Channel 4's (UK) Unreported World recently showed a documentary about the continued existence of the Hutu Interahamwe militia in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Despite having been ousted from most of Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Front in 1994, this brutal militia is claimed to still control an area of Africa which is the size of Belgium (an unfortunate comparison considering this former colonial power's role in fostering the social and legal conditions which contributed to the small nations ethnic conflicts). This (brilliant) documentary led me to thinking about the implications of a failure to intervene in defence of civilians, especially considering that much of the world is currently more focused (through catastrophe in Iraq) on the implications of intervening.
Firstly, a brief historical recap. Colonial powers in Africa often used the, now recognised as dangerous, tactic of boosting the minority ethnic groups in order to keep the majority down. Typically, this involved offering jobs, education and other opportunities to the minority ethnic group at the expense of the majority. In Rwanda, this meant that Hutus were denied opportunities by the colonial powers, leading to significant resentment by the Hutu majority. Following independence, Tutsis were discriminated against by successive Hutu governments in retaliation and a long period of interethnic conflict began. In 1990 a Tutsi rebellion was launched from neighbouring Rwanda and continued raging until, in 1994, a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi's Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down, killing both men. The identity of those who shot down the plane remains disputed, but the incident is widely recognised as the trigger for 100 days of violence launched by Hutu militias against the Tutsi population and moderate Hutus, in which between 800,000 and 1,000,000 were killed. The international community's response was to draw back existing forces in Rwanda and allow the violence to continue unchecked. The French government has even been accused of direct complicity with the genocide for reasons of national interest (see http://www.survie-france.org/ ). As a result, the orgy of horrific violence only ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front launched a successful offensive and took power in Rwanda.
Former US President Bill Clinton has described his decision not to intervene in Rwanda as his greatest regret. As mentioned in a previous post, Lt-Gen. Romeo Dallaire of Canada, who was present in Rwanda during the genocide, was driven to repeated suicide attempts by his memories of events and his decision to obey orders and do nothing to stop the massacres. The world was united, upon seeing the final result of their inaction, to declare the (all to often repeated) mantra of 'Never Again!', before promptly allowing massacres (albeit on a smaller scale) to occur during the break-up of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, the Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe managed to slip into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, then known as Zaire), hidden in the flows of hutu refugees fleeing the feared reprisals. What followed is remarkable for many awful reasons, but for the purposes of this post one will be emphasised. The arrival of the Interahamwe in DRC was a major factor in sparking a war that lasted 10 years (if one considers that it is, as claimed, now over), killed 4 million people and dragged in all of the DRC's neighbours in some capacity, earning the disturbing nickname 'Africa's World War'.
What is intriguing about this whole affair is that, while the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide have quite rightly become a permanent part of the global political memory (and inspired numerous books, films, songs, NGOs, etc.), the slower burning but, in the end, more destructive war in the DRC has remained a subject of interest for only for those individuals most interested in Africa, human rights, international relations and/or conflict. It is as if, while disgusted by the failure of anyone to help Rwandans when they were threatened by the worlds swiftest genocide, the majority of the world's people have happily drawn a line under the incident despite the fact that it NEVER REALLY ENDED! The interahamwe continue to engage in killings, rape and the indoctrination of child soldiers on a large scale, and their Tutsi enemies in the DRC continue to commit atrocities of their own under the justification of self-defence.
A question I find myself asking quite regularly when thinking about Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and Darfur, is that if the same situation again arose, if there were UN troops on the ground of a distant country, with credible intelligence that a genocide of almost unfathomable speed and ferocity was about to be launched, would the world remember the old mantra 'Never Again!'? Or would we hear; 'The sovereignty of [country A] must be respected.'; 'Dialogue is the only true path to peace'; 'It would be dangerous to insert forces at this time', 'Look at Iraq, we cannot afford another quagmire', followed by; 'We could not possibly have predicted the scale of what was about to happen', 'What happened was deeply regrettable and we will do everything in our power to help [country A] recover from this tragedy.'
I am not at all convinced that if exactly the same situation arose this month, in a country of equally little strategic significance as Rwanda in 1994, then we wouldn't simply sit and watch the massacres play themselves out exactly as happened last time. It must be noted that the ultimate result of inaction in Rwanda (apart from the horrendous human tragedy) was the war in DRC, which has ultimately cost the world 4 million more lives since 1994 and $1,100 million this year alone to support the 18,000 uniformed UN personnel present in the country. With such huge costs of inaction, one would hope that ensuring the existence of a widely recognised and effective mechanism for prompting intervention when justified and preventing it when it is not would be a priority for all nations. It seems that, when observing the decision to intervene in Iraq despite the absence of an immediate humanitarian emergency (or any WMDs, for that matter) and comparing it to the decision not to intervene in Darfur despite the presence of an immediate humanitarian emergency, unfortunately, the current system seems unwilling or unable to fulfil this task.
Monday, 26 November 2007
Thursday, 15 November 2007
UAVs and UCVs: Removing the human element?
A recruitment advert for the UK army has caught my eye recently. The advert (available at www.armyjobs.mod.uk) depicts an exercise in which a young soldier pilots an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on a reconnaissance mission in support of a troop of infantry soldiers. What initially caught my eye was the controller the young soldier is using to guide the UAV. Anyone familiar with modern games consoles will notice that the controller bears a striking resemblance to that used with the Microsoft X-Box.
I heard many years ago that those engaged in developing new weapons systems were considering modelling control systems on those used with popular games consoles. The idea behind the plan (as I understand it) was that young men who have spent many years playing on games consoles have motor skills and coordination relating to the particular control systems of the consoles that take years to develop. Thus, designing the control systems of new weapons systems in this way shortens the time it takes to train young soldiers in the levels of proficiency required for effective operation.
When considered philosophically, this opens up a debate as to the ethics of the level of exposure to the reality of combat (with all its blood and gore) that young soldiers experience. In sum; is it right to make modern warfare feel more like a game to young soldiers? Extrapolating from this, one reaches the question of unmanned military vehicles in general, in particular unmanned combat vehicles (UCVs), and whether reducing the human element of decision making in military operations risks removing the capability of commanders to ensure that an element of ethics is included in such decision making.
The development and deployment of UAVs is now fairly advanced. This is in part boosted by the fact that UAVs are recognised as having uses beyond the military, with the trade association UAVS (www.uavsuk.com) boasting uses from oceanographic monitoring to herd management. The (somewhat natural) progression from UAVs being pursued by the arms industry currently, however, takes unmanned vehicles from reconnaissance to deadly combat, raising a whole new spectrum of ethical questions.
The only current deployments of armed UCVs (that I know of) consist of unmanned bomb disposal vehicles fitted with an automatic weapon and currently deployed in Iraq. Such vehicles are unlikely to be the primary weapon in a given combat situation as their current primary purpose is bomb disposal (with potential for other future uses such a rescuing injured soldiers from the line of fire). Crucially, the currently deployed unmanned systems have no autonomy whatsoever, with all commands coming from a human source. Planned future deployments of different vehicles, however, suggest that the US and UK militaries intend to press ahead with robotic combat of a more autonomous and direct form.
The two most interesting (and potentially disturbing) systems currently in development are BAE System's Black Knight (for the US military) and Taranis (for the UK military) programmes. Black Knight is in the testing stage of development and is a remote controlled armoured vehicle, mounted with a machine gun, which is capable of autonomous decision making with regards movement and information gathering, but which requires a human order to fire its weapon. The Taranis project has just begun and aims to deliver research that will make possible the aim of an unmanned fighter-bomber aircraft, capable of hitting targets on the ground and defending itself in the air.
My initial concerns about these two projects, and their implications, regard (as mentioned above) the potentially negative effect unmanned combat has on the likelihood of effective ethical decision making in combat situations. Whilst the Black Knight requires a human order to fire, distancing soldiers from the arena of combat will surely reduce their ability to assess a situation effectively. I fail to see how a robotic vehicle can relay enough information to soldiers to fully replicate the decision-making environment of being fully involved in the theatre of combat. Of course, it may be that removing the operator from the immediate theatre of combat will allow for calmer and more reasoned decision-making. However, I am concerned that weapons development undertaken under the political pressure of relatively large-scale casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan will not sufficiently take into account the imperative that civilian lives must be given precedence over those of professional soldiers.
My concerns over the Taranis project differ slightly. While I recognise that there may be little difference in targeting between a mission where a manned aircraft is sent to destroy a pre-determined strategic target and one where an unmanned aircraft is sent to destroy a pre-determined strategic target, I still have two concerns. Firstly, I am reminded of an anecdote (which I must note I never managed to independently verify) that was relayed to me whilst in the city of Nablus in the West Bank. On a visit to a pile of rubble that used to be a Palestinian Authority building, I was told that the Israeli pilot who's ordinance destroyed the building was jailed by a military tribunal for refusing to drop a second bomb on the site through fear of killing members of a crowd of civilians that had gathered to survey the wreckage. Presuming this incident did happen, would an unmanned aircraft simply have bombed the target a second time in ignorance of the gathered crowd? Secondly, if the Taranis project leads to a successful deployment, how tempted will military commanders be to deploy such devices in close-quarters tactical combat situations, without predetermined targets, which are more much more dangerous for pilots and therefore present a better opportunity to protect UK military personnel?
To conclude, it is important to recognise that there is a more general concern that should be aired with regards the development of new weapons systems of any type. Due in part to issues of confidentially with regards new weapons systems, there is very little democratic over-sight in the development stages. The result is that by the time oversight is made easier multiple millions have been spent, thus making the decision to scrap a weapons system due to ethical concerns politically very difficult.
I heard many years ago that those engaged in developing new weapons systems were considering modelling control systems on those used with popular games consoles. The idea behind the plan (as I understand it) was that young men who have spent many years playing on games consoles have motor skills and coordination relating to the particular control systems of the consoles that take years to develop. Thus, designing the control systems of new weapons systems in this way shortens the time it takes to train young soldiers in the levels of proficiency required for effective operation.
When considered philosophically, this opens up a debate as to the ethics of the level of exposure to the reality of combat (with all its blood and gore) that young soldiers experience. In sum; is it right to make modern warfare feel more like a game to young soldiers? Extrapolating from this, one reaches the question of unmanned military vehicles in general, in particular unmanned combat vehicles (UCVs), and whether reducing the human element of decision making in military operations risks removing the capability of commanders to ensure that an element of ethics is included in such decision making.
The development and deployment of UAVs is now fairly advanced. This is in part boosted by the fact that UAVs are recognised as having uses beyond the military, with the trade association UAVS (www.uavsuk.com) boasting uses from oceanographic monitoring to herd management. The (somewhat natural) progression from UAVs being pursued by the arms industry currently, however, takes unmanned vehicles from reconnaissance to deadly combat, raising a whole new spectrum of ethical questions.
The only current deployments of armed UCVs (that I know of) consist of unmanned bomb disposal vehicles fitted with an automatic weapon and currently deployed in Iraq. Such vehicles are unlikely to be the primary weapon in a given combat situation as their current primary purpose is bomb disposal (with potential for other future uses such a rescuing injured soldiers from the line of fire). Crucially, the currently deployed unmanned systems have no autonomy whatsoever, with all commands coming from a human source. Planned future deployments of different vehicles, however, suggest that the US and UK militaries intend to press ahead with robotic combat of a more autonomous and direct form.
The two most interesting (and potentially disturbing) systems currently in development are BAE System's Black Knight (for the US military) and Taranis (for the UK military) programmes. Black Knight is in the testing stage of development and is a remote controlled armoured vehicle, mounted with a machine gun, which is capable of autonomous decision making with regards movement and information gathering, but which requires a human order to fire its weapon. The Taranis project has just begun and aims to deliver research that will make possible the aim of an unmanned fighter-bomber aircraft, capable of hitting targets on the ground and defending itself in the air.
My initial concerns about these two projects, and their implications, regard (as mentioned above) the potentially negative effect unmanned combat has on the likelihood of effective ethical decision making in combat situations. Whilst the Black Knight requires a human order to fire, distancing soldiers from the arena of combat will surely reduce their ability to assess a situation effectively. I fail to see how a robotic vehicle can relay enough information to soldiers to fully replicate the decision-making environment of being fully involved in the theatre of combat. Of course, it may be that removing the operator from the immediate theatre of combat will allow for calmer and more reasoned decision-making. However, I am concerned that weapons development undertaken under the political pressure of relatively large-scale casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan will not sufficiently take into account the imperative that civilian lives must be given precedence over those of professional soldiers.
My concerns over the Taranis project differ slightly. While I recognise that there may be little difference in targeting between a mission where a manned aircraft is sent to destroy a pre-determined strategic target and one where an unmanned aircraft is sent to destroy a pre-determined strategic target, I still have two concerns. Firstly, I am reminded of an anecdote (which I must note I never managed to independently verify) that was relayed to me whilst in the city of Nablus in the West Bank. On a visit to a pile of rubble that used to be a Palestinian Authority building, I was told that the Israeli pilot who's ordinance destroyed the building was jailed by a military tribunal for refusing to drop a second bomb on the site through fear of killing members of a crowd of civilians that had gathered to survey the wreckage. Presuming this incident did happen, would an unmanned aircraft simply have bombed the target a second time in ignorance of the gathered crowd? Secondly, if the Taranis project leads to a successful deployment, how tempted will military commanders be to deploy such devices in close-quarters tactical combat situations, without predetermined targets, which are more much more dangerous for pilots and therefore present a better opportunity to protect UK military personnel?
To conclude, it is important to recognise that there is a more general concern that should be aired with regards the development of new weapons systems of any type. Due in part to issues of confidentially with regards new weapons systems, there is very little democratic over-sight in the development stages. The result is that by the time oversight is made easier multiple millions have been spent, thus making the decision to scrap a weapons system due to ethical concerns politically very difficult.
Apologies for absence!
Just a quick note to say that Defending Ethics is still in publication despite there having been no new posts for two weeks! I've been a bit busy with my new role at Republic (http://www.republic.org.uk/), working on the future expansion of Defending Ethics, and taking a few days holiday in Berlin. Two new bloggers are in the pipeline (Damien Percy on Environmental and Energy Security and Shawn Bourdages on NATO's mission in Afghanistan), and I am planning to post at least three times before the end of the month. If anyone else out there is interested in contributing, please contact me using the e-mail link or by posting a comment on this blog.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention: Criminality among peacekeepers
Earlier this year, the UN released a report which accused Pakistani peacekeepers serving with the UN's biggest current peacekeeping mission, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), of collaborating with local militias involved in the illegal trade in Gold. Reading this report reminded me of previous cases of criminality among peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast and Kosovo. In the extraordinary Ivory Coast case, French peacekeepers were eventually convicted by a French military court of stealing the equivalent of around $400,000 from a bank which they were supposed to be protecting. In Kosovo, peacekeepers and other members of the international administration that descended on Kosovo in the aftermath of NATO's 1999 operation against Serb forces in the province were accused of fuelling an explosion in the illegal trafficking of young women and girls to the areas where international personnel were based to work as prostitutes in bars, nightclubs and brothels.
In most cases, peacekeepers and other international personnel are not subject to the normal legal processes of the places in which they serve, and in some cases they escape prosecution in their home country for the crimes they commit. The UN's response to this problem has been to develop a Memorandum of Understanding that peacekeepers should be held accountable for their crimes by their home governments, along with repeated references by UN officials to the need for better training and improvements in management. Such efforts, however, are surely never going to be a substitute for a clear and consistent UN-wide and binding agreement on what should be done with those peacekeepers who choose to default from their responsibility to protect in such a horrific manner.
The problems with this idea are fairly clear; firstly, the UN does not have an active involvement in all of the world's peacekeeping operations. Regional organisations are increasingly launching their own operations (albeit, in some cases, with an element of UN involvement) and unilateral operations are sometimes launched by sovereign states in response to a request from an ally or a state with which their are significant cultural, historical and economic ties. Secondly, certain sovereign states (most notably the more powerful ones) would be extremely reluctant to submit their personnel to UN prosecution due to their actions whilst on a mission.
Whilst these problems exist, they do not negate the necessity of efforts to address this issue. The reputation of peacekeeping and state-building is damaged when these incidents take place, allowing those such as President Bashir of Sudan to make the infuriating claim that it is such problems that are preventing him from allowing the deployment of UN troops. The importance of ensuring this issue is resolved should spur on the world's diplomats to find solutions to the problems it presents.
In most cases, peacekeepers and other international personnel are not subject to the normal legal processes of the places in which they serve, and in some cases they escape prosecution in their home country for the crimes they commit. The UN's response to this problem has been to develop a Memorandum of Understanding that peacekeepers should be held accountable for their crimes by their home governments, along with repeated references by UN officials to the need for better training and improvements in management. Such efforts, however, are surely never going to be a substitute for a clear and consistent UN-wide and binding agreement on what should be done with those peacekeepers who choose to default from their responsibility to protect in such a horrific manner.
The problems with this idea are fairly clear; firstly, the UN does not have an active involvement in all of the world's peacekeeping operations. Regional organisations are increasingly launching their own operations (albeit, in some cases, with an element of UN involvement) and unilateral operations are sometimes launched by sovereign states in response to a request from an ally or a state with which their are significant cultural, historical and economic ties. Secondly, certain sovereign states (most notably the more powerful ones) would be extremely reluctant to submit their personnel to UN prosecution due to their actions whilst on a mission.
Whilst these problems exist, they do not negate the necessity of efforts to address this issue. The reputation of peacekeeping and state-building is damaged when these incidents take place, allowing those such as President Bashir of Sudan to make the infuriating claim that it is such problems that are preventing him from allowing the deployment of UN troops. The importance of ensuring this issue is resolved should spur on the world's diplomats to find solutions to the problems it presents.
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
The ethics of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention, part 3: The legacy of Lt-Gen. Romeo Dallaire
On the 20th of June, 2000, 5 days before his 54th birthday, Lt-Gen. Romeo Dallaire was found collapsed on a park bench in Quebec, having been forced into a coma by a cocktail of anti-depressants and alcohol. The incident was the lowest point in the life of a man whose distinguished military career had ended 2 months earlier with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dallaire had become the world's most high-profile casualty of UN peacekeeping.
As a student of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention, Dallaire's name has been familiar to me for a long time, if only as a reminder of just how bad things became for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) in the early and mid-1990s. It was with a certain academic and professional excitement, then, that I followed a link to an open letter from Dallaire that had been published in the Guardian newspaper (UK) and addressed to the commander of the AU-UN forces in Darfur, the Nigerian General Agwai (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/romeo_dallaire/2007/09/a_daunting_mandate.html).
The contents of the letter were, in all honesty, very satisfying to me in the sense that much of what Dallaire had to say concurred with the concerns that myself and my colleagues have been expressing for many months about the proposed AU-UN hybrid force. Self-congratulation, however, is not the focus of this post! What was really interesting, and somewhat chilling, was the final sentence of the last paragraph of the letter. "Bear in mind that whoever fails you will, in the end, be the most active in blaming you for whatever goes wrong." It seems that the world has got to the stage, through the optimism following the collapse of the Communist Bloc, through the disastrous miscalculation of Somalia, past the failure to protect civilians in Rwanda and Bosnia, and to a situation where the major military powers will only operate peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention through the EU or NATO and anyone who accepts a command role in a major UN operation is widely and immediately considered a poor fool by his contemporaries and other interested individuals.
There are those who would say that UN peacekeeping was a fatally flawed project from the outset, that the UN is inherently incapable of being the world's policeman in cases of conflict and major human rights abuses. There are others who would say that the UN should know its limits and concentrate on the easier and less risky end of the spectrum of peace support operations and interventions. My personal opinion is that the ideal of the UNDPKO promoted at the end of the Cold War was never given a fair chance of being realised, and that it could of worked, although now it is most likely beyond repair. As an individual who believes passionately in the responsibility to protect, this presents the question........Bearing in mind the realities of the modern international system, what system is it possible to create which would ensure the proper and appropriate protection of civilians, whilst paying due attention to sovereignty and the rule of law?
It is this question which I now intend to focus my posts on for the foreseeable future. If there is in fact anyone out there who reads this blog, please use the 'comment' facility to make your opinions heard on this subject. Furthermore, as I will be focusing solely on the issue of the next generation of peace support operations and humanitarian interventions, there will no-doubt be major issues of ethics in defence and security policy that will no longer be covered. As a result, I intend to invite others to post on this blog with regards such issues. A friend and colleague will shortly begin posting on environmental issues and energy security, but others will be required to cover areas such as arms control, the war on terror, migration, etc. If you feel you have something to offer in one of these areas and have the time to produce between 500 and 1500 words a week, please contact me at weatherhead.jamie@googlemail.com.
As a student of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention, Dallaire's name has been familiar to me for a long time, if only as a reminder of just how bad things became for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) in the early and mid-1990s. It was with a certain academic and professional excitement, then, that I followed a link to an open letter from Dallaire that had been published in the Guardian newspaper (UK) and addressed to the commander of the AU-UN forces in Darfur, the Nigerian General Agwai (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/romeo_dallaire/2007/09/a_daunting_mandate.html).
The contents of the letter were, in all honesty, very satisfying to me in the sense that much of what Dallaire had to say concurred with the concerns that myself and my colleagues have been expressing for many months about the proposed AU-UN hybrid force. Self-congratulation, however, is not the focus of this post! What was really interesting, and somewhat chilling, was the final sentence of the last paragraph of the letter. "Bear in mind that whoever fails you will, in the end, be the most active in blaming you for whatever goes wrong." It seems that the world has got to the stage, through the optimism following the collapse of the Communist Bloc, through the disastrous miscalculation of Somalia, past the failure to protect civilians in Rwanda and Bosnia, and to a situation where the major military powers will only operate peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention through the EU or NATO and anyone who accepts a command role in a major UN operation is widely and immediately considered a poor fool by his contemporaries and other interested individuals.
There are those who would say that UN peacekeeping was a fatally flawed project from the outset, that the UN is inherently incapable of being the world's policeman in cases of conflict and major human rights abuses. There are others who would say that the UN should know its limits and concentrate on the easier and less risky end of the spectrum of peace support operations and interventions. My personal opinion is that the ideal of the UNDPKO promoted at the end of the Cold War was never given a fair chance of being realised, and that it could of worked, although now it is most likely beyond repair. As an individual who believes passionately in the responsibility to protect, this presents the question........Bearing in mind the realities of the modern international system, what system is it possible to create which would ensure the proper and appropriate protection of civilians, whilst paying due attention to sovereignty and the rule of law?
It is this question which I now intend to focus my posts on for the foreseeable future. If there is in fact anyone out there who reads this blog, please use the 'comment' facility to make your opinions heard on this subject. Furthermore, as I will be focusing solely on the issue of the next generation of peace support operations and humanitarian interventions, there will no-doubt be major issues of ethics in defence and security policy that will no longer be covered. As a result, I intend to invite others to post on this blog with regards such issues. A friend and colleague will shortly begin posting on environmental issues and energy security, but others will be required to cover areas such as arms control, the war on terror, migration, etc. If you feel you have something to offer in one of these areas and have the time to produce between 500 and 1500 words a week, please contact me at weatherhead.jamie@googlemail.com.
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Lebanon 2006: Proxy war returns?
On the 12th July 2006, Hezbollah fighters based in Lebanon attacked two Israeli military vehicles patrolling the Israeli Lebanon border, killing three and capturing two. The resulting conflict killed in excess of 1000 civilians, turning southern Lebanon into one large pile of rubble and reigniting the political turbulence that many hoped had left with the Syrians. Both the US and UK were criticised during and after the conflict for not demanding that Israel pursue a ceasefire, and indeed for supplying Israel with the means to continue. Israel itself was condemned for tactics which were seen as unnecessarily dangerous for civilians (including the widespread use of cluster munitions in heavily populated areas). A full analysis of the ethical or unethical actions of the involved parties could (and most probably will) fill several books. What is of interest and concern to me, for the purposes of this post, is that this conflict may have been the first true proxy war since the fall of the Berlin wall.
During and after the conflict, Israel and its Western allies went to great lengths to expose the links between their regional enemies Iran and Syria, and their immediate enemy Hezbollah. Rockets fired by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon into Israel (some reaching as far south as Haifa) were repeatedly identified as supplied by their regional foes. Hezbollah, for their part, condemned Israel's western backers in 'crimes' against the civilians of Southern Lebanon. Interestingly, the US and UK did not seek to distance themselves from the actions of Israel, and Iran and Syria did not make much effort to deny links between themselves and Hezbollah. Both the US-UK and Iran-Syria seemed essentially happy to be associated with the fight for Southern Lebanon, effectively making the conflict as much a proxy war as Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan (after the Soviet invasion) and the countless wars in Africa and South America which engaged the Cold War powers.
Proxy war, for me, is an activity of particular moral cowardice. For a government to be committed to a conflict to the extent that they believe that it is worth the deaths of not only combatants, but innocent civilians, but to not actually commit the lives of any of its own citizens is grotesquely immoral. Also, for a government, as with the UK government, to refuse to join widespread condemnation of the actions of an ally, whilst also stopping short of openly defending that allies actions, adds another layer of cowardice. Too often governments (both democratic and autocratic, liberal and oppressive) consider conflicts in distant lands in terms of political manoeuvring and realist strategising, all too easily forgetting that under all widely excepted ethical and moral codes (religious or otherwise) lives of all civilians sit on an equal plane. Proxy war allows decision makers to forget that a child in the Middle East feels fear and pain in just the same way as one in the West. The return of proxy war should be opposed by all humans of conscience, for any repeat will shame us all.
During and after the conflict, Israel and its Western allies went to great lengths to expose the links between their regional enemies Iran and Syria, and their immediate enemy Hezbollah. Rockets fired by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon into Israel (some reaching as far south as Haifa) were repeatedly identified as supplied by their regional foes. Hezbollah, for their part, condemned Israel's western backers in 'crimes' against the civilians of Southern Lebanon. Interestingly, the US and UK did not seek to distance themselves from the actions of Israel, and Iran and Syria did not make much effort to deny links between themselves and Hezbollah. Both the US-UK and Iran-Syria seemed essentially happy to be associated with the fight for Southern Lebanon, effectively making the conflict as much a proxy war as Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan (after the Soviet invasion) and the countless wars in Africa and South America which engaged the Cold War powers.
Proxy war, for me, is an activity of particular moral cowardice. For a government to be committed to a conflict to the extent that they believe that it is worth the deaths of not only combatants, but innocent civilians, but to not actually commit the lives of any of its own citizens is grotesquely immoral. Also, for a government, as with the UK government, to refuse to join widespread condemnation of the actions of an ally, whilst also stopping short of openly defending that allies actions, adds another layer of cowardice. Too often governments (both democratic and autocratic, liberal and oppressive) consider conflicts in distant lands in terms of political manoeuvring and realist strategising, all too easily forgetting that under all widely excepted ethical and moral codes (religious or otherwise) lives of all civilians sit on an equal plane. Proxy war allows decision makers to forget that a child in the Middle East feels fear and pain in just the same way as one in the West. The return of proxy war should be opposed by all humans of conscience, for any repeat will shame us all.
Monday, 24 September 2007
Iraq, Part 2: What are our chances of success?
A friend who has visited Iraq since the fall of Saddam told me recently that he believed there were now 'no good options' remaining for either coalition forces or the civilian population. His best suggestion was a national plebiscite on democracy and national unity intended to promote the legitimacy of the current government. I'm not altogether convinced of the idea as I can't see it being much more than a focal point for an explosion of extremist violence, and I'm not sure the Shias and Kurds would even vote for national unity in a free and fair poll. It did, however, get me thinking about what could be done to produce positive outcomes in Iraq.
It seems to me that there are two avenues to a better situation for Iraq's civilians which should be focused on. Neither are new ideas but, for a variety of reasons, neither have been sufficiently pursued. Firstly, the success of the alliance with tribal leaders in Anbar Province has been regularly promoted by the US as a sign of increasing success. In reality, apart from in small pockets of Basra and Baghdad, the success of the tribal strategy has failed to materialise outside of Anbar. Coalition commanders and their political masters should focus efforts on identifying further potential alliances within the tribal structures of Iraq. This would be a sensitive issue for Washington as tribal structures do not fit into the model of Western liberal democracy that the neo-conservatives seek to impose, but if the basic security of Iraq's civilians is a primary focus, then this sacrifice seems necessary. Furthermore, the historical tribal hierarchies potentially present a model closer to Western ideas of democracy than would likely emerge if extremist religious and ethnic militias achieve success.
Secondly, real and sensible consideration must be given to the opinions and influence of other regional powers. This strategy too has its complications, namely that two of the regional powers that are crucial are Iran and Syria, countries that any US administration would struggle to deal with. But the question must be asked, can the US seriously believe that a US-friendly Iraq can be maintained if Iran and Syria remain hostile to its existence? Also, who's interests is hostility towards Iran and Syria fulfilling? Surely, the interests of the Iraqi civilian population should be paramount, otherwise what does that say about the USA's attitude towards Iraq's sovereignty? I as much as anyone am suspicious of the intentions of Syria and Iran towards Iraq, and certainly would not say, at this stage, that they desire a strong and unified Iraq to be the outcome of the current crisis. However, dialogue should be initiated whenever it is at all possible. It may be possible to begin with isolated incidences of mutual interest or humanity (remember US assistance following the earthquake in Bam, Iran in December 2006?)in order to build trust, moving on to more complex and complicated issues at a later stage.
I am by no means an expert on Iraq or the middle east, and there will be better informed analysts addressing this question, but I think it is possible to identify some important underlying themes emerging from my posts on Iraq so far. Firstly, the right thing for Iraq's civilians does not necessarily fit in with what US politicians consider to be national interest, but then continuing 'Quagmire' is certainly not in the US interest. Secondly, much of what US politicians consider to be their national interest often seems to be based more on pride and not losing face than skilled security and defence analysis. Thirdly, and crucially, that the US may in fact be scared of democracy in the middle east (especially following the rise of Hamas in Gaza) and could be returning to the Kissinger doctrine of installing that government that can best be controlled, rather than that which best represents that interests of the civilian population.
It seems to me that there are two avenues to a better situation for Iraq's civilians which should be focused on. Neither are new ideas but, for a variety of reasons, neither have been sufficiently pursued. Firstly, the success of the alliance with tribal leaders in Anbar Province has been regularly promoted by the US as a sign of increasing success. In reality, apart from in small pockets of Basra and Baghdad, the success of the tribal strategy has failed to materialise outside of Anbar. Coalition commanders and their political masters should focus efforts on identifying further potential alliances within the tribal structures of Iraq. This would be a sensitive issue for Washington as tribal structures do not fit into the model of Western liberal democracy that the neo-conservatives seek to impose, but if the basic security of Iraq's civilians is a primary focus, then this sacrifice seems necessary. Furthermore, the historical tribal hierarchies potentially present a model closer to Western ideas of democracy than would likely emerge if extremist religious and ethnic militias achieve success.
Secondly, real and sensible consideration must be given to the opinions and influence of other regional powers. This strategy too has its complications, namely that two of the regional powers that are crucial are Iran and Syria, countries that any US administration would struggle to deal with. But the question must be asked, can the US seriously believe that a US-friendly Iraq can be maintained if Iran and Syria remain hostile to its existence? Also, who's interests is hostility towards Iran and Syria fulfilling? Surely, the interests of the Iraqi civilian population should be paramount, otherwise what does that say about the USA's attitude towards Iraq's sovereignty? I as much as anyone am suspicious of the intentions of Syria and Iran towards Iraq, and certainly would not say, at this stage, that they desire a strong and unified Iraq to be the outcome of the current crisis. However, dialogue should be initiated whenever it is at all possible. It may be possible to begin with isolated incidences of mutual interest or humanity (remember US assistance following the earthquake in Bam, Iran in December 2006?)in order to build trust, moving on to more complex and complicated issues at a later stage.
I am by no means an expert on Iraq or the middle east, and there will be better informed analysts addressing this question, but I think it is possible to identify some important underlying themes emerging from my posts on Iraq so far. Firstly, the right thing for Iraq's civilians does not necessarily fit in with what US politicians consider to be national interest, but then continuing 'Quagmire' is certainly not in the US interest. Secondly, much of what US politicians consider to be their national interest often seems to be based more on pride and not losing face than skilled security and defence analysis. Thirdly, and crucially, that the US may in fact be scared of democracy in the middle east (especially following the rise of Hamas in Gaza) and could be returning to the Kissinger doctrine of installing that government that can best be controlled, rather than that which best represents that interests of the civilian population.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Iraq, Part 1: The Petraeus Report and the ethics of fighting a losing battle
Condemned as politically partial and misleading by the Democrats and welcomed as a justification of their strategy by the Bush administration, this week's Petraeus Report has also received mixed review in the UK. Newspapers on the left-wing of the political spectrum, such as the Guardian (12-9-07), noted that life in Baghdad is still essentially a living hell, with those neighbourhoods experiencing peace having achieved it through ethnic-cleansing. Meanwhile, newspapers on the right-wing of the political spectrum, such as the Telegraph (12-9-07), noted the success of alliances with tribal leaders in Anbar province (and other smaller areas) and the necessity of patience in Petraeus' doctrine on counterinsurgency. My personal feelings on the surge are that its success or failure remains to be seen and that, should it be successful, there should not be too much backslapping on behalf of the coalition. Rather, the success or failure of the surge should be judged in the context of the massive humanitarian tragedy in Iraq that has ensued following the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. One disturbing statistic, among many, is that between 71,000 and 79,000 civilians have been killed by violence alone in Iraq since the invasion (Iraq Body Count, www.iraqbodycount.org).
Moving on to the focus of this post, the idea is to make a brief assessment of the pros and cons of both withdrawing from Iraq at first opportunity and staying full-strength in Iraq for the foreseeable future, with (as always) a perspective mainly based in ethics. This piece will necessarily be written based on some assumptions that I simply do not have time to prove or disprove at this stage. Essentially, Iraq is being used as a test case, but since the situation hasn't played itself out yet these assumptions will have to be made. Although it may seem backwards, I think it would be more interesting to discuss my beliefs on the probability of and possibilities for success in this mission in part 2 of this series. So, here are the presumptions;
1) That the coalition is failing in Iraq to provide even the most basic security for civilians, and is destined to continue to fail in the short to medium term.
2) That if the coalition forces left Iraq tomorrow a full-scale civil war would ensue, leading to the break-up of Iraq into at least three parts, each governed by a less than desirable regime.
3) That the current situation in Iraq is of the coalition's making, in that it would not be the case had the original invasion not taken place in 2003
For no particular reason, I'll start with the arguments for withdrawal.
1) That 1000s of coalition soldiers have already died, and many more will die if we continue the fight. Military families are starting to turn against the war and no more of 'our boys' should have to die for a cause who's link with national security was mainly based on WMDs that were never found
2) That the war is costing both the UK and US governments billions that could be better spent on domestic and other projects that would be of much greater benefit to their citizens lives
3) That the people of Iraq resent the presence of coalition forces, and such have a right to see them leave
4) That the main problem in Iraq is not the actions of the coalition governments and forces, but the actions of Iraqi government ministers that exacerbate the conflict through their connections to militias and death squads
5) That the main problem in Iraq is not the actions of the coalition governments and forces, but the actions of other regional governments such as Iran and Syria who seek to exacerbate the conflict for their own gain
6) That the coalition presence makes things worse, not better
Of these arguments, I feel the weakest, in terms of ethics, are 1) and 2), with the strongest being 3) and 6). Starting with the weakest, that over 4,000 coalition soldiers have died in Iraq since the invasion is tragic in light of the failure to find any WMDs, evidence of pre-invasion al-Qaeda activity in Iraq and the absence of an immediate humanitarian emergency for which Saddam Hussein could be blamed. However, nearly 20 times more Iraqi civilians than coalition soldiers have died, and the number which would die if the coalition were to stay on should surely be assessed against the number likely to die if they withdraw. The matter of cost would need to follow a similar calculation, with the likely financial and security costs of withdrawal balanced against those of staying on.
Moving onto the stronger arguments; if it could, indeed, be convincingly argued that the Iraqi civilian population would experience greater security, a more hospitable humanitarian environment and more stringent observance of their rights upon the withdrawal of coalition forces, then that would constitute a hugely compelling argument for withdrawal. The more simplistic issue of whether the Iraqi population 'want' the coalition to withdraw, paradoxically, presents a more complex question. In terms of practicality, in the fires of Baghdad it would surely be difficult to conduct an adequate plebiscite on withdrawal. However, the question remains, would a simple majority (e.g. 52-40) be sufficient to prompt a legitimate call for withdrawal, or would something more overwhelming (e.g. 80-20) be required to convince coalition politicians and experts that their opinions on withdrawal have been overruled by democracy?
The main arguments for remaining full-strength in Iraq for the near future would be as follows:
1) The coalition created the anarchic situation in Iraq, thus the coalition has a responsibility to fix it
2) Rebuilding states typically takes in excess of a decade, huge progress should not be expected after only 4 years
3) The loss of on average 2.5 professional coalition soldiers per day is nothing when compared to the average of 50 civilians per day, and the (to be expected) even greater loss of civilians after withdrawal
4) The political and security implications of a collapsed state in the Middle East, which could potentially take on an Islamic fundamentalist character, are too disastrous to contemplate allowing. Iraq post-withdrawal could actually become the al-Qaeda stronghold that the Bush administration always wanted us to believe that it already was
5) Iran has already been strengthened by the weakening of its neighbour and regional enemy, along with being emboldened by 'the Great Satan' being too tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to confront President Ahmadinejad militarily.
Of these arguments, 2) and 3) strike me as the strongest from the perspective of ethical defence and security policy, while 4) and 5) would likely hold the most weight in coalition capitals. Number 1) would likely appeal to many people concerned with an ethical approach, but such a simplistic 'Its your mess so fix it' attitude, almost completely devoid of any level of analysis, holds little place in intelligent discourse on this subject. The strength I attribute to 3) lies in my personal opinions on the professional soldier and the responsibility to protect (as outlined in previous posts). As for the argument relating to the nature of state-building, I don't feel this is aired enough in the endless debates about what to do with Iraq, despite it being well-founded in recent history (think Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon). The obvious counter-argument would be that, far from simply being slow to develop, the state-building effort in Iraq has completely failed, making the situation progressively worse. As for arguments relating to national and regional security, I think these are destined, rightly or wrongly, to be the ones that count. Advocates of an ethical approach to these issues, however, would do well to recognise that ethical approaches and more traditional national security approaches are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, there is little shame in promoting an argument based on national security in order to achieve an outcome based on ethical considerations.
Moving on to the focus of this post, the idea is to make a brief assessment of the pros and cons of both withdrawing from Iraq at first opportunity and staying full-strength in Iraq for the foreseeable future, with (as always) a perspective mainly based in ethics. This piece will necessarily be written based on some assumptions that I simply do not have time to prove or disprove at this stage. Essentially, Iraq is being used as a test case, but since the situation hasn't played itself out yet these assumptions will have to be made. Although it may seem backwards, I think it would be more interesting to discuss my beliefs on the probability of and possibilities for success in this mission in part 2 of this series. So, here are the presumptions;
1) That the coalition is failing in Iraq to provide even the most basic security for civilians, and is destined to continue to fail in the short to medium term.
2) That if the coalition forces left Iraq tomorrow a full-scale civil war would ensue, leading to the break-up of Iraq into at least three parts, each governed by a less than desirable regime.
3) That the current situation in Iraq is of the coalition's making, in that it would not be the case had the original invasion not taken place in 2003
For no particular reason, I'll start with the arguments for withdrawal.
1) That 1000s of coalition soldiers have already died, and many more will die if we continue the fight. Military families are starting to turn against the war and no more of 'our boys' should have to die for a cause who's link with national security was mainly based on WMDs that were never found
2) That the war is costing both the UK and US governments billions that could be better spent on domestic and other projects that would be of much greater benefit to their citizens lives
3) That the people of Iraq resent the presence of coalition forces, and such have a right to see them leave
4) That the main problem in Iraq is not the actions of the coalition governments and forces, but the actions of Iraqi government ministers that exacerbate the conflict through their connections to militias and death squads
5) That the main problem in Iraq is not the actions of the coalition governments and forces, but the actions of other regional governments such as Iran and Syria who seek to exacerbate the conflict for their own gain
6) That the coalition presence makes things worse, not better
Of these arguments, I feel the weakest, in terms of ethics, are 1) and 2), with the strongest being 3) and 6). Starting with the weakest, that over 4,000 coalition soldiers have died in Iraq since the invasion is tragic in light of the failure to find any WMDs, evidence of pre-invasion al-Qaeda activity in Iraq and the absence of an immediate humanitarian emergency for which Saddam Hussein could be blamed. However, nearly 20 times more Iraqi civilians than coalition soldiers have died, and the number which would die if the coalition were to stay on should surely be assessed against the number likely to die if they withdraw. The matter of cost would need to follow a similar calculation, with the likely financial and security costs of withdrawal balanced against those of staying on.
Moving onto the stronger arguments; if it could, indeed, be convincingly argued that the Iraqi civilian population would experience greater security, a more hospitable humanitarian environment and more stringent observance of their rights upon the withdrawal of coalition forces, then that would constitute a hugely compelling argument for withdrawal. The more simplistic issue of whether the Iraqi population 'want' the coalition to withdraw, paradoxically, presents a more complex question. In terms of practicality, in the fires of Baghdad it would surely be difficult to conduct an adequate plebiscite on withdrawal. However, the question remains, would a simple majority (e.g. 52-40) be sufficient to prompt a legitimate call for withdrawal, or would something more overwhelming (e.g. 80-20) be required to convince coalition politicians and experts that their opinions on withdrawal have been overruled by democracy?
The main arguments for remaining full-strength in Iraq for the near future would be as follows:
1) The coalition created the anarchic situation in Iraq, thus the coalition has a responsibility to fix it
2) Rebuilding states typically takes in excess of a decade, huge progress should not be expected after only 4 years
3) The loss of on average 2.5 professional coalition soldiers per day is nothing when compared to the average of 50 civilians per day, and the (to be expected) even greater loss of civilians after withdrawal
4) The political and security implications of a collapsed state in the Middle East, which could potentially take on an Islamic fundamentalist character, are too disastrous to contemplate allowing. Iraq post-withdrawal could actually become the al-Qaeda stronghold that the Bush administration always wanted us to believe that it already was
5) Iran has already been strengthened by the weakening of its neighbour and regional enemy, along with being emboldened by 'the Great Satan' being too tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to confront President Ahmadinejad militarily.
Of these arguments, 2) and 3) strike me as the strongest from the perspective of ethical defence and security policy, while 4) and 5) would likely hold the most weight in coalition capitals. Number 1) would likely appeal to many people concerned with an ethical approach, but such a simplistic 'Its your mess so fix it' attitude, almost completely devoid of any level of analysis, holds little place in intelligent discourse on this subject. The strength I attribute to 3) lies in my personal opinions on the professional soldier and the responsibility to protect (as outlined in previous posts). As for the argument relating to the nature of state-building, I don't feel this is aired enough in the endless debates about what to do with Iraq, despite it being well-founded in recent history (think Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon). The obvious counter-argument would be that, far from simply being slow to develop, the state-building effort in Iraq has completely failed, making the situation progressively worse. As for arguments relating to national and regional security, I think these are destined, rightly or wrongly, to be the ones that count. Advocates of an ethical approach to these issues, however, would do well to recognise that ethical approaches and more traditional national security approaches are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, there is little shame in promoting an argument based on national security in order to achieve an outcome based on ethical considerations.
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
The ethics of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention (Part 2: An answer to one of my critics)
While considering how to continue this series about peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention I recalled two stories about US engagement in the 1990s wars in the Balkans. The first was the story of how the Croat-Bosniac alliance was held together, despite huge tensions between the two communities after the battle for Mostar. As the story goes, the US and her European allies gave the Bosniac and Croat leaders a simple choice, either you join forces and unite against the Serbs, or we leave you to your fate. A similar situation is supposed to have arisen during the Kosovo conflict, with the Kosovan Albanian leaders at Rambouillet being told that they would sign the agreement, or they would get no assistance. I suspect that there was an element of bluff in both these cases, as I can't imagine the EC/EU or the US would have allowed the continuation of a brutal civil war, with all the negative security consequences that would go along with it, to have continued any longer regardless of the attitude of any of the belligerent parties.
This topic has particular resonance for me as the opinions being put forward by Waging Peace on the subject of Darfur have led to us being criticised for as part of the 'something must be done brigade'. One critic of proponents of intervention in Darfur who has committed particular time to attacking our cause is Johnathan Steele of the Guardian newspaper (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steele/). In continuing the series, and in reference to the idea that calling for intervention in Darfur may be irresponsible, I have opted to answer his particular criticisms.
Steele's argument is essentially this:
1. There has never been any chance of a western intervention in Darfur, and repeated calls for this to happen have irresponsibly raised the hopes of refugees in Darfur
2. Calls for intervention have followed simplistic analysis and focussed too much attention on the Khartoum government and President Bashir, while distracting attention away from the role of the rebels in the continuing conflict
3. That Darfur is not the 'world's worst humanitarian crisis'
4. That a Western intervention would be disastrous
5. The only chance of improving the security of the civilians of Darfur is to pursue a political solution between the rebels and the government
Although I do not seek to speak for Waging Peace in this blog, and certainly not for our partners in the Darfur campaign, I would personally answer these criticisms with the following:
1. We have only ever asked for an effective and swift solution to the atrocious security situation in which the civilians of Darfur reside. When we have identified Western assets that we feel represent the best option in order to achieve this goal, then I feel no shame that we have demanded their use.
2) I have not spent the many years of study of international defence and security in general, and the many hours over the past year spent studying Darfur, to provide simplistic analysis. However, you cannot launch a popular campaign by asking people to read a series of theses. We only get so many column inches, and if our reports were too long people simply would not read them. In short, our analysis holds the required depth, but we can only realistically seek to publish our conclusions. On the issue of the relative blame to be placed on the rebels and the government I would say two things. Firstly, if the government seeks to assert its sovereignty, then it holds a much greater responsibility for the security of its citizens than any other authority. Secondly, regardless of who is most to blame, if civilians are in dire need of protection and the government is EITHER unwilling OR unable to provide this protection then the international community must step in.
3) I personally agree that Iraq is a much greater humanitarian crisis than that taking place in Darfur. However, My colleagues and I cannot take on all of the world's problems at once, we must focus our efforts. Darfur has been my target because it makes greater use of my personal area of expertise and, I believe, is more in need of my efforts considering Iraq already receives countless column inches and multiple billions of dollars worth of resources. It is unfortunate that politicians sometimes make statements that are easily identifiable as untrue factually, but we do not control that.
4) Steele's argument that a Western intervention would be disastrous is not one that he seems to have spent much time developing. On occasion he has referred to Iraq and Afghanistan in relation to this argument, but has not (to my knowledge) directly made the link between the outcome of these situations and the likely outcome of a Western intervention in Darfur. I would argue, however, that an intervention is disastrous only when it is poorly planned and/or poorly resourced and/or poorly executed. I do not accept the argument of impossibility of success, there are differing likelihoods, but they can be managed by proper reference to these three factors, as well as a series of sub-factors.
5) I agree that a permanent peace can only be achieved through political settlement, but if such a settlement takes over 4 years to achieve, while over 200,000 civilians are killed and 2 million displaced, then seeking a political settlement is simply not enough. Protecting civilians militarily may only be a short-term solution, but is none-the-less a hugely important measure.
This topic has particular resonance for me as the opinions being put forward by Waging Peace on the subject of Darfur have led to us being criticised for as part of the 'something must be done brigade'. One critic of proponents of intervention in Darfur who has committed particular time to attacking our cause is Johnathan Steele of the Guardian newspaper (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steele/). In continuing the series, and in reference to the idea that calling for intervention in Darfur may be irresponsible, I have opted to answer his particular criticisms.
Steele's argument is essentially this:
1. There has never been any chance of a western intervention in Darfur, and repeated calls for this to happen have irresponsibly raised the hopes of refugees in Darfur
2. Calls for intervention have followed simplistic analysis and focussed too much attention on the Khartoum government and President Bashir, while distracting attention away from the role of the rebels in the continuing conflict
3. That Darfur is not the 'world's worst humanitarian crisis'
4. That a Western intervention would be disastrous
5. The only chance of improving the security of the civilians of Darfur is to pursue a political solution between the rebels and the government
Although I do not seek to speak for Waging Peace in this blog, and certainly not for our partners in the Darfur campaign, I would personally answer these criticisms with the following:
1. We have only ever asked for an effective and swift solution to the atrocious security situation in which the civilians of Darfur reside. When we have identified Western assets that we feel represent the best option in order to achieve this goal, then I feel no shame that we have demanded their use.
2) I have not spent the many years of study of international defence and security in general, and the many hours over the past year spent studying Darfur, to provide simplistic analysis. However, you cannot launch a popular campaign by asking people to read a series of theses. We only get so many column inches, and if our reports were too long people simply would not read them. In short, our analysis holds the required depth, but we can only realistically seek to publish our conclusions. On the issue of the relative blame to be placed on the rebels and the government I would say two things. Firstly, if the government seeks to assert its sovereignty, then it holds a much greater responsibility for the security of its citizens than any other authority. Secondly, regardless of who is most to blame, if civilians are in dire need of protection and the government is EITHER unwilling OR unable to provide this protection then the international community must step in.
3) I personally agree that Iraq is a much greater humanitarian crisis than that taking place in Darfur. However, My colleagues and I cannot take on all of the world's problems at once, we must focus our efforts. Darfur has been my target because it makes greater use of my personal area of expertise and, I believe, is more in need of my efforts considering Iraq already receives countless column inches and multiple billions of dollars worth of resources. It is unfortunate that politicians sometimes make statements that are easily identifiable as untrue factually, but we do not control that.
4) Steele's argument that a Western intervention would be disastrous is not one that he seems to have spent much time developing. On occasion he has referred to Iraq and Afghanistan in relation to this argument, but has not (to my knowledge) directly made the link between the outcome of these situations and the likely outcome of a Western intervention in Darfur. I would argue, however, that an intervention is disastrous only when it is poorly planned and/or poorly resourced and/or poorly executed. I do not accept the argument of impossibility of success, there are differing likelihoods, but they can be managed by proper reference to these three factors, as well as a series of sub-factors.
5) I agree that a permanent peace can only be achieved through political settlement, but if such a settlement takes over 4 years to achieve, while over 200,000 civilians are killed and 2 million displaced, then seeking a political settlement is simply not enough. Protecting civilians militarily may only be a short-term solution, but is none-the-less a hugely important measure.
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
The ethics of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention (Part 1: Who are the heroes?)
With peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention being a particular interest of mine, and building on my recent posts about the role of professional soldiers and the issue of sovereignty and UN standing forces, I've decided to embark on a series of posts on this subject. The series as yet has no plan, but I hope that by working through some of this issues, I will reach some conclusions with regards to the current problems with international peace-support operations and uncover some possible avenues through which to improve current practice.
I came across a quote in a book this week from Andrew Thomson, a medical doctor who worked in various war-zones for the UN in the 1990s, 'If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.' (Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson, Emergency Sex and other desperate measures, Miramax Books, 2004). One of the key lessons learnt from the disastrous consequences of some of the UN's peacekeeping operations in the 1990s was that you should never promise people protection unless you are fully willing and able to provide it. A further lesson learnt is that there are major differences between the way governments react to the dangers faced by their soldiers on peace-support operations when compared to more traditional military operations relating to more traditional national interests. While these lessons have been learned, the dilemmas they present have never truly been resolved.
One way in which some of the more militarily powerful states have sought to address this problem is to change the way in which they engage with the UN when it comes to such operations. The effect is that European states are behaving like the US always has when it comes to UN operations. In the case of Kosovo, NATO member-states bypassed the UN's legal processes when they deemed them incapable of providing them with the authorisation and mandate that they required. In Sierra Leone, the UK government worked with the UN, but elected to work unilaterally with multilateral authorisation, rather than seek to lead a multilateral operation. In situations where no one state can be expected to provide the whole force, or the vast majority of the force, required, the major military powers have avoided involvement beyond logistical support and the provision of expertise. This dynamic is one that we are currently seem to be seeing played out with regards the proposed 'hybrid force' for Darfur. There is one exception, namely Afghanistan, but this is a NATO operation authorised by the UN, and as such bares more similarity to Kosovo than Bosnia. Similar structures are under development within the EU, but the process is slowed by conflicting loyalties and priorities.
With regards the less militarily powerful states, those that were involved in UN peacekeeping operations in the 1990s have largely continued to do so. The biggest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations are Asian states, with India and Pakistan almost competing to contribute the most. This is by no means because they have suffered less from poorly executed operations. The greatest single loss of UN peacekeepers in Somalia in 1993 was not the 18 US soldiers killed during the so-called 'Black-Hawk Down' incident, but the 24 Pakistani soldiers killed in an ambush on the 5th June. There are undoubtedly greater incentives for poorer and less powerful states to contribute to UN operations. Due to the extremely low wages paid in some militaries, being placed on an internationally funded mission can be the difference between a soldier's children going to school or not. Further, when militarily powerful states fulfil advisory roles on such missions, the soldiers of the states providing the bulk of the manpower can return better trained than when they departed, with obvious benefits for their governments in the future.
The downsides to this international division of labour are fairly clear. With powerful states failing to contribute significant resources to mainstream UN operations (such as recentlty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), when they do become involved in peace-support operations their supposed humanitarian motives are immediately and consistently questioned. The public relations effort that accompanies these operations paints those involved as humanitarian heroes, intervening selflessly and with significant risk to their own well-being. Those operations involving the developing world workhorses of the UN receive little publicity, despite their participants facing much more danger due to the much less sophisticated support that they receive. So who are the real humanitarian heroes among peacekeepers? Those that arrive to a fanfare under the cover of modern weapons systems and a shield of intricate analysis of the risks and benefits, or those who regular answer the call of the UN, albeit with personal financial gain and otherwise unlikely access to high quality training?
I came across a quote in a book this week from Andrew Thomson, a medical doctor who worked in various war-zones for the UN in the 1990s, 'If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.' (Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson, Emergency Sex and other desperate measures, Miramax Books, 2004). One of the key lessons learnt from the disastrous consequences of some of the UN's peacekeeping operations in the 1990s was that you should never promise people protection unless you are fully willing and able to provide it. A further lesson learnt is that there are major differences between the way governments react to the dangers faced by their soldiers on peace-support operations when compared to more traditional military operations relating to more traditional national interests. While these lessons have been learned, the dilemmas they present have never truly been resolved.
One way in which some of the more militarily powerful states have sought to address this problem is to change the way in which they engage with the UN when it comes to such operations. The effect is that European states are behaving like the US always has when it comes to UN operations. In the case of Kosovo, NATO member-states bypassed the UN's legal processes when they deemed them incapable of providing them with the authorisation and mandate that they required. In Sierra Leone, the UK government worked with the UN, but elected to work unilaterally with multilateral authorisation, rather than seek to lead a multilateral operation. In situations where no one state can be expected to provide the whole force, or the vast majority of the force, required, the major military powers have avoided involvement beyond logistical support and the provision of expertise. This dynamic is one that we are currently seem to be seeing played out with regards the proposed 'hybrid force' for Darfur. There is one exception, namely Afghanistan, but this is a NATO operation authorised by the UN, and as such bares more similarity to Kosovo than Bosnia. Similar structures are under development within the EU, but the process is slowed by conflicting loyalties and priorities.
With regards the less militarily powerful states, those that were involved in UN peacekeeping operations in the 1990s have largely continued to do so. The biggest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations are Asian states, with India and Pakistan almost competing to contribute the most. This is by no means because they have suffered less from poorly executed operations. The greatest single loss of UN peacekeepers in Somalia in 1993 was not the 18 US soldiers killed during the so-called 'Black-Hawk Down' incident, but the 24 Pakistani soldiers killed in an ambush on the 5th June. There are undoubtedly greater incentives for poorer and less powerful states to contribute to UN operations. Due to the extremely low wages paid in some militaries, being placed on an internationally funded mission can be the difference between a soldier's children going to school or not. Further, when militarily powerful states fulfil advisory roles on such missions, the soldiers of the states providing the bulk of the manpower can return better trained than when they departed, with obvious benefits for their governments in the future.
The downsides to this international division of labour are fairly clear. With powerful states failing to contribute significant resources to mainstream UN operations (such as recentlty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), when they do become involved in peace-support operations their supposed humanitarian motives are immediately and consistently questioned. The public relations effort that accompanies these operations paints those involved as humanitarian heroes, intervening selflessly and with significant risk to their own well-being. Those operations involving the developing world workhorses of the UN receive little publicity, despite their participants facing much more danger due to the much less sophisticated support that they receive. So who are the real humanitarian heroes among peacekeepers? Those that arrive to a fanfare under the cover of modern weapons systems and a shield of intricate analysis of the risks and benefits, or those who regular answer the call of the UN, albeit with personal financial gain and otherwise unlikely access to high quality training?
Friday, 24 August 2007
Honour and Duty: The role of the professional soldier
Whilst driving today I heard the sad news on the radio that 3 UK soldiers have been killed by a bomb dropped from a US jet in Helmand Province, Afghanistan (see news.bbc.co.uk, 24.08.07). Hearing this led me to thinking about a British army Captain that was killed defending a dam in Afghanistan some weeks ago, who's parents were friends with some relatives of mine. British operations in Afghanistan have often been criticised as being under resourced and extremely risky for the soldiers involved. As I understand it, this particular operation had been criticised for using the soldiers as sitting ducks, drawing out the Taliban to fight. Which brings me to the question I'm considering in this post; Are the risks faced by British soldiers in Afghanistan, due to the strategy imposed by their military and political commanders, acceptable?
Firstly, I feel it is important to outline my basic opinion on the war in Afghanistan. For me, the decision to join the US in war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was broadly just. My reasoning is as follows. For all the misinformation and propaganda coming from all sides in the so-called 'War on Terror', you have to get pretty far out into the world of conspiracy theories to find people who do not agree that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th 2001. In the fog of the debacle in Iraq, deliberate attempts in Washington to change the nature and definition of human rights, and the sometimes disgraceful way that certain US politicians have dismissed the opinions of the UK government and peoples in the past 6 years, it is easy to forget that the US has been, certainly in military terms but also most likely in political terms, the UK's greatest ally for the past 90 years. Although attempts were no doubt made to blur the distinction between Taliban camps aimed at fighting an internal civil war and al-Qaeda terrorist training camps, and without dismissing the issue of the term 'al-Qaeda' being used to cover such a range of groups and networks that it is starting to become almost useless, the fact is that the Taliban allowed their territory to be used as a shelter for Osama Bin Laden and the central structure of his terror network. Although the UK itself was not attacked by al-Qaeda until after the 'War on Terror' was underway, it is hard to deny that the UK was already, through its involvement in the Gulf Crisis (1990-91) among other issues, intricately linked with the US in the mind of violent jihadists. Finally, with the Taliban’s ideology being firmly based in violent Jihad, and with them having accepted the residence of Osama Bin even after his presence had drawn air strikes against Sudan, it was fairly clear that room to negotiate was minimal at best. So, to summarise, with the mainland of the UK's greatest ally having been attacked by a group that could be expected to hold violent intentions towards the UK and which was being sheltered by a government operating in an easily identifiable sovereign territory that could not be expected to be open to negotiation, I feel that, regardless of which political party or prime minister was in power at the time, the decision to go to war was the only realistic option.
Secondly, it is important that I briefly summarise my general view on the role of professional soldiers in modern warfare. It is clearly preferable that the UK has a fully professional army. Conscription, while having been potentially necessary in the past when the UK mainland was under threat, is in general morally questionable. Professional armies are not only more effective, in that they achieve greater results with less expense and fewer casualties, but tend to behave in a more ethical fashion when in the field. The key to the moral difference between a professional soldier and a civilian is that professional soldiers (more so in some militaries than others) have (for a variety of reasons) generally chosen to be involved in warfare, whereas civilians have not. A key feature of the 'Just War' tradition (much of which was developed before fully professional armies became common during wartime) is that the lives of soldiers must never be prioritised over the lives of civilians. In fact, in more developed concepts of 'Just War', soldiers are expected to put themselves in situation of significant danger in order to ensure the safety of civilians. This is, unfortunately, a concept that has been followed more in words than in deeds. From the carpet bombing of Dresden and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, through to the decision of NATO planners to launch an air campaign rather than a ground invasion in Kosovo, the lives of soldiers have consistently been prioritised over those of civilians. The fact that the vast majority of casualties of war since 1945 have been civilians should be a point of significant shame for all of mankind. In my opinion, if those states and their militaries who seek to assert that they act for the moral good made efforts to redress this balance and shift the risk back away from civilians it would hugely add to the legitimacy of their causes, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
In Afghanistan, then, my feelings are as follows. The decision to got war in the first place was just, and now that the UK has assisted in removing the Taliban, the only acceptable reason to leave before the Taliban is defeated would be if that was the best thing for the Afghan people. On the other hand, there has to be a conceivable exit strategy for British forces, otherwise their presence would simply be a sort of involuntary colonisation. The Taliban, I suspect, would be happy to sit back and wait for the NATO forces to leave before launching an attempt at regaining power. The one thing that is stopping them from doing this is that they recognise that if they allow Afghanistan to develop whilst under occupation into a state much better able to provide for its citizens, the people would not support them in their attempts to return and their chances would be slim. They have no choice then but to try to hold areas of territory from which to launch attacks aimed at disrupting development efforts. In order to prevent this strategy from being successful, British and other NATO forces must protect the development projects and not allow the Taliban to feel safe enough to build their strength in the territories in which they are mainly based. This strategy is currently the best available not only to the British army but, crucially, to the civilian population of Afghanistan who were terrorised when the Taliban were in power, and could expect the same on their return, worse so for those thought to have collaborated in their downfall. The strategy holds risks for British soldiers, and they should be supported in every way possible, but we should not forget that those in the field chose to accept a career that holds this particular combination of honour and duty.
Firstly, I feel it is important to outline my basic opinion on the war in Afghanistan. For me, the decision to join the US in war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was broadly just. My reasoning is as follows. For all the misinformation and propaganda coming from all sides in the so-called 'War on Terror', you have to get pretty far out into the world of conspiracy theories to find people who do not agree that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th 2001. In the fog of the debacle in Iraq, deliberate attempts in Washington to change the nature and definition of human rights, and the sometimes disgraceful way that certain US politicians have dismissed the opinions of the UK government and peoples in the past 6 years, it is easy to forget that the US has been, certainly in military terms but also most likely in political terms, the UK's greatest ally for the past 90 years. Although attempts were no doubt made to blur the distinction between Taliban camps aimed at fighting an internal civil war and al-Qaeda terrorist training camps, and without dismissing the issue of the term 'al-Qaeda' being used to cover such a range of groups and networks that it is starting to become almost useless, the fact is that the Taliban allowed their territory to be used as a shelter for Osama Bin Laden and the central structure of his terror network. Although the UK itself was not attacked by al-Qaeda until after the 'War on Terror' was underway, it is hard to deny that the UK was already, through its involvement in the Gulf Crisis (1990-91) among other issues, intricately linked with the US in the mind of violent jihadists. Finally, with the Taliban’s ideology being firmly based in violent Jihad, and with them having accepted the residence of Osama Bin even after his presence had drawn air strikes against Sudan, it was fairly clear that room to negotiate was minimal at best. So, to summarise, with the mainland of the UK's greatest ally having been attacked by a group that could be expected to hold violent intentions towards the UK and which was being sheltered by a government operating in an easily identifiable sovereign territory that could not be expected to be open to negotiation, I feel that, regardless of which political party or prime minister was in power at the time, the decision to go to war was the only realistic option.
Secondly, it is important that I briefly summarise my general view on the role of professional soldiers in modern warfare. It is clearly preferable that the UK has a fully professional army. Conscription, while having been potentially necessary in the past when the UK mainland was under threat, is in general morally questionable. Professional armies are not only more effective, in that they achieve greater results with less expense and fewer casualties, but tend to behave in a more ethical fashion when in the field. The key to the moral difference between a professional soldier and a civilian is that professional soldiers (more so in some militaries than others) have (for a variety of reasons) generally chosen to be involved in warfare, whereas civilians have not. A key feature of the 'Just War' tradition (much of which was developed before fully professional armies became common during wartime) is that the lives of soldiers must never be prioritised over the lives of civilians. In fact, in more developed concepts of 'Just War', soldiers are expected to put themselves in situation of significant danger in order to ensure the safety of civilians. This is, unfortunately, a concept that has been followed more in words than in deeds. From the carpet bombing of Dresden and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, through to the decision of NATO planners to launch an air campaign rather than a ground invasion in Kosovo, the lives of soldiers have consistently been prioritised over those of civilians. The fact that the vast majority of casualties of war since 1945 have been civilians should be a point of significant shame for all of mankind. In my opinion, if those states and their militaries who seek to assert that they act for the moral good made efforts to redress this balance and shift the risk back away from civilians it would hugely add to the legitimacy of their causes, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
In Afghanistan, then, my feelings are as follows. The decision to got war in the first place was just, and now that the UK has assisted in removing the Taliban, the only acceptable reason to leave before the Taliban is defeated would be if that was the best thing for the Afghan people. On the other hand, there has to be a conceivable exit strategy for British forces, otherwise their presence would simply be a sort of involuntary colonisation. The Taliban, I suspect, would be happy to sit back and wait for the NATO forces to leave before launching an attempt at regaining power. The one thing that is stopping them from doing this is that they recognise that if they allow Afghanistan to develop whilst under occupation into a state much better able to provide for its citizens, the people would not support them in their attempts to return and their chances would be slim. They have no choice then but to try to hold areas of territory from which to launch attacks aimed at disrupting development efforts. In order to prevent this strategy from being successful, British and other NATO forces must protect the development projects and not allow the Taliban to feel safe enough to build their strength in the territories in which they are mainly based. This strategy is currently the best available not only to the British army but, crucially, to the civilian population of Afghanistan who were terrorised when the Taliban were in power, and could expect the same on their return, worse so for those thought to have collaborated in their downfall. The strategy holds risks for British soldiers, and they should be supported in every way possible, but we should not forget that those in the field chose to accept a career that holds this particular combination of honour and duty.
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Navigating Sovereignty: The UN versus private military companies
On a recent research trip to a war-torn African state I was kindly invited to stay at the house of a senior UN official. The large house was not owned by the UN, but privately rented by the official, although certain features of the house were designed to comply with UN regulations for foreign staff. Metal shutters were fitted to all the windows and a heavy-duty security door separated the ground and first floors, all of which had to remain locked at night. The third notable feature was the 24 hour provision of security guards. In fitting with the rules governing UN security guards all over the world, the guards were unarmed. This is as true of UN headquarters in New York as of any other UN building.
Some would say that this is due to the necessity of the UN remaining neutral, but anyone with a basic understanding of the UN's role in conflicts knows that the UN does not always seek to remain neutral. For me, there is one very clear reason why UN security guards, as with any other staff directly employed by the UN, are unarmed. Arming such staff would constitute a global UN armed force. The consequences of this would be the same as those which prevented the creation of UN standing forces when they were called for from certain quarters in the 1990s. Despite the huge body of international law, and the expanding selection of regional organisations, which now exist, sovereignty still clings to its status as the primary principal of the international system. The existence of an officially recognised and widely supported armed force that was not directly commanded by the government (be it civilian or military) of a sovereign state would be criticised as undermining this primacy.
There is one major problem with this reasoning against arming the UN. One of the states which could be safely expected to oppose arming staff answerable only to the UN, the United States, openly allows and supports the creation of heavily armed forces, operating internationally, which are governed only by their private owners. Private military companies are big business in modern conflict. In researching a recent book about one such company, the US-based Blackwater, writer Jeremy Scahill discovered that publicly available figures do not exist to indicate how much of the US military budget goes on services provided by private contractors, but that some members of congress estimate it to be around 40%, with over 1000 PMC operatives estimated to have died in Iraq, although, again, no official figures are kept. More worryingly, continuing congressional investigations into these companies have discovered that those operating in Iraq are subject to neither Iraqi law, US military law nor US domestic law. Further, as Americans they are protected by the policy of the US government, spanning multiple administrations, to exempt its citizens from international law. In short, they are answerable to nobody except themselves while taking part in operations that involve regular heavy combat both alongside US forces and independently.
So here is the world we find ourselves in; the UN, an organisation made up of 192 sovereign states, is (rightly or wrongly) consistently denied the opportunity to build armed forces of any sort, no matter how small, for the purposes of protecting its staff and conducting peace support operations, while private companies are allowed to build up heavily armed forces of mercenaries, subject to no existing laws, in order to increase their profits.
Some would say that this is due to the necessity of the UN remaining neutral, but anyone with a basic understanding of the UN's role in conflicts knows that the UN does not always seek to remain neutral. For me, there is one very clear reason why UN security guards, as with any other staff directly employed by the UN, are unarmed. Arming such staff would constitute a global UN armed force. The consequences of this would be the same as those which prevented the creation of UN standing forces when they were called for from certain quarters in the 1990s. Despite the huge body of international law, and the expanding selection of regional organisations, which now exist, sovereignty still clings to its status as the primary principal of the international system. The existence of an officially recognised and widely supported armed force that was not directly commanded by the government (be it civilian or military) of a sovereign state would be criticised as undermining this primacy.
There is one major problem with this reasoning against arming the UN. One of the states which could be safely expected to oppose arming staff answerable only to the UN, the United States, openly allows and supports the creation of heavily armed forces, operating internationally, which are governed only by their private owners. Private military companies are big business in modern conflict. In researching a recent book about one such company, the US-based Blackwater, writer Jeremy Scahill discovered that publicly available figures do not exist to indicate how much of the US military budget goes on services provided by private contractors, but that some members of congress estimate it to be around 40%, with over 1000 PMC operatives estimated to have died in Iraq, although, again, no official figures are kept. More worryingly, continuing congressional investigations into these companies have discovered that those operating in Iraq are subject to neither Iraqi law, US military law nor US domestic law. Further, as Americans they are protected by the policy of the US government, spanning multiple administrations, to exempt its citizens from international law. In short, they are answerable to nobody except themselves while taking part in operations that involve regular heavy combat both alongside US forces and independently.
So here is the world we find ourselves in; the UN, an organisation made up of 192 sovereign states, is (rightly or wrongly) consistently denied the opportunity to build armed forces of any sort, no matter how small, for the purposes of protecting its staff and conducting peace support operations, while private companies are allowed to build up heavily armed forces of mercenaries, subject to no existing laws, in order to increase their profits.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Return to the Brink?
There's been some worrying events in the world of military affairs recently. Following a deterioration in relations between Moscow and London/Washington over the proposed missile defence shield and the Alexander Litvinenko affair, what began as diplomatic battles have turned into the beginnings of military brinkmanship.
First there was the news that British jets had intercepted Russian bombers over the North Atlantic (timesonline, 18.7.07), then that Russian military planners had chosen to revive the Cold War practice of using flyovers of Allied bases as exercises, a policy announced when US jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers over the Pacific island of Guam (worlpoliticsreview.com, 10.08.07).
It is not just with Russia that developments are of concern, however. Sino-American relations have taken some knocks recently, with the long-running issue over currency valuation accompanied by tit-for-tat banning of food and other imports (NY Times, 15.7.07). China is known to be developing a 'blue-water' naval capability and chose to demonstrate the extent of this in a very dangerous way. During US naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean in November, a Chinese Navy submarine surfaced in close proximity to the oldest aircraft carrier in the US fleet, the USS Kitty Hawk (news.bbc.co.uk 14.11.06). This was followed in January by a succesful test launch of a missile against a Chinese weather sattelite (cnn.com, 19.1.07). That China might be developing the ability to strike at space based sattelites is of huge concern to the US as it strikes right at the heart of the US military dream of 'full-spectrum dominance'.
Some have tried to play down these incidents, but their danger is all too clear. When, in 2001, Chinese jets tracked a US military spy-plane, the resulting collision caused the spy-plane to crash land in China and caused a major diplomatic incident. How much more major an incident would have occurred if the Chinese submarine had been noticed before surfacing as an unidentified alien vessel incurring into a US military exercise?
The flashpoints exist, Washington's defence pact with the Chinese-claimed territory of Taiwan has long been a source of tension, and wrangling between the Atlantic powers and Russia over Georgia and the Ukraine has the potential to escalate. What is required is a return to the extensive dialogue and cooperation between governments and their militaries which ended Cold War brinkmanship in the first place. There are those who will tell you that we 'have no choice' but to enter into an arms race, or that 'nuclear deterrance' will carry us through just as they believe it did through the Cold War. The fact is that we can choose dialogue and cooperation, that the world avoided the 'mutually assured destruction' (aptly abbreviated to MAD) that is inherant in 'nuclear deterrance' by the skin of its teeth, and that, while civilians from the Cold War powers mostly avoided the horrors of its wars, millions died by proxy.
First there was the news that British jets had intercepted Russian bombers over the North Atlantic (timesonline, 18.7.07), then that Russian military planners had chosen to revive the Cold War practice of using flyovers of Allied bases as exercises, a policy announced when US jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers over the Pacific island of Guam (worlpoliticsreview.com, 10.08.07).
It is not just with Russia that developments are of concern, however. Sino-American relations have taken some knocks recently, with the long-running issue over currency valuation accompanied by tit-for-tat banning of food and other imports (NY Times, 15.7.07). China is known to be developing a 'blue-water' naval capability and chose to demonstrate the extent of this in a very dangerous way. During US naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean in November, a Chinese Navy submarine surfaced in close proximity to the oldest aircraft carrier in the US fleet, the USS Kitty Hawk (news.bbc.co.uk 14.11.06). This was followed in January by a succesful test launch of a missile against a Chinese weather sattelite (cnn.com, 19.1.07). That China might be developing the ability to strike at space based sattelites is of huge concern to the US as it strikes right at the heart of the US military dream of 'full-spectrum dominance'.
Some have tried to play down these incidents, but their danger is all too clear. When, in 2001, Chinese jets tracked a US military spy-plane, the resulting collision caused the spy-plane to crash land in China and caused a major diplomatic incident. How much more major an incident would have occurred if the Chinese submarine had been noticed before surfacing as an unidentified alien vessel incurring into a US military exercise?
The flashpoints exist, Washington's defence pact with the Chinese-claimed territory of Taiwan has long been a source of tension, and wrangling between the Atlantic powers and Russia over Georgia and the Ukraine has the potential to escalate. What is required is a return to the extensive dialogue and cooperation between governments and their militaries which ended Cold War brinkmanship in the first place. There are those who will tell you that we 'have no choice' but to enter into an arms race, or that 'nuclear deterrance' will carry us through just as they believe it did through the Cold War. The fact is that we can choose dialogue and cooperation, that the world avoided the 'mutually assured destruction' (aptly abbreviated to MAD) that is inherant in 'nuclear deterrance' by the skin of its teeth, and that, while civilians from the Cold War powers mostly avoided the horrors of its wars, millions died by proxy.
Monday, 20 August 2007
On Motivation
A personal question has been recurring in my life recently. First occurring at a family meal, then during a conversation with my girlfriend, again while writing a job application, and finally, today, in my own head while reading. The question seems at first simple, but has actually been harder to answer than I would have thought; What motivates you?
For those trying to build a career in international relations and conflict it is a question that should always be considered. The world is tainted by the legacy of those who entered this field in search of power, money and vengance. Those of us who believe that we have different motivations must ensure that this is so.
For me there are two sources of motivation. Firstly, there is the excitement. Its important to acknowledge this, although some might say it is inapropriate for someone who claims to seek an ethical career. For me there is no contradiction in the fact that I enjoy being involved in attempts to seek protection and justice for those inoccents caught up in international conflict while still holding my second, and prime, motivation, my personal responsibility to protect.
I don't bare illusions of grandeur when assessing my contribution to the protection of civilians. I am not travelling to Spain to fight a hopeless war against fascists, hiding Jewish families in my house in the Third Reich or sitting in front of bulldozers in the Gaza Strip. This motivation is, however, real.
Some of my earliest memories of concern over international conflict are of the war in Bosnia in the early nineties. I was not old enough at the time to really understand what was happening, but I was old enough to want to make it stop, not for acclaim, but to protect those innocent civilians caught in the middle. People have a right to peace, for themselves and for their loved ones. When I consider the question of what is my motivation the image that is in my mind is that of Mostar Bridge crumbling into the River Neretva.
For those trying to build a career in international relations and conflict it is a question that should always be considered. The world is tainted by the legacy of those who entered this field in search of power, money and vengance. Those of us who believe that we have different motivations must ensure that this is so.
For me there are two sources of motivation. Firstly, there is the excitement. Its important to acknowledge this, although some might say it is inapropriate for someone who claims to seek an ethical career. For me there is no contradiction in the fact that I enjoy being involved in attempts to seek protection and justice for those inoccents caught up in international conflict while still holding my second, and prime, motivation, my personal responsibility to protect.
I don't bare illusions of grandeur when assessing my contribution to the protection of civilians. I am not travelling to Spain to fight a hopeless war against fascists, hiding Jewish families in my house in the Third Reich or sitting in front of bulldozers in the Gaza Strip. This motivation is, however, real.
Some of my earliest memories of concern over international conflict are of the war in Bosnia in the early nineties. I was not old enough at the time to really understand what was happening, but I was old enough to want to make it stop, not for acclaim, but to protect those innocent civilians caught in the middle. People have a right to peace, for themselves and for their loved ones. When I consider the question of what is my motivation the image that is in my mind is that of Mostar Bridge crumbling into the River Neretva.
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