Survival Summary - Vol 47, No 4 - Winter 2005-06

The benign American world order launched by President Harry Truman in 1945 has contributed enormously to humankind, yet is likely to die in our lifetime. America and the West are neglecting it just as new challenges and new powers emerge. Alternative visions of the international system are abundant, from China’s to the American neo-conservatives’ to Osama bin Laden’s. The vision behind the Truman world order remains the most powerful, and can still be salvaged. But the United States, as in 1945, must provide leadership and develop a new contract between America and the world. The principles for saving the postwar system are not difficult to find; the real challenge is to get America to abide by them.  Buy this article online

 

 

Underlying the transatlantic tensions of recent years is a philosophical gap between visionaries, who can imagine, for example, a radical democratic reordering of the Arab Middle East, and counter-visionaries who worry more about costs and unintended consequences. The fundamental issue is strategic. It concerns the readiness to acknowledge and adjust to the power of others, however undeserved, illegitimate, inconvenient and awkward this power may be. By and large, the counter-visionaries believe that the visionaries go wrong by always seeking to ignore, circumvent or defeat opponents. This disagreement between visionaries and counter-visionaries is not simply one of Americans versus Europeans, although it has recently turned out that way. While the limits to the ability of western states to promote political change elsewhere have become apparent, and so the transatlantic disagreement has eased, questions of ideology and legitimacy are still vital, as evident in the debates about how to deal with China and Iran. In some respects liberal democracies cannot help but provide a strategic vision for those coping with authoritarianism, but the potency of this vision in the end will depend on how well it seems to work at home, and the capacity of the transatlantic states to cope with the domestic as well as the international challenges they face.  Buy this article online

 

 

Western armies are masters of the conventional battlefield, but continue to have difficulty prevailing in unconventional conflict. Yet unconventional missions, including peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism, are the only kind that NATO or EU forces are likely to be collectively assigned for the foreseeable future. These, then, should be the focus for NATO and EU planning, training and equipping. While the UN is the cheapest, most generally acceptable and often most effective instrument for managing international military interventions, there is an effective ceiling beyond which the UN will not suffice. The UN does not do forced entries, and has never fielded more than about 20,000 troops in any single operation. Where these thresholds must be surpassed, NATO, the EU or an ad hoc coalition will be needed. Afghanistan is the next test for Western collective defence efforts. Success there will require greater EU as well as NATO engagement.  Buy this article online

 

 

The Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy touched off a vigorous debate in the United States and abroad, which intensified with the war in Iraq, over what appeared to be a novel, broad assertion of the right to use force to prevent latent threats from emerging, particularly threats associated with terrorism and nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. But the use of preventive force – and the debate over its legality and wisdom – predate the Bush administration’s post‐11 September 2001 strategy. A careful examination of the history, rationale, costs and benefits of using preventive force suggests that, while rare, preventive force has a legitimate role to play in tackling some of the most dangerous security problems facing the United States and the wider international community.  Buy this article online

 

 

Six years after the end of the war over Kosovo, talks on its future are set to begin. They will be a led by a senior envoy appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and they may well end in what is called ‘conditional independence’. What this actually means remains to be seen, but destabilising consequences, particularly in Serbia, cannot be ruled out. EU diplomats are hoping that the good news of a ‘Stabilisation and Association’ agreement with Serbia, which they hope to achieve in 2006, can help counteract the simultaneous bad news of the loss of Kosovo and likely secession of Montenegro.  Buy this article online

 

 

Iraqis are marching with open eyes into civil war. The party most responsible for this course of events is al-Qaeda, with associated Islamic nihilists and Saddam-era henchmen. They have openly declared their intention to ignite civil war by committing gruesome acts of mass murder targeted against Iraq’s Shia. Such a strategy is perfectly in tune with the apocalyptic designs of al-Qaeda and the blood thirst of its Iraqi allies. But mainstream Iraqi politicians both in power and in opposition are playing their part in fanning the flames. There are a few courageous and increasingly beleaguered spiritual leaders, public figures, activists and professionals who are refusing to be swept up by the sectarian fever. Among them are some quite powerful figures like Ayatollah Sistani. Attempts at opening up the political process should focus on these leaders rather than trying to match extremists from one community with extremists from the other.  Buy this article online

 

 

In a global order based on juridical sovereignty of nation-states, the missions called ‘peacebuilding’ by the UN or ‘stabilisation operations’ by some governments, necessarily require the building of states. The international organisations and governments involved in such efforts, however, have neither the doctrine nor organisation for such tasks. Problems encountered in recent efforts signal the need for a unified international counterpart for the recipient national government. Peacebuilding and statebuilding require transitional governance institutions that incorporate the concurrent need for internal and external legitimacy transparently, rather than in a fragmented, secretive and ad hoc way. The peacebuilding mechanisms proposed by the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change have the potential to bring order into the anarchy often created by multiple agendas, doctrines and aid budgets.  Buy this article online

 

 

An effective counter-terrorist effort needs coherence of effort among a wide variety of public- and private-sector bodies, and this is best achieved by adopting a conscious process of strategic planning. UK counter-terrorism strategy rests on four campaigns of prevention, pursuit, protection and preparation. This approach needs to be transferred to the international arena to generate a stronger sense of strategic direction in countering al-Qaeda and its associated groups and ideology, while allowing nations to participate in countering terrorism in ways appropriate to their constitutions and circumstances, with results that will be mutually reinforcing. Such strategic orientation will help guard against pressure for short-term measures likely to prove counter-productive in the long term, and improve the effectiveness of public communication to counter the terrorists’ own narrative.  Buy this article online

 

 

Defeating radical jihadists today requires all states to act aggressively against them – an exceptionally difficult challenge. Some states aid terrorist groups by being passive as terrorists operate on their soil. The experiences of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan vis-à-vis al-Qaeda, as well as the US tolerance of Provisional Irish Republican Army activities during the 1970s and 1980s, are instructive. These cases suggest that passive support usually occurs due to strong popular support for a terrorist group’s cause, a perceived lack of a direct threat to the regime, and limited costs to the government for tolerating these activities. Halting passive support is difficult and requires new policies and a new way of thinking about the problem of state support for terrorism.  Buy this article online

 

 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which struck the US coast of the Gulf of Mexico in late summer 2005, illustrated the extent to which energy policy inertia has left America’s economic and national security at risk. Failure to sustain efficiency gains after the oil shocks of the 1970s left the country increasingly reliant on imported petroleum. American leaders have neglected the need for international cooperation and a long-term transition to higher efficiency, based on market measures. In order for the United States to reduce its exposure to volatile world oil markets, resource nationalism and the potential for global economic disruptions, America must engage in the hard work of consensus-building and promoting a long-range effort to secure its energy future.  Buy this article online