Tag: Mali
The land of dead is alive
The vast problems facing Mali and the greater Sahara region can be illustrated geographically. To provide a sense of scale, a map of Mali, superimposed over a map of the United States, stretches from Minnesota, down to Texas, west to New Mexico and east to Ohio. Have a look.
Conversely, a map of the United States superimposed on Northern Africa:
When we criticize national and international forces for not doing a better job transforming the North African region and ridding it of insecurity, it is important to keep in mind the geographic scale of what they are dealing with.
Eamonn Gearon of John Hopkins SAIS and the Middle East Policy Council began his presentation this week at the Center for American Progress with these powerful visuals. Geographic context also needs historical context. As far back as ancient Egypt, the land west of the fertile Nile river valley was referred to as the land of the dead. Egyptians saw the Sahara as insecure and unstable, and its inhabitants ungovernable.
When discussing conflicts in North Africa, everyone wants to hear about the jihadist threat or al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. But these are part of the larger security threat in the region.
Mali’s problems are political, social and economic. They are also interconnected and overlapping.
Politically, Mali’s democracy is a lightweight. Voter turnout around 30% suggests weak community engagement in politics due to jaded attitudes in the northern, more impoverished regions of the country. They see the elite population in the south as corrupt and self serving. This has been a problem in Mali for more than 30 years and is a major roadblock to fixing its democracy.
The political dynamic overlaps with the social dynamic of the country. Northern populations are mostly Arab and identify as white while most of the southern population identify as black. This north/south divided is not however a clash of civilizations. Ninety per cent of Malians considers themselves Muslim. Their Islam is heavily influenced by Sufism. The influx of foreign jihadist elements has only occurred in the past 15 years. Without the Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative to Sufism, Salafist Islam has gained a strong hold.
Economically, Mali has never been an easy place to live. Poverty, violence and failing crops all create desperation that feeds criminal and terrorist activity. Criminal gangs have the ability to pay off struggling families more effectively than the Malian government. Crime and corruption is rumored to exist in the highest rungs of the government as well.
Ransoms are the key mechanism perpetuating criminal and terrorist groups in Mali. Some millions of dollars are requested every year in kidnapping cases. Every ransom paid fuels these groups for more. Groups are forming faster, and splintering more often. As a result, they are smaller and more difficult to track down. Drone usage for surveillance is an important tool for counter terrorism, but it should be used with caution and in conjunction with other practices. International efforts in Mali have a bad reputation, but in Gearon’s opinion this comes from a dearth of development and training. The international community should be stepping up itsefforts and shaping its efforts towards long term development.
Any solutions proposed to fight Mali’s problems should come from the Malians themselves. International forces should seek to partner with willing groups within the country. Often, when the British or French attempt dialogue with the people of Mali, they go to the Tuareg population because of their familiarity. The Tuareg are fine interlocutors, but dialogue at any level within Mali must become more inclusive and diverse than it is now.
Gearon posed strong objection to the upcoming July elections in Mali. Many regional and international players are pushing to hold elections as soon as possible, hoping it will move Mali towards greater stability. But elections this soon will not be credible. Mali is facing a massive internal displacement issue, rendering a large part of the population unable to vote. Additionally, infrastructure and roads are still lacking in the northern part of the country. Travel is made more difficult in the July rainy season, when many roads will be washed out and communication is often down. Take into account the size of Mali, as illustrated above, and understand how much of the country could be excluded from the democratic process.
Gearon concluded with some thoughts on Libya’s role in the Malian crisis. The fall of Qaddafi was an accelerant, not a catalyst, to the violence in Mali. Libya faces big problems, but they are different from Mali’s. Libya is wealthy enough to pay for whatever it needs from abroad. The West should be providing training, not arms, to the Libyan security forces. Regarding the attack on the American facility and ambassador in Benghazi, Gearon believes that the tragedy is not central to the future of Libya. Continuing to play the blame game will make us miss the opportunity to ask the Libyans what they need to prevent it from happening again. The attack should not distance America from Libya, but instead should lead to more engagement on the ground and more efforts toward finding solutions to Libya’s economic and political woes.
When proposing any solution, Gearon added, whether in Libya or Mali, we must remember that these countries are alive and always evolving. There is never a point when every problem is solved and society becomes utopian. Solutions must be adaptable and continuous.
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The UN’s challenges
I’ve been in New York since Thursday, unable to tweet or blog due to inexplicable wireless router problems at the home of friends, where we were staying. My focus was naturally on the UN, where the renovation of the Secretariat building is said to be nearing completion but you wouldn’t know it from the way it looks. I hope the people who move back in are feeling more renovated than the facility.
Here’s a quick list of things I’ve learned:
- Lots of angst at the UN about its expanding role in peace enforcement operations. In Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali, UN forces are being asked to go beyond impartiality to combat bad guys, some of whom may not be a lot worse than the folks the UN is helping. Life is complicated.
- The war in Syria is presenting enormous difficulties to the UN observers in Golan, where the UN staff is subject to threats, intimidation, kidnapping and murder. Troop contributing countries are withdrawing their soldiers, the rebels are using the neutral zone to mount operations and the Syrian army is lobbying artillery shells that occasionally land in Israel.
- Some countries are nevertheless pledging troops conditionally for post-war Syria. Lakhtar Brahimi will stay on as a personal representative of the Secretary General to help prepare contingency plans while possibly resigning his more formal mandates from the Security Council and the Arab League, which has seated the Syrian opposition coalition in Damascus’ place.
- Some folks think it would be a good idea to keep the UN out of stabilization operations altogether: it lacks understanding of local situations, imposes insensitive, standardized approaches, is opaque and unaccountable and leaves behind pathologies like prostitution and trafficking, not to mention the warlords it helps install in power and teaches the finer arts of corruption by shortcircuiting proper procurement procedures in the name of urgency.
- In any event, everyone is expecting financial stringency as a result of the American sequester. I expect the Americans, if they can overcome their ideological distaste for the UN, to load it up with more tasks, not fewer, as they do triage and and toss the lower priorities in the UN’s direction whenever the Security Council permits. It was pretty clearly a mistake not to have a beefier UN mission in Libya, for example, to help with demobilization and retintegration of the militias that are wrecking havoc with the transition, aided by a disappointing performance from the parliament elected last summer.
The UN reminds me of the High Line, New York’s elevated freight railroad spur now converted to an elongated park (where I spent an hour this morning, see the photos below). Created under different conditions for different purposes, the High Line has been repurposed and is now playing a starring role as a people magnet, attracting tourists and New Yorkers alike.
The UN was created in San Francisco to ensure post-World War II peace and security and to that end:
- to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
- To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
- To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
- To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
The circumstances were very different in 1945, but these purposes remain valid, far more so than during the Cold War. What the UN needs more than repurposing is reform to ensure that it has the knowledge, talents and resources to meet its high purposes in a 21st century environment.
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Can Syria be saved?
I spoke yesterday on “Can Syria Be Saved” at the Italian Institute of International Affairs (IAI). I was honored at the last minute by Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Staffan de Mistura, who joined the event and provided some comments. Here are the notes I used, amplified with Stefano’s comments and a bit of the Q and A:
1. The situation inside Syria
Military: The regime can clear, but less and less; the revolution can clear more and more. Neither can hold securely or build without the other being able to strike. This is the significance of air power and Scuds, which prevent consolidation of rebel control.
Civilian: The government is doing all right in areas that are loyal, but not gaining and under severe economic pressure. The revolution is unable to supply many areas outside government control and therefore unable to consolidate control and support.
2. Who is doing what outside Syria
There is no sign of the Russians or Iranians abandoning Assad, despite some change in Russian rhetoric. Russian arms supplies continue. Iranian forces are active within Syria, as is Hizbollah. Arms are flowing to the opposition, but unevenly and not always what they need.
The June 2012 Geneva communique, which provides for a fully empowered transition government approved by both the regime and the opposition, is still the only agreed diplomatic route. Brahimi is quiet, which is the best way to be until he has something definite. The Americans are exasperated but unwilling as yet to send arms. The naming of a prime minister this week should bring more civilian assistance, which is already topping $400 million from the US.
3. Why Obama hesitates to intervene more decisively, why Putin backs Assad
President Obama’s hesitation has little to do with Syria. He recognizes full well that a successful revolution there will be a blow to Iran and Hizbollah, but even an unsuccessful one is bleeding them profusely. The main issues for Obama are the Northern Distribution Network, which is vital for American withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran. He does not want to risk alienating the Russians on either front.
For the Russians, the main issues are no longer the port and arms sales, if ever they were. Now the question is one of prestige and power. Putin is defining his Russia in explicitly anti-Western terms, all the more so since what he portrays as Western trickery during the Libya intervention.
For Iran, the issue is an existential one. Loss of Syria would disable the connection to Hizbollah and isolate Iran from the Arab world, with the important exception of Iraq. This would be a big loss to a country that thinks of itself increasingly as a regional hegemon. The Islamic Republic would regard the loss of Syria as a big blow.
4. Options for the US and Europe
Britain and France are considering supplying weapons. That is unlikely to buy much allegiance. The best that can be hoped for is to strengthen relatively secularist and pro-Western forces, but that is going to be diffficult given the good military and relief performance of the Islamists, including those the US regards as extremist and even linked to Al Qaeda.
The US hesitates about arms transfers because of “fast and furious,” a US government scheme to track weapons transferred to the Mexican cartels. One of the weapons was used to kill an American border patrol agent. If an American-supplied shoulder-fired missile were to bring down a commercial aircraft, the incident would have major domestic political repurcussions.
Washington is instead focusing on enabling the civilian side, in particularly the newly named Prime Minister Ghassan Hitto and whatever interim government he cobbles together. This should certainly include ample humanitarian assistance and operating expenses.
It might also include military intervention, since the Hitto government won’t be safe inside Syria if Assad continues to use his air force and Scuds. The idea gaining ground outside the US administration is to destroy as much of that capability as possible while it sits on the ground. No one in Washington wants a no-fly zone that requires daily patroling. This is also a possible response to chemical weapons, whose possible use was mentioned during the IAI event but the facts were still very unclear (as they still are today so far as I can tell).
5. Possible outcomes and their implications
The fall of Bashar will be a beginning, not an end. It is not clear that the state structure in this Levant will hold. Lebanon is clearly at risk. You’ve got Kurds in Syria and Iraq who want to unite, in addition to an ongoing if somewhat sporadic Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey. You’ve got Sunnis in Iraq fighting in Syria who might eventually turn around and fight again in Iraq. You’ve got Alawites, Druze, Christians and others who will want to protect their own communities, isolated from others in enclaves.
Even if the state structure holds, there are big questions about the future direction of Syria. Will Islamists triumph? Of which variety? Will secularists do as badly in a post-war transition as they have in Egypt? The opposition in Syria agrees that the state should remain intact, but will it be able to under pressure from a “stay-behind” insurgency like the one that Saddam Hussein mounted in Iraq?
I also ran quickly through the options for post-war Syria that I’ve already published.
Staffan reacted underlining the importance of continuing to talk with the Russians, who are convinced that the intervention in Libya has opened the door to Al Qaeda extremism in Mali and Syria. He also underlined the importance of the opposition forming an inclusive and cohesive government that enunciates a clear plan for how to deal with the previous regime, including an exit for Bashar al Assad, and how to provide guarantees to the Alawites. He underlined that we should be putting together an international peacekeeping force now. We should not be tricked into international intervention by allegations of chemical weapons use.
I’ll stop my account there, as I’ve already gone on too long. It was a stimulating discussion. Many thanks to my hosts at IAI!
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Peace Picks: March 11-15
A few fine events as spring begins to arrive in DC:
1. Understanding Who’s Who in Northern Mali: Terrorists, Secessionists, and Criminals
Date and Time: March 11, 4:30 to 6:00 pm
Location: Johns Hopkins SAIS – Rome Building
1619 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C.
Rome Auditorium
Speakers: Eamonn Gearon, Rida Lyammouri, Michael Shurkin, Larry Velte
Description: Events in northern Mali are complex and sometimes confusing. Attempts to oversimplify the situation have resulted in much imperfect analysis. A product of both the Arab Uprisings and security concerns unique to the Sahara and Sahelian Africa, the crisis in Mali has deep, local and regional roots.While al-Qaeda steals the headlines, it is vital that we develop a better understanding of all the groups in place, as well as the distinct nature of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Labelling all parties terrorists not only confuses the picture, but also prevents any chance to create a meaningful strategy for dealing with the multi-faceted issues, both now and in the long term. Terrorists, Secessionists and Criminals will present a guide to Who’s Who of the various groups and their leaders.
Register for this event here: http://dc.linktank.com/event/understanding_whos_who_in_northern_mali_terrorists_secessionist_and_criminals#.UT13BmBU05w
2. Rising Violence in Pakistan: A Complex Challenge
Date and Time: March 11, 5:00 to 8:30 pm
Location: East-West Center
1819 L St NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Najia Ashar, Nisar Ali Khokar, Abdul Ghani Kakar
Description: The story of violence and extremism in Pakistan is extremely complex, with many varying actors and motivations at play. Solutions are equally complicated and will not just involve combating militants in the frontier regions and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Please join the East-West Center in Washington for on-the-ground perspectives from Karachi, interior Sindh, and Balochistan. Veteran members of Pakistan’s media will provide unique insight and nuanced perspectives on the reports of increasing violence coming out of Pakistan; demonstrating the complexity of the challenges facing the new government that will come into office in Pakistan’s historic upcoming elections in May 2013.
Each panelist is a participant in the East-West Center’s United States-Pakistan Journalist Exchange Program and will describe the trends they are seeing as the country prepares for this important democratic political transition.
Register for this event here: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/events/rising-violence-in-pakistan-complex-challenge
3. The Rise and Decline of the American “Empire”: Power and its Limits in Comparative Perspective
Date and Time: March 12, 3:30 to 5 pm
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speaker: Geir Lundestad
Description: Geir Lundestad, director and professor of The Norwegian Nobel Institute will discuss his latest book, The Rise and Decline of the American ‘Empire’: Power and its Limits in Comparative Perspective.
The Rise and Decline of the American ‘Empire’ explores the rapidly growing literature on the rise and fall of the United States. Lundestad argues that after 1945 the US has definitely been the most dominant power the world has seen and that it has successfully met the challenges from, first, the Soviet Union and, then, Japan, and the European Union. Now, however, the United States is in decline: its vast military power is being challenged by asymmetrical wars, its economic growth is slow and its debt is rising rapidly, the political system is proving unable to meet these challenges in a satisfactory way. While the US is still likely to remain the world’s leading power for the foreseeable future, it is being challenged by China, particularly economically, and also by several other regional Great Powers.
Lundestad also explores the more theoretical question of what recent superpowers have been able to achieve and what they have not achieved. How could the United States be both the dominant power and at the same time suffer significant defeats? And how could the Soviet Union suddenly collapse?
No power has ever been omnipotent. It cannot control events all around the world. The Soviet Union suffered from imperial overstretch; the traditional colonial empires suffered from a growing lack of legitimacy at the international, national, and local levels. The United States has been able to maintain its alliance system, but only in a much reformed way. If a small power simply insists on pursuing its own very different policies, there is normally little the United States and other Great Powers will do. Military intervention is an option that can be used only rarely and most often with strikingly limited results.
Christian F. Ostermann, director of the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program will chair the event.
Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-rise-and-decline-the-american-empire-power-and-its-limits-comparative-perspective
4. How America’s War on Terror became a Global War on Tribal Islam
Date and Time: March 14, 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Location: Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Falk Auditorium
Speakers: Martin S. Indyk, Akbar Ahmed, Sally Quinn, Mowahid Shah
Description: Along with the ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s global war on terror has been characterized by the use of drones. In his new book, The Thistle and the Drone (Brookings, 2013), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed-the Ibn Khaldun, chair of Islamic Studies at American University and former Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom, examines the tribal societies on the borders between nations who are the drones’ primary victims. He provides a fresh and unprecedented paradigm for understanding the war on terror, based in the broken relationship between these tribal societies and their central governments. Beginning with Waziristan in Pakistan and expanding to similar tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Ahmed demonstrates how America’s war on terror became a global war on tribal Islam. This is the third volume in his trilogy about relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world after 9/11 that includes Journey into Islam (Brookings, 2007) and Journey into America (Brookings, 2010).
On March 14, the Brookings Press will host the launch of The Thistle and the Drone featuring a discussion on the regional, societal and humanitarian effects of the war on terrorism. Following Ahmed’s presentation, Mowahid Shah, a former Pakistani minister, and Sally Quinn, editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith,’ will join the conversation. Khalid Aziz, a leading official from Pakistan, formerly in charge of Waziristan, will offer recorded remarks via video.
Register for this event here: http://www.brookings.edu/events/2013/03/14-thistle-drone?rssid=UpcomingEvents&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrookingsRSS%2Ftopfeeds%2FUpcomingEvents+%28Brookings+Upcoming+Events%29
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Mali matters
Global energy security depends on stability in North Africa, particularly Algeria. The Islamist take-over of the 2012 Tuareg coup in northern Mali directly affected these global interests, prompting French and concerted African intervention. The Center for National Policy discussion on Wednesday focused on the broad implications of Mali’s internal problems. Speakers were Alexis Arieff, Congressional Research Service; Stephanie Pezard, RAND; and Paul Sullivan, Georgetown University.
Security and politics
According to Stephanie Pezard, the French intervention in Mali runs three risks: radicalizing local populations, exacerbating ethnic tensions between the North and South, and triggering Islamist insurrections in the region. Although Mali does not pose a direct threat to the US, the Tuareg-Islamist insurgency poses several indirect threats.
The Tuareg rebellion stems from Tuareg political grievances the Malian government has failed to address since the 1960s. Long-term resolution of the issues would require internationals and the Malian government to understand Northern politics and to identify the most representative group with which to reach an agreement. Internationals should focus on reconciling the North and the South by encouraging the formation of a government more universally palatable than the one brought down in March 2012. Internationals should also encourage Bamako to deliver on its commitments to the North.
Mali poses indirect criminal and terrorist threats to US interests. In order to fund their activities, terrorist groups in the Sahel and North Africa increasingly engage in kidnappings and cocaine trafficking. Although the drugs are destined for European markets, the proceeds go toward funding terrorist activities elsewhere as well.
The economic opportunism of the Malian fighters provides internationals with an opportunity to reduce their appeal. Clan logic is a vanishing factor in enlistment of terrorists. Fighters follow the money and weapons, giving little weight to ethnic or religious affiliation. Terrorist offers of high salaries and subsidies for the fighters’ families motivate young men to join their ranks. Addressing the root issues by honoring government commitments to the North could alleviate conditions that make becoming a militant appealing.
Energy
A disruption of Algerian oil and gas flow to Europe would damage Algerian and European energy security, with repercussions for the global oil market. Algeria is the third largest natural gas provider to Europe, and in 2011 provided OECD Europe with 38.5% of its crude oil. Continued access to Algerian oil is crucial for Europe to climb out of its economic crisis. According to Georgetown professor Paul Sullivan, 12% of Italy’s liquid fuels, 9% of Spain’s, 13% of France’s, 7% of Brazil’s, and 5% of the Netherlands’ come from Algeria. Likewise, 10% of Turkey’s gas imports, 36% of Italy’s, and 32% of France’s come from Algeria. Still, the US ranks as the largest importer of Algerian oil, importing 500,000 b/d, or 4.5% of US supply.
Sullivan characterized the Islamist attack on the Ain Amenus oil field as a direct attack on the Algerian, European, and American governments and economies. Following the incident, gas pumped through a trans-Mediterranean pipeline connecting Algeria and Italy dropped by 10 million cubic meters a day.
Oil and gas provide 97% of Algeria’s export revenues, 60% of its government revenues, and 40% of GDP. Three quarters of the oil industry relies on two oil fields (Hasi Massaoud and Ourhoud). The intervention in Mali threatens to push militants into Algeria, whose destabilization would send Europe and the US reeling.
US Policy
Alexis Arieff argued that the use of counterterrorism as the lens through which the US formulates policy towards the region is inadequate for resolving the situation in Mali. Previously the US approach aimed to strengthen the security apparatus of weak Sahel states. The US lacked a strategic design with comprehensive inter-agency cooperation and effectiveness. US efforts to encourage Algerian leadership and multilateral cooperation on countering terrorism domestically and regionally suffered from distrust among the partner governments in the region.
The US faces the challenge of weighing the costs and benefits of direct versus indirect involvement in Mali. American officials disagree on the nature of the threat posed by the terrorist groups. Congressional restrictions make US military assistance to the Malian army difficult. At UN talks on Mali, the US and France have not seen eye to eye on Mali’s future. The US Administration wants the African-led International Support Mission for Mali (AFISMA) to be a fully UN funded peacekeeping mission, while implying the need for a French commitment to maintain troops on the ground as a rapid reaction force. The US role in Mali will hinge on evaluation of whether the violent extremists pose a serious threat to the US.
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Talk is cheap
Calls for negotiated solutions are all the rage. Secretary of State Kerry wants one in Syria. The Washington Post thinks one is possible in Bahrain. Everyone wants one for Iran. Despite several years of failure, many are still hoping for negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ditto Israel/Palestine. Asia needs them for its maritime issues.
It is a good time to remember the classic requirement for successful negotiations: “ripeness,” defined as a mutually hurting stalemate in which both parties come to the conclusion that they cannot gain without negotiations and may well lose. I might hope this condition is close to being met in Syria and Bahrain, but neither President Asad nor the Al Khalifa monarchy seems fully convinced, partly because Iran and Saudi Arabia are respectively providing unqualified support to the regimes under fire. Ripeness may well require greater external pressure: from Russia in the case of Syria and from the United States in the case of Bahrain, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet.
It is difficult to tell where things stand in the Afghanistan negotiations. While the Taliban seem uninterested, Pakistan appears readier than at times in the past. The Americans are committed to getting out of the fight by the end of 2014. President Karzai is anxious for his security forces to take over primary responsibility sooner rather than later. But are they capable of doing so, and what kind of deal are the Afghans likely to cut as the Americans leave?
Israel and Palestine have one way or another been negotiating and fighting on and off since before 1948. Objectively, there would appear to be a mutually hurting stalemate, but neither side sees it that way. Israel has the advantage of vast military superiority, which it has repeatedly used as an alternative to negotiation to get its way in the West Bank and Gaza. A settlement might end that option. The Palestinians have used asymmetric means (terrorism, rocket fire, acceptance at the UN as a non-member state, boycott) to counter and gain they regard as a viable state.
The Iran nuclear negotiations are critical, as their failure could lead not just to an American strike but also to Iranian retaliation around the world and a requirement to continue military action as Tehran rebuilds its nuclear program. The United States is trying to bring about ripeness by ratcheting up sanctions pressure on Tehran, which fears that giving up its nuclear program will put the regime at risk. It is not clear that the US is prepared to strike a bargain that ensures regime survival in exchange for limits on the nuclear program. We may know more after the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China + Germany) meet with Iran February 26 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Asia’s conflicts have only rarely come to actual violence. China, Korea (North and South), Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and India are sparring over trade routes, islands, resources and ultimately hegemony. This risks arousing nationalist sentiments that will be hard to control, driving countries that have a good deal to gain from keeping the peace in some of the world’s fastest growing economies into wars that the regimes involved will find it difficult to back away from. Asia lacks an over-arching security structure like those in Europe (NATO, OSCE, G8, Council of Europe, etc) and has long depended on the US as a balancing force to preserve the peace. This has been a successful approach since the 1980s, but the economic rise of China has put its future in doubt, even with the Obama Administration’s much-vaunted pivot to Asia.
This is a world that really does need diplomacy. None of the current negotiations seem destined for success, though all have some at least small probability of positive outcomes. Talk really is cheap. I don’t remember anyone complaining that we had spent too much money on it, though some would argue that delay associated with negotiations has sometimes been costly. The French would say that about their recent adventure in Mali.
But war is extraordinarily expensive. Hastening to it is more often than not unwise. That is part of what put the United States into deep economic difficulty since 2003. If we want to conserve our strength for an uncertain future, we need to give talk its due.
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