Day: March 25, 2018
Only a beginning
I greatly appreciated yesterday’s March for Our Lives here in DC. The speakers, mostly kids, were eloquently inspiring and the enormous crowd supportive, peaceful and determined. I half imagined they would trash the Trump hotel on leaving, as it stood towards the far end of the “march” (more a “stand”: the group didn’t have a permit to move from Pennsylvania Avenue). But no one seemed to be in a mood to cause trouble, so the police stood around as virtual participants. I imagine they’d be very happy to see fewer guns on the street, as they are among the more vulnerable of our fellow citizens.
The March goals were relatively modest:
- Passing a law to ban the sale of assault-style weapons
- Prohibiting the sale of high-capacity magazines
- Closing the loophole in our background check law
None of these would change the current situation: there would still be several million assault-style weapons in the US and a comparable number of high-capacity magazines. Requiring background checks of those who buy guns online or at gun shows would only affect future purchasers, not the armed potential perpetrators already out there.
Nor are school killings of the type that motivated the March our biggest numerical problem, even if the mass murder of children merits heightened moral denunciation. Most gun deaths in the US are suicides: almost twice as many as homicides. And most homicides are committed with handguns, not assault-style weapons. The gun-related murder rate in the US is more than an order of magnitude greater than that in other developed countries, but not because of school shootings, assault-style weapons or high-capacity magazines.
Achieving the March’s goals would thus not do much to improve the situation, but there is little risk the current Congress will do anything like what the students want. The gun lobby owns the Republican members of Congress, who have the majority in both Houses. President Trump is not going to buck the National Rifle Association, which raised a lot of money for his campaign, some of it now under investigation because it may have come from Russia. The Administration has probably reached the limit of what it is prepared to do with its proposed prohibition on the sale of “bump stocks” (which enable a non-automatic weapon to fire like an automatic one) and a requirement that Federal agencies report more data on people ineligible to purchase guns. Those amount to a nothingburger compared even to the March’s modest goals.
The sad fact is that no solution to the gun problem is possible without getting a significant percentage of the nation’s more than 300 million guns out of the hands of their owners, especially those who possess them illegally. I’ll happily join those demanding less when they turn out the kind of crowds they did on Saturday, because their efforts may contribute to electing a different Congressional majority in November. But at best the March was the beginning of something big, not the end.
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Fragile states pose security threats
State fragility is on the rise. In recent years, civil wars have proliferated throughout the world. In 2015, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) reported 49 active intrastate conflicts, the highest number since 1991; likewise, casualties have increased consistently during the past 25 years. These developments are worrying. In contrast to most interstate conflict, civil wars are extremely difficult to resolve. Studies on intrastate conflicts since 1945 have shown that civil wars tend to last an average of about seven to twelve years, making their repercussions tremendous. As the brutal civil war in Syria exemplifies, the fallout includes humanitarian crises, the rise of extremist organizations, and regional political instability. Policy makers in the West must thus adopt more effective policies to stabilize fragile and failed states.
On March 19, the United States Institute of Peace hosted a high-profile panel discussing how the United States and the international community can address better the national security challenges stemming from state fragility. Nancy Lindborg, President of the US Institute of Peace, was joined by Ilan Goldenberg, Director of the Middle East Security Program at Center for a New American Security, and Kimberly Kagan, founder and President of the Institute for the Study of War. Joshua Johnson, host of NPR’s program 1A, moderated the discussion.
State fragility poses critical security threats. According to Nancy Lindborg, fragile states are characterized by the inability to provide basic public goods such as security and lack political legitimacy as governments typically exclude parts of their citizenry from participating in politics, the country’s social life, and the economy. As a result, fragile states suffer from weak institutions and are less able to manage shocks like disasters and conflict. In this respect, Ilan Goldenberg emphasizes that fragile states often require merely a spark to disintegrate. Collapsing states create serious security vacuums. As outside actors are concerned about losing political influence, they are incentivized to intervene. This generally exacerbates and perpetuates the conflicts already unfolding within failed states.
Syria is a prime example for this vicious dynamic. Goldenberg argues that the 2011 Arab Spring caused the disintegration of the Syrian state and ignited a domestic conflict, which has developed into a regional and international fight over influence in the Levant. Today, Syria is divided into five different zones of influence: a Jordanian-supported rebel pocket in southwestern Syria, the Iran-backed Assad regime in the center of the country, an al-Qaeda safe haven in the province of Idlib, a Turkish-controlled territory in the north, and a Kurdish canton that enjoys US support. Conflict erupts at the intersections of these “tectonic plates.” To pacify Syria, all involved parties must first agree on long-term political arrangements concerning these hotspots before a national reconciliation project can be launched. Goldenberg is however not hopeful that positive change will occur soon. Kimberly Kagan affirms this observation and stresses that the diverging interests of the foreign actors involved in Syria impede any peace progress.
To avoid more Syria-like scenarios, the United States must invest more effort in stabilizing fragile states and pacifying failed states. Given U.S. economic strength, Lindborg argues that Washington has a moral obligation to help fragile states. Support must thereby exceed simple humanitarian assistance and rather address the sources of fragility. Kagan highlights that moral obligations often align with political and security interests such as counteracting breeding grounds of terrorism. She thus advocates more US engagement in form of a balanced hard and soft power approach to help fragile states recover themselves and create situations whereby governance can return. Goldenberg adds that the United States also acts as a role model in addressing state fragility. If the US demonstrates leadership, other states follow suit.
However, Washington is currently unwilling to meets is obligation of providing stability around the world. Lindborg points out that US policies are too reactive. Although consecutive administrations have identified state fragility as a key security threat, they have only responded to crises after they had become far too problematic. The United States is in a state of “hunkering down” whereby Americans are “tired of playing world police.”
It is clear, however, that the United States and European states must tackle state fragility more proactively. While conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, or South and Central America often appear to be localized problems at first glance, they have critical repercussions on the political, societal, and economic situation in the developed world. The international refugee crises and its impact on European and US politics is evidence enough for this circumstance.
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