Month: March 2018
Opportunity or trap
Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA nuclear safeguards inspector, writes:
US President Trump suddenly decided to accept a meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Was it an erratic reaction to a long-lasting deadlock? Or was it conscious cutting of the Gordian knot, a well-planned move towards the solution of the nuclear crisis?
Whichever, it undoubtedly represents a fundamental change in the basic US prerequisite “no dialogue without promise of complete denuclearization.” This now turns into “dialogue to achieve denuclearization.”
This change will be understood, at least by North Korea, as US policy tuning toward reality: recognizing the fact that military elimination of the country’s nuclear capabilities would be a tragic operation with no winner. Nuclear deterrence, which North Korea has long struggled for and finally achieved, has become Kim Jong-un’s strongest negotiation card.
Fifteen years after North Korea left the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the US, as the leader of the six-party effort to solve the constantly escalating nuclear crisis, is now facing an unprecedented challenge: to negotiate a lasting end to this grave nuclear crisis. The road is not short and presents crucial obstacles, quite different from those encountered in the Iran deal. It is worth anticipating a few of them:
- While North Korea will seek recognition as a Nuclear Weapons State with a status equivalent to that of India and Pakistan, the US will call for North Korea to terminate all its nuclear tests and related nuclear activities with a possible military dimension.
- Agreement on waiving of UN and US sanctions in exchange for a verifiable and irreversible implementation of the agreed outcome.
- Accomplishing a new balance between two basic theses: “denuclearize the Korean Peninsula” and “removing the threat (US nuclear umbrella included) until Pyongyang feels secure.”
However, if president Trump’s sudden decision was just an erratic reaction distant from any rational concept or strategy, then he is walking into a risky trap, even a dangerous situation with a deeply uncertain outcome.
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More pushback needed
This weekend, after winning a campaign against no serious opponents, Vladimir Putin celebrated winning his fourth term as President of Russia. With another six years leading Russia, what course will Putin follow? Given Putin’s increasingly aggressive tone since the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, will this continue with regard to Russia’s neighbors?
To explore that question, an American Enterprise Institute group of experts on post-Soviet states drafted To Have and to Hold: Putin’s Quest for Control in the Former Soviet Empire. The project focuses on six post-Soviet states that remain vulnerable to Russian influence: the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, Southeastern European states of Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, and a lone state in Central Asia, Kazakhstan. The report includes two chapters on each of the six states, the first describing that nation’s importance to Russia, while the second describes the likely means by which Russia could press its interests.
On Wednesday, March 14, AEI debuted its report at an event featuring five of its authors: Leon Aron, resident scholar and director of Russian studies at AEI; Agnia Grigas of the Atlantic Council, who wrote a chapter on Estonia; Michael Kofman of the CNA Corporation and the Wilson Center, writer of a chapter on Ukraine; Mihai Popsoi of the University of Milan, author of two chapters on Moldova; and Paul Stronski from the Carnegie Endowment, whose chapter centered on Kazakhstan. Joining the authors was Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who opened the panel by speaking to his own observations on the Russian threat to the United States and allies in Eastern Europe, with Leon Aron acting as moderator. A video recording of the event can be seen here:
Takeaways:
Russia seeks to extend its regional influence by any means possible. Despite the nearly three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin views the USSR’s successor states as indisputably within Russia’s sphere of influence. Putin’s grand project is to reestablish Russian control over its former territories – anything less is inadequate. As in Ukraine, Russia approaches any state moving away from its hegemony as a Western-sponsored provocation. Though Grigas argued that Putin’s government doesn’t truly believe its own rhetoric, the effect is the same. Kofman warned that Putin still has not given up on Ukraine; he predicted the possibility of a larger Russian war against Ukraine if its attempts to manipulate politics there fail.
Russian overreach in Ukraine has hindered its influence across the region. Russia’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 opened a new chapter in Russia’s relations with its neighbors. The increased tension between Russia and the West has soured relations with even Russia’s closest allies. Belarus, whose president Alexander Lukashenko is Putin’s closest foreign ally, has sought to carve out a moderate role between Russia and Europe. To this Putin has responded coldly, introducing restrictions on trade and passport control on Belarussian travelers to Russia. With Putin’s aggressive reputation and Russia’s economic slowdown dragging on the social contract in Belarus and Kazakhstan, Stronski suggested that their respective governments are now searching for alternatives.
When Putin cannot win subservience, he seeks to destabilize. In Moldova, which holds only small symbolic or economic importance for Putin, Russia has instead achieved its aims by fracturing the small nation politically. Russian sponsorship of select Moldovan political parties and media companies has enabled Putin to engineer a Moldova that exists in a gray zone internationally – too chaotic to be a full Russian ally, too corrupt to be an EU member. As Popsoi noted, in Putin’s eyes, cultivating weakness in Russia’s neighbors is an alternative to building international friendship. Despite legal requirements, the Eurasian Union has not stopped Russia from blocking dairy products from Belarus and dumping cheap products in Kazakhstan.
What happens in Eastern Europe also affects America. Congressman Moulton described the Russian threat to America as “very, very real,” calling AEI’s monograph “required reading” for US policymakers. In Moulton’s assessment, the American government’s measures to defend its Eastern European allies have not kept up with Russian strategies – American money is going to buy too many tanks and missiles where cybersecurity is needed. Congress has started a few clear-sighted initiatives – Moulton spoke approvingly of the bipartisan Countering Foreign Propaganda Act, in particular – but those efforts have been too much “tinkering around the edges” to be effective.
Without decisive American pushback, Russian attempts to undermine its rivals will likely only grow bolder in the near future.
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Peace picks, March 19 – March 25
- Japan’s Balancing Between Nuclear Disarmament and Deterrence | Monday, March 19 | 1:00pm – 2:30pm | Stimson Center | Register here |
Join us for the launch of Balancing Between Nuclear Deterrence and Disarmament: Views from the Next Generation. This volume offers analyses by five scholars who examine the complex question of how Japan should balance between its short-term requirement for effective nuclear deterrence and its long-term desire for a nuclear-free world in the face of increasing uncertainty relating to nuclear weapons in its own neighborhood. Yuki Tatsumi leads a panel discussion of the report with its five authors: Masahiro Kurita, Fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies in the Ministry of Defense of Japan; Wakana Mukai, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of International Relations, Asia University; Masashi Murano, Research Fellow at the Okazaki Institute; Masahiro Okuda (joining via pre-recorded remarks), Ph.D. candidate at the Takushoku University Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies; and Heigo Sato, Vice President of the Institute for World Studies at Takushoku University.
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- Foreign Policy and Fragile States | Monday, March 19 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm | U.S. Institute of Peace | Register here |
Seven years into a brutal civil war in Syria, we are reminded how fragile states can lead to regional instability, cause humanitarian crises, and fall prey to extremist organizations such as ISIS. In this discussion, we’ll ask how the United States and the international community can address these national security challenges. How should U.S. assistance be prioritized and allocated? What is the difference between stabilizing a country versus nation building? How can the international community help a country like Syria? What lessons can be learned from efforts in countries, such as Nigeria and Colombia, preventing violence? And ultimately, how can we get ahead of the underlying causes of fragility that lead to and perpetuate violent conflict? Join leading experts at the United States Institute of Peace to discuss these vital questions. With Nancy Lindborg, President of the U.S. Institute of Peace; Ilan Goldenberg, Director of the Middle East Security Program at Center for a New American Security; Kimberly Kagan, Founder and President of the Institute for the Study of War. Moderated by Joshua Johnson, host of NPR’s program 1A.
This event will be live-taped for future broadcast on Public Radio International’s America Abroad and WAMU’s 1A.
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- Looking Ahead at the Next Presidential Term in Russia | Monday, March 19 | 2:30pm – 4:00pm | Atlantic Council | Register here |
Few doubt that Vladimir Putin will be re-elected to a fourth presidential term on March 18, but there are many questions regarding what that election outcome will mean for Russia’s future. Putin’s main competitor, Alexei Navalny, was barred from participating and has called for a boycott. While a widespread boycott is unlikely, the number of recent protests suggest that political dissatisfaction is growing among at least a well-organized minority. Many questions also remain about where the next Putin Administration will take the Russian political system, economy, and foreign policy. The Atlantic Council will host a discussion on what’s next for the Russian government and population during the new presidential term. With Dr. Anders Åslund (Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council), Vladimir Kara-Murza (Chairman, Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom), Dr. Lilia Shevtsova (Associate Fellow, Chatham House), and Ambassador Alexander Vershbow (Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council); moderated by Ambassador John Herbst (Director of the Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council).
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- Charting a Path Forward for the Democratic Republic of the Congo | Tuesday, March 20 | 10:00am – 11:30am | Brookings Institution (hosted by Service Employees International Union) | Register here |
Amid rising turmoil in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), President Joseph Kabila remains in power despite a constitutional mandate calling for the end of his rule in December 2016. Although the next round of presidential and parliamentary elections is now scheduled for December of this year, and opposition leaders are gearing up for a fight, there is considerable uncertainty regarding Kabila’s real intentions. Facing numerous calls from Western leaders to step down, regional nations such as Botswana have also called attention to the rise in violence as an effect of Kabila’s corrosive hold on the DRC. The Foreign Policy program at Brookings, in collaboration with Stand With Congo, will host a discussion on the current state of the DRC as violence rises and elections are purportedly on the horizon. Panelists will include Tom Perriello, former U.S. special envoy for the African Great Lakes and Congo-Kinshasa; Omékongo Dibinga, professor at American University; and EJ Hogendoorn from the International Crisis Group. Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon will moderate the conversation.
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- Challenges to Democracy in the Digital Age | Wednesday, March 21 | 9:30am – 11:00am | Center for Strategic and International Studies | Register here |
While the United States and the European Union have different approaches to privacy and data protection, both are critical partners to protecting freedom online. Europe and the United States have faced an escalation of hate speech, terrorist content, fake news, and misinformation online. They both encounter challenges in accessing electronic evidence for investigative purposes and in protecting personal data against cyberattacks. Join CSIS on Wednesday, March 21 for a timely conversation with H.E. Věra Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers, and Gender Equality, on the EU approach to the challenges democracies face in the digital age. The subsequent panel will review transatlantic efforts to countering hate speech, misinformation, and protecting personal data. Featuring Renate Nikolay, Head of Commissioner Jourová’s Cabinet; with CSIS experts James Andrew Lewis, Heather A. Conley, and Samm Sacks.
This event will be webcast live from this page.
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- Hidden Wounds: Trauma and Civilians in the Syrian Conflict | Wednesday, March 21 | 2:30pm – 4:00pm | U.S. Institute of Peace | Register here |
Seven years of conflict in Syria have exacted an enormous human toll and led to widespread physical destruction. The psychological impact of the war, although less visible, has been just as devastating. The levels of trauma and distress impacting Syrian civilians have been staggering, with nearly 500,000 killed, half the population displaced, and more than 13 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance. The traumatic impact of the Syrian conflict is less often acknowledged, but could significantly impair the ability of Syrian civilians to recover and build a more peaceful future. Please join USIP and specialists from the Syrian American Medical Society, the U.S State Department and Save the Children for a panel discussion, addressing an aspect of the Syrian conflict that often receives less attention than it deserves. Featuring Catherine Bou-Maroun of the U.S. Department of State, Dr. Mohamed Khaled Hamza of the Syrian-American Medical Society, and Amy Richmond of Save the Children. The panel will be moderated by Mona Yacoubian of USIP, with opening remarks from USIP President Nancy Lindborg.
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- Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean | Wednesday, March 21 | 3:00pm – 4:30pm | Hudson Institute | Register here |
On March 21, Hudson Institute will host a panel to discuss transnational organized crime in Latin America. The panel will discuss a new book, Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Evolving Threats and Responses to Integrated Adaptive Solutions, by Dr. Evan Ellis. The book details the interaction and evolution of various criminal entities, including powerful cartels, criminal bands, territorially-oriented gangs, groups performing intermediary functions in the international criminal economy, and groups with a focus on political or religious extremist objectives. The conversation will be moderated by Hudson Senior Fellow Ambassador Jaime Daremblum.
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- Can the Balkans Really Join the EU? | Wednesday, March 21 | 4:30pm – 6:00pm | SAIS Conflict Management Program and Center for Transatlantic Relations | Register here |
The European Union has opened the window for accession of new Balkan members starting in 2025. It is not clear when the window will close. Can the countries of the region take advantage of this opportunity? Who leads and who trails? What can be done to ensure success? This conversation features a panel of representatives from various Balkan states: Josip Brkic, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Vlora Citaku, Ambassador of Kosovo to the United States; Srdjan Darmanovic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro; Djerdj Matkovic, Ambassador of Serbia to the United States; Vasko Naumovski, ambassador of Macedonia to the United States. Moderated by SAIS professor Daniel Serwer.
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Weaponizing refugees
Beyond the headlines on Syria’s refugee crisis, a more sinister development involving displaced people has emerged in the country’s civil war. Fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, the Liwa Fatemiyoun is a Shia militia overwhelmingly composed of Afghan refugees who sought shelter in Iran during the 1980s. Since 2015, Tehran has recruited several thousand members of this community for its war effort in Syria, offering “high wages and residence permits for […] families [of fighters].” In so doing, the Iranian government has exploited the dire living conditions Afghan refugees on Iranian soil contend with. The plight of Afghans in Iran is a fate that many refugees in protracted refugee situations face.[*] A lack of perspective has made these populations easy targets of instrumentalization for political and military purposes.
Protracted refugee situations have proliferated in recent years and put strain on the international refugee regime. Mainly due to a spread of conflicts around the world, the number of refugees has significantly increased over the past two decades. At the same time, the successes in ceasing hostilities and enabling a safe return of displaced people to their homes have diminished. As a consequence, more and more refugees find themselves in situations of prolonged exile; as of 2016, some 12 million out of the 22.5 million refugees under UNHCR mandate lived in protracted refugee situations.
The international refugee regime is not able to cope with this development. Established after World War II to primarily address emergency situations, the current framework focuses on immediate humanitarian assistance for war-affected people and repatriation as well as resettlement efforts. In light of continuous conflict in many regions and little global willingness to resettle refugees, the regime has no adequate instruments to serve people in situations of prolonged exile. This leaves millions of refugees in limbo, with no prospects of a worthwhile future.
This situation has become a source of political instability and conflict. Disenfranchised and marginalized populations are susceptible to violent extremism. Terrorist groups and non-state actors such as the Palestinian PLO have a history of recruiting in refugee camps. More recently, states have started exploit the desperation of refugees in situations of prolonged exile. Iran established the approximately 12,000 to 14,000 men strong Afghan Liwa Fatemiyoun to support its war efforts in Syria.
Faced with great poverty and often threatened with deportation, Afghans as young as 14 have been pressured to join the militia in return for residency permits and a stable income (the Afghan community in Iran consists of refugees who fled their homeland during the 1980s Afghan-Soviet war). These refugee soldiers serve as ‘cheap’ shock troops who bear the brunt of Iran’s military actions in Syria. The instrumentalization of displaced people has thus reached a new level of intensity: host states entrusted with providing secure environments for refugees are now forcing displaced people to serve as combatants in conflicts they are not party to.
The case of the Liwa Fatemiyoun not only sheds light on Tehran’s ruthless foreign policy but also highlights that the international community must alter its approach towards protracted refugee situations. Despite being a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Iran does not shy away from exploiting its refugees, who are utilized to cause human misery and more displacement in Syria.
The current refugee regime has developed into a mere administrator of unending crisis situations. These act as breeding grounds for perpetuating conflict. To overcome this vicious cycle and sustainably tackle sources of global instability, the international community must seek to fully integrate refugees in host countries and offer support in form of comprehensive development programs. These efforts will be pricey, but change is necessary. Only then, the Liwa Fatemiyoun will remain an isolated incident and not become a blueprint for future instrumentalization of refugees.
[*] The UNHCR defines protracted refugee situations as situations where refugees have been in exile “for five or more years after their initial displacement, without immediate prospects for implementation of durable solutions.”
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From bad to worse
President Trump’s choice of CIA Director Pompeo to replace Secretary of State Tillerson, tweet-fired summarily this morning, bodes ill.
Tillerson was a bad Secretary of State: notoriously out of touch with the President and the White House, he gutted both people and positions at his department, losing talent and capacity at a breathtaking pace. His views were nevertheless more sensible than Trump’s on many issues: Joyce Karam on Twitter pointed out that they differed on Iran, Russia, climate change, Qatar, trade and Jerusalem. I’d add North Korea to that list. But that only increased the incoherence of the Trump Administration, which is setting records for inability to sing from the same sheet of music.
Pompeo is made of different stuff. He mostly agrees with Trump’s radical views, in particular on Iran (he advocated bombing) and North Korea (he wants regime change, though he has presumably saluted for the one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong-un). He differs from Trump mainly on Russia, where he is much harder-nosed than a president who can’t bring himself to criticize Vladimir Putin even for attempted murder with nerve agent in an allied country. He is unlikely to be much friendlier to State Department personnel than his predecessor, but he will carry more weight at the White House. Pompeo is no dummy: he was first in his class at West Point and editor of the Harvard Law Review before going into business and eventually wining a Congressional seat in Kansas.
Pompeo’s replacement at the CIA will be Gina Haspel, the current deputy director and the first woman to be nominated as director. After 9/11, she is reputed to have run a CIA prison that tortured prisoners and to have ordered destruction of videotapes documenting the torture. She appears to have spent her entire career as a professional in the clandestine service, so little more is known about her. It is reasonable to expect continuity at CIA, but in any event we know little about what goes on there until well after the fact. It is likely that she will represent the views of the Agency’s professional analysts and operators, who are good at warning about all the things that can go wrong.
Trump is in a mood to surround himself with people who agree. Pompeo may not be a “yes” man–more likely he just shares the President’s far-out opinions. That raises again the question about how long National Security Adviser McMaster will last. He has been out of sync with Trump on North Korea, Iran, and Russia, three of today’s most pressing issues. Defense Secretary Mattis is a bit less contrary, and too weighty to fire without consequences.
Admittedly we are near the bottom of the barrel. But in my view, Pompeo and Haspel are in no way improvements. More likely we are going from bad to worse.
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It’s the region, stupid
The Middle East suffers from a whole range of problems. War and conflict are besetting wide parts of the region and have caused massive destruction as well as displacement in several countries, including Syria and Yemen. Climate change has brought about enormous environmental degradation such as desertification and water scarcity. At the same time, stressed domestic economies are increasingly unable to provide job opportunities for the region’s disenchanted youth. The Middle East faces enormous challenges that transcend borders and hence require answers that narrow-minded national policy making is no longer able to provide. Indeed, the region is today in dire need of regional responses.
On March 7, the Middle East Institute presented a roadmap of how future cooperation should look like in the Middle East. Resulting from Track 1.5 initiative involving current and former officials and senior experts from across the Middle East as well as from China, Europe, Russia, and the United States, the so-called Baghdad Declaration outlines 12 good neighborhood principles for the region. The discussion featured three major participants in the Middle East Dialogue. Naufel al-Hassan, deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Haider al Abadi of Iraq, Abdullah al-Dardari, who serves as a senior advisor on reconstruction at The World Bank, and MEI’s senior vice president for policy research and programs Paul Salem provided their perspective on the Baghdad Declaration and the Middle East’s future. A full recording of the event is here:
Regional integration is already prevalent in the Middle East. Abdullah al-Dardari stresses that, excluding oil and gas, intraregional trade accounts for some 40% of total trade in the Middle East; taking the informal economy into consideration, this figure might even reach 60%. Moreover, the Middle East has the world’s highest level of intraregional level of remittances. Paul Salem underlines this observation and adds that only because of the high level of existing regional interdependence and interaction conflicts were able to spread that easily across the Middle East. However, the integration of today is neither well-structured nor reflected in the political relationships between Middle Eastern states.
The region is still in dire need of better cooperation among its members. Al-Dardari argues that the model of country-based economic growth has reached its apex in the Middle East. Self-sustained economic development is no longer possible as national labor markets, productive bases, and consumption levels have become too narrow. Instead, only regional economic integration and the resulting creation of an open regional market can attract extensive investment and the money needed to rebuild war-ravaged countries: an estimated one trillion dollar of assets has been destroyed since 2011. Naufel al-Hassan also points out that political and environmental challenges such as transnational terrorist networks and water scarcity go beyond the problem-solving capacities of single states and require common answers. In the same vein, the region’s governments can only bring back hope to the Middle East’s youth when they collaborate on providing decent job opportunities. A new regional framework is hence not an option, but a necessity.
Although the contemporary conflicts in the Middle East seem to make increased regional cooperation almost impossible to achieve, change is possible. Salem stresses that other regions of the world were able to transition from a conflict system to a stable order. Not even a century ago, Europe suffered from two wars which much exceeded the level violence that has beset the contemporary Middle East. Yet Europe has been able to overcome its international divisions and conflicts and has established a strong system of cooperation, the European Union. At the same time, the Middle East has proven to be able to move beyond regional standoffs, as the surmounting of rivalry between Egypt and Saudi Arabia of the 1950s has demonstrated. We can thus be hopeful whereby al-Hassan emphasizes that a new stage of integration has already begun. To defeat ISIS, the region has displayed a new level of cooperation, which can serve as a blueprint for future efforts to unite in face of political, economic, and environmental challenges.
A better future is hence possible for the Middle East. The Baghdad Declaration offers a distinct vision that can show the path towards deeper integration in the region. When this transition will materialize will however depend on the readiness of the region’s current leadership to cease hostilities and acknowledge that small-minded national agendas cannot act as a remedy. For the sake of the Middle East and its people, this change of mentality and political outlook should occur soon.
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