Tag: Ukraine
Remote war
New America hosted a panel discussion March 21 about twenty-first century proxy warfare with Candace Rondeaux, Senior Fellow at New America’s International Security Program and C. Anthony Pfaff, Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute at Army War College.
Rondeaux gave an overview of the strategic and tactical changes in twenty-first century proxy war. Proxy warfare is moving away from both Cold War bipolarity and also uni-polarity. The reason for this shift is the proliferation of standoff, remote targeting capabilities, mainly in the Middle East region. Iran and other states in the region have standoff capacity, which means limited war has expanded beyond the great powers. States can limit their direct engagement. There is also the rise of transnational movements and the weakening of nation-states. The decay of multilateral institutions and their power to exert influence over conflict, such as the UN and increasingly NATO, has also become quite remarkable. The situation in Syria would be different without the log jam among the permanent members of the Security Council, with Russia always objecting to resolutions that seek to contain conflict.
At the tactical level, Rondeaux argues the nation-states that are struggling internally with their own domestic order often look to conflict beyond their borders as a means to signal cohesion at the national level. That is quite apparent in Iranian support to Hizballah, which helps to contain domestic challenges. Also, there is an increasing appetite within autocracies, particularly Russia, for a “military sugar rush” of instant victory on the battlefield, even if it causes big diplomatic trouble. It has been hard to make the Minsk agreement for Ukraine work so far. The last tactical concern is the way in which communication technology has connected social networks in ways never seen before. The rapid transit of ideas and national, ethnic and political identities in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen has been a big factor in the availability of proxies.
Pfaff stated that proxies not only are not well understood but also under-regulated. The world is becoming multi-polar with state actors who can serve as benefactors and proxies and also a proliferation of non-state actors who can do the same thing. This comes with increasingly fragmented and contested sovereignty, which changes the security calculations of all actors as well as the options they have for pursuing their security goals. According to Pfaff, the inclusion of benefactors won’t make an unjust cause just, or illegitimate authority legitimate, but their involvement can make the disproportionate proportionate, and alternatives to fighting less appealing. Work still needs to be done in terms of international law to hold benefactors responsible for the illegal actions of their proxies .
Pfaff argues that international law does not address proxies. There are no norms in this situation. There isn’t any problem with having a proxy relationship, but the question is whether this relationship is stabilizing or destabilizing. States should be held responsible for the acts they sponsor remotely.
The Balkans in perspective
I did this interview for Al Jazeera Balkan March 1. How and why they waited until March 19 to publish it I don’t know, but it means I have little recall of what I said. I hope it is still current:
The state of State
President Trump’s FY2020 budget cuts the foreign affairs budget by 23%, while significantly boosting the Pentagon. The cut is mostly from Overseas Contingency Operations (wars and post-war stabilization and transition), which is zeroed out. Trump expects America’s future wars to be fought entirely without the civilian component that helps to fix the damage after the military is done. Yemenis, Libyans, Syrians, Somalis, South Sudanese, Ukrainians and others can expect little or no civilian assistance once their wars are over, if Trump gets his way.
The Administration also anticipates no need for international disaster assistance and a small fraction of what was spent in the past on refugees and migration. Big percentage cuts also hit the already very small National Endowment for Democracy (almost 2/3, to $67 million and change) and United States Institute of Peace (almost 50% to $19 million), which both engage in trying to prevent wars and in post-war efforts stabilization, the former by promoting democracy and the latter by promoting conflict resolution.
This presidential budget has little practical significance, since it will be dead on arrival in Congress, but it signals the Administration’s priorities all too clearly: it intends to continue to overuse the military instrument and to forget about civilian contributions to the projection of American power. Conventional diplomacy of the embassy/cocktail party type is not cut. In fact, the “representation” budget for that activity is increased. You wouldn’t want your big campaign contributors not to get reimbursed for entertaining foreigners. Trump is saying he doesn’t need state/nationbuilding, conflict prevention, post-war stabilization and reconstruction, countering violent extremism, refugee protection and repatriation, and response to emergencies abroad. In short, all the most pressing needs of the past two decades and more.
He is not alone in thinking we can ignore civilian commitments to national security. A good part of America believes Washington spends more than one-quarter of the national budget on foreign aid, apparently because they think it includes military spending abroad. If I thought that, I’d want to cut the foreign affairs budget too. In fact the non-military figure is around 1%, counting not only foreign aid but also all operations of State, AID and related agencies, including international organizations. I’ve had people tell me the reason we have a big national debt is foreign aid, which in fact accounts for an infinitesmal portion of it.
Congress fortunately has been fairly supportive of foreign affairs in recent years. The one virtue of this presidential proposal is that it is guaranteed to arouse opposition. Most members travel abroad and know what embassies, consulates, aid workers, and other civilians do. Most Americans do not, despite my efforts. At least 64% of Americans do not have a passport and therefore do not travel abroad or care much about what happens there, though they believe the U.S. should play a strong international leadership role. I imagine the Congress will save the day, as it did last year, and restore a lot of the funding the President would like to cut. Leadership depends as much on civilians as on the military.
Restoring the foreign affairs budget will depend however on a broader budget agreement, since sequestration will come back for 2020 if there is none. Trump will not want that, since sequestration would cut Defense back 13%, instead of the increase he is proposing. So yes, there is likely to be a compromise. But getting there will not be easy.
The state of State is weak, and getting weaker.
From War to Peace
Here are the notes I used for my presentation of From War to Peace in the Balkans, Middle East, and Ukraine yesterday at Johns Hopkins/SAIS, which has made it available free world-wide at that link. I am grateful to colleagues David Kanin and Majda Ruge for commenting and critiquing.
- It is a pleasure to present at this Faculty Research Forum, which will I think be a bit different from others. I’ll be concerned not only with analyzing what happened and is happening now in the Balkans but also with what should happen. I will try to fill the academic/practitioner gap.
- I am particularly pleased as the event includes two of the best-informed people I know on the Balkans: David Kanin, whom I first met when he worked in the 1990s at the CIA Balkans Task Force, teaches the Balkans course here at SAIS; and Majda Ruge, who is both a native of the Balkans and a colleague at the Foreign Policy Institute.
- Some of you will remember the Balkans in the 1990s: the US and Europe fumbling for years in search of peaceful solutions in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo only to find themselves conducting two air wars against Serb forces.
- But most Americans have forgotten this history. Europeans often believe there were no positive results. In the Balkans, many are convinced things were better under Tito.
- I beg to differ: the successes as well as the failures of international intervention in the Balkans should not be forgotten or go unappreciated.
- That’s why I wrote my short book, which treats the origins, consequences, and aftermath of the 1995, 1999 and 2001 interventions that led to the end of the most recent Balkan wars.
- As for the causes of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, my view is that there were three fundamental ingredients: the breakup of former Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević’s political ambitions and military capability, and ethnic nationalism, particularly in its territorial form.
- Where all three were present in good measure, as in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, war was inevitable. Where Milosevic’s political ambitions were limited, as in Slovenia, war was short. Where his political ambitions and others’ ethnic nationalism were attenuated, as in Macedonia and Montenegro, war was mostly avoided.
- The breakup of Yugoslavia is now a done deal, even if Serbia continues to resist acknowledging it. So too are Milosevic’s political ambition AND military capability. No one has inherited them. The third factor—ethnoterritorial nationalism—is still very much alive. All the Balkans peace agreements left it unscathed.
- Conflict prevention and state-building efforts since the 1990s have been partly successful, though challenging problems remain in Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia. My former SAIS colleague Michael Mandelbaum is wrong: the transformation mission in the Balkans is not a failed mission, but rather an incomplete one.
- He thinks it failed because his explicit point of comparison is an ideal: the U.S. he says did not “succeed in installing well-run, widely accepted governments in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, or Kosovo.” I think Bosnia and Kosovo are works in progress because they are so obviously improved from their genocidal and homicidal wars. State capture is better than mass atrocity.
- The book examines each of the Balkan countries on its own merits, as well as their prospects for entry into NATO and the EU, whose doors are in theory open to all the Balkan states.
- {slide} Bottom line: all the states that emerged from Yugoslavia as well as Albania are closer to fulfilling their Euroatlantic ambitions than they are to the wars and collapse of the 1990s.
- All can hope to be EU members, and NATO allies if they want, by 2030, if they focus their efforts.
- {Slide} They were making decent progress when the financial crisis struck in 2007/8. The decade since then has been disappointing in many different respects:
- Growth slowed and even halted in some places.
- The Greek financial crisis cast a storm cloud over the EU and the euro.
- The flow of refugees, partly through the Balkans, from the Syrian and Afghanistan wars as well as from Africa soured the mood further.
- Brexit, a symptom of the much wider rise of mostly right-wing, anti-European populism, has made enlargement look extraordinarily difficult.
- {Slide} The repercussions in the Balkans have been dire:
- Bosnia’s progress halted as it slid back into ethnic nationalist infighting.
- Macedonia’s reformist prime minister became a defiant would-be autocrat.
- Kosovo and Serbia are stalled in their difficult normalization process.
- Russia has taken advantage of the situation to slow progress towards NATO and the EU.
- Moscow tried to murder Montenegro’s President to block NATO membership, finances Bosnia’s Serb secessionist entity, campaigned against resolving the Macedonia name issue, and undermines free media throughout the Balkans.
- Now the question is whether the West, demoralized and divided by Donald Trump and other populists, can still muster the courage to resolve the remaining problems in the Balkans and complete the process of EU and, for those who want it, NATO accession.
- Plan A is still viable. I also don’t see a Plan B that comes even close to the benefits of completing Plan A.
- When I wrote the book, three big obstacles remained. Now there are only two.
- The first obstacle was the Macedonia “name” issue. For those who may not follow the Balkans, the Greeks claim the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to the Hellenic tradition and would like the modern, majority Slavic country that uses that name to stop using it.
- Skopje and Athens have now resolved this issue. New leadership was key to making it happen.
- For those who claim the West is prepared to tolerate corruption and state capture in order to ensure stability in the Balkans, I suggest a chat with Nikola Gruevski.
- Washington and Brussels helped chase him from office in 2017, once his malfeasance was well-publicized and a popular alternative appeared on the horizon. If there is a viable liberal democratic option, the West has been willing to support it.
- The solution to the name issue is deceptively simple: now ratified in both parliaments, the Republic of Macedonia will become the Republic of North Macedonia, which most of its inhabitants and most of us will continue to call just Macedonia.
- The Republic of North Macedonia can now hope to join NATO, perhaps by the end of this year, and become a candidate for EU accession.
- There is a lot more to it, but that is all that will matter to you and me. The rest is for the Greeks and Macedonians.
- The second big obstacle is normalization between Belgrade and Pristina, which will require mutual recognition and exchange of diplomatic representatives at the ambassadorial level.
- This is closer than most think. Serbia has already abandoned its claim to sovereignty over all of Kosovo, in an April 2013 Brussels agreement that established the validity of the Kosovo constitution on its whole territory and foresaw Kosovo and Serbia entering the EU separately and without hindering each other. Only sovereign states can enter the EU.
- {Slide} Belgrade has also implicitly acknowledged Kosovo’s sovereignty in opening the question of partition along ethnic lines. Serbia would like to absorb the 3.5 or 4 (depending on how you count) municipalities in northern Kosovo, three of which were majority Serb before the war.
Peace Picks October 15-21
- Defusing the South China Sea Disputes: A Regional Blueprint | Monday, October 15, 2018 | 10 am – 12 pm | Center for Strategic and International Studies | 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
Please join us for the launch of Defusing the South China Sea Disputes: A Regional Blueprint by the CSIS Expert Working Group on the South China Sea, which brings together prominent experts on maritime law, international relations, and the marine environment from China, Southeast Asia, and beyond. Members of the group gathered three times between July 2017 and July 2018 to discuss issues that they consider necessary for the successful management of the South China Sea disputes, and produced blueprints for a path forward on each. The members believe these three proposed agreements add up to a robust model for managing the South China Sea disputes, one which would be both legally and politically feasible for all parties.
The working group includes a diverse set of 27 experts from claimant states and interested countries, including the United States. It is chaired by Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS. All members take part in their personal capacities, not as representatives of their home institutions. They are invited to join the group based on their subject matter expertise and willingness to reach creative compromises.
Agenda
Summary of Blueprints
Gregory B. Poling, Director, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, CSIS
Panel Discussion with Members
Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Adviser for Asia and Director, China Power Project, CSIS
Prashanth Parameswaran, Senior Editor, The Diplomat
Amy Searight, Senior Adviser and Director, Southeast Asia Program, CSIS
This report was made possible by general funding to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
2. The Evolving Iranian Strategy in Syria: A Looming Conflict with Israel | Wednesday, October 17, 2018 | 9 am – 10:30 am | Atlantic Council | 1030 15th St. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20005 | Register Here
Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the Iranian regime has spent considerable energy capitalizing on chaos in Syria to establish transit routes from Iran to the Mediterranean. Israel has followed the movements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies in Syria warily, laying out clear red lines to deter Iranian overreach. The IRGC-Quds Force rocket attack on Israeli military posts in the Golan in May 2018 instigated Israeli retaliation against Iranian-backed ground forces. Although Iran did not respond in kind, tensions along Israel’s northwestern border and in southern Syria persist, and the potential for an Israeli-Iranian conflict looms.
Please join the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft and Rafik Hariri Centers on Wednesday, October 17 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for the launch of nonresident senior fellow Nader Uskowi’s issue brief on Iran’s evolving strategy in Syria and the implications for regional security. This discussion will focus on the possibility for future conflict between Iran and Israel as the Syrian conflict enters its next phase, as well as how the United States can adapt its own policies to reflect the altered power structure in the region.
A conversation with:
Nader Uskowi
Nonresident Senior Fellow
Atlantic Council
Assaf Orion
Military Fellow
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Jennifer Cafarella
Director of Intelligence Planning
Institute for the Study of War
3. Championing the Frontlines of Freedom: Erasing the “Grey Zone” | Thursday, October 18, 2018 | 9 am – 4:30 pm | Atlantic Council | 1030 15th St NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC | Register Here
The countries of Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine stand at a crossroads. Perched between Russia and the West, they have chosen a path of economic and political reform and closer relations with the West. They face substantial challenges dealing with the systemic legacy of the Soviet period as they pursue reform, while also confronting Kremlin interference in their affairs and occupation of their land. Once described as part of a geopolitical “grey zone,” these countries are working to instead be seen as states on the “frontlines of freedom” with futures as free, whole, and secure European states.
At this conference, the Atlantic Council will convene a group of experts to discuss topics such as the historical origins of the so-called “grey zone,” the Kremlin’s use of frozen conflicts, transatlantic policy toward the region, and democratic progress in these states.
This event will include a spotlight address from the Hon. A. Wess Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, on US strategy in Central and Eastern Europe.
Agenda
Introduction
Mr. Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President, Atlantic Council
Keynote Remarks
The Hon. Roger Wicker, US Senator for Mississippi, US Senate
Address: The Historical Origins of the Frontlines of Freedom
Dr. Serhii Plokhii, Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
Address: “Grey Zone” Past and Future
The Hon. Kurt Volker, US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, US Department of State
Fireside Chat
Dr. Serhii Plokhii, Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
The Hon. Kurt Volker, US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, US Department of State
Moderated by: Mr. Mark Simakovsky, Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
Panel I: Frozen Conflicts and the Kremlin’s Agenda
Mr. Denis Cenusa, Researcher, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Justus-Liebig-Universität
Ambassador John Herbst, Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
Minister Tinatin Khidasheli, Former Defense Minister, Republic of Georgia
Ms. Maria Snegovaya, Adjunct Fellow, Center for European Policy and Analysis; Research Associate, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland
Ambassador James Warlick, Partner and Senior Policy Adviser, Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners
Moderated by: Dr. Michael Carpenter, Senior Director, Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement; Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
Spotlight Address: Strategy in Central and Eastern Europe
The Hon. A. Wess Mitchell, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State
Introduced by: Mr. Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President, Atlantic Council
Panel II: Transatlantic Policy Towards the Region
H.E. David Bakradze, Ambassador of Georgia to the United States
Mr. David Kramer, Senior Fellow, Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy, Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, Florida International University
Mr. Alex Tiersky, Senior Policy Adviser, US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Mr. Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President, Atlantic Council
Moderated by: Ms. Melinda Haring, Editor, UkraineAlert, Atlantic Council
Panel III: Democratic Progress in the Frontlines of Freedom
Mr. Carl Gershman, President, National Endowment for Democracy
Dr. Laura Jewett, Senior Associate and Regional Director for Eurasia, National Democratic Institute
Mr. Stephen Nix, Regional Director, Eurasia, International Republican Institute
Moderated by: Ms. Eka Gigauri, Executive Director, Transparency International Georgia
4. Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing From Empires to the Global Era | Thursday, October 18, 2018 | 2 pm – 4 pm | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
Countering traditional notions of balance-of-power theory, smaller states have not joined together militarily to oppose the United States’ rising power at the end of the Cold War, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, or Russian offensives along its Western border. Instead, balance-of-power politics has taken a different form.
In a new book, Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era, T.V. Paul argues that leading powers have engaged in “soft balancing,” which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions. Placing the evolution of balancing behavior in historical context, Paul examines how subtler forms of balance-of-power politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races. Paul will be joined in conversation by Richard Fontaine and Ellen Laipson. Carnegie’s Ashley J. Tellis will moderate. Copies of the book will be available for sale.
T.V. PAUL
T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the department of Political Science at McGill University.
RICHARD FONTAINE
Richard Fontaine is the president of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
ELLEN LAIPSON
Ellen Laipson is the director of the Master’s in International Security degree program and the Center for Security Policy Studies at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
ASHLEY J. TELLIS
Ashley J. Tellis holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
5. Breaking Rules to Build Peace: The Role of Leadership and Accountability in Peacebuilding | Thursday, October 18, 2018 | 3 pm – 5 pm | US Institute of Peace | 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037 | Register Here
Why do peacebuilders sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, even within the same country? Why can organizations not guarantee the same results from the same policies? Peacebuilders struggle to answer these questions and create programs with consistently positive results. Join the U.S. Institute of Peace as we discuss policy recommendations drawn from new research highlighting unexpected solutions to a long-standing challenge.
Organizations that work to build peace in fragile states often fail to meet the stated goals of the programs they design to resolve violent conflict. In her newly published book, Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and Performance in International Peacebuilding, Susanna Campbell dives into why peacebuilding organizations often fail and presents one of the keys to success: local actors that force organizations to stay accountable to local peacebuilding goals. Join experts as they discuss Campbell’s findings and how country-based staff can sidestep normal accountability procedures and empower local actors to push for innovative solutions to local problems.
Speakers
Susanna Campbell
Assistant Professor, School of International Service, American University
Michael Barnett
Professor, International Affairs and Political Science, The George Washington University
Mike Jobbins
Senior Director of Partnerships and Engagement, Search for Common Ground
Kate Somvongsiri
Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development
Leanne Erdberg, moderator
Director, Countering Violent Extremism, The U.S. Institute of Peace
Partition has failed, prepare something else
Serbian President Vucic has announced that his efforts to get something in negotiations with Kosovo have failed. What could he mean, and what does the announcement portend? It is hard to tell, but my guess is that Vucic has come to realize that there will be no unilateral partition of Kosovo.
That is what Vucic wanted: the northern majority-Serb municipalities in exchange for some sort of recognition of rump Kosovo. Kosovo President Thaci has made it clear he would only agree to some version of that proposal if Kosovo gets equivalent territory in southern Serbian municipalities that have Albanian majorities as well as UN membership.
The Serbian security services have no doubt told Vucic that is unacceptable. The land/people swap just isn’t going to work out, as it fails to protect vital interests of both Belgrade and Pristina: the former is concerned about its main route to the sea through southern Serbia and the latter with its main water supply in the north. Moreover, Serbia can no longer–if it ever could–commit to UN membership for Kosovo, which is blocked by a Russian veto in the Security Council.
The failure of this proposition is a relief, as it will avoid raising questions about borders in Macedonia, Bosnia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Vucic and Thaci may regret it, but the rest of the world should rejoice that Putin has not been handed a prize he would use to try to shift borders to accommodate Russians in what he regards as his “near abroad.” We should also be glad that Serbia itself, Spain, China, and other countries with ethnically diverse regions will not find ethnic secessionists re-empowered.
So far so good, but what about Kosovo? What are its prospects if the land/people swap is dead?
Again I’m guessing, but I think there are still deals to be had. They will not involve UN membership, because Russia now has its own interests in blocking that unless it gets satisfaction on South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Crimea, and Donbas. But Pristina still wants and needs bilateral recognition, or at least de facto acknowledgement of it authority on all the territory of Kosovo, not least so that it can join multilateral organizations as well as settle issues still outstanding with Belgrade: unpaid pensions, state property, border demarcation, Serbian efforts to prevent Serbs from joining its police and security forces, protection of Serbs and Serb religious sites throughout Kosovo, and creation of a Kosovo army.
Belgrade has wanted to use the creation of an Association of Serb Municipalities, something that has already been agreed, to create in Kosovo a de facto self-governing Serb “entity,” analogous to Republika Srpska (RS) in Bosnia, with veto powers in Pristina. Vucic is likely now to double down on that idea, but it is clearly something Thaci cannot deliver. The Kosovo constitutional court has already ruled out anything analogous to the RS, which has rendered governance in Bosnia dysfunctional. The votes for a constitutional amendment to enable creation of a Serb entity in Kosovo simply don’t exist in the Kosovo Assembly.
Nor do the votes exist in the Serbian parliament for changing its constitution, which claims Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia. Those votes are unlikely to emerge before EU accession is imminent. At that point, Serbia can expect to get nothing in return, since all the leverage will be with the EU, which will not accept Serbia until normalization with Kosovo is a done deal.
So whatever emerges now is likely to be messy. That is not unusual. Colleagues in KIPRED have done us all a favor by reviewing some available options that have proved feasible elsewhere. I’d suggest Vucic and Thaci read that fine paper. They’ve both got good thinkers available. Put them in the same room to come up with something viable for both parties. And in the meanwhile focus political efforts on preparing their electorates for the inevitable compromises.