not.
Zelaya is not the legal President of Honduras. He cannot hold public office for 10 years. Insisting that he be the President of the Honduras is imposing a leader on the Honduras against the constitution. Perhaps, though, this is more democratic, since the Honduran constitution is undemocratic. It is certainly undemocratic for the military to arbitrate a political dispute. That said, what is so democratic or liberal about taking sides in a Honduran constitutional dispute? We claim to be doing it in the interest of democracy, not ideology, but at what point does this sort of intervention in the name of democracy become ideological? It is not as if Zelaya is particularly popular. He is, by some surveys, Latin America's least popular leader. He does not have the support of the majority of Hondurans, the Congress. Just because there are demonstrations does not mean he is the legitimate ruler any more than Mousavi is the legitmate President of Iran simply because there are demonstrations there.
However flawed the Honduran constitution might be, Zelaya cannot be President without violating the constitution and I hardly imagine restoring him to the Presidency will be productive in the least. If we want to support political resolutions to political dispute, Zelaya does not belong in executive office but in court upon his return. So too do the military officers who violated Honduran law in extraditing him. Identifying support of democracy or democratic institutions, though, with undermining the constitution of Honduras further will only further polarize Honduran society and cast more doubt on the legitimacy of the government.
The constitution, with the exception of the seven permanent articles, can be amended. In fact, it is amended quite frequently. Obviously it would be more democratic for the Honduras to provide some sort of civilian process for impeachment rather than directly delegating this power to the military. However, this is something for Hondurans to decide and the rest of the world to observe. Clearly, guaranteeing the fairness of this process will be difficult (the same goes the plebiscite Zelaya proposed), but election observers can play this role. Demanding the scrapping or directing the revision of the Honduran constitution, however, is little different than regime change. It is frustrating to acknowledge but there is not an easy way out of this one. As anyone who's read Federalist no. 10 knows, it can be hard to protect small republics from faction. Nor is a constitution imposed by foreign demands likely to solve the underlying problems of polarization in Honduras.
We can afford to screw up on this one because the days when banana republics factored into our national interest have passed. But with Iran and likely more protests of this nature to come, it's time to take a frank look at what we have a right to do as a state among states, and what is actually in our interests. Contra the President, we are not protecting democracy in any way in pursuit of Zelaya's reinstatement. Nor, however, would we be protecting it by simply letting the situation sit. Putting Zelaya back in power won't solve any of the factional problems undermining democracy in the Honduras, and undermining the constitution won't either. Nor does leaving Michletti in power. Democracy in the Honduras may in fact be something that we can't control or bring into being. It is one thing to condemn a coup as an undemocratic intervention in a country's government, it is another to think we have the right to intervene ourselves. For all our talk of empowering the demos, we are likely to hurt them if we continue suspending aid programs. Perhaps ending military aid to the Honduras is a good idea. But it seems silly that while we re-evaluate the efficacy of Cuban sanctions in regime change, we see renewed promise for them in Honduras.
Again, we're lucky this is happening in Honduras and not somewhere where our national interests come into play. Obama took the right stance by demanding a recall in Iran and keeping quiet since then, in recognition that interfering in Iranian domestic affairs (a la Operation Ajax) is counterproductive, and that our national interest in avoiding the success of the Iranian nuclear arms program or Iranian aggression must come first. There is no virtue in sacrificing all this for the sake of putting a somewhat less conservative and less anti-American candidate into a position that, as per the very undermocratic constitution of the Islamic Republic, has little meaningful power over Iran anyway.
Just because we think democracy is on the march does not mean we can command its ranks as an army. Institutions matter, interests matter, the conflicts that undermine democracy matter. We can't control some of these. If there's a force in history, it doesn't tell us that we're on the right side of it - it tells us we can't control it.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The nuclear-free case for missile defense?
After the DPRK's less-than-impressive third try to demonstrate a functional ICBM capability, the President decided to take advantage of the occasion to bring up the ambitious goal of eliminating nuclear arms. It's easy to deride this idea as the kind of naive, ridiculous idealism conservatives love to tag Obama with, and indeed, many have done so. But it's a serious idea that deserves serious consideration - even if those lefties at the Hoover Institution endorsed it.That being said, while cuts to nuclear arms are probably a great idea, I'm not sure I can get behind their total elimination. For one thing, as I mentioned way back, total denuclearization does not mean an end to nuclear proliferation. The idea that new nuclear states could be deterred rests on the assumption that economic sanctions, political pressure and conventional force would be sufficient to overcome the incentive of becoming the new sole nuclear power. I am not confident in this assertion.
For one thing, countries with the capability to develop nuclear weapons are generally countries that are wealthy and powerful enough to make their isolation a risky policy. Trying to shut out India and Pakistan the way we shut out (or would like to shut out) Iraq, Iran, and North Korea would be an incredibly risky policy. Even then, it is unlikely major sanctions would be effective without great power consensus. As the market power of countries like China rises, it will become difficult for sanctions on the part of the US & EU to have the decisive weight they might have once (e.g. the case of South Africa).
For another, who says conventional power is an adequate deterrent to a country's nuclear program? Ultimately, if a country has sufficient technical capacity to develop a nuclear weapon, in most cases it also has the military strength to make the strikes necessary to destroy that nuclear capability prohibitively dangerous except in the early stages (a la Iraq, Syria). But countries have learned from those attacks. Take Iran, a country that has its critical infrastructure widely dispersed enough to deter an attack by Israel, and the capability to wage hybrid/irregular warfare in areas such as Lebanon, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf, deterring the United States from making a "surgical" strike against its nuclear facilities alone. An attack against a minor power with nuclear ambitions would have to eliminate its nuclear capability and its conventional retaliatory capability. This is not an appetizing prospect for the great powers in most cases, either because they will be reluctant or other great powers do not perceive the target country's program as a threat and thus will not accept a counter-proliferation strike as in the interests of the "international community." The end result would be some kind of modus vivendi. Perhaps the new nuclear power might assert that its nuclear arms are purely for defensive purposes.
Ultimately, though, they would enable offensive action in a non-nuclear war. Suppose Saddam had a nuclear device in 1991 (he wasn't that far off from it then, compared to 2003, and by some miracle the nuclear-free-world discussed by Reagan and Gorbachev had achieved. Would an international coalition so quickly have formed against Iraq? Like all counterfactuals, it's hard to tell. After all, US forces in Iraq were put on DEFCON 1 and expected the use of chemical weapons. Without the coalition's nuclear deterrent, though, Saddam might well have used those weapons, as he did against the Iranians. Even a retaliatory escalation of conventional force could have been negated by the use of nuclear weapons. Under their own nuclear umbrellas, great powers might well learn to live with the offensive ambitions of other states. I do not think it is a coincidence that wars of territorial aggrandizement or wars terminating in the outright annexation of a whole country are no longer common in the nuclear age. Such goals are ludicrous in the face of the prospect of nuclear retaliation.
So how do we prevent denuclearization from paving the way towards a re-nuclearizing and perhaps more violent world? Embracing missile defense. As the DPRK demonstrated, developing an effective nuclear capability needs effective delivery systems, not just nuclear warheads. Developing missile defense networks are far less risky than launching counter-proliferation strikes. While missile defense is unlikely to ever achieve the technical capability to deter a nuclear arsenal of American or Russian magnitude, I don't think it is inconceivable that missile defense could be developed to deter those mid-level countries which are weak enough to doubt their conventional power to defend themselves against great powers, but strong enough to field a nuclear arsenal. Of course, there's a lot more investment and development necessary.
Yet critics of missile defense are often those in favor of denuclearization and counterproliferation. If denuclearization is to move beyond simply an idea and become a viable condition for the international system, we will need to develop options short of war to deter against new nuclear powers that can no longer be constrained by the old standby of nuclear arms. Missile defense (perhaps funded for by cuts in great powers' nuclear arms) is a potential option for preventing a new nuclear power from pursuing offensive war or coercing its neighbors, and certainly attractive because it does not involve the moral hazards of preemptive or preventative war.
Of course, I'm skeptical of denuclearization to begin with, which is probably obvious. But if we're going to pursue it, I think there's more we need to think about than arms control and sanctions regimes.
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