Tag: Spain
Stevenson’s army, July 24
– WSJ says China has greatly reduced its FDI in the US
– Politico says China has sent a lot of military hardware to Russia.
– NYT calls Ukraine war a violent stalemate
– Spanish elections end in deadlock, not the right wing takeover predicted
Today is the 75th anniversary of Truman’s executive order desegregating the US armed forces. Yes, good policy can be good politics.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, October 11
Happy federal holiday, whatever you call it.
– WaPo reminds us that Columbus Day started in response to an atrocity against Italian immigrants.
– NYT makes the case for Indigenous People.
– Lawfare sees lessons in Spanish counterterrorism policy.
– Guardian notes fighting still going on in Syria.
-WaPo writers suggest South Korea should go nuclear.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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When long shots are worth taking, in soccer and foreign policy
The return to normal that started on January 20 is now palpable. America is administering more than 3 million COVID-19 shots per day, the economy is revving up, our days are not devoted to dealing with Donald Trump’s latest foolishness. Some things are noticeably better than before. The trial of the policeman who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis has featured testimony for the prosecution from his colleagues, including the police chief. That has rarely happened in the past. A Democratic-controlled Congress has passed a massive economic stimulus bill and is proposing to do more focused on infrastructure and health care. Republicans are fighting back by trying to limit voting state-by-state, most notably in Georgia and Arizona , but they are getting substantial backlash from the business community. Abusing minorities is no longer a winning market strategy.
In foreign affairs there is also a return to normalcy: the Administration is trying to negotiate its way back into the Iran nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actiton or JCPOA) and appears to have decided not to withdraw US troops completely from Afghanistan by May 1, as the Trump Administration had agreed to do. Secretary of State Blinken has reaffirmed American commitment to NATO and the Administration has met with Asian Pacific allies Japan and South Korea as well as India. Biden has been explicitly critical of China’s treatment of its Uyghur population, a Turkic Muslim minority millions of whom have been put into reeducation camps. Trump had signaled no objection and even approval of this outrage. Biden has also signaled renewed support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but without reversing Trump’s relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem or for now withdrawing Trump’s recognition of Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights.
There are other areas of continuity between Trump and Biden on foreign policy. Trump’s tariffs on China are still in place, apparently as an incentive for Beijing to agree to beef up its respect for foreign intellectual property. Biden is continuing the Trump practice of more open engagement with Taiwan’s officials. So far, Biden, like Trump, has done nothing to respond to human rights violations by friends like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
A return to normal does not however guarantee success. The two biggest Biden foreign policy initiatives so far face long odds.
America was clearly better off with the JCPOA than without it. Return to the agreement will require not only complex choreography with Tehran but also with the US Congress, where even some Democrats are hardline. The US will need to provide sanctions relief while Iran will need to return its nuclear program to the status quo ante. Both will be difficult. Parsing which sanctions are “nuclear” and which were levied because of human rights and terrorism is not going to be easy. Nor will it be easy for Iran to give up the more advanced enrichment technology it has acquired. In both countries, domestic resistance will make the process more difficult, as will Iran’s June election.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan depends on an agreement between the Taliban and President Ghani, both of whom are notably consistent in pursuing maximalist goals. For now, the Taliban appear to have the advantage on the battlefield, but Ghani is not giving in to the American suggestion of a power-sharing government with some sort of Taliban participation. How can he? He advocates far more democratic, far less religious, far more inclusive, and far more normal governance than the Taliban do. They have no interest in a pluralist polity with equal rights for women and minorities. If there is no agreement, the Americans can of course still withdraw, but most of the smart money is betting that the consequence will be a Taliban takeover or, worse, a multi-faceted civil war. The experts are pessimistic. View this discussion Monday from the Middle East Institute:
That said, the experts are sometimes wrong. Long shots are worth taking when they are not costly and there is little or no alternative. That score against Spain is a fine example.
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No way out
A few weeks ago, the second round of UN-led peace talks between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement ended in Geneva without substantial progress that would bridge the parties’ contradicting positions. Morocco insists on a form of autonomy for the Western Sahara territory under its sovereignty, while the Polisario Front clings to a referendum on self-determination.
A former Spanish colony, Morocco annexed the mineral-rich Western Sahara in 1975. Sixteen years of bloody war between Morocco and Polisario Liberation Front ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991, enabling a self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people to choose between independence or integration into Morocco. The UN mission for the referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) deployed to supervise the democratic transition. Yet the referendum has not taken place due in large part to the parties’ disagreement over who gets to vote, as well as the “winner takes all” solution.
In March 1997, the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, appointed James Baker, former US Secretary of State, as a personal envoy to Western Sahara. Baker put forth two additional proposals: The Baker plan I in 2001(also known as the Framework Agreement) and Baker Plan II in 2003. Although his last plan won Security Council endorsement, neither got both parties’ approval. In 2004, Baker resigned, lacking the full support from the Security Council to enforce a solution. UN mediators who came afterward were doomed to failure, putting the issue in the textbook of frozen conflicts.
In 2007, Morocco offered an autonomy plan that would give the Saharawi people the power to run their executive, legislative and judicial affairs under Moroccan sovereignty. Polisario Front put forth a parallel proposal: a referendum on self-determination giving wide guarantees to Moroccan settlers if it lead to independence. The seemingly irreconcilable proposals stalled negotiations in 2012, undermining the efforts of the then UN mediator, former US ambassador, Christopher Ross. The deadlock continued for over six years. This stagnant situation has prompted recurrent tensions between the parties on the UN-monitored buffer zone between Moroccan- and Polisario-controlled territory. The possibility of war looms.
Last December, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation displaying the Trump administration’s new Africa strategy, National Security Advisor John Bolton made clear the US would like to see a self-determination referendum take place. This new US approach to the conflict was also reflected at the level of the Security Council when the US shortened MINURSO’s periodic one-year mandate to six months, tying its renewal to progress on the ground. The US representative at the UN stated “there is no business as usual” regarding this issue, signaling the US willingness to push towards a final solution to the conflict.
The current active US involvement in the long-standing dispute has generated momentum. After six years of deadlock, the UN Special Envoy to Western Sahara, former German President Horst Kohler, has been able to bring the parties to the table. Yet the parties’ views are fundamentally diverging; Morocco seeks no solution beyond sovereignty over the territory, while the Polisario Front is committed to the principle of self-determination.
Based on the current UN paradigm, a “realistic, practicable and enduring solution based on a compromise which would provide the Saharawi people for self-determination” seems impossible to achieve. Morocco sees autonomy as a practicable and realistic form of self-determination, while Polisario Front considers giving the people the right to decide their future as the most viable and realistic solution. Since 2001, no single plan has so far won the parties agreement.
Shortening MINURSO’s mandate to six months has broken the deadlock, but it is still not enough to yield positive results. Without an existential threat–such as expelling MINURSO, which would trigger a war the parties cannot handle–there is no “zone of possible agreement.”
There are two other possible options:
- Compelling the parties to accept a tailored compromise in which they either both win or both lose.
- A drastic change in the region, bringing new governments seeking regional integration and willing to end this conflict.
Something like the latter is already underway in Algeria. But unless something more serious starts to happen in Morocco, the low -intensity conflict in Western Sahara is likely to remain a frozen conflict.
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