Myanmar’s still long road ahead
On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment hosted a panel discussion on Myanmar’s November 8 elections: ‘What happened and what happens now?’ featuring William Sweeney, president and CEO of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES); U Aung Din, senior adviser at the Open Myanmar Institute; and Christina Fink, professor of practice in International Affairs at George Washington University, The panel was moderated by Carnegie Senior Associate Vikram Nehru.
Sweeney painted an optimistic picture of the elections, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a staggering 80% of the three quarters of parliamentary seats up for contention in both lower and upper houses (the final quarter being reserved for the military). IFES had worked with Myanmar’s Union Election Commission for three years on several aspects of national elections: stakeholder engagement, updating the national voter list, voter education, women’s leadership, and inclusion of people with disabilities.
The breadth and inclusivity of the 33.5 million-person voter list was particularly impressive, with its complete digitization and incorporation of 6.5 million corrections, checked and checked again on a local level. Sweeney pointed out that an inaccurate or incomplete voter list is often the thing that prevents citizens from voting once they reach the polls.
Despite this promising achievement, there is still a long road ahead to reach stable democratic governance. There will be a four-month transition process. As Din pointed out, there are no clear candidates for president, nominated by parliament. The candidate has to be palatable to both parties and cannot have a military background. The constitution bars Suu Kyi from becoming president because her sons are British citizens, but she plans to play the leading role: ‘the president will have no authority,’ she has said.
This transition takes place in the context of long-running civil wars and ongoing peace processes. Fink stated that there is a complex field of contention, with multiple ethnic-minority armed groups arrayed against the military and a long history of distrust. The military and President Thein Sein aren’t united on strategy, with the army continuing to advance into ethnic minority territory.
While a ceasefire was finally signed in October, and passed on Tuesday, only eight of the fifteen armed rebel groups have signed the agreement, which Fink believes plays into the military’s favored strategy of divide and rule. Further, Suu Kyi and the NLD have not as yet weighed in on the issue of the conflict with ethnic rebels or the peace process, though Suu Kyi has has at least stated that her cabinet will have minority representation.
Though there were ethnic minority candidates running with the NLD, no ethnic-minority political party made significant gains in the elections, which also centers the focus on how Suu Kyi will deal with the issue of minority political representation. There were no Muslim candidates at all with the NLD – as Din pointed out, the NLD intentionally excluded them. In Sweeney’s view, lack of Muslim representation is something society at large, as well as all the political parties, will have to confront.
Myanmar is now in a transition period, economically as well as politically, which increases feelings of insecurity and sentiments of exclusionary nationalism amongst its populace, in Fink’s view. Sweeney highlighted interesting parallels with the debate about immigration and citizenship in Europe and the US, as much of Myanmar’s Muslim population immigrated to the country decades ago, and yet have not acquired citizenship.
With the accomplishment of successful elections behind them, Myanmar needs to continue to negotiate issues of citizenship and reconciliation in the hopes of building a more inclusive society.
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The Balkans in perspective
I’m taking off for the Middle East this evening, so rushing to put my affairs in order. I don’t know if I’ll get an opportunity to write today, but in the meanwhile here is an interview I did for Kosovo Radio and Television with Janusz Bugajski. It was broadcast on December 8 but recorded a few days earlier:
It seems to me Janusz, who knows the Balkans well, does a great job trying to get past the immediate headlines to deeper and broader issues.
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Trumpeting
Falling to second place in Iowa polling behind Ted Cruz, Donald Trump has resorted to his usual tactic: a bold, headline-catching statement, this time about not allowing Muslims into the United States. The proposition is ridiculous, immoral, impractical and odious, but so is its bozotic proponent.
This time, the other Republican candidates are roundly denouncing Trump, hoping to use the occasion to push him off the hilltop and begin his slide to oblivion, where erstwhile number 2 candidate Ben Carson already is headed. Getting rid of Trump now would allow Cruz and Rubio–the only two Republican candidates who have any chance of competing for Hispanic votes–to duke it out for the nomination. That’s what the Republican establishment wants to see.
However that turns out, Trump remains significant, not for what he says but rather for the people he represents. His crowds are enthusiastic about blocking Muslims from the United States. They are the same crowds who have cheered his disdain for Mexicans, his proposal to build a wall on the border, and his coded but clear racism.
Folks with similar views have just given Marine Le Pen a big municipal election victory in France and have sought to block refugees from settling in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other newer European Union countries. A few more terrorist successes could generate a tidal wave of illiberalism and zenophobia throughout the Western world.
That of course is precisely what the Islamic State would like to see. I may share some of the dissatisfaction with President Obama’s “no drama” reaction to recent ISIS attacks, but he is certainly correct that over-reaction is also perilous. No one wants American boots on the ground more than ISIS, since that would provide it with even more recruitment and hostage/kidnap potential than it has today. As the Turks are finding in northern Iraq, force protection is a serious proposition when coming close to ISIS.
Protecting civilians at home is also a serious challenge. It won’t help much to tell Americans that their odds of being a victim of international terrorism are infinitesimally small. The impulse to overreact to threat, and to do so quickly, is deeply ingrained, as Daniel Kahneman and others have demonstrated. And there is always the possibility that another attack on the scale of 9/11 will disrupt American life. I watched the Diane Keaton/Morgan Freeman film Five Flights Up on the way home from Zagreb Sunday. It involves a tanker truck abandoned menacingly on one of the bridges into Manhattan. It’s miraculous it hasn’t really happened, yet.
So what is to be done?
Zal Khalilzad offers the following prescription for the Middle East:
In the short-term, a comprehensive strategy will involve a U.S.-led no-fly zone to protect civilians, ground forces to defeat ISIS—which a majority of Americans now support—and heavier arms transfers to the Kurds. Longer-term, the United States will need to take the lead in transforming the Middle East politically and geopolitically, just as we did in Europe and East Asia after World War II. While military operations might generate tactical successes, the defeat of ISIS and other similar groups will require sustained partnerships with local allies to mobilize the people of the region against radical Islamism. It will also require convening regional forums and dialogues to tamp down sectarianism and encourage a positive vision of tolerance for the greater Middle East.
None of that sounds much better than the current effort, which includes many of the things Zal cites, though perhaps not to the degree he would like to see them pursued. Another effort to transform the Middle East doesn’t sound so great to me either. Last time we tried that it didn’t work so well. Note also that he is vague about where the ground forces would come from and doesn’t consider the implications of a no-fly zone with the Russians in the air. Zal gets even vaguer in discussing what to do for homeland security. He manages to offer the Communist threat as an analogy to ISIS. That doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Trumpeting is not limited to Trump. The fact is the President’s critics don’t have a lot of good ideas. I don’t think there are any that will bring a quick end to ISIS’s frightening but still small attacks. And there are lots of ways we might make things worse.
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Peace picks December 7-11
- Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum: The Future Of Goal 16: Peace and Inclusion In the Sustainable Development Goals | Tuesday, December 8 | 9:30-11:00am | SAIS | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) make a clear link between conflict and development, thanks to the powerful language about peace in the preamble to the along with the inclusion of Goal 16 on “peaceful and inclusive societies.” This emphasis recognizes that protracted conflict undermined the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in many countries, and it creates a new international focus on peacebuilding as one of the solutions to development challenges.How did the international community shift its thinking toward peace and inclusion in the SDGs, and where do we go from here? The inclusion of peace as a goal in the SDGs was not a foregone conclusion, and panelists will discuss both how advocacy helped ensure a role for peacebuilding in the SDGs and what that means for the next 15 years. They will also discuss the challenge that remains for governments, organizations, and individuals to implement and evaluate these global goals.
- Implementing Camp David: US-GCC Security Cooperation Since The Summit | Tuesday, December 8 | 12:30-2:00 | Atlantic Council | REGISTER TO ATTEND | President Obama convened leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in May 2015 to discuss reassurance and security cooperation in light of the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran. The United States and Gulf Arab monarchies agreed to improve future cooperation on ballistic missile defense, counter-proliferation, counterterrorist financing, cybersecurity, and a range of other issues. Six months after the summit, with the Iran deal secured and amidst the Middle East’s continuing crises, US-GCC security cooperation remains critically important. What have been the notable successes and challenges since Camp David? To what extent has progress been made in key areas? Has the region’s security situation benefitted from US-Gulf cooperation in light of the continuing fight against ISIS and other crises? Speakers include: James L. Jones, President, Jones Group International, Nawaf Obaid
Visiting Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Barry Pavel
Vice President, Arnold Kanter Chair, and Director, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe President and CEO
Atlantic Council, and moderated by Karen DeYoung, Senior National Security Correspondent, Washington Post. - Syria: Steps Toward Peace Or Deepening Intractability? | Tuesday, December 8 | 5:30pm | Brookings Institute | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Soon to be in its sixth year, the conflict in Syria remains as deadly as ever. The consequences of an increasingly complex and seemingly intractable civil war are now also being felt internationally to an alarming degree. Recent attacks in Beirut and Paris warn of the danger of Syria’s continued breakdown. With nearly 300,000 people recorded killed, 12 million others displaced, and vast refugee flows overwhelming Syria’s neighbors and now Europe, finding a solution is nothing short of urgent. Recent multilateral meetings in Vienna demonstrated renewed diplomatic determination to negotiate peace for Syria, but significant differences remain between the conflict’s principal power-brokers.This Brookings Doha Center policy discussion aims to explore the current status of the Syrian conflict and the roles being played by an ever expanding list of actors. Does a moderate opposition still exist in Syria, and if so, what does that mean? Does the Vienna process provide hope for a durable political solution? How can the armed opposition play a role in shaping a political solution in Syria? What is the future of Salafi-jihadi militancy in Syria and what are the local, regional, and global ramifications? Speakers include, Mouaz Al Khatib, Former President, National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, Noah Bonsey, Senior Analyst Syria, International Crisis Group, Charles Lister, Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Brookings Doha Center.
- Manning the Future Fleet | Wednesday, December 9 | 10:00-11:00am | CSIS | REGISTER TO ATTEND| The Maritime Security Dialogue brings together CSIS and U.S. Naval Institute, two of the nation’s most respected non-partisan institutions. The series is intended to highlight the particular challenges facing the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, from national level maritime policy to naval concept development and program design. Given budgetary challenges, technological opportunities, and ongoing strategic adjustments, the nature and employment of U.S. maritime forces are likely to undergo significant change over the next ten to fifteen years. The Maritime Security Dialogue provides an unmatched forum for discussion of these issues with the nation’s maritime leaders.
- Breaking the Silence: Societal Attitudes Toward SGBV In Syria | Wednesday, December 9 | 2:00- 3:30pm | Syria Justice and Accountability Centre | REGISTER TO ATTEND | As the Syrian conflict continues with increasing levels of violence, reports have emerged indicating that government forces and extremist groups are using sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) as a tool of war. However reliable information on SGBV remains scarce due to social stigma and survivors’ fears that they may be ostracized from their communities if they come forward with their stories. As part of its efforts to ethically and comprehensively document all violations of the conflict, including SGBV, SJAC commissioned a report from the Syria Research and Evaluation Organization (SREO) to assess Syrians’ attitudes towards survivors and perpetrators of SGBV. The results were surprising. Speakers include: Ambassador Steven E. Steiner, Gender Advisor USIP, Shabnam Mojtahidi, Legal and Strategy Analyst, Syria Justice and Accountability Center, Cindy Dyer, Vice President of Human Rights, Vital Voices, and Sussan Tahmasebi, Director of MENA, ICAN.
- Cyber Risk Wednesday: 2016 Threat Landscape | Wednesday, December 9 | 4:00-5:30 pm | Atlantic Council | REGISTER TO ATTEND | On the cyber front, 2015 paints a dark picture. The year has been filled with massive data breaches, disruptive cyberattacks, and espionage. Neither government agencies nor private companies were safe. Nations have become increasingly comfortable with fighting their battles online, using covert cyberattacks to accompany traditional warfare in on-going conflicts in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Will 2016 be any different? While data breaches and hybrid warfare are likely to continue, Internet users’ awareness of cybersecurity issues has reached an all-time high, companies are pouring investments into strengthening their cyber defenses, the United States and China were able to reach a deal banning commercial cyber espionage despite the countries’ otherwise lukewarm relations, and the privacy issues are getting prime time attention. Speakers include: Luke Dembosky
Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security
US Department of Justice, Jason Healey Senior Fellow, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council, Ellen Nakashima National Security Reporter The Washington Post, and Mark O’Hare
Director, President, and CEO, Security First Corp. - Implementing Counterinsurgency In Afghanistan: Lessons From Village Stability Operations And Afghan Local Police (VSO/ALP) | Thursday, December 10 | 11:00 am | Institute of World Politics | REGISTER TO ATTEND | In 2010, towards the end of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, US Special Operations Forces (SOF) and their international partners experimented with a new way of implementing counterinsurgency, Village Stability Operations (VSO) and Afghan Local Police (ALP). VSO/ALP is based on a “bottom-up” rather than “top-down” approach that focused on soldiers interacting with local Afghan populations, supporting traditional local tribal governance, and training local security forces. In this discussion, Dr. Lofdahl will review lessons which can be drawn from the VSO/ALP experience in Afghanistan. Speaker: Dr. Corey Lofdahl, Senior Scientist at Charles River Analytics.
- Planning for Korean Unification: What Is Seoul Doing? | Thursday, December 10 | 12:00-1:30 pm | The Heritage Foundation | REGISTER TO ATTEND | South Korean President Park Geun-hye has made Korean unification a central tenet of her foreign policy strategy. More so than her predecessors, she has made reunification a tangible objective. Despite repeated attempts at reconciliation, North Korea has rejected dialogue and criticizes President Park’s unification outreach as unrealistic, seeing it as a threat to regime stability. Issues to be addressed would include the blueprints of Korean unification, how to overcome North Korean resistance, and how to achieve or pay for it. To learn more about South Korea’s plans for achieving unification, join us for a discussion with three distinguished members of South Korea’s bipartisan Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation. Speakers include: Dr. Chung Chong-wook, Vice-Chairman of the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation, Dr. Moon Chung-in, Professor of Political Science, Yonsei University, and Dr. Kim Byung-yeon Professor Economics, Seoul National University.
- Hope, Innovation, Activism: The Critical Role Of Millennials In Afghanistan | Thursday, December 10 | 12:00 – 1:30pm | Rumi Forum | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Ambassador Dr. Hamdullah Mohib will explore why this demographic matters — the role of millennials in Afghan society today, and the important role they have to play in the country’s future on December 10, 2015. A young man builds an aircraft from scratch; a teenage boy builds an internet connection out of trash scraps; a young woman uses her savings to found a coding school for girls and a women-run IT company; a group of students initiate a recycling campaign to clean up their city; young people rally on social media and in the streets to protest the unjust killing of a young woman. These are stories from Afghanistan that you don’t hear about. Roughly 75% of the population in Afghanistan is under the age of 35. While much of the media focuses on the challenges of the new government and the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan today, the country’s hopeful, innovative, educated and active millennial population is defining and building the country’s future.
- Climate Security and Migration | Friday, December 11 | 10:00am – 12:00 pm | Center for New American Security | REGISTER TO ATTEND | On December 11, please join CNAS for a public event on climate security and migration. We will explore questions of how the United States, in collaboration with foreign partners, multilateral institutions, and civil society, should tackle future climate migration. What are the key initiatives, institutions and challenges involved in successfully addressing climate migration? Does the issue of climate migration fit our current framework and processes for dealing with migration? What should the international community be doing now? The events over the summer and fall in Europe, albeit not due to climate change, were illustrative of the scale of the challenges involved for policymakers and security leaders. Climatic change will add another layer to the challenges the global community will face in addressing migration, including explicitly climate change-driven migration, in the years ahead. Speakers include: Hon. Sharon E. Burke, Senior Advisor, New America, Dr. Daniel Chiu, Deputy Director, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council, Sherri Goodman, CEO and President, Consortium for Ocean Leadership, and CDR Jim Moran, Senior Strategist, Emerging Policy, Deputy Commandant for Operations U.S. Coast Guard
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Building peace from the ground up
On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted Dr. Samir Altaqi to discuss the prospects of national reconciliation in Syria as well as the fight against ISIS. As general director of the Dubai-based Orient Research Center, Altaqi conducts research on locations throughout the Middle East. He has also founded two initiatives, the Arab-Kurds Dialogue in 2013 and the Save Syria Initiative in 2015.
Altaqi, based on reports conducted by his Center, posited that the situation on the ground in Syria has reached the point that it is more logical and practicable to set up a confederal system. The different regions have gravitated toward their neighbors and become more localized, not just in terms of security, but economically as well. Northern Syria is more integrated with the Turkish economy, while the land east of the Euphrates is increasingly turning towards Erbil.
While 76% of the Syrian economy formerly passed through Damascus, the capital has been displaced and now sees only 17%. We are witnessing the collapse of the system of loyalties that used to support the state, and autonomous regions are crystallizing and fusing socioeconomically. In Altaqi’s analysis, the ministry of finance, the central bank, and the electricity network are the sole remaining central structures. All other state institutions have devolved, and ‘state’ employees operate on a local basis.
What is therefore needed, Altaqi believes, is a national reconciliation pact, with incentives for all parties, under the cultural and historical banner of ‘Syria’ even if politically no more than a confederation. Even if Bashar al-Assad goes, Altaqi believes the conflict won’t come to an end. Reconciliation needs to be built from the parties on the ground, with horizontal Syrian-Syrian dialogue.
Necessary steps include determining which parties are classifiable as internationalist terrorists, and eliminating the local incubator for Jabhat al-Nusra and other al-Qaeda-leaning groups. Engagement, especially with the Syrian fighters in these groups, is essential for moderating extremists. The conflict needs to be frozen, instituting local ceasefires within a larger framework for a national ceasefire.
As for international involvement, Altaqi does think that a Vienna process of some sort is necessary, but there is no agreement between the US and Russia as yet. For the US in particular, he believes officials still entertain illusions about the conflict. These include the illusion that the conflict can be contained; that an alliance between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran is possible; and also that ISIS will not come to the US.
There is a lack of a Yalta-style master plan between international actors to solve the crisis. Each is pursuing its own agenda in Syria, using the pretext of fighting ISIS. Tensions among them are strong – Turkey is afraid of Russia and isn’t sure NATO will back it up if the tensions increase.
The US also needs to take Sunni Arab actors seriously on the ground. As it stands, Washington has no leverage over them, though both Turkey and Saudi Arabia do. Echoing a common view, Altaqi states that it is Sunni Arabs who can effectively confront and defeat ISIS, given the right resources and opportunities.
Trained as a cardiovascular surgeon, Altaqi formulates the crisis in a medical analogy: there has been a loss of immunity because in weak states of the region. An infection has thus entered this regional body, in the form of ISIS. No matter what antibiotic you use to combat it, it will not have the desired effect without rebuilding the immune system.
Thus, national reconciliation is essential first and foremost. It would stabilize Syria, free up resources, and create bodies who can then confront the ISIS threat. In Altaqi’s view, this is what must be done.
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When is it okay to associate?
One of the serious pleasures of blogging is that you occasionally hear from serious people you have never met or even heard of who enlighten, entertain and even delight. That was the case yesterday, when I heard from John Cipperly, currently at the International Institute for Sociology of Law in the Basque Country of Spain doing an MA/PhD program while on sabbatical leave from the International Programs Division of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), where he normally works with US government funding.
He sent a paper on “Transitional Constitutionalism and Minority Rights in Kosovo: Making Sense of the Association of Serbian Municipalities” that contains his own views (not necessarily those of the US government) and elucidates the issues before the Kosovo Constitutional Court as it considers the proposed Association, which has been much in the news lately in Serbia and Kosovo. John, whom I have never met, has clearly given these issues a lot of thought, so I hope others will find his paper (published here with his permission) enlightening, as I did.
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