07 December 2009: The Majalla
Dr John Chipman CMG, Director General and Chief Executive of [IISS] The International Institute for Strategic Studies
By Manuel Almeida
Dr John Chipman is Director-General and Chief Executive of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, a leading
Think Tank focusing on international security. Dr Chipman spoke with The Majalla
about the “Manama Dialogue”, the key Regional Security Summit which has
taken place every year in Bahrain since 2004. This year’s summit will
take place from the 11 to the 13 of December 2009. Dr Chipman explained
the other activities that the IISS has been developing in the region;
and expressed his views on crucial security matters such as a nuclear
armed Iran; the modernization of military systems and weapons control
in the Gulf; and the future of NATO in Afghanistan. Dr Chipman received
his BA in History from Harvard, an MA in International History from the
London School of Economics, and an M. Phil and a D. Phil in
International Relations from Balliol College Oxford. He joined the IISS
as Research Associate in 1983-1984, during which time he was also a
NATO fellow.
The Majalla: Can you explain to our readers what the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain is?
The
idea of the Manama dialogue is to create an intergovernmental forum
where foreign ministers, defence ministers, national security advisers,
and chief of defence staffs, in short, the national security
establishments of the key countries of the region and most important
outside powers that have a political and security engagement in the
region can meet on a regular basis.
In the Gulf, aside from Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC), there is no regional security mechanism that
permits the national security establishments of the states having a
stake in Gulf security to engage in defence diplomacy with each other.
There
have been frequent calls for a kind of OSCE [Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe] for the Middle East to be established, and
what we are trying to do at the IISS is, under the umbrella of the
IISS, to create the conditions under which this kind of defence
diplomacy can be conducted.
The Majalla: In spite of being recent, the prestige of the Manama Dialogue is already very high. Why do you think this is?
I
think from the very first year, the government delegates to the Manama
Dialogue realized that there was no other forum that allowed for
informal exchanges of this kind. Each of the prime ministers, foreign
ministers, and government ministers, who address the conference
appreciate the possibility to give their perspectives on national,
regional and foreign security policy. But the principal advantage for
them is the private bilateral meetings and the multilateral meetings
they have. And I would emphasize this is not just multilateral meetings
between the various Middle Eastern states that participate, or even
between the Western states and the Middle Eastern states that
participate, but also crucially between Asia Pacific states who are now
having a more important role in Arabian Gulf security.
The
Majalla: It is believed that diplomacy has been moving from the
traditional state-to-state sphere to other types of forums. Is the
Manama Dialogue a good example of this?
I think you
could argue that, to a degree, the Manama Dialogue represents the
privatization of diplomacy. Where it would have taken many more years
for the governments of the region to organize for themselves such a
meeting, because the IISS is a private organization, with an
international character, acting with no agenda of its own, it was able
to perhaps move more speedily to assemble these personalities for this
meeting. But it is up to the regional players to use it for their own
benefit. We provide the platform, and then it is up to the government
representatives to take that opportunity, seize it, and use it to
develop more interesting and mutually beneficial policies for regional
security.
The Majalla: The press coverage of the event is
certainly good for business, but considering the high level guests and
the sensitivity of the topics discussed, does it discourage guests to
express their opinions and provide insightful information?
I
don’t think that. What is interesting is that because you have all
these ministers from the region giving public speeches that are on the
record, it compels these governments to think about what is the most
important message that they want to deliver in this public forum. And
we designed the Manama dialogue so that there would be a public element
to it, so that these issues of security did not appear as opaque and
secretive as many in the region might fear and many outsiders often are
concerned by that as well.
So the public element of the forum is
crucially important, because it creates transparency, and it helps to
establish perhaps the basis for better confidence. The fact also that
the speeches aren’t just delivered and that is the end of it, but that
the experts that we gather can cross-examine the ministers in public
and ask them sensitive questions is important.
Last year for
example, when US secretary of Defence Gates spoke about the campaign in
Afghanistan, he was asked very sensitive questions about how long the
United States might wish to be there and he provided very frank
answers. For example saying that while the government in the United
States might approve an increase in troop numbers that was requested by
the commanders, he personally was concerned about having too large a
footprint, a military footprint in Afghanistan, for too long a period.
And I think this gave a much stronger understanding to those in the
region about the finely balanced arguments that take place within the
US on these kinds of issues that perhaps otherwise are not exposed in
the region.
But the Manama dialogue is also designed to have
private sessions, off the record sessions, where the ministers and
senior government officials speaking are not going to be quoted by the
press, and are able to have a genuine exchange with experts.
Finally,
there is a third element, where the private bilateral and multilateral
meetings that the ministers organize for themselves which the IISS has
nothing to do with at all. But we are aware of the multiple meetings
that take place, which obviously is one of the reasons that the
ministers are very keen to come and stay for longer than half a day.
The Majalla: Will Robert Gates deliver the keynote address this year as happened in 2007 and 2008?
What
I can say is that this is going to be a very big US delegation, with a
number of senior players from the State Department, the Pentagon, the
National Security Council, and the White House, all participating. And
the United States is taking seriously this year the Manama dialogue as
it has done in previous years.
We are also expecting to receive
an important Iranian delegation this year, led by a minister and with
participation from the various elements of the Iranian national
security establishment, and so we are hoping that the Manama dialogue
will create an opportunity for more diplomacy between the states of the
region and Iran, and countries from other parts of the world that are
concerned with regional stability.
The Majalla: What will be the main topics of discussion this year and how did you define these?
I
think there are essentially four. One will be the war and turmoil in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. We will have strong delegations from
Afghanistan and Pakistan and I think the states of the Gulf are very
concerned with the stability of Pakistan, and with the future of the
campaign in Afghanistan. Some of them are in fact involved in providing
economic assistance, some are involved in providing diplomatic
facilities for eventual discussions with the Taliban, and some even are
providing discretely some direct military assistance to the campaign.
And so engaging the Gulf Arab states in the debate on the future of
Afghanistan and Pakistan is we think very important.
A second
big issue is of course still Iraq. There are elections to take place in
Iraq next year, while much of the international focus has been in the
Afghan and Pakistan campaign, the stabilization of Iraq is not yet 100%
complete and for the region it is very important. The Manama dialogue I
think has played an important in role in the last five years in
developing more confidence between the Gulf Arab states and Iraq, who
were at times sceptical about the nature of the Iraqi government and
were concerned about hints of its sectarian qualities. And I think the
Manama dialogue can work as a confidence building measures to develop
stronger links between the GCC countries and Iraq.
I think a
third issue will be the war in Yemen and the involvement of Saudi
Arabia in that conflict, and the tactics and strategy that Saudi Arabia
has pursued. We look forward to hearing from the delegation of Yemen on
what its perceptions are about how that conflict might develop.
And
finally there will be the Iranian question, which manifests itself in a
variety of different ways. And giving the dramas over the last few
months over the Iranian nuclear file, I think there will be great
interest in what the Iranian delegation has to say about that, but also
about its perceptions of the future regional security architecture, and
how one can be developed that accommodates the interests of all
countries of the Gulf region, not just one or two.
The Majalla: Apart from the Manama Dialogue, what other activities related with the Middle East is the IISS developing?
We
are delighted that early this year we signed an agreement with the
Kingdom of Bahrain to establish a regional branch for the Middle East
in Bahrain. So we will have offices in the Financial Harbour that we
will be opening in 2010. We will be bringing some analysts from Europe
and North America to that office, but we will also be hiring analysts
from within the Gulf to work in our Bahrain office to ensure that we
have perspectives from the region. We will also be having people from
South Asia working in our Gulf office, especially from India. And the
Middle East office established in Bahrain will also work with other GCC
countries.
We have an important conference that we run every year
in Oman on radicalism in South Asia, involving delegations from
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
We have in the past
run meetings on water resources in south Asia and Abu Dhabi. We have
done conferences in Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well.
And so we
hope this IISS Middle East office in Bahrain will serve to bring
analytical perceptions from the rest of the world to the Middle East,
and also give a voice to the Middle East in Asia, Europe, Latin
America, Africa, and North America, so that all the regions of the
world that have now gained a great deal of economic and political
interest in the Gulf understand the perceptions from the region. That
is how we conceive about the IISS Middle East office in Bahrain and we
think that it will be a way of bringing more into the mainstream of the
international debate the perspectives of the region.
The
Majalla: We would be grateful to have your views on a few strategic and
security matters in the Middle East. Arms imports to the Middle East
have dropped significantly in the last couple of decades. Will a
nuclear armed Iran change this tendency?
There has been
an interest in a number of GCC countries in modernizing their armed
forces, their aircraft and their air defences. Clearly, for some
countries, especially the UAE, the ambiguity about Iran’s strategic
posture is a spur to developing more modern military systems. What is
also becoming more important is to find better ways for the GCC to
coordinate air defences in particular, and one of the interests that
some of the governments from outside the region will have in engaging
with players of the Manama dialogue would be to see how greater
efficiencies can take place in GCC air defences and more coordination,
because the place is too small for one country to handle its air
defences on its own.
The Majalla: There is a sense of
apathy of Arab countries when it comes to dealing with Iran’s nuclear
plans. Do you agree? And why do you think this is?
It is
understandable that Gulf Arab states in particular don’t want to be at
the centre of this very intense diplomatic dispute. On the other hand,
they are the ones to be first affected if Iran will one day gain a
nuclear weapon, or to be able to threaten the region in some way
because of the confidence that will soon acquire a nuclear weapon. And
so my own view is that it is important for the states of the region to
find some way to become part of the negotiations and discussions with
Iran. The example I always use is the example of the six party talks in
Korea, where there has been concern about North Korea’s nuclear weapons
programme. There, crucially the states of the region, South Korea,
Japan and China, are directly engaged in negotiations and discussions,
and I believe that countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey
should at least informally be engaged in the so-called “5+1”
discussions that have taken place with the Islamic republic of Iran.
Sometimes you hear these states concerned that the 5+1 will do a deal
with Iran over their heads, sometimes you hear concerns that the kind
of pressure they are imposing on Iran is not appropriate to arrive at
an agreed solution. Both of these concerns, at each extreme, would be
resolved if they were more involved in the discussions, and I think
countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, who would be amongst the
first affected by a failure of the diplomacy with Iran, they should
engaged more intensely from the start.
The Majalla: What
do you make of the speculation that Gulf countries might buy nuclear
warheads from Pakistan in order to balance Iran?
I don’t
think that is likely but it is one of those rumours that is hugely
fuelled in the Gulf. There have been concerns expressed in the West
that the long time strategic relationship between Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan might permit such an arrangement.
I don’t think that is
likely. I do think what is important though is for there to be a
dialogue between the P5 states of the UN Security Council with the Gulf
Arab states about how their security might be guaranteed in the event
that diplomacy with Iran would fail. There have been concerns expressed
that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey might revise their views about
whether they might one day develop nuclear weapons if the Iranians do
acquire them for themselves. So really part of what the P5 needs to do
is, in the first instance, succeed in their diplomacy with Iran, but if
that would to fail, find a way to extend certain guarantees to the
states of the region that wouldn’t require them to get nuclear weapons
of their own. And there are some discussions in expert circles that
haven’t yet entered the formal public domain, about whether one day
there would need to be nuclear guarantees given to these states, the
so-called “extended deterrence”, provided to the states of the region.
And these debates are still very very quiet and they haven’t yet been
engaged in by foreign ministers or defence ministers, but I think it is
one of those things that quietly people are talking about, and which
Iran might want to consider in slowing down its progress towards
developing a nuclear option, because it would be unfortunate if the
region became subject to a formal balance of nuclear power, but that
would be better than having competitors unilaterally developing nuclear
power.
The Majalla: What is the state of arms control agreements in the region?
Well
there are not very many arms control agreements in the region that
really assist in the development of the kind of formal balance of power
that we had in the old days between East and West in Europe. And there
is an incomplete involvement of some of the states of the region in
some of the global arms control arrangements. However, there is more
interest for example in initiatives such as the Proliferation Security
Initiative, the so-called “PSI”, and obviously the current dramas about
piracy in the region are inspiring states to look much more closely at
the coordination of efforts to combat problems of piracy, so I think
the prospect for more coordinated diplomacy on security issues, because
of the variety of new threats that are emerging, is there, and that is
something we would like to inspire in the Manama Dialogue.
The Majalla: You were a NATO Fellow. Do you believe NATO can be successful in Afghanistan? And what does “success” mean there?
I
think it was always a mistake to make the success of the campaign in
Afghanistan a litmus test for the NATO Alliance. Especially as the
mission in Afghanistan became defined over the last few years as
grander and grander, so much so that at one point it appeared that
success could only be achieved in Afghanistan if we were developing a
sort of a Western-style democracy. I think what is happening now is
that we are going to redefine the mission in Afghanistan to its
original purpose which was to ensure that Afghanistan will never again
be a place from which organized terrorist attacks internationally could
take place. That requires changing the balance of power with the
Taliban, but it does not require its comprehensive and total defeat.
Some diplomatic work will need to be done to find ways to inspire lower
level Taliban to, if not directly support the government, not oppose it
using violent means. If this more modest definition of success in
Afghanistan takes place, and the right application of force, diplomacy
and development assistance is deployed, there is no reason why NATO and
the wider international community engaged in Afghanistan, shouldn’t
succeed over the next few years.
