Month: June 2013
Peace picks June 24-28
Summer doldrums have not yet arrived:
1. The Chinese Cyber Challenge: How to Address the Growing Threat, Atlantic Council, Monday, June 24 / 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Venue: Army & Navy Club
901 17th St, NW, Washington, DC 20006
Speakers: Dmitri Alperovitch, James Mulvenon, Gregory J. Rattray, Jason Healey
In recent months, the United States has gone public in a series of speeches by senior officials about Chinese cyber espionage. In an address in March to the Asia Society, outgoing national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon said “sophisticated, targeted” thefts of confidential information and technology were coming from China “on an unprecedented scale.” US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also accused Beijing of involvement in cyber espionage in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, openly blaming the Chinese government and military for “cyber intrusions” into sensitive US information systems. A summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama last week brought cybersecurity to the center of US-China relations, but failed to result in any agreement. Cyber espionage destabilizes every facet of the US-China relationship, and how the United States addresses these problems will be a harbinger of its overall approach to the challenge China poses to the global commons.
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Tunisia: its problems have solutions
The focus on political processes during democratization often leads to marginalizing the role of economics. The National Endowment for Democracy, the Legatum Institute, Foreign Policy, and World Affairs have tried to explore the link between economic and political reform through their Transitions Lecture Series: The Role of Economics in Democratic Transitions. This week, the series presented the case of Tunisia. The discussion featured
- Mondher Ben Ayed, the President and CEO of TMI, a leading information technology firm in Tunisia and advisor to the Tunisian Prime Minister in 2011 and 2012, presented.
- Larry Diamond, co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, moderated the discussion.
- Jeffrey Gedmin, President and CEO of Legatum Institute, introduced the speakers.
Ben Ayed argued that the economic fundamentals before the Tunisian revolution were not discouraging. For the five years before the revolution, Tunisia’s economy grew at 5 percent a year. The budget deficit reached 3 percent, and inflation was below 3 per cent. The literacy rate among Tunisians reached about 80 percent of the population, and the status of women was one of the highest in the region. Read more
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Same name, different challenges
Earlier this week news broke that the US and the Taliban had agreed to meet for direct peace talks. While President Karzai’s administration has protested these negotiations and delayed them, it appears likely the parties will meet in coming weeks. The outcome of these talks could significantly affect the future of US-Afghan relations and might help determine the nature and timeline of the US military withdrawal.
Some argue that Pakistan’s role in helping the US pursue the Afghan Taliban has driven their willingness to negotiate. Yet, Pakistan is simultaneously dealing with its own version of Islamic extremism, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban. Aqab Malik, a scholar at Pakistan’s National Defense University provided insight into the planned negotiations during a presentation this past Thursday at Johns Hopkins SAIS, where he is a visiting professor. Representing his own views (and not the official stance of the Pakistani government) Malik, an expert on both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, gave an overview of security concerns and discussed the implications of including the Taliban in the future Afghan state. Read more
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Jon Stewart turns up
Our leader takes us back to Egypt:
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Dayton reexamined
I wrote this piece some months ago for a Swedish publication, Axess. They have just published it, in Swedish:
“Dayton.” The word has come to signify the end of the seemingly intractable violence in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. The narrative surrounding it is powerful: after everyone else had tried and failed, an American diplomat took the warring parties off to an isolated air force base in Ohio, where he bent them to his will and ended the war. Richard Holbrooke left no doubt in his book To End a War that the critical moment was when he convinced Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to accept peace with the Federation (Bosniak and Croat) forces arrayed against him and the army of Republika Srpska. The story of how the Americans packed their bags and made Milosevic believe that they were getting ready to leave Dayton is classic. This was the triumph of American will, and guile.
The “Dayton” narrative is powerful but inaccurate and misleading. It has never accorded with what I actually experienced at Dayton during the first ten days of the talks, when I negotiated with German diplomat Michael Steiner the first agreement reached there. Now forgotten, it strengthened the predominantly Bosniak/Croat Federation, which at the time was winning the war in Bosnia. During my stay in Dayton, Holbrooke spent most of his time cajoling the Serbs into freeing an American journalist (David Rohde) who had gotten himself caught in Pale. He talked far more to Slobodan Milosevic than to anyone else and was clearly charmed. Captivated might be more accurate. Read more
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Hezbollah in Syria is at risk
Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has captured media attention and expert analysis around the world. On Tuesday, the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at Johns Hopkins SAIS and the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) organized Hezbollah After Assad, featuring Bilal Saab, executive director and head of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) North America and Jean-Luc Marret, a Senior Fellow at FRS and CTR and associate professor and senior lecturer in multiple French universities. Ambassador Andras Simonyi, the Managing Director of CTR, facilitated the discussion.
Bilal Saab reminded that a conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East is something that Hezbollah has warned against since its own founding. Such a conflict would not only distract Hezbollah from fighting Israel, but could also alienate the Shiite support base for the organization. Despite knowing this, Hezbollah has acted in a way that increases the likelihood of such a conflict. What explains Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria?
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