IISS Voices

The latest issue of Strategic Comments, the Institute's online journal, has just been published.

As debate rages about US air strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the first article, The drones of war, joins the aircrews in Nevada who remotely operate aircraft over Asia, and discusses the pros and cons of deploying unmanned aerial vehicles.

Like US President Barack Obama, Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai recently celebrated 100 days in office. Power-sharing in Zimbabwe discusses the difficulties he faces in working with former foe President Robert Mugabe to turn around this failing state.

Kenya’s unity government has had a year to make much-needed changes, but Kenya’s political stalemate leaves international partners worried that 2008’s inter-ethnic clashes could recur.

Also in this issue, Strategic Comments looks at the recent UK rethink on counter-terrorism and at how Economic stress continues globally

Yesterday, in a speech to the US National Academy of Sciences, President Obama said that ‘energy is this generation’s great project’ as he stressed the value of basic research and set out a goal of devoting more than 3% of US GDP to research and development, well above current levels. Speaking at length about the precedent of the Apollo programme over 50 years ago, he concluded: ‘We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race ... this represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history’. Besides the high levels of basic research spending in the stimulus package, he said, his budget would double funding for several key national institutes and agencies such as the National Science Foundation. And he announced the funding of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E).

In his Closing Argument ‘Moon Over Manhattan’ in the most recent issue of Survival, Managing Editor Jeffrey Mazo argued for just such an Apollo-scale investment to achieve energy independence and a low-carbon economy 

, but that subsuming it in the stimulus package risked diluting the clear, inspirational goal central to successful long-term big-government projects. Moreover, substantial increases in R&D funding would not be sufficient; the ways in which it is allocated and monitored would also need to be carefully designed. With sufficient funding ARPA-E could serve as the nucleus of a massive national effort for energy transformation. Every president for the last 30 years has invoked the Apollo model for national technological goals, but none fought, or even asked, for the necessary money. Mazo concluded his essay by saying that ‘among the many tests facing Barack Obama is whether he might actually put into effect what five predecessors have merely promised’. On present evidence it looks like he will at least try.

Dana Allin, Editor, Survival, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs

‘Is Pandemic Flu a Security Threat?’ is the title of an article by Christian Enemark in the February–March 2009 issue of Survival. Enemark, Lecturer at the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, and Visiting Fellow at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, argued that, with the prospect of the next influenza pandemic causing illness and death on a large scale, over a wide area, in a short space of time, some Western governments have started framing pandemic flu as a threat to national security. But the framing of a health issue in security terms could lead to emergency responses which are ineffective, counter-productive or unjust. ‘Appealing to national security’, Enemark argues, ‘may be a good way of focusing national attention and resources. However, given the transnational reach of this potential microbial threat and the increasing interdependence of states, the greater part of the solution must lie in international cooperation’. With the potential of the current swine flu outbreak evolving into a pandemic, his warning could not have been more timely.

Consolidated news, information and discussion about swine flu and other strains can be found on the online collaboration site fluwiki.

Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival

The IISS is saddened by the death on 26 February of Consulting Senior Fellow Sir Michael Quinlan, aged 78.   Sir Michael had joined IISS in 2004 after a sterling career both in the British civil service, including as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministries of Employment (1983-88) and Defence (1988-92), and in academia, including as Director of the Ditchley Foundation (1992-99) and as a writer of several articles books on security matters.  His last book, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects (2009), was launched at Arundel House on 18 February, an event that Sir Michael himself had become too ill to attend.  In his last contribution to the security policy debate, he chaired a 4 February IISS panel discussion meeting featuring Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s promotion of the government’s policy information paper on ‘Lifting The Nuclear Shadow.’  Known for his intellectual brilliance, Sir Michael was also a modest and kind mentor to generations of friends and colleagues who sorely miss his advice and friendship.  A full obituary will appear in the Spring IISS Newsletter.  

Sunday 15 February marks the 20th anniversary of the last Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan. In the February–March issue of Survival, just out, we publish extracts from a fascinating diary Rodric Braithwaite, former UK Ambassador to Russia, wrote during a recent trip to Afghanistan. He found among the Afghans he spoke to a common belief that they had been better off under the Russians.

Braithwaite’s ‘Afghan Diary’ is part of a larger package of articles on the Afghanistan–Pakistan nexus. The lead article, free to view online, is ‘Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan’ by Adam Roberts, a long-time Survival contributor and professor at Oxford. In this video Roberts and Survival Editor Dana Allin discuss the causes of growing pessimism about the Afghanistan mission.

Hilary Synnott writes on Pakistan, Barnett Rubin, Amin Saikal and Julian Lindley-French each give their views of the ‘The Way Forward in Afghanistan’, and Robert Gates and David Petraeus answer questions in extracts from their plenary sessions at the IISS Manama Dialogue last December.

Beyond the pages of Survival, IISS Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia Oksana Antonenko took part in a panel discussion on Russia’s Afghanistan legacy at RIA Novosti’s London office this morning. The video is here.

Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival