Brookings: Topics - Democracy Assistance

Democracy, Human Rights and the Emerging Global Order

Ted Piccone — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:12:00 -0400

The Brookings Institution’s Managing Global Order project convened a two-day workshop to discuss emerging trends in international support for democracy and human rights and the increasingly complex drivers shaping foreign policies. Bringing together policy makers and experts from emerging and established democratic powers at Greentree, the workshop identified areas of convergence and divergence in foreign policy priorities, methods, and discourse, and extrapolated implications for the evolving global order.

On the first day, participants explored the concepts of democracy and human rights and their promotion within the context of competing national interests. On the second day, the focus shifted to international cooperation on issues of democracy and human rights, especially as seen through the lens of the Arab uprisings and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and the politics that guide the foreign policies of democracies. The discussions, which were held on the basis of the Chatham House rule of non-attribution to specific speakers, are summarized here.

The conversation was predicated on a working definition of democracy as a liberal, representative political system as articulated in various international instruments like the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies, UN General Assembly Resolution 56/96 of 2001, and the Inter-American Democratic Charter. While recognizing that it takes different forms in different contexts, democracy in this sense reflects such core principles as the separation of powers with checks and balances, civil and political rights, freedom of the press, universal suffrage in free and fair elections, and civilian control of the military. Although participants disagreed to what extent social and economic rights should be emphasized in the expression of democracy, they agreed that all human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing and deserve protection.

Global Governance

In an era when the gap between the demand for and the supply of global governance is growing, it is increasingly urgent that established and emerging democracies find common ground on norms and delivery of global public goods, especially on democracy and human rights issues. There is cause for optimism: Rising democracies like India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Turkey are embracing democracy and human rights at home and to varying degrees promoting them in their neighborhoods. But they are not yet stepping up to address the gap on these and other issues in global governance internationally.

Simultaneously, the rules-based system under which international relations take place is in flux, providing an opportunity to reshape and redirect the global order. Emerging powers emphasize the importance of democratization both domestically, where they are grappling with their own internal processes of reform, and multilaterally, where they question whether actions of established powers are commensurate with their principles, argue for universal application of rules and norms, and insist on a greater voice at the decision-making table. They have the opportunity to shape the future of global governance as leaders and are proving themselves important players in global affairs, but this shift has been more marked at the level of regions and neighborhoods. The results of multipolarity in the global sphere have been more ambiguous and it remains to be seen whether the liberal world order persists or a new framework emerges with rising powers at the helm of a more elastic set of norms. While it appears certain that human rights will remain a durable legacy of the era of Western hegemony, the cause of enlarging democracy stands on less solid footing.

The Democracy Advantage and its Place in Defining National Interests

In the modern era, peace generally reigns amongst democracies. Democracies also perform better than non-democracies at economic development, and democracy, economic development, and regional integration work hand-in-hand to promote peace and stability. Non-democracies are more likely to be failed states spawning internal or external conflict. It would be expected, therefore, that democracies would identify the spread of democracy as in their national interests and would partner on certain issues, such as support for democratic transitions, human rights and rule of law. A state’s designation as a democracy or non-democracy, however, is not necessarily a good predictor of foreign policy alignment. While there is strong convergence on the fundamental principles of human rights, emerging and established democracies favor very different methodologies for addressing threats to such core values, resulting in divergence of policy, politicization and stalemate, as in the case of Syria.

There was consensus that democracy cannot be imposed by external actors, but rather must be pursued organically by a population. It is a path, not a destination. Similarly, countries formulate and express democracy differently based on their unique histories; there is no single model of democracy. Aspiring democratic countries seeking advice from other democracies are increasingly turning to states that have undertaken their own transitions more recently, and they, in turn, are responding positively if and when asked to assist. In fact, the “twinning” model of pairing newer democracies with transitioning states is being prototyped by the Community of Democracies through its project pairing Poland with Moldova, and Slovakia with Tunisia. The G8 has arranged similar pairings through the Deauville Partnership with Arab Countries in Transition, which links leaders in aspiring democracies with G8 partners to build institutional capacity, promote knowledge sharing, and strengthen accountability and good-governance practices. In addition, rising democracies like Indonesia and South Africa have been key players in establishing and utilizing multilateral fora like the Bali Democracy Forum and the African Peer Review mechanism to share experiences and best practices in this domain.

Although participants agreed that democracy must be demand driven, disagreement emerged regarding the universality of democracy promotion. Some felt strongly that countries on the path of democracy have a responsibility to assist those who seek the same path. Others noted the negative connotations associated with democracy promotion and its perceived application as a post-hoc, faux justification for military intervention aimed at regime change, as with U.S. involvement in Iraq. Some also pointed to its selective application, especially when energy security interests take precedence over influencing, punishing, or removing repressive regimes, as with U.S. passivity in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Some in the global South interpret democracy promotion as a U.S. agenda rather than a universal aspiration and wish to construct a unique brand of support for democracy in contrast to the U.S. and E.U. model. Rising democracies seek their own identity (also referred to as strategic autonomy) in an effort to avoid being seen as tools of more established powers. In one respect, this attitude has prompted emerging powers to act timidly with regards to democracy promotion, hiding behind the fig leaves of sovereignty and non-intervention when asked by the international community to act outside their neighborhoods.

Nonetheless, such powers have actively promoted democracy in their regions through both bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. Indonesia, for example, was a key player in leveraging ASEAN to encourage Myanmar to undertake political change and in drafting the first ever ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights. However, emerging powers have been as complacent as established powers in indirectly suppressing democracy when other national interests take precedence, as with India’s less than decisive response to the political crisis in the Maldives, or Brazil’s uncritical support for Cuba. In response to the Arab Spring, rising democracies are for the first time being expected to grapple with the notion of democracy promotion beyond their own regions, an expectation many find difficult to fulfill. The prevalence of extremist ideologies and xenophobia, the increased threat of the tyranny of the majority, and the free and fair election of leaders the international community may dislike all posed significant red flags for emerging (and established) democracies and reinforced their reticence regarding democracy promotion. Other national interests like trade relations, energy dependence, migration and diaspora population concerns present roadblocks to greater international engagement on this issue.

The emergence of other domestic political and economic actors with their own interests and values plays an important role in shaping national interests, especially in emerging democratic powers. Some disagreement concerned which actors had the most influence over the definition of national interests. In Brazil, for example, the private sector may be notably more influential than other domestic players, which complicates a truly national definition of priorities. Parliament plays an uneven and unpredictable role in formulating foreign policy, although legislators in emerging powers have begun taking greater interest. For example, Brazilian congressmen and senators recently joined a coalition with NGOs to hold the foreign minister accountable on human rights issues. While recognizing the important role legislators can play in inserting human rights into foreign policy, some acknowledged that their contribution could also be a mixed blessing due to nationalist, religious or ethnic political motivations.

Much conversation also involved the balancing of interests that sometimes conflict with human rights, such as national security and the economy. Some argued that human rights and democracy support must be managed in a way that does not jeopardize other national interests or relations with key trading partners like China. In this respect, constant calibration between interests and values is vital. Rising democracies will continue to define their own pace of democratization at home and support for democracy and human rights abroad, leading many observers to predict a continued period of inertia and inaction in responding to or preventing democratic breakdowns or mass human rights violations. The international community is thus tasked to advance a mutually respectful collaborative approach that appeals to both emerging and established powers and that achieves results. To successfully reach such a compromise, it must identify approaches the global South feels comfortable employing and develop strategies to bring those tools to bear in new and challenging contexts.

The Arab Uprisings and the Responsibility to Protect

Although the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is embraced as within democratic principles, its primary purpose is not democracy promotion. R2P’s mission is atrocity prevention, though it is difficult to operationalize the concept. The application of R2P in Libya through military intervention authorized by the UN Security Council and the subsequent failure to exercise it in Syria as of yet has revealed many challenges inherent in current understandings of R2P. It also provided an important venue for conversation between established and emerging powers about humanitarian intervention. It is clear that a fundamental shift has taken place regarding humanitarian intervention and that more and more states embrace the broad values expressed by R2P. For example, most of the 118 states that mentioned Syria at the UN General Assembly in 2012 expressed concern about the population, up from less than a third who invoked Kosovo and East Timor in 1999. In addition, the IBSA Dialogue Forum sent a delegation to Syria, as did Turkey, a new rallying of emerging powers to address threats to human rights both inside and outside their own neighborhoods. This level of attention and the unprecedented advocacy of a policy of intervention by rising powers can be attributed at least in part to the improved quality of democracy in the rising democracies.

With the support of emerging powers like South Africa, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized the use of force in Libya, but elicited rancor from some parties when it resulted in the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi. Suspicions were voiced that Resolution 1973 had acted as cover for regime change, and because it was couched in the language of R2P, states began questioning the concept. In response to this breakdown in consensus, Brazil proposed the Responsibility While Protecting (RWP) principle, which emphasized the sequencing of measures to ensure all options were exhausted before using force, and called for greater accountability and reporting to the Security Council. Participants disagreed as to whether RWP served as a useful basis for conversation between the North and South, or if it represented a counterproductive Brazilian political move that merely inflamed rhetoric. Some of the good will engendered by RWP has begun to disintegrate as the situation in Syria continues to fester with no coordinated international response.

Admittedly, Libya and Syria are very different countries, especially in terms of the roles they play in the strategic interests of key actors. Nevertheless, the application of R2P in Libya but not in Syria highlights the phenomenon of selectivity, a topic of debate throughout the workshop. Participants agreed that crisis situations should be examined on a case-by-case basis, but at the same time many reinforced the global responsibility to support all states that are unable to adequately prevent mass atrocities. Some suggested that selectivity is the principled application of R2P but called for transparency in decision making to better understand a state’s motivations for supporting or denouncing intervention as an option. Others argued that universalizing the concept to make responsibility an obligation at all times in all cases is a fundamental challenge that the international community should pursue. At the very least, discourse must recognize that all states engage in some form of selectivity in order to advance the conversation.

It was pointed out that international responses to the Arab uprisings have been uneven not only in atrocity prevention but also democracy support. Emerging powers hesitate to lend support to the application of R2P in Syria lest it be used as a mask for regime change, as some perceive to have been in the case in Libya. However, established and emerging powers alike have not exercised leadership in universally supporting calls for democracy in countries of the Middle East because of overarching security concerns like energy and relations with Israel. And although emerging and established powers share an interest in energy security, they still differ on methodologies; a country may have leverage in a situation short of intervening militarily which might result in strategies that are most cost effective in money and lives. For example, South Africa resisted intervening militarily in Zimbabwe in response to democracy and human rights crises, despite international calls to do so, but was able, in their view, to improve elections there through alternative means. Likewise, it refused to intervene militarily in Sudan, instead employing a triangulation strategy that led to secession. Similarly, Turkey initially prioritized dialogue and consultation with the Assad regime, relying on the relationship it had cultivated with Syria over the last ten years to exhaust all potential peaceful solutions. IBSA also sent a high-level diplomatic mission to Syria to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict and thereby ward off military intervention.

The Arab uprisings have fundamentally challenged the Western idea of the separation of church and state, and Arab democracy demands a redefinition of secularism that allows religious values, but not rules and regulations, to take root in society. Discussants will continue to have to confront this new reality as the conversation continues regarding democratization in the Arab world.

Current understandings of preventive diplomacy tools like R2P – especially how they relate to and affect emerging democracies – must be improved. The discussion prompted by the Brazilian proposal of RWP highlights the need for further conversation or clarification about R2P as a tool. There is still fear that R2P provides a blank check to pursue national interests rather than prevent atrocities. Therefore, a refocusing on R2P’s purpose and intentions is needed, and may reduce objections to its proper application. In addition, a multilateral coalition must be built and maintained to address mass atrocities such as in Syria. This requires ongoing messaging with all partners and the public to maintain support and communicate expectations and mission objectives.

Tools for International Cooperation on Democracy and Human Rights

Recent events show a clear incapacity of international mechanisms to effectively address major threats to democracy and human rights. While established democracies are quicker to pursue coercive tactics and emerging democracies strongly prefer dialogue and reconciliation, a variety of tools are available and being tested on the world stage. Indonesia seeks to make democracy and human rights foundational concerns at existing institutions like ASEAN, its new Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), and the G20. Indonesia’s leadership in the adoption of the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights and the establishment of the Bali Democracy Forum underscore this commitment. The Community of Democracies creates issue-based working groups to involve government and civil society and maximizes technology through the LEND network, connecting key leaders in transitioning countries with those in transitioned countries.

Another key tool touted by many participants is reliance on regional bodies as antenna in noting potential problems and as early movers in response to crises. The AU and SADC both have provisions to suspend any country that experiences an unconstitutional interruption, ECOWAS recently suspended Mali’s membership in response to a coup, and UNASUR recently exercised a similar provision against Paraguay. These and other multilateral mechanisms are critical because they reflect regional ownership without the presence of Northern powers and because such a coalition is less likely than a single nation to create further problems or receive pushback from local actors.

Participants discussed in depth the merits of democracy-inclusive forums and democracy-exclusive forums for discussion of important transnational issues. For example, the Community of Democracies reformed its invitation and governing council selection process in 2010 to ensure leadership consists of staunchly committed democracies while expanding participation at ministerial meetings to include countries at incipient stages of democracy. The Bali Democracy Forum, however, invites a broader base of participants, including China and Vietnam, in an effort to establish a conversation with more parties. While it was agreed that both style of forums are necessary and beneficial, participants lacked consensus as to when democracies should and should not include others in policy conversations.

Most participants with a global South view asserted that for any country to retain credibility in international cooperation on human rights and democracy, a strong human rights record at home is a vital requisite. Otherwise, the rules-based system that governs behavior is weakened by the perception that great powers write the rules but are not necessarily committed to following them. In this respect, emerging powers emphasize the importance of addressing human rights challenges domestically. For example, Brazil recently established a truth commission to investigate human rights abuses under the military dictatorship and passed a freedom of information law to increase transparency. It has also engaged in international efforts to combat violence against women and encourage open government initiatives, key concerns within Brazil and essential to advancing its own democracy. No consensus was reached on the means by which accountability can be increased on the global level, although the need was clearly articulated. Emerging democratic powers are increasingly held to account by vibrant civil society organizations and media that feature voices from victims of violations and question government’s actions abroad. Decision makers have noted this democratization of foreign policy and it continues to shape their processes and actions.

Words of caution tend to outweigh prescriptive solutions in discussing tools for international cooperation. According to some participants, limiting discussions on transnational issues to an exclusive club of democracies is a false dichotomy that discourse must move past. Engaging with imperfect democracies (like Venezuela and Bolivia) is crucial to encourage their continued development on the path of democracy. The regional dimension of democracy and human rights support should also be strengthened so that neighbors hold each other accountable for advancing democratic practices. Trade and regional economic integration can also be considered as a potentially effective tool for promoting values. States should also leverage their private sectors, which engage in new and different ways with civil society when investigating potential investment opportunities abroad, to take advantage of new avenues for dialogue. In addition, they should encourage business leaders to prioritize their obligations to protect human rights and sustainable development. Finally, the international community must better coordinate its efforts to avoid overwhelming target populations, as has occurred with countries rushing to Tunisia’s aid in its transition. It must also ensure that such aid is voluntary and in no way coercive.

The Politics of Foreign Policy in Democracies: The Human Rights Dimension

In the last session, participants articulated the tactics that facilitate action at the global level and the factors preventing further progress, with suggestions for improvement. Agreements at the UN Human Rights Council and other similar international fora are often reached by isolating extremists and working effectively with the middle. Diplomats are also successful when they can effectively navigate their governments in capital to alter a country’s position on an issue. Therefore, personalities of the diplomats at the UN, the Human Rights Council, and other relevant bodies can play important roles in shaping the course of negotiations. Similarly, personal priorities of government leaders can influence how much importance is placed on human rights. U.S. Secretary of State Clinton has prioritized women’s human rights and LGBT human rights, but Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, is a technocrat who prioritizes economic growth and social protections. The foreign policies of the countries reflect these priorities.

Many factors, including the realpolitik interests of emerging powers, resource constraints, political dynamics, personalities and what is politically and procedurally possible at international bodies all combine to explain why more action is not taken on human rights issues at the global level. For example, to highlight the importance of human rights in foreign policy, one European expert shared that the human rights section of the foreign ministry receives the highest number of parliamentary questions on foreign policy, while about half of the daily statements from the ministry spokesperson pertain to human rights. However, budget constraints and the current state of the economy prevent more robust action at this time. Another participant from an established democracy shared that internal bureaucratic politics limited the policy options available to diplomats which slowed action at the Human Rights Council and limited that country’s opportunities to lead. Conversely, domestic politics forced India to change its vote at the Human Rights Council regarding a resolution calling on Sri Lanka to address human rights abuses. India had long resisted such resolutions, but thanks to overt pressure from a coalition partner, it became more active. This represents an unusual but important example of domestic politics prompting rather than impeding action on human rights at the international level.

Emerging democracies face major challenges in addressing their own human rights deficits at home. They largely lack a domestic constituency for a more human rights-oriented foreign policy, meaning the few NGOs advocating for these issues have a small pool of support on which to draw. As a result, economic growth and private interests are usually prioritized over accountability. In Brazil, much of civil society has not been actively engaged on these issues, and in Indonesia, the discussion has traditionally been dominated by think tanks. This has begun to shift and influence on foreign policy has begun to diversify, but in many of the emerging powers this change is still in the nascent phases. In some cases, emerging democracies still struggle to maintain a high-quality representative system. The process of decentralization in Indonesia has led to a growing oligarchy which threatens the protection of minority rights – especially religious minorities but also women. Turkey has experienced serious backsliding regarding freedom of the press while continuing to wrestle with its own minority rights challenges. Overall, civil society engagement on foreign policy in emerging democracies has been limited but is improving. Attention should be paid to framing the discussion on a case-by-case basis to bring these issues into the public consciousness in the relevant countries.

Despite these challenges, most participants agreed that civil society and NGOs have an enormous role to play in shaping foreign policy regarding human rights. When governments refuse to act on important issues, civil society can apply pressure to prompt action. For example, when South Africa hesitated to broach LGBT rights at the Human Rights Council, South African civil society held the government accountable by bringing public attention to the prioritization of human rights codified in the 1994 constitution. This shamed South Africa into leading on this issue. However, many participants asserted that civil society and NGOs must be more creative in approaching governments. While the foreign ministry is often the lead on foreign policy regarding human rights, many other ministries have equity in these crosscutting issues and shape (or block) the debate. Civil society and NGOs should approach other ministries – ministries concerned with the economy, education, and security, for example – to apply pressure and enact change. In addition, they can call upon leaders in the executive branch with a personal interest in democracy and human rights matters to apply pressure. For example, in Brazil, NGOs approached an attorney general who had previously worked in the human rights field to question the foreign ministry about an upcoming vote on North Korea. By invoking Article IV of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, which codifies a commitment to human rights, the attorney general and NGOs were able to elicit a change in Brazil’s vote.

While these recommendations may help civil society and NGOs bolster their impact, they must be prepared for pushback from governments. While governments in the global North revert to funding constraints and domestic pressure as motivations for their action or inaction, governments in the global South might rely on arguments that South-South cooperation should be emphasized over naming and shaming tactics and that the system operates under a double standard. Civil society and NGOs should accept and support South-South cooperation, but not complacency. They must demand leadership from their governments to ensure the safeguarding of the global democracy and human rights order.

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Ted Piccone

Image Source: © Ho New / Reuters

Democracy and Poverty: A Lesson from Mongolia

Nyamosor Tuya — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Later this month, Mongolia will host the 7^th ministerial conference of the Community of Democracies (CD), an intergovernmental forum of democracies formed in 2000 at the initiative of Bronislaw Geremek of Poland and Madeleine Albright of the United States. Several civil society events will accompany it.

The CD was launched at a conference in Warsaw in 2000, and its goals were announced in the Warsaw Declaration: strengthening democratic values and institutions, protecting human rights, and promoting civil society. The effort was to be undertaken both at the national level, by supporting one another in these endeavors, and at the global level through collaboration on democracy-related issues in international and regional institutions. The Warsaw Declaration also emphasized the interdependence between peace, development, human rights and democracy.

After 2000, however, despite a sustained schedule of meetings and statements, the CD never really took off. Democracy’s progress worldwide had slowed in subsequent years, as noted in a number of surveys, including one by Freedom House. Celebrating its 10^th anniversary in Krakow in 2010, the CD acknowledged this state of affairs and through its Act of Recommitment to the Warsaw Declaration pledged to intensify its efforts to transform itself “into a unique forum for the world's democracies to promote and strengthen democracy on a global basis.” To meet this objective, the CD began to retool itself by creating a permanent secretariat, launching a partnership initiative that focuses on assistance to specific countries and, on top of civil society, bringing young people, businesses, and parliamentarians into its dialogue on democracy.

The April 2013 conference in Ulaanbaatar will be an occasion for the CD to further reinvigorate its agenda. Mongolia, which currently holds the CD presidency, offers a number of lessons to offer that could contribute to the organization’s recommitment to its objectives, especially emphasis on the interdependence between poverty, development and democracy. This emphasis is important both as an immediate goal for the host country and as a larger goal for the CD as a whole.

The case of Mongolia on poverty and democracy is instructive. The country started transitioning to democracy over twenty years ago and, for almost as long, the rate of poverty has stood at 30 percent and above. In the 1990s, much of it could be attributed to the disruptions caused by changes in its political and economic system. Harsh weather has been an intermittent factor, too. But no significant progress has been registered in later years, when the economy has grown at an annual average of 9 percent in the past decade. The latest available figure (2011) shows that poverty still stands at 29.8 percent, despite the double-digit economic growth in the past two years. The gap between poor and rich has continued to grow, and infrastructure has languished in a chronically decrepit state. Corruption, on the other hand, has continued to increase. Between 1999 and 2011, while the economy was growing, the country’s corruption ranking has managed to drop from a place where it was comfortably ahead of some of its fellow post-communist countries in Europe to a dismal 120th place out of some 180 countries surveyed by Transparency International. The implications for democracy were grave: most reforms stalled, vote buying became a serious concern, and public trust in the institutions of democracy was shaken. In a survey conducted in June 2012, over 80 percent of respondents believed that government policies were “always” or “often” failing to solve their concerns, chief among them unemployment and poverty.

The lesson to be drawn from this experience is that, early on in the transition process, new democracies should put economic liberty and transparency on a par with other democratic values such as regular elections, rule of law, human rights, freedom of association and freedom of speech. Otherwise, a callous and corrupt government, sometimes voted in through dubiously “free and fair” elections, can use the trappings and rhetoric of democracy as a façade while behind the scenes they engage in rent-seeking practices that can lead to a systemic entrenchment of corruption. In such a system political power is used for economic gain and economic gain is used for buying political influence. Few or no dividends go to the general populace. This results in persistent poverty among a large percentage of the population coupled with poor social services. Public enthusiasm or support for democracy wanes, democracy is eroded, therefore human rights are violated, and eventually democracy breaks down. Such scenarios are an early and real threat to democracy because the impoverished populace does not have the necessary tools―such as education or access to information―to fight back and, in most cases, is simply unfamiliar with the concept of demanding government accountability and responsiveness.

Early on, the CD emphasized this problem by stating in Warsaw that eradication of poverty is an “essential contributing factor to the promotion and preservation of democratic development” (2000). This emphasis should now be renewed. To do so, recommitment to the concept of interdependence between democracy and poverty found in the Santiago Commitment (2005) is essential. The Commitment stressed that democracy cannot be sustained without persistent efforts to eliminate extreme poverty and, vice versa, that the strengthening of democratic governance was “an essential component” of the efforts to alleviate poverty. Rooting out corruption that “corrodes democracy,” as stated in Warsaw, is a central element of these efforts, and this stance was reaffirmed in the Krakow Plan for Democracy (2010). Poverty is as much a threat to a democracy as poor institutions in that it deprives people of their political voice preventing them from holding their governments accountable and responsive, and eroding public trust in the emerging institutions of democracy. The CD’s Bamako Consensus (2007) addressed the issue of public trust: “persistent inequality and poverty can lead to low public trust in political institutions and vulnerability to undemocratic practices both of which are threats to democracy.” Poverty is also an assault on human dignity which is why the Bamako Consensus also emphasized that democracy, development and human rights were mutually reinforcing.

This body of reasoning serves as a good foundation for the CD to contribute to the ongoing global debate on the post-2015 development agenda. This debate presents the CD with an opportunity to pursue its position that eradication of poverty and the consolidation of democracy are interdependent. The thematic session on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that is planned for the CD’s meetings in Ulaanbaatar could therefore be seized as an occasion to launch substantive discussions on collaboration, in the coming years, with international organizations and civil society on ways to incorporate democratic governance in the post-2015 development agenda, or mainstream anti-corruption efforts into it, and ensure that this agenda adopts a human rights-based approach, addresses inequality and promotes social inclusion. Discussions could revolve around the issues raised in papers and notes by UN bodies and agencies and other actors, especially civil society, that call for encompassing human rights, democracy and good governance in an inclusive development agenda focused on poverty eradication. The ideas expressed at the global consultation on governance and the post-2015 framework could also be taken up.

The experience of Mongolia could also be looked at. Mongolia is one of two countries that have voluntarily added a ninth goal to its MDGs: Strengthen Human Rights and Foster Democratic Governance. While a welcome initiative, Mongolia’s MDG 9 has not been a successful undertaking either in terms of its design and implementation; one of its targets, “zero tolerance for corruption,” has been, for too long, an embarrassing slogan given the deteriorating realities on the ground. The initiative did not target such central principles of democratic governance as government accountability, transparency and participation. Neither has the mutually reinforcing nature of the goals to reduce poverty, promote gender equality and improve governance been duly highlighted in the national MDGs framework. Mongolia’s case strongly suggests that the design of governance goals and the methodology of assessing and monitoring their progress should be given careful consideration. The country’s experience also suggests that it is important for national leaders in new democracies to fully embrace and own the goals and targets of poverty reduction and democratic governance -- and to lead. And they should be held accountable for the failures in the implementation.

The impending Community of Democracy discussions in Ulaanbaatar will provide Mongolian leaders both in government and in civil society with an opportunity to reflect on the current status of the country’s MDGs on poverty reduction and democratic governance and commit to their acceleration. It should be noted that the latest poverty figure shows a decrease―29 percent in 2011 versus 39 percent in 2010―but it is yet to be determined if this is attributable to government’s untargeted cash handouts of the past three years, or whether it points to a trend. Whichever the case, sustaining economic growth and expanding the opportunities offered by it, especially by reducing youth unemployment, will be essential if the country is to meet its goal of reducing poverty to 18 percent by 2015. The discussion will also help the thinking on the best ways to incorporate the “unfinished business,” or any unmet MDGs, into the country’s post-MDGs goals in a way that is mindful of the importance of the wider governance context for any success in the key areas of poverty, gender equality and environment.

After years of stalled reform that threatened to jeopardize the country’s democratic gains, it appears that the Mongolian government is now more willing to tackle its outstanding governance issues. It has laid out its plans to reform the civil service, judiciary and police, the institutions most frequently cited in past surveys as the most corrupt; wider policy deliberation and citizen feedback and participation are encouraged, including through the use of new technologies; democracy education is being debated; efforts to address corruption have been stepped up and a more robust national strategy to combat it is in the works. A recent survey showed a slight increase in the level of confidence that people place in the ability of the country’s anti-corruption agency to tackle the issue. In a promising sign, in a single year, the country moved up 26 places in its ranking of the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (the effect of changes in methodology and lesser number of countries surveyed is unclear). The government has also expressed its intent to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral transparency initiative involving governments and civil society. Its OGP Action Plan is scheduled to be presented later this month.

The government’s commitment to accountability and transparency will be put to the test by its handling of the case of a former finance minister, whose failure to disclose his offshore company and a secret Swiss bank account, holding $1 million at one time, was brought to light last week by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

If sustained, reform should improve government effectiveness and create an enabling governance environment for focusing on poverty eradication which should remain the government’s first priority. In the years ahead, the country’s significant extractive wealth will also have to be managed in an exemplary way so that its benefits go to the entire population in an equitable way. The CD’s position that eradication of poverty is essential for a healthy democracy should serve as a guiding principle for the Mongolian government for it to regain public trust and produce outcomes that ensure prosperity, justice and security for the people.

Since the next CD ministerial will take place in 2015, only a couple of months removed from the global gathering on development, the Ulaanbaatar CD ministerial is an opportunity for democracies to start working together to include the democratic principles of accountability, transparency and participation into the post-2015 poverty eradication agenda. A reaffirmation of the CD’s belief in the mutually reinforcing nature of democracy and development can also help re-shape the debate in Mongolia in a way that integrates eradication of poverty, equity and social justice into the broader project of democracy.

Authors

Nyamosor Tuya

Image Source: © Stringer China / Reuters

The Organization of American States Preserves Democratic Charter–For Now!

Diana Villiers Negroponte — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:20:00 -0400

A high wire act played out over a 12-hour session of the General Assembly last week at the Organization of American States (OAS): Ecuador and Venezuela threatened to walk out unless their demands were met. Considerable tensions existed within the Hall of the Americas as the foreign ministers witnessed another threat to the organization’s integrity. This time, the contest was over the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Since 1959, the IACHR has taken up and defended the rights of children, of women, of indigenous communities, of sexual minorities, persons deprived of liberty, afro-descendents, people with disabilities, migrants, defenders of human rights: in short, people in vulnerable situations. The IAHCR and its judicial arm, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have continued to denounce and sanction violations of human rights. Throughout the Chilean, Argentinean and Brazilian military dictatorships of the 1970s and early 1980s, the commission and the court played key roles in making visible the victims of abuse. Despite perennial criticisms of the OAS for its failure to defend democratic institutions, the IACHR and the court are considered to be the main collective achievements in defending the rights of individual citizens in the Western Hemisphere.

On September 11, 2001, at the same time as the United States suffered critical attacks, the OAS General Assembly reaffirmed that the promotion and protection of human rights is a basic prerequisite for the existence of a democratic society. The Inter-American Democratic Charter was signed on this historic day in U.S. history. In its Article 8 it gave the right to “any person who consider that his or her human rights have been violated may lodge a complaint or petition before the inter-American system for protection and promotion of human rights.” Individual citizens were recognized as legitimate actors in the consolidation of democracy.

It was therefore disturbing when in 2010, Ecuador and Venezuela raised three complaints about the IACHR: the budget should be limited to contributions from member states and not from observer nations and civil society; the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression should receive less funds and no more than the amount granted to other OAS rapporteurs; and, third, the headquarters for the IACHR should move out of Washington, preferably to Argentina.

The demands of Ecuador and Venezuela were discussed for over 22 months and through 37 meetings of IACHR and 29 working groups, the presentation of 98 documents from civil society, five academic meetings, three hemispheric audiences and one Extraordinary Session of the OAS. When the sought-for reforms were raised at the 44th Special Session of the OAS General Assembly last week, Ecuador and Venezuela threatened to walk out if their demands were not addressed.

Ecuador and Venezuela – with Bolivian and Nicaraguan support – called to limit the IACHR budget. This was an effort both to limit outside influences on the human rights commission as well as to reduce, even further its effectiveness. Currently, 55 percent of the IACHR’s budget comes from the OAS, the remaining 45 percent comes from member countries, observer nations and civil society. In 2012, the IACHR had an annual budget of $10 million with which to pay rapporteurs, attorneys and staff. With only 34 attorneys for 35 member countries and 31 other staff members, the work of investigating the 448 complaints submitted in 2012 is already inadequate because it enables consideration of only 10 percent of the complaints. Rather than reduce further the IACHR budget, the commission has requested doubling its budget to $20 million in order to hire more attorneys and consider more complaints.

The second complaint was more serious, namely a reduction in the budget for Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. The work of this office is dedicated to preserving “the right to seek, receive, and disseminate information and opinions freely.” (Declaration of Principles on the Right to Freedom of Expression). The call to reduce the budget for this office was a demand to limit, if not curtail its effectiveness. In both Ecuador and Venezuela, the press has been censured, and in certain cases closed, because of stories critical of the government.

The third complaint requesting that the IACHR move out of Washington did not receive the same objection. Both Costa Rica and Peru offered to host the commission, should it have to leave the OAS building and support structure thereof.

It is noteworthy that Mexico, which has received more complaints before the IACHR in the last two years than any other nation within the OAS, rejected the demands of Venezuela and Ecuador. Colombia, which during its civil war with the FARC had been the object of criticism from numerous, alleged victims of human rights, also rejected the demands. While Bolivia and Nicaragua joined in the Ecuadoran demand, the Caribbean members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (known by its Spanish acronym ALBA) did not do so; nor did Peru, Costa Rica, Brazil, Canada and the United States. The four ALBA continental nations were marginalized and on this occasion failed to modify the rules and process of the OAS. Only Argentina prevented the walk-out of Ecuador and Venezuela by presenting a motion that enabled the OAS to continue debating the three reforms.

The contest will continue and Ecuador will seek to lead its ALBA allies in rejecting liberal democratic concepts, such as human rights and press freedom. The significance of the 44th Extraordinary General Assemblyof the OAS is that the ALBA countries failed to undermine the democratic principles of the Inter-American system. If anything, the criticism has strengthened the resolve of the Western Hemisphere to retain its ideals and maintain a process by which individuals can bring complaints before an international body that accepts the sovereignty of the people, not the governors.

Authors

Diana Villiers Negroponte

Image Source: © Juan Carlos Ulate / Reuters

The Significance of Obama’s Meeting with African Leaders at the White House

Mwangi S. Kimenyi — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:01:00 -0400

Since coming to office in 2009, President Obama has on a number of occasions invited African leaders for meetings at the White House and at luncheons at the United Nations in New York. Over the past four years, Obama has hosted several African leaders at the White House including: Zuma of South Africa, Kikwete of Tanzania, Mills of Ghana, Jonathan of Nigeria, Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe, Khama of Botswana, Sirleaf of Liberia, Yayi of Benin, Conde of Guinea, Issoufou of Niger, and Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire, among others.

These selective meetings with African leaders have not only served to advance American interests in Africa, but have also been used to tacitly communicate the administration’s expectations of democratic reforms in Africa and to reward those countries that have made advances in the cause of democracy and human rights.

While it is not the case that those invited represent the most democratic or free countries in Africa, they do often represent countries that have made substantial progress in democratization or cessation of civil conflict. In some cases, an African country’s strategic importance to the United States in terms of security appears to be the most important factor for inclusion on the White House invitation list.

Next Thursday, President Obama will host four African leaders at the White House: Jorge Carlos Fonseca of Cape Verde, Macky Sall of Senegal, Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone and Joyce Banda of Malawi. In hosting these leaders, President Obama will yet again send a message to African leaders that his administration wants to engage with those leaders and countries that uphold the rule of law and good governance. The president is likely to proclaim the invited leaders as the best examples of the type of leadership that Africa needs to deal with the wide array of developmental challenges that the continent faces. The president will yet again highlight United States’ commitment to partnering with those African countries that demonstrate advances in good governance, democracy and tackling corruption.

President Obama’s engagement with a select group of African leaders whose countries have made advances in democratic reforms has its merits. However, there are many countries that are critical to peace and security in Africa and deserve to be part of the conversation with the president.

Cape Verde

Of all the African countries whose leaders will be visiting the White House next week, Cape Verde stands out with respect to its robust institutions and good governance. In addition to continued entrenchment of the rule of the law, Cape Verde has also been consistent in instituting reforms necessary to sustain high rates of economic growth. Its indicators of political rights, civil liberties, and freedom of information are among the highest in Africa. President Fonseca won in a multi-party election in August 2011 in Cape Verde, taking over from Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires, who stepped down as president after serving two terms. President Pires was the 2011 winner of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which is awarded to former African leaders with a demonstrated record of good governance. Finally, Cape Verde has had a 20-year record of a multi-party democracy.

Senegal

Senegal also scores high on various indicators of governance and has a good track record of free and fair elections. President Macky Sall was elected in April last year after defeating the incumbent president, Abdoulaye Wade, who had sought a third term in office after manipulating the country’s constitution in order to be eligible to run for a third term. The rejection of Wade by the country’s voters signifies the maturity of Senegal as a democracy and in part explains the inclusion of President Sall attending next Thursday’s White House meeting.

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone and Malawi do not score as high as Cape Verde and Senegal in terms of good governance. However, the democratic trajectory in these countries over the past few years has been positive. President Koroma of Sierra Leone was first elected in 2007 and reelected in 2012. Although the country’s democracy is a work in progress, the nation has emerged from a devastating conflict, which lasted from 1991-2002, and its transition to a democratically-elected leader and the maintenance of peace are significant.

Malawi

Joyce Banda, who was previously the vice president of Malawi, became president in April last year following the death of then-president, Bingu wa Mutharika. While Malawi has had a good track record of democratic reforms, there was a serious erosion of democracy during the last few years of Mutharika’s rule as he became increasingly authoritarian. At the time of his death, Mutharika had isolated his country from many of its international development and foreign aid partners. Banda’s rise to the presidency is significant in that after Mutharika’s death, his close allies in the government sought to deny Banda the constitutional right to assume the presidency. However, the provisions of the constitution were upheld, which is a credit to the people of Malawi and the country’s democratic institutions. President Banda also represents one of two female presidents in Africa, which is a sign of increasing political inclusion. Banda has also started to rebuild the Malawi’s relationships with the international community.

A Message to President Obama to Broaden Engagement with Africa

President Obama’s engagement with a select group of African leaders whose countries have made advances in democratic reforms has its merits. However, there are many countries that are critical to peace and security in Africa and deserve to be part of the conversation with the president. Furthermore, with the increasing pace of regional integration in Africa, the economies are intertwined such that what happens in one country impacts on other countries. Thus, the president’s engagement with Africa should also be more inclusive and as much as possible engage directly with the broader African leadership probably through the African Union organs.

A Message to the African Leaders

But the African presidents should not just represent their own countries. The opportunity to meet with President Obama should also be used to articulate the broader challenges that Africa faces and the need for deeper U.S. engagement with the region. In particular, the leaders should impress on the president the need for a coherent strategy to deal with security threats that have become increasingly serious in the continent. The leaders should also urge President Obama to focus more on commercial engagement for the mutual benefit of Africa and the United States. Finally, the African leaders should make a case for U.S. to increase its support of Africa’s regional integration project as well as addressing its huge infrastructure deficit and energy poverty. These are areas where U.S. involvement can have major impacts in Africa’s development and simultaneously benefit Americans and U.S. businesses.

Authors

Mwangi S. Kimenyi

Still Peddling Iraq War Myths, Ten Years Later

Paul R. Pillar — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

Documentaries, commentaries and forums marking the ten-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War have been so numerous that they already have become tiresome, even though the actual anniversary of the invasion is not until next Tuesday. The repetition would nonetheless be worthwhile if it helped to inculcate and to reinforce lessons that might reduce the chance that a debacle comparable to the Iraq War will itself be repeated. Maybe some such positive reinforcement will occur, but a problem is that the anniversary retrospectives also give renewed exposure to those who promoted the war and have a large stake in still promoting the idea that they were not responsible for foisting on the nation an expedition that was so hugely damaging to American interests.

I participated in one anniversary event earlier this week: a loosely structured on-the-record discussion, organized by the Rand Corporation and the publishers of Foreign Policy, involving about twenty people who had something to do with the Iraq War, whether it was starting it, fighting it, or writing about it. The session had the admirable stated purpose of extracting lessons for the future rather than merely repeating old debates from the past. But a clear pattern throughout the event was that ten years have not diluted the house line of those most directly involved in promoting the war, including among others then-deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Douglas Feith, who as an undersecretary of defense was one of the most rabid of the war promoters. Not only did they give no hint of acknowledgment that this war of choice (and Hadley refused to accept even that characterization) was one of the worst and most inexcusable blunders in the history of U.S. foreign policy. They also stuck to the line that if there was any mistake in the origin of the war it was solely a matter of “bad intelligence” and that the only “lessons” to be learned were to distrust intelligence more or ask tougher questions about it.

Intelligence did not drive or guide the decision to invade Iraq—not by a long shot, despite the aggressive use by the Bush administration of cherry-picked fragments of intelligence reporting in its public sales campaign for the war. Multiple realities confirm this observation. I have addressed them in detail elsewhere, but it would be useful to mention briefly the main ones.

The neoconservative champions of the war were publicly pushing for the use of military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein even in the 1990s, when they were out of power. One they were in power in the Bush administration, the intelligence community was not saying to them anything about Iraqi weapons programs that was remotely close to an expression of alarm about such programs, much less a reason to go to war. In its public assessments and (as investigative journalists such as Bob Woodward have reported) in closed ones as well, George Tenet and the community barely even mentioned the subject as being worthy of the policy-makers' attention. Consistent with such assessments, Secretary of State Colin Powell was saying publicly in the first year of the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein was well contained and that whatever he might be trying to do with unconventional weapons, he wasn't having much success. It was only after the 9/11 terrorist attack drastically changed the mood of the American public and thereby created for the first time the domestic political base for the neocons to realize their regime-changing dream that the administration turned Iraqi weapons programs into a war-justifying rationale.

In rare unguarded comments, some promoters of the war let slip that this is how they were using the issue. Feith and Paul Wolfowitz each later admitted that the weapons of mass destruction issue was a convenient public selling point, not the reason the war was being launched in the first place.

Policy-makers in the administration showed no interest at all in the intelligence community's judgments about Iraq, regarding weapons programs or anything else, despite the assiduousness with which they exploited the fragments of reporting that could be woven into their public sales campaign. The administration did not ask for the infamously flawed intelligence estimate about Iraqi unconventional weapons programs—Democrats in Congress did.

Even that estimate did not support the war-making case. Among other things it contained the judgment that if Saddam did have any of those feared weapons of mass destruction he was unlikely to use them against U.S. interests or to give them to terrorists—except in the extreme case in which his country was invaded and his regime about to be overthrown. If this judgment had a policy implication it was not to launch the war. The judgment directly contradicted—but did nothing to slow down—the administration's steady stream of scary rhetoric about how in the absence of a war Saddam could give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

Even if everything in the intelligence assessments about Iraqi weapons were true, this would not have constituted a case for launching an offensive war any more than it would have with China, North Korea, Pakistan, the Soviet Union or any other country which has developed nuclear weapons. This is indicated by the fact that even many people, both in the United States and abroad, who accepted the belief about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction nonetheless opposed the war.

Intelligence assessments on other aspects of Iraq constituted even less of a case for the war. In fact, some of the most important intelligence judgments were so contrary to the administration's pro-war case that the war promoters, far from being guided by those judgments, put considerable effort into trying to discredit them. (That's what the effort in the vice president's office that led to the criminal case against Lewis Libby was all about.) This was especially true of the intelligence community's judgments about terrorist connections, which contradicted the administration's phantasmagorical assertions about an “alliance” between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda. It was also true of the community's judgments—which turned out to be much more relevant to the painful experience that the Iraq War became than were any judgments about weapons of mass destruction—about the political, security and economic mess in Iraq that was likely to follow overthrow of the regime.

The story of the United States getting into the Iraq War was, of course, not just one of what led the war's promoters to seek a war but also of how they were able to get enough other Americans to go along for the ride. But despite how much many of those other Americans, including ones in Congress who voted in favor of the war, said they hinged their position on judgments about Iraqi weapons, intelligence did not drive or guide that part of the process either. Only a very few members of Congress bothered even to look at the infamous intelligence estimate on the subject. One of the few who did—Bob Graham, then chairman of the Senate intelligence committee—later said his reading showed to him that the intelligence judgments were not at all the same as what the administration was saying in its sales campaign. That inconsistency was one of the reasons he voted against the war resolution.

One can also do a thought experiment by imagining how events might or might not have been different if the intelligence work on this subject had been absolutely perfect. (That is well beyond the reach of even the most magnificent intelligence service, but it can serve as an imaginary reference point.) “Perfect” in this case could be equated with what was in the exhaustive post-invasion report later compiled based on exploiting all the on-the-ground evidence that had been unavailable to analysts before the war. That product, known as the Duelfer report after the officer who was in charge of most of its preparation, concluded that Saddam intended to reactivate his nuclear and other unconventional weapons programs once he got out from under the already-weakening international sanctions. If prewar intelligence assessments had said the same things as the Duelfer report, the administration would have had to change a few lines in its rhetoric and maybe would have lost a few member's votes in Congress, but otherwise the sales campaign—which was much more about Saddam's intentions and what he “could” do than about extant weapons systems—would have been unchanged. The administration still would have gotten its war. Even Dick Cheney later cited the actual Duelfer report as support for the administration's pro-war case.

And yet, despite the voluminous record that bad intelligence was not why the United States went to war in Iraq, the myth that it was persists partly because the war promoters also keep promoting the myth. The event in which I participated this week demonstrates this hazard of the ten-year anniversary happenings. An early write-up of the event correctly notes that there were “sharp exchanges” on this and other questions, but on this question only quotes the side of the exchange that came from Hadley and Feith.

If one wants to learn valid lessons from what happened ten years ago, the process back then was so pathological that many specific lessons about what to avoid in the future could be extracted. Many of those lessons could be subsumed into one observation: extraordinary as it may seem, there was no policy process at all—no options paper, no meeting in the White House situation room or anything else—that addressed whether going to war against Iraq was a good idea. So it was not only the intelligence community but also other sources of information and insight, inside and outside government, that were shut out from having any impact on the decision to launch the war.

Hadley denied this observation, too, muttering something about needing to keep things close-hold so as not to jeopardize the “diplomatic process.” That just raises another myth—that the administration was trying to solve a problem through diplomacy before resorting to force—that also is belied by a substantial record, leading up to the final days in which the United States kicked international arms inspectors out of Iraq and in effect said “never mind that we didn't get another UN resolution, we're going to war anyway.” What pretended to be interest in diplomacy was a charade intended mainly to placate Powell and the British.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Mohammed Ameen / Reuters

State of the World: Obama's Biggest Foreign Policy Challenges

Robert Kagan — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: In a wide-ranging interview with U.S.News & World Report, Robert Kagan discusses the possible direction of U.S. foreign policy during the second Obama administration, and warns that the President’s agenda will be set by the other actors in the international system. Read an excerpt below.

U.S.News & World Report: What is the most imminent challenge of Obama's second term?

Robert Kagan: Syria is probably the thing that's going to be front and center. He obviously is trying to avoid any deeper involvement, but I think it's going to be very difficult to do so as things get worse in Syria and the price of not doing anything gets higher. Coming close on the heels of that is going to be Iran developing a [nuclear] capability.

U.S.News & World Report: How urgent is the issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions?

Kagan: It's very urgent. I think the administration understands that they need to find some answer either diplomatically or otherwise. Secretary [of State John] Kerry said the clock is ticking, and I think that means it's ticking this year.

U.S.News & World Report: Should there be direct contact with the Iranian government?

Kagan: They should make clear that Iranians need to take seriously that the United States is willing to have a diplomatic settlement of this problem. If not, [Iran] ought to take very seriously the statements that the president and secretary of state have made about preventing them from having a nuclear weapon.

U.S.News & World Report: What changes should be made in global economic policy?

Kagan: One major goal should be to begin negotiating a free trade agreement with Europe, to broaden the free trade agreements in Latin America in the Western Hemisphere, and move ahead with the trans-Pacific partnership, which is free trade agreements in Asia.

U.S.News & World Report: How has the fiscal crisis affected the American reputation abroad?

Kagan: I do think that an inability to get some control of our fiscal difficulties will cause people around the world to worry whether that will limit our ability to act in the international system.

Read the full interview »

Authors

Robert Kagan

Publication: U.S.News & World Report

Image Source: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Re-Betting on Turkey

Kemal Kirişci — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

During his second term, President Obama has the opportunity to re-invest in the U.S.-Turkish relationship, focusing on a long-time U.S. ally. Kemal Kirişci wrote this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

Why is Turkey an important cornerstone in establishing the liberal global order?
Can Turkey set an example and help spread democratic values to neighboring countries?
How can the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) boost the U.S.-Turkish relationship?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Kemal Kirişci

Turkey is a country that has been a long time ally of the United States with a major stake in the liberal world order. During your first term, you rightly recognized the nation as a Big Bet--paying your first official visit in Europe to Turkey and becoming only the second U.S. president, after Bill Clinton, to address the Turkish Parliament. Turkey was offered a model partnership with the U.S., and great hopes were invested in the relationship. However, reality evolved somewhat differently and a number of Black Swans intervened. The 2010 Turkish vote at the United Nations Security Council against sanctions on Iran accompanied with deteriorating relations with Israel as well as the EU and persistent anti-Americanism among the Turkish public have all led to fears that Turkey is “shifting axis” and being “lost”. Yet, this is only part of the picture.

Your Big Bet on Turkey fostered the development of a close rapport with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, and you made the most of this connection by frequently consulting with one another on world and regional affairs. Turkey cooperated closely with the U.S. on Afghanistan as well as in Iraq. Both countries adopted similar approaches towards the Arab Spring even if Erdogan expressed some virulent frustration with the U.S. for not supporting the opposition against the Assad regime in Syria more forcefully and decisively. There were also modest but important gains made in bi-lateral trade that had constantly been falling in relative terms since the end of the Cold War. This was coupled with field oriented pragmatic cooperation to assist reform in the Arab and Muslim world.

Recommendation:

Clearly, much more could have been achieved and highlighting a more ambitious agenda for U.S.-Turkish relations for your administration is critical. Turkey itself is still a Big Bet if the global liberal order in Turkey’s neighborhood and Turkey’s own membership to that order is going to be ensured. That would also help keep the multitude of Black Swans from getting in the way of realizing the grander Big Bets or for that matter Turkey itself becoming a Black Swan.

The time to double-down on Turkey is especially ripe, and a delay could be costly. As Turkish President Abdullah Gul reaffirmed in the January-February issue of Foreign Affairs, “from a values point of view we are with the West”. This opportunity coincides with a time when there are increasing signals from Turkey to reinvest into its relations with the West.

Background:

It is often forgotten that Turkey was a participant in the making of the global liberal order at the end of the Second World War, albeit of course a very junior one. Yet, it was this experience that set Turkey on the unusually long path of becoming a multi-party democracy with a liberal market economy. Indeed Turkey’s transformation was a slow and painfully one with lots of ups and downs. All U.S. administrations from Harry Truman onwards played a role in this process but the most critical one was probably the Clinton administrations. They played a particularly central role in nudging Turkish democracy and economy a little closer to European standards and helped Turkey first to sign a customs union with the EU in 1995 and then eventually become a candidate country for EU membership in 1999 followed by the beginning of accession negotiations. These policies were Big Bets that handsomely paid off. Both President George W. Bush in 2004 like his successor in 2009 recognized Turkey’s economic and democratic success and hoped that Turkey could set an example for its neighborhood, particularly for the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Actually, some of their hopes can be said to be materializing. Turkey has both economically and politically become deeply integrated with its neighborhood. Turkey’s Gross Domestic Product in 2011 was greater than all of its surrounding eleven neighbors economies put together excluding Iran and Russia. This economy is increasingly becoming an engine of growth for these neighboring countries even if modestly. Turkey’s trade with these countries increased from 10 percent of Turkey’s overall foreign trade in 1991 to 22 percent in 2011 while its trade with the EU and the U.S. has dropped from 50 and 9 percent to 41 and 5 percent respectively. An ever growing number of Turkish companies are investing in most of these countries while Turkey is fast becoming an immigration country and a source of remittances for labor migrants of the region. This kind of economic engagement is having a transformative impact and helping to integrate this neighborhood into the global markets. Turkish government and civil society are also modestly involved in projects and programs assisting political transition and reform. However, Turkey’s both economic and democracy gains remain fragile. Turkey runs an important current accounts deficit and needs to raise its savings levels as well as research and development budgets. The Arab Spring has adversely affected its trade and economic relations with the Middle East. There are also growing concerns about an erosion of the democratic gains achieved in the recent past particularly with respect to freedom of expression and rule of law. The Kurdish question still constitutes a major challenge to long term domestic stability. The constitutional reform process appears to be stuck too.

Conclusion:

At a time when Turkey’s neighborhood is filled with vital challenges, it is of paramount importance that your second administration recognizes the importance of securing Turkey’s commitment to the global liberal order and its potential bearing on the America’s capacity to realize regional foreign policy objectives. There are many ways in which this could be achieved, but the most effective one may well arise from associating Turkey with negotiating a Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA). This is critical because the free trade agreements that the EU signs with third parties have long been a major source of resentment and grievances for Turkey. This is because the customs union requires that Turkey take on all the obligations associated with such agreements without binding third parties to extend any trade privileges to Turkey. So far the EU has not been very responsive to Turkish calls to rectify this situation.

The U.S. is uniquely positioned to help. Seating Turkey at the negotiating table for TAFTA would be unrealistic. However, the U.S. could convince the EU to at least involve Turkey in a consultation process and ensure that as Turkey opens up its markets to the U.S. Turkish businesses can also enjoy better access to U.S. markets. The logic behind why this would be an effective Big Bet is quite straight forward. The more Turkey can participate in TAFTA, the more its economy would grow. The more it grows, the more it can import U.S. as well as EU goods and services. Furthermore, the more Turkey’s liberal market grows, the greater the demands for the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law in Turkey. In turn, with an economy equaling the 6^th largest in the EU and 15^th largest in the world, Turkey’s economic force would benefit the neighborhood as well. In this way not only would Turkey be tied to the liberal global order, but it would also become an even more effective conduit for disseminating liberal economic and democratic values to a neighborhood still struggling to transition from the legacy of command economies and authoritarian political systems.

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Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Image Source: © Umit Bektas / Reuters

The Algerian Tragedy

Omar Ashour — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Commenting on the recent Algerian hostage crisis on an international news channel, one terrorism “expert” made a remarkable claim: “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was founded because of the so-called Arab Spring, after we abandoned our Libyan ally [Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi].” After enduring a few more inaccuracies, I felt compelled to put aside the students’ papers that I was grading.

Let’s start by stating the obvious: AQIM is not a product of the Arab Spring. AQIM exists because of the military coup that ended the “Algerian Spring” two decades ago. And it has not been strengthened by the Libyan revolution, but rather by the failure of state-building in North Mali, the absence of post-conflict reconciliation and reintegration in Algeria, and a lack of accountability for a shadowy Algerian security establishment whose brutal methods have proved woefully inadequate to the challenge.

AQIM’s history can be traced directly to the coup staged by a handful of Algerian generals against President Chadli Bendjedid in January 1992. Bendjedid, whose memoirs were recently published (he died in October), gave Algeria its first relatively democratic constitution, lifting the ban on political parties and guaranteeing a minimum of basic rights, including freedom of speech, assembly, and conscience. He was the first Arab president to be criticized on state-owned TV (that is, without the critic disappearing afterwards). Algeria was the first Arab Spring country.

But the spring turned out to be fleeting. Fearing threats to their vast economic empire and their grip on high politics, the generals decided to end the reforms, overturn the results of Algeria’s first democratic parliamentary elections, and remove Benjedid from power. In the West, the prevailing narrative is that “progressive” army generals blocked the advance of the “fundamentalist” Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). But that account does not explain why the generals soon allied with another “fundamentalist” group (a faction of Algeria’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mouvement pour la société Islamique) and gave them several top posts, including control of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments.

Eight months after the coup, in September 1992, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was founded, soon attracting supporters from every walk of life, including criminal elements and Algerian intelligence agents. By 1998, the GIA’s primary target was not the army, but civilians, rival leaders’ relatives, and FIS strongholds.

Western and Arab researchers documented 642 massacres between 1992 and 1998. Most were instances of “electoral cleansing,” occurring in districts that voted for the FIS in the 1991 election. The GIA took responsibility for some of the massacres. But opposition figures, former Algerian intelligence officers, and diplomats accused the military of being complicit or even directly responsible for others.

Then a GIA brigade in the Kabylie Mountains east of Algiers, calling itself the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat, split off and condemned the GIA’s actions. Part of the GSPC abandoned armed tactics and made peace with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s regime, which promised reconciliation, the release of political prisoners, investigations of more than 10,000 disappearances, social reintegration, political rights, and, most important, civilian control of the armed forces.

Despite the activation in 2006 of the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (the legal framework for these issues), most of the promises were never fulfilled. Disappointment was pervasive, with some of the former insurgent commanders publicly arguing that the regime was not honoring its obligations, and that the reconciliation process was a sham.

By January 2007, AQIM had emerged from the GSPC faction that did not demobilize. Most of those named in connection with the recent hostage crisis had joined that faction following the split with the GIA. They included Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who passed through all the phases of Algerian armed Islamist activism, from Afghanistan to the Sahel; and Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, who started as a political activist in the FIS party structure, took up arms in response to the 1992 coup, and then became a hardened hostage-taker in charge of one of AQIM’s Sahara brigades.

Despite being a breakaway faction of a breakaway faction of the defunct GIA, AQIM demonstrated its operational capacity in December 2007, when it targeted United Nations offices in Algiers and the Algerian Constitutional Court simultaneously, killing 41 individuals and injuring 170.

By 2009, AQIM was learning from the mistakes of its mother organization, the GIA, and its sister organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq. AQI not only failed to embed itself in the local context, but had begun eliminating local opponents, fueling a revolt against it by Sunni militias in 2007. AQIM, by contrast, made a concerted effort to go native, marrying local Tuaregs in North Mali and taking up their political causes, such as secession.

The estimated 1,200 fighters causing problems in Mali today are operating in an area almost as large as France, making it easy to play guerrilla hide-and-seek. In the long run, the West should aim to help the Malian government to build state institutions and reconcile with its northern population.

In Algeria, security-sector reform – particularly greater transparency – is long overdue. After all, Western and other governments owe it to the families of the 39 foreign workers killed during the hostage crisis to find out if they could have been saved.

The families of the Algerian victims deserve the same from their own government. Then again, so do the families of the more than 150,000 victims of a civil war that began with the turn away from democracy two decades ago. As the recent episode has shown, that war continues to this day.

Authors

Omar Ashour

Publication: Project Syndicate

Image Source: © Reuters TV / Reuters

Toward a Strategic Partnership? The EU and the GCC in a Revolutionary Middle East

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Relations between the Gulf countries and the European Union have been tested by the events of the Arab Spring. Despite an alignment of interests on several fronts – from Syria to Yemen – the looming question of internal reform within the Gulf itself presents a growing challenge for EU-GCC ties. This comes alongside a range of other dilemmas, from disagreements within each bloc to the historic strength of bilateral over multilateral relations. What, then, are the prospects for a more strategic partnership between the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council in the aftermath of the Arab Spring?

A new joint paper published by the Brookings Doha Center and FRIDE, Toward a Strategic Partnership? The EU and the GCC in a Revolutionary Middle East, explores the ties between the two blocs as they struggle to respond to the seismic changes affecting the region.

The paper draws on a roundtable discussion held at the Brookings Doha Center, with the support of the European Commission, which brought together academics, researchers, and diplomats from the Gulf region, the European Union, and the United States. It finds that despite a range of significant challenges, opportunities remain for a more substantive relationship between the EU and the GCC that furthers mutual interests while contributing toward more meaningful reform within the Gulf.

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Publication: Brookings Doha Center

Image Source: © STR New / Reuters

A Foreign-Policy Cheat Sheet for Obama

Martin S. Indyk — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

President Obama begins his second term at a volatile juncture in history and world affairs. However, this time of uncertainty and instability presents the president with a range of opportunities: By making a series of “big bets,” Obama can shape the emerging global order in transformational ways and define his own historic legacy. However, he will need to avoid a number of “black swans”—low-probability but high-impact events—that could derail his intended agenda and come to dominate his second term.

Here is the list of top-10 picks from our foreign-policy experts:

BIG BETS

1. Turning Tehran

The persistent and intractable challenge of Iran—the world’s most dangerous state—presents the Obama administration with an epic threat and a historic opportunity. Iran’s negative influence, through its nuclear program and support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, has helped inflame sectarian tensions and undermined prospects for peace in a region already beset by upheaval.

The president should seek a deal with Iran to resolve the nuclear crisis. Such an initiative would include pursuing a quick stop-and-swap deal to end Iran’s 20 percent enrichment, pressing for an intensified schedule of negotiations with Iran, and developing a comprehensive proposal of sequenced Iranian nuclear concessions and sanctions relief. A meaningful nuclear deal with Iran would represent a major step forward for nuclear nonproliferation.

2. An Obama Doctrine on New Rules of War

In its first term, the Obama administration worked hard to roll back one of the signature weapons of the 20th century: the nuclear bomb. Yet over the last four years, the United States also broke new ground in the use of new, revolutionary military technologies that may well become signature weapons of the 21st century. These encompass both physical systems, like unmanned aircraft (“drones”) and a new class of virtual weaponry, malware that can conduct a cyberattack with real-world consequences.

Obama now has an opportunity to establish new international norms for these new weapons of war by enunciating how the United States will deploy and use them. He will need to address accountability, the applicability of existing rules of war, limitations on development or use, future scenarios, and the prospects for international cooperation. The effort to create a doctrine should draw upon past lessons from comparable situations such as Cold War nuclear doctrine.

3. Energy and Climate: From Black to Gold to Green

The hydrocarbon bonanza in the United States gives Obama a significant opportunity. The administration can help strengthen the American economic and geopolitical position by taking a leadership role in the battle to address climate change.

By adopting policies that encourage the development and export of American oil, coal, and gas, the administration can take advantage of the rising demand in developing and emerging economies around the world.

As a condition of greater exploration, production, and trade, the U.S. government should impose a modest but meaningful carbon-based tax on production, with revenue allocated specifically to the development of climate-change-fighting technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration.

4. The Road Away From Damascus

Syria is standing on a precipice. The regime will likely fall, but the prospect now is one of a failed state that produces a toxic culture of extremism and lawlessness. If the United States does not take on a more active leadership role, the trend toward warlordism and sectarian fragmentation will likely prove inexorable, generating spillover that could impact the security interests of neighboring U.S. allies Turkey, Jordan, and Israel.

The Obama administration should change its approach to one of active intervention to ensure a more stable transition to a post-Assad order. Specifically, the administration should provide assistance to the Syrian opposition in the form of weapons, forge a genuine national dialogue that includes Alawites and Christians, and create an international steering group to oversee and lend support to the transitional process, including the creation of an international stabilization force to protect Syrian civilians. The president should engage directly with President Vladimir Putin to get the Russians onboard.

5. Free-Trade Game Changer

Protectionism is on the rise everywhere. The Doha round is essentially dead. But the United States and Europe need to stimulate their economies without resorting to increased spending. One way forward is for the United States to promote dramatic new free-trade agreements.

Achieving both a transpacific partnership and a transatlantic free-trade agreement is the most effective way to reclaim U.S. economic leadership and make progress toward the Obama administration’s promised goal of doubling U.S. exports. Signing these agreements would also have deep strategic implications, reaffirming liberal norms and a leading U.S. role in setting the global rules of the road.

BLACK SWANS

1. China in Revolution and War

There are many serious problems in China that could trigger a major crisis, including slowing economic growth, widespread social unrest, vicious elite infighting, rampant official corruption, heightened Chinese nationalism generated by territorial disputes, and even the potential for military conflict with neighboring countries. Such a crisis could take the form of a domestic revolution or foreign war.

Either would be very disruptive, severely impairing global economic development and regional security in the Asia-Pacific region. A combination of the two would constitute one of the most complicated foreign-policy problems of the president’s second term.

The best way to prepare in advance is for the White House to cultivate a deeper relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his new leadership team, to reach out directly to the Chinese people, and to use U.S. influence to dissuade any country in Asia from resorting to force to settle disputes.

2. Revolution in Riyadh

Saudi Arabia is the world’s last absolute monarchy and the world's largest oil supplier. The Arab awakening confronts the royal family with its most severe test. Demographic challenges, high underemployment, and restrictions on freedom make it even more vulnerable.

The overthrow of America’s oldest ally in the Middle East would be a severe setback to the U.S. position in the region and provide a dramatic strategic windfall for Iran. The small oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan would be endangered.

The president should try to reestablish trust with the king and urge him to move more rapidly on his political-reform agenda while recognizing that this is likely to have limited results. The administration should also ensure the best possible intelligence is available to predict if a crisis coming, put in place measures to limit impacts on the global economy, be ready to support neighboring kingdoms and sheikhdoms, and then try to ride out the storm.

3. Euro-Zoned Out

The euro crisis has been ongoing for three years now, and the EU is beginning to get its act together to build a sustainable monetary union. But the underlying causes of the crisis have not yet been addressed. The politics are diverging from the solution as populations on the periphery suffer from austerity measures and see no end in sight, while those in the core feel exploited.

As long as a more comprehensive solution remains elusive, the risks of failure will continue to loom large. If failure occurs, it could be devastating to the U.S. economy, surpassing the crisis of 2008. A related black swan is the fragmentation of the European Union, which would also damage U.S. strategic interests. The United States should work closely with EU leaders to prevent new dangerous design flaws in reforms to the euro zone. The administration should also oppose the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

4. The End of the Palestinian Authority

The collapse of the Palestinian Authority would represent the final nail in the coffin of the Oslo peace process that began in 1993. The Palestinian Authority’s demise would eliminate the single most tangible expression of efforts to achieve a two-state solution—all but destroying chances for a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians for the foreseeable future.

Over the immediate term, the collapse could lead to large-scale Palestinian civil unrest and perhaps even a total breakdown in law and order in the West Bank, increasing the chances of a violent Palestinian uprising against Israel, a full Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank, or a takeover by extremist elements.

The immediate priority is to prevent the financial collapse of the Palestinian Authority, then an effort should be made to convince Israel to lift its restrictions that hamper economic growth, and make a renewed push to promote political progress through negotiations.

5. The Big Thaw

Global warming is happening faster than scientists predicted. Temperatures are rising, icecaps and glaciers are melting, and extreme weather is more frequent and intense. If these trends continue, the consequences will be monumental and far-reaching over time. If the warming accelerates more dramatically, and the polar ice melts even faster, the results could be catastrophic.

A significant rise in sea levels throughout the world would have particularly devastating impacts on the concentrated populations living in low-lying coastal areas, affecting the local economy, politics, community life, and security. But perhaps the biggest impact will be climate-induced migration and displacement, placing strains on infrastructure and pressure on governments to deliver services.

The United States can help mitigate these risks by giving climate change a higher priority in international and domestic policymaking—promoting new multilateral initiatives and increasing mitigation and adaptation.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: © Jim Bourg / Reuters

Chaos in Kabul

Vanda Felbab-Brown — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

A security meltdown in Afghanistan would severely compromise America’s ability to pursue its interests in the region, leaving the United States with few policy options. Vanda Felbab-Brown drafted this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

What actions will the U.S. have to take to ensure stability in a post-2014 Afghanistan?
What can the U.S. do to end corruption and strengthen accountability and rule of law in Afghanistan?

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TO: President Obama

FROM: Vanda Felbab-Brown

As the 2014 transition to a radically diminished U.S. presence and mission in Afghanistan approaches, it is likely to leave in its wake a perilous security situation, a political system few Afghans see as legitimate, and a likely severe economic downturn. Although a serious security deterioration, including the possibility of a civil war that many Afghans fear, is far from inevitable, it is a real possibility. Such a security meltdown would severely compromise American ability to prosecute U.S. interests in the region, leaving the United States with few policy options.

Recommendations:

Even though U.S. leverage in Afghanistan diminishes daily, U.S. decisions still critically affect Afghanistan’s future. The United States can still take important steps to minimize the chances of a critical security meltdown in Afghanistan after 2014:

• Withdrawing in an orderly fashion at a judicious pace that does not step ahead of Afghanistan’s security capacities;

• Continuing to provide security assistance, such as training, combat support, and specialty enablers after 2014, and restraining the splintering of the Afghan National Army;

• Defining negotiations with the Taliban as a broader societal reconciliation process that entangles equally the Taliban and the Afghan government in rule-of-law constraints and pluralistic processes, rather than as close-to-the-vest powerbroker bargaining and a fig leaf for U.S. departure;

• Elevating the emphasis on good governance on par with security, supporting political reformers, and not consistently compromising good governance for the sake of short-term military exigencies — without greater legitimacy for the Afghan government, there is little chance for stability in Afghanistan;

• Avoiding a premature embrace of abusive Afghan powerbrokers, many of whom are currently favored by the United States — the United States may have to rely on them eventually to help protect U.S. interests including counterterrorism operations, but that does not mean that it should embrace them today.

Background:

In the military surge areas of Helmand and Kandahar, there have been palpable security gains. How robust they are remains to be seen. In the east, where the Haqqanis operate close to Pakistani safe-havens, the war is stalemated. Parts of the north, such as Balkh, are very stable, but bitter ethnic tensions are brewing in Kunduz and Baghlan and elsewhere in Afghanistan. The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have improved, but cannot yet function without international enablers. Patronage networks pervade the ANSF, and a crucial question is whether the forces will splinter along ethnic and patronage lines post-2014.

Since 2009, U.S. aid has flooded into Helmand and Kandahar but instead of bringing sustainable development, it distorted local economies and triggered contestation over the spoils. Turning off this spigot is no loss. But U.S. departure will produce a massive economic constriction in Afghanistan.

Corruption, serious crime, land theft and other usurpation of resources, nepotism, a lack of rule of law, and exclusionary patronage networks permeate Afghanistan’s current political dispensation. Afghans crave accountability and justice and resent the current mafia-like rule. Improved human security plus leadership accountability are their unfulfilled aspirations. Whether the 2014 elections will usher in better governance or trigger violent conflict is another huge question mark.

U.S. Interests after 2014:

The United States will continue to have important interests in Afghanistan’s stability, including countering terrorism. The Taliban may have soured on al Qaeda, but a full break with al Qaeda generates costs — with respect to maintaining internal unity and provoking attacks by the now-betrayed salafi brethren. Whether the Haqqanis would obey the Taliban or pick al Qaeda is also a question mark. Should the Taliban, through fighting or a negotiated deal, come to control parts of Afghanistan, at best the Taliban will attempt to appease both the salafists and the United States.

Prosecuting U.S. counterterrorism interests from the air depends on local bases and human intelligence. Many powerbrokers and informants cultivated by the United States will have an incentive to hedge and minimize intelligence flows to those serving their, not necessarily U.S., interests.

Should a Pakistani nuclear weapon or some fissile material be acquired by a terrorist group, a usable Afghan military base would be highly advantageous for the U.S. ability to recover them.

An unstable Afghanistan will be like an ulcer bleeding into Pakistan. It will further distract Pakistan’s leaders from tackling the country’s internal security, economic, energy, and social crises, and the radicalization of Pakistani society. These trends adversely affect U.S. interests.

An unstable Afghanistan will also worsen overall security in the broader region, destabilizing Central Asia as well. Iran, Russia, India, Pakistan, the Central Asian countries, and perhaps even China will be at least indirectly drawn into the Afghanistan conflict and cultivate proxies.

Scenarios of a Security Meltdown and U.S. Policy Options:

A major security collapse in Afghanistan will in the initial phases likely resemble the early 1990s pattern of localized and fragmented ethnic and local-powerbroker infighting with pockets of stability, rather than the late 1990s when a Taliban-advancing line of control moved steadily north. The extent of violence and fragmentation will depend on whether the ANSF, particularly the Afghan Army, splinters. Even then, a rump ANSF and the Afghan government may have enough strength to hold Kabul, major cities, and other parts of Afghanistan. The Taliban will control parts of the south and east. Elsewhere infighting may be among members of a resurrected Northern Alliance or among Durrani Pashtun powerbrokers. But ethnic fighting may eventually explode even on the streets of Kabul where Pashtuns harbor resentments about the post-2001 influx of Tajiks that changed land distribution in the capital.

Options available to protect U.S. interests will depend on whether a U.S.- Afghan Status-of-Forces agreement (SOFA) has been signed and the United States has military forces and bases in Afghanistan. In the absence of a SOFA and bases, the United States will be dependent on indirectly supporting selected warlords.

If the United States retains bases and forces in Afghanistan, you will face the following choices:

• Should the United States fly sorties and for what purposes? Against al-Qaeda only or more broadly against the Taliban? Should the United States extend assistance to the Afghan government? Any attacks on U.S. bases will generate pressures for either U.S. ground operations or a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

• Should the United States support certain battlefield objectives — for example, avoiding the fall of Kabul or supporting a de-facto partition of Afghanistan north of Kabul? Through what military means — the use of air power only or special operations forces assistance, or other ground-combat support as well?

• Assuming the most important U.S. interest in the region is that Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities are not acquired by a salafi group, and that having a land reach into Pakistan is important, could Afghan authorities ever consent to the United States having access to Afghan bases only for strikes into Pakistan? Pakistan would of course do all it could to subvert any such arrangement.

Regardless of whether the United States retains bases and directly engages in Afghanistan’s conflict or not, it will also face the following policy questions:

• How should the United States react to any effort by Northern Alliance members to provide safe havens to Baluchi insurgents to retaliate for Pakistan’s support for the Taliban? Pakistan will be determined to ensure that the northerners cannot complicate Pakistan’s security interests and Taliban control in southern Afghanistan. If Pakistan intensifies its support for the Taliban and the United States seeks to limit the Taliban’s control, U.S.-Pakistan military encounters could increase.

• Should the United States acquiesce in or encourage greater Indian security involvement in Afghanistan to minimize Taliban and salafi presence? Pakistan will see such Indian presence as extremely threatening, a development complicating U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Conclusion:

A direct U.S. military engagement, even if limited to air strikes or special forces operations, will entangle the United States in prolonged conflict that, at best, may disrupt al Qaeda presence or Taliban control. Maintaining domestic support for such a U.S. role will be difficult. None of the direct limited or indirect engagement policy alternatives will easily result in stable territorial boundaries and an end to the conflict. U.S. ability to secure its interests would be decidedly poor. Doing all your administration can before 2014 to strengthen Afghanistan’s security and the legitimacy of the Afghan government to avert a major meltdown is by far the best policy.

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Vanda Felbab-Brown

Image Source: © Erik de Castro / Reuters

Opening to Havana

Ted Piccone — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

President Obama can break free of the embargo against Cuba by asserting executive authority to facilitate trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people. Ted Piccone drafted this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

What can President Obama do about trade, travel and communication with Cuba?
How does Cuba easing its travel restrictions affect U.S. migration policy?
What can Obama do to overcome Congressional opposition to talks with Cuba?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Ted Piccone

Your second term presents a rare opportunity to turn the page of history from an outdated Cold War approach to Cuba to a new era of constructive engagement that will encourage a process of reform already underway on the island. Cuba is changing, slowly but surely, as it struggles to adapt its outdated economic model to the 21st century while preserving one-party rule. Reforms that empower Cuban citizens to open their own businesses, buy and sell property, hire employees, own cell phones, and travel off the island offer new opportunities for engagement.

Recommendation:

You can break free of the straitjacket of the embargo by asserting your executive authority to facilitate trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people. This will help establish your legacy of rising above historical grievances, advance U.S. interests in a stable, prosperous and democratic Cuba, and pave the way for greater U.S. leadership in the region.

Background:

Early in your first term, you made an important down payment on fostering change in Cuba by expanding travel and remittances to the island. Since then, hundreds of thousands of the 1.8 million Cuban-Americans in the United States have traveled to Cuba and sent over $2 billion to relatives there, providing important fuel to the burgeoning small business sector and helping individual citizens become less dependent on the state. Your decision to liberalize travel and assistance for the Cuban diaspora proved popular in Florida and helped increase your share of the Cuban-American vote by ten points in Miami-Dade county in the 2012 election.

As a result of your actions and changing demographics, families are more readily reuniting across the Florida straits, opening new channels of commerce and communication that are encouraging reconciliation among Cuban-Americans and a more general reframing of how best to support the Cuban people. Cuba’s recent decision to lift exit controls for most Cubans on the island is likely to accelerate this process of reconciliation within the Cuban diaspora, thereby softening support for counterproductive tactics like the embargo. The new travel rules also require a re-think of the outdated U.S. migration policy in order to manage a potential spike in departures from the island to the United States. For example, the team handling your immigration reform bill should be charged with devising proposals to reduce the special privileges afforded Cubans who make it to U.S. soil.

Under Raul Castro, the Cuban government has continued to undertake a number of important reforms to modernize its economy, lessen its dependence on Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and allow citizens to make their own decisions about their economic futures. The process of reform, however, is gradual, highly controlled and short on yielding game-changing results that would ignite the economy. Failure to tap new offshore oil and gas fields and agricultural damage from Hurricane Sandy dealt further setbacks. Independent civil society remains confined, repressed and harassed, and strict media and internet controls severely restrict the flow of information. The Castro generation is slowly handing power over to the next generation of party and military leaders who will determine the pace and scope of the reform process.

These trends suggest that an inflection point is approaching and that now is the time to try a new paradigm for de-icing the frozen conflict. The embargo — the most complex and strictest embargo against any country in the world — has handcuffed the United States and has prevented it from having any positive influence on the island’s developments. It will serve American interests better to learn how to work with the emerging Cuban leaders while simultaneously ramping up direct U.S. outreach to the Cuban people.

I recommend that your administration, led by a special envoy appointed by you and reporting to the secretary of state and the national security advisor, open a discreet dialogue with Havana on a wide range of issues, without preconditions. The aim of the direct bilateral talks would be to resolve outstanding issues around migration, travel, counterterrorism and counternarcotics, the environment, and trade and investment that are important to protecting U.S. national interests. Outcomes of these talks could include provisions that normalize migration flows, strengthen border security, break down the walls of communication that hinder U.S. ability to understand how Cuba is changing, and help U.S. businesses create new jobs.

In the context of such talks your special envoy would be authorized to signal your administration’s willingness to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, pointing to its assistance to the Colombian peace talks as fresh evidence for the decision. This would remove a major irritant in U.S.-Cuba relations, allow a greater share of U.S.-sourced components and services in products that enter Cuban commerce, and free up resources to tackle serious threats to the homeland from other sources like Iran. We should also consider authorizing payments for exports to Cuba through financing issued by U.S. banks and granting a general license to allow vessels that have entered Cuban ports to enter U.S. ports without having to wait six months. You can also facilitate technical assistance on market-oriented reforms from international financial institutions by signaling your intent to drop outright opposition to such moves.

Under this chapeau of direct talks, your administration can seek a negotiated solution to the thorny issue of U.S. and Cuban citizens serving long prison sentences, thereby catalyzing progress toward removing a major obstacle to improving bilateral relations.

You should, in parallel, also take unilateral steps to expand direct contacts with the Cuban people by:

• authorizing financial and technical assistance to the burgeoning class of small businesses and cooperatives and permitting Americans to donate and trade in goods and services with those that are certified as independent entrepreneurs, artists, farmers, professionals and craftspeople;

• adding new categories for general licensed travel to Cuba for Americans engaged in services to the independent economic sector, e.g., law, real estate, insurance, accounting, financial services;

• granting general licenses for other travelers currently authorized only under specific licenses, such as freelance journalists, professional researchers, athletes, and representatives of humanitarian organizations and private foundations;

• increasing or eliminating the cap on cash and gifts that non- Cuban Americans can send to individuals, independent businesses and families in Cuba;

• eliminating the daily expenditure cap for U.S. citizens visiting Cuba and removing the prohibition on the use of U.S. credit and bank cards in Cuba;

• authorizing the reestablishment of ferry services to Cuba;

• expanding the list of exports licensed for sale to Cuba, including items like school and art supplies, athletic equipment, water and food preparation systems, retail business machines, and telecommunications equipment (currently allowed only as donations).

The steps recommended above would give your administration the tools to have a constructive dialogue with the Cuban government based on a set of measures that 1) would engage Cuban leaders in high-level, face-to-face negotiations on matters that directly serve U.S. interests in a secure, stable, prosperous and free Cuba; and 2) allow you to assert executive authority to take unilateral steps that would increase U.S. support to the Cuban people, as mandated by Congress.

To take this step, you will have to contend with negative reactions from a vocal, well-organized minority of members of Congress who increasingly are out of step with their constituents on this issue. Your initiative should be presented as a set of concrete measures to assist the Cuban people, which is well within current congressional mandates, and as a way to break the stalemate in resolving the case of U.S. citizen Alan Gross (his wife is calling for direct negotiations). Those are winnable arguments. But you will need to be prepared for some unhelpful criticism along the way.

Conclusion:

Current U.S. policy long ago outlived its usefulness and is counterproductive to advancing the goal of helping the Cuban people. Instead it gives Cuban officials the ability to demonize the United States in the eyes of Cubans, other Latin Americans and the rest of the world, which annually condemns the embargo at the United Nations. At this rate, given hardening attitudes in the region against U.S. policy, the Cuba problem may even torpedo your next presidential Summit of the Americas in Panama in 2015. It is time for a new approach: an initiative to test the willingness of the Cuban government to engage constructively alongside an effort to empower the Cuban people.

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Obama: Take Advantage of Change of Momentum in Cuba

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Obama: Take Advantage of Change of Momentum in Cuba

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Ted Piccone

Has China Lost Myanmar?

Yun Sun — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

The rapid changes in Myanmar since President Thein Sein began democratic reforms in 2011 present China with a problem. For decades, China had a cozy relationship with its authoritarian neighbor, enjoying a near-monopoly on its natural resources and foreign policy. But now, Myanmar is a messy quasi-democracy, whose people resent Beijing for its past support of the junta and its economic exploitation of their country. And Myanmar's still a threat to regional stability: China sent troops to the two countries' border in early January because of fighting between the Myanmar government and rebel groups -- if things get worse it could spill into Chinese territory.

China can no longer count on Myanmar as its strategic corridor into the Indian Ocean, or as a loyal supporter at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Naypyidaw (Myanmar's new capital) has vastly improved its relations with Washington, increasing Beijing's anxiety about the U.S. rebalancing to Asia. And things are getting worse for Beijing. Monks and villagers in central Myanmar have protested for months against the expansion of the Mongywa copper mine, the country's largest, which is operated by a Chinese weapons company and a holding company controlled by the Burmese military. In 2011, Sein suspended construction by a Chinese company of the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, saying it went against "the will of the people." The protests against Mongywa have raised worries that all Chinese investments in Myanmar are in danger.

Beijing finds itself with little ability to prevent Naypyidaw from hurting its interests. An increasingly loud section of China's foreign policy community, including government analysts and Southeast Asia specialists, are now arguing that China should return to its old friends -- the border ethnic groups that are waging small-scale rebellions against Naypyidaw -- to enhance its leverage there. Liang Jinyun, a professor of political science at Yunnan Police College in southwest China, argued in an influential 2011 paper that these ethnic groups, if "used" well, "will become China's most loyal friend in the frontline of confrontation between the United States and China in Myanmar."

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Authors

Yun Sun

Publication: Foreign Policy

Resource Rents, Democracy, Corruption and Conflict: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Rabah Arezki and Thorvaldur Gylfason — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:30:00 -0500

Editor's Note: The article was originally published on the Oxford Journal website. A subscription required to access the full article »

ABSTRACT

We examine the effect of the interaction between resource rents and democracy on corruption and internal conflict for a panel of 29 Sub-Saharan African countries during the period from 1985 to 2007. We find that higher resource rents lead to more corruption and that the effect is significantly stronger in less democratic countries. Surprisingly, we also find that higher resource rents lead to fewer internal conflicts and that less democratic countries face not a higher, but a lower likelihood of conflicts following an increase in resource rents. We argue that these findings can be explained by the ability of the political elites in less democratic countries to more effectively quell the masses through redistribution of rents to the public. We support our argument by documenting that higher resource rents lead to more (less) government spending in less (more) democratic countries. Our findings suggest that the mechanisms through which resource rents affect corruption cannot be separated from political systems.

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Authors

Rabah Arezki
Thorvaldur Gylfason

Publication: Oxford Journals

The Dangers of Popular Constitution-Making

William Partlett — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:57:00 -0500

INTRODUCTION

Across the Middle East and North Africa, corrupt dictatorships are currently being swept away with astonishing speed. To fulfill the democratic promise of this wave of authoritarian collapse, these nations must build political systems committed to pluralism, the rule of law, and representative government. The adherence to written constitutional rules that structure and limit the exercise of political power is central to this mission. But how can these countries transform written constitutional rules into a “respect-worthy” form of higher law that can actually limit the power of government? Or, in other words, how can these countries make new democratic constitutions “matter”?

The scholarly answer focuses on the process of constitution-making. It argues that written constitutional rules “matter” when they are drafted and ratified during a period of extraordinary popular mobilization. In this process of “popular constitution-making,” constitutional drafting and ratification necessarily involves irregular mechanisms of extraordinary popular mobilization, such as extra-parliamentary constitutional conventions and referendums. By operating outside the rules and institutions of ordinary politics, the people will be able to act in their sovereign capacity as the “constituent power.” In this constituent position, the people themselves become the author of constitutional rules, maximizing the democratic “legitimacy”of these rules and transforming them into a form of higher law.

Popular constitution-making is grounded on the belief that a successful process of constitution-making must be separated from ordinary politics. This view is so deeply ingrained that a recent article found that “nearly all the normative and positive work on constitutions proceeds from the assumption that constitutional politics are fundamentally different in character from ordinary politics.” In constructing a normative agenda for post-authoritarian constitution-making, scholars and commentators have drawn on this belief to encourage new democracies to deploy extraordinary popular mechanisms such as constitutional conventions and referendums in their constitution-making process.

The experience of constitution-making in post-Communist Europe and Asia, however, challenges this scholarly consensus. First, many Central and Eastern European post-Communist countries have established strong systems of constitutional review without using popular mechanisms to draft and ratify their constitutions. Instead, they used inherited, Communistera institutions and related rules to draft their new constitutions, a process that Andrew Arato calls “parliamentary constitution- making.” In these countries, “constitutional change was so closely associated with political change that it implied a constitutional politics not readily distinguishable from ordinary politics.” The relative success of this form of parliamentary constitution-making in building constitutional orders that limited political power and protected individual rights has led some scholars to formulate a new “legal” model for democratic constitutional adoption.

Second, and more disturbingly, the mechanisms and rhetoric of popular constitution-making have not produced constitutions that limit the concentration of power and protect individual liberty in the post-Communist world. Instead, irregular popular mechanisms like referendums and constitutional conventions have helped charismatic presidents unilaterally impose authoritarian constitutions on society. As Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein describe it, “the greater role granted to popular referenda and extra-parliamentary authorities, the less constitutionalism matters as a political force.”

This article will explore why popular constitution-making has led to constitutional dictatorship. Part I will detail the theoretical underpinnings of popular constitution-making. Part II will describe how many Eastern European countries rejected popular constitution-making and instead drafted new constitutions through ordinary political processes and within the preexisting legal system. Part III will demonstrate how popular constitution-making has helped undermine constitutionalism by providing opportunities for charismatic politicians with little desire for constitutionally-limited government to appeal to the people. Claiming to be the agent of the people, these charismatic figures were then able to justify their decisions to sidestep parliamentary opposition and push through “authoritarian constitutions” that concentrated vast power in their own hands. Part IV will conclude by stressing the importance of stable rules and institutions in constraining the constitution-making process.

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Authors

William Partlett

Publication: Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Global Swing States and the Human Rights and Democracy Order

Ted Piccone — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This paper was originally published on the German Marshall Fund of the United States website. You can also download the related report titled "Global Swing States: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, and the Future of International Order."

SUMMARY

The convergence of values and divergence of methods between the “global swing states” — Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Turkey — and the world’s established democracies are on particular display in the arena of democracy and human rights. To varying degrees, all four nations are prepared to play a role in supporting international mechanisms to strengthen human rights and democracy, but this is to be done on their own terms: through quiet diplomacy and mediation, using coercive methods only as a last resort. The challenge before Western democracies is to evaluate when to seek convergence with global swing states on international interventions to uphold human rights and when to yield to parallel efforts that may entail less control but greater acceptance and therefore greater effectiveness on the ground.

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Global Swing States and the Human Rights and Democracy Order

Authors

Ted Piccone

Publication: The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Rocky Times Ahead for Obama and Putin

Fiona Hill — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Managing the relationship with Russia will be more difficult for President Obama in his second term -- because he now has to deal directly with Vladimir Putin. Russians were generally indifferent to the U.S. election and the Kremlin remained above the campaign fray. If asked to make a choice, they deemed an Obama second term somewhat more palatable given Mitt Romney's designation of Russia as the "number one geopolitical foe." But, President Obama will have to start from scratch with the Russian president.

Over the four years of his premiership and tandem power-sharing relationship with Dmitry Medvedev, Putin deliberately avoided meetings with Obama (and many other leaders). As one Kremlin aide quipped, it was titular President Medvedev's job to have "tea with dignitaries." Obama and Putin only met twice. Once in Moscow in July 2009, and then during the G20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico in June 2012. By limiting access, Putin kept everyone guessing. He created an obsession, even at the highest levels, with finding reliable ways to pass on important messages.

The best illustration was Obama's "hot mic" incident in Seoul in March 2012. President Obama was caught explaining to still-President Medvedev that he could not make much progress on critical issues during the U.S. election season. He hoped to have more flexibility in a second term. Medvedev reassured Obama that he would "transmit this information to Vladimir." President Obama will now have to transmit information for himself.

He will find Vladimir on the defensive and suspicious of U.S. intentions. Putin's primary concerns are domestic politics and ensuring regime survival -- not establishing cordial relations with the U.S. president. When Putin announced in September 2011 that he would return to the Russian presidency, he did not anticipate the negative reaction from Russia's urban elite. He was stunned by the rise of new organized opposition movements.

Putin now faces a serious dilemma. His strategic long-term plan is to rebuild and re-industrialize Russia. He needs human capital capable of creativity, innovation, and problem-solving to carry this out. But Russia's professional classes took to the streets to protest and voted against him in large numbers -- including more than fifty percent of Moscow's urban population. Putin's base of support is rooted in Russia's past, among the industrial workers, public sector employees, pensioners, and rural residents, who depend heavily on Kremlin subsidies rather than create new wealth. This is Russia's "silent majority."

The more vocal minority of urban professionals is the constituency that the United States has funded through various civil society initiatives since the 1990s. It is also the group the Obama Administration reached out to with its first term 'reset' policy. In supporting this middle class, the United States has effectively put itself in conflict with the Kremlin. Putin has directly accused the 2011-2012 protestors of being foreign (i.e., U.S.) agents. Over the last several months, the Kremlin has moved aggressively to intimidate the opposition, impose hefty fines and jail sentences, and cut off their sources of funding, including closing USAID. We can expect these actions to continue, which will undermine the basic premise of President Obama's "reset."

The biggest barrier to changing the dynamic is Putin's excessive focus on security, and a pervasive mistrust at all levels of the Russian political system. Putin does not want to devolve authority and lose control inside the country. The Kremlin does not want Russia to appear vulnerable in any way to outside powers. Putin distrusts the new urban middle class. Putin and the Kremlin distrust the United States and see Washington as seeking to infiltrate and overturn the Russian political system. President Obama can do little to lessen this mistrust given his own domestic political constraints and realities.

In the meantime, there are few incentives for Putin to "loosen up." The Russian opposition movements are not motivated by economics. Obama's second presidential term was almost upended by the U.S. economic crisis. Putin is a victim of his own economic success. Prosperity and stability in the past decade helped create the new urban middle class, which now wants political change to match its economic achievements. If Putin does not find a way to open up the political system, Russia cannot make the transition to a modern and economically competitive society without large disruptions.

The dangers, however, seem too great. The more progress Putin makes in modernizing Russia, the larger the strata of people who reject the system. Domestic dissent and Putin's efforts to counter it will be a permanent feature of the next several years, increasing the tensions and political tussles with the United States. Against this backdrop, President Obama will have to work very hard to create and manage a relationship with a beleaguered and belligerent Vladimir Putin.

Authors

Fiona Hill

Publication: The Huffington Post

Prospects of Political Reforms in Myanmar

Jeffrey A. Bader — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:42:00 -0500

A recent trip I took to Myanmar (Burma) provided an occasion to reflect on some large and small issues in U.S. foreign policy, and to think about what works and what doesn’t. My trip came shortly before it was publicly revealed that President Obama will visit Myanmar in the second half of November, which will highlight Myanmar’s reform and opening to the West.

Questions, and tentative answers:

1) Is Myanmar seriously on the path to reform?

So it would seem. The signs were abundant on my trip. The senior officials I met spoke convincingly about their commitment to democratic reform. One Minister positively mentioned democracy heroine Aung San Suu Kyi’s participation in a recent government-sponsored workshop. Newspapers published lively debates, virtually free of the all-pervasive censorship of the last two decades. Pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi and her father Aung San, the founder of modern Burma, could be seen on the walls of village restaurants. A large U.S. official human rights delegation visited in October and met with top Myanmar officials. Ordinary people spoke of the profound change in atmosphere, and of their willingness to speak out on matters where there was fear and silence only recently. This change in mood follows a series of steps disassembling key foundations of the repressive structure of Myanmar’s military government – release of hundreds of political prisoners, legalization of the opposition political party National League for Democracy, legalization of peaceful demonstrations, and revival of talks with rebellious ethnic groups.

2) What is Aung San Suu Kyi’s role and what is she doing?

Aung San Suu Kyi remains unequivocally the most popular political figure in Myanmar. She and her party decisively won the by-elections in April 2012 after the end of her years of confinement. There is reason to believe she and her party will win national elections in 2015 and be in a position to form a government. In preparation, she is showing a strongly pragmatic streak, reaching out to officials in the government, bonding with President Thein Sein and speaking positively of them at her Congressional Gold Medal ceremony. There is grumbling in the overseas human rights community at her apparent embrace of the compromises of national politics. She is encountering the inevitable second-guessing that accompanies the decision to cease to become an icon and to become a political actor, just as Lech Walesa endured second-guessing when he worked with General Jaruzelski in Communist Poland in the early 1980’s.

3) Did anyone in the West see this coming?

Perhaps somewhere someone in the West foresaw Myanmar’s turn toward reform, but the conventional wisdom certainly did not. Asia analysts inside and outside the government, editorialists, and human rights advocates alike all scorned Myanmar’s installation of a civilian government in April 2011 and its elections last year as fraudulent, saw little political significance in Aung San Suu Kyi’s release, and projected a grim political future.

4) How did it happen?

There are many retrospective theories, none fully satisfactory. One important factor seems to have been a generalized desire to escape Myanmar’s growing dependence on China by establishing the basis for renewed relations with the West. Myanmar historically is a fiercely independent country, having for example quit the Nonaligned Movement because it felt it was too aligned. Resentment against the Chinese presence, and its enterprises dominating the extractive industries while providing little employment for Myanmar nationals, runs deep. Some Burmese experts, including Thant Myint-U, the grandson of former UN Secretary General U Thant, presciently wrote of a new mood among the younger Myanmar officer corps, who have played a central role in spurring reform. Human rights groups point to the effect of years of sanctions in persuading the leadership it needed to take a new course. Advocates of engagement credit ASEAN with helping to knock down the generals’ resistance to the international community. Within Myanmar, the aging senior generals seem to have confidence they will not be held accountable for past repressive behavior, and the officer corps generally is comfortable that its special role in Myanmar politics will be preserved under a constitution that gives them a privileged and outsized role. This sense of security among the military old guard may have made them more willing to accept the current political opening.

5) What was the role of the U.S. Government?

From 1990 to 2008, successive administrations, pushed by the Congress, piled sanction upon sanction on Myanmar – bans on new investment, bans on imports, and designation of people and companies for financial sanctions. Under George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush played a large role in identifying the regime as a target for further isolation. In his inauguration speech, President Obama offered to reach out a hand to adversaries “if (they) are willing to unclench (their) fist. “ That policy has produced little in the way of positive results around the world, except in the case of Myanmar. The Administration decided early to open a channel of diplomatic engagement with the Myanmar leadership, conducted on the U.S. side by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, laying out the agenda for political reform and nonproliferation by Myanmar that would induce sanctions relaxation on the U.S. side. The expressed willingness of the U.S. government on an authoritative level to offer a road map to good relations gave the Myanmar government an incentive, and confidence, to proceed. The decision of the Obama administration, in coordination with allies in Europe and Australia, to significantly ease sanctions earlier this year should provide a further spur to both desperately needed economic development and political reform.

6) Are there broader lessons with regard to sanctions as a tool to change behavior of bad actors?

Sanctions are sometimes the only effective way for the U.S., and the international community, to signal the unacceptability of a regime’s behavior. Such was the case for a long time with Myanmar. So imposition of sanctions was appropriate.

But sanctions, it must be remembered, are not an end in themselves. As the popular song goes, you’ve got to know when to hold and when to fold. There is invariably an irresistible momentum in Washington to continue on the sanctions path whether or not it gives any indication of leading to positive outcome. Human rights groups sometimes see sanctions against malefactors as the measure of sound and moral government policy, and publicize the violations of dictatorial regimes to rally public support and funding around campaigns that have sanctions as their end product. The Congress wants to show that it is doing something, whether effective or not, and sanctioning dictatorial regimes becomes seen as a way to demonstrate its virtue. This dynamic is evident, for example, in the case of Cuba. We have now had sanctions in effect for over 50 years toward Cuba, and their support among American political actors has in no way been weakened by their manifest strengthening of the Castro brothers’ hold on power. Everyone – the U.S. political class, the private advocacy groups, the Castros – seems happy with this state of affairs, with the exception of the Cuban people who are its victims. Policy toward Myanmar was developing along the Cuban model, but happily it has now diverged from that path.

7) Is the U.S. Government well structured to deal with issues like Myanmar?

Since the Carter Presidency, there has been a growing infrastructure of offices and officials with responsibilities purely for human rights issues, divorced from broader matters of foreign policy and national security. These offices have evolved into the voice of the human rights NGO community within the U.S. government, frequently serving as a megaphone for the human rights NGOs, seeking their input to State Department human rights reports, and fighting for the specific measures proposed by the NGOs. In some ways, this is not radically different from the way in which other constituencies are represented in the foreign policy apparatus, e.g. business through the State Department’s Economic and Business Bureau. But the identification of the human rights offices with their constituency tends to be more single-minded (note: The current Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Michael Posner, in fact has escaped this straitjacket and acted as a strong advocate for human rights but with a focus on practical, not symbolic, results and a nuanced awareness of broad foreign policy objectives).

When I served as Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council during the transition of U.S. policy toward Myanmar between 2009 to 2011, I chaired a number of interagency meetings (called Interagency Policy Committees) on Myanmar. Normally, meetings of this kind are attended by one senior representative of each agency, accompanied by one more junior person. In the case of Myanmar, no less than seven offices from the State Department – the East Asia Bureau, the Human Rights Bureau, the US Mission to the UN, the State Department liaison to the US Mission to the UN, the US Mission to international organizations in Geneva, the US Ambassador for War Crimes, and the Refugees Bureau – attended. Agencies at such meetings are expected to speak with one voice. With seven offices attending, all seeking to have their voices heard, it was difficult to impossible for that to happen. Some of them were aggressively seeking creation of a Commission of Inquiry to look into Myanmar regime war crimes, at precisely the moment when Aung San Suu Kyi was released from captivity and there were hints of softening of repression. Only by empowering the Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific to speak for the State Department and to conduct diplomacy without a group from his building looking over his shoulder was the Administration able to pursue a coherent, and ultimately successful policy.

8) What is the best way to deal with issues involving bad actors like the Myanmar regime?

The human rights NGOs have an indispensable role in tracking human rights abuses, highlighting publicly the offenders and offenses, and mobilizing the international community to censure them. This is one of the proud features of a democratic society with a conscience, the activities of these groups of private actors with a strong commitment to justice even in obscure corners of the globe and their determination to make victims of injustice heard. Not only should we not ignore or marginalize such groups; we should celebrate them, and magnify and amplify their role.

The role of the U.S. government needs to be different. It should not ghettoize human rights issues. Nor should it encourage the creation and proliferation of offices that result in the drawing of lines between officials, all of whom should have as their top priority our national security and foreign policy success as well as a strong commitment to human rights. There should not be a small group of people anointed to express human rights concerns, acting as representatives of the NGO community, while officials with responsibility for national security and foreign policy fall into a reflexive response of marginalizing human rights in response. Our current structure frequently produces formalized battles over countries that are human rights bad actors. In such cases officials with broad national security responsibilities tend to roll over human rights when dealing with countries of major national security concern, like China, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, while deferring to the human rights offices on countries of lesser foreign policy importance, like Myanmar. This is not a framework built for success or sound policy development. Our government needs to sensitize our top national security officials to the need to build human rights issues more effectively into policy, while reminding the human rights offices that they too need to have a commitment to broad U.S. national security goals, not just the advancement of a virtuous NGO agenda.

Authors

Jeffrey A. Bader