Tag: United States
It’s not just random acts of cruelty
Even if I am far from celebrating, I share the prevailing view this evening that Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer, deserved the jury’s verdict : guilty of killing George Floyd unintentionally (second degree murder) and negligently (third degree murder) while acting dangerously (third degree manslaughter). I might even wonder if he wasn’t guilty of intentional killing, but I have seen no evidence of the premeditation or malice aforethought required for a first degree murder convictiton. I can make a good guess, but it is hard to prove what was going through Chauvin’s head as he squeezed the life out of George Floyd despite the protests and videos of bystanders.
This entirely justified verdict in no way ends the story of police abuse against Black people in America. Most police killings are the result of a split-second decision to fire a gun, not a prolonged act of blatantly negligent and dangerous violence. Yes, the thin blue line’s protection for Chauvin was broken in this trial, as the police chief and other colleagues testified against him. But that isn’t likely to happen even in the trial of the Chicago policeman who killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo fearing he had a gun when he wasn’t holding a gun. Or the Brooklyn Center policewoman who claims to have mistaken her gun for a Taser in killing 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop. Those will be much more difficult cases to prosecute.
Even the Chauvin story is not yet complete, as he will appeal. The appeals will take many months, if not years. There is always the possibility a judge will overturn the conviction. No trial is without some decisions by the judge that can raise questions in a higher court. At every stage, Chauvin’s lawyers will seek to put George Floyd on trial. He tried to use a counterfeit bill. He was not healthy. He took drugs. He resisted arrest.
So the Chauvin verdict is at best the start of something, not the end of it. Chauvin will be battling for his freedom and maligning Floyd for a long time to come. He’ll get a lot of support from other police officers and their unions in doing so. While I might find it hard to fathom, some right-wing politicians may also come to his aid, hoping thereby to reinforce their “law and order” reputations, which are exclusively directed against minorities. Remember: Donald Trump suffered no political damage with the right after he advocated the death penalty for five men convicted of rape who turned out to be innocent of the charges. Racists will have no fear of taking up Chauvin’s cause.
Those who want to see something done about police abuses still have a high wall of doubt to climb. Won’t convicting police discourage them from taking vigorous action against miscreants? Don’t the police need to be ready to meet violence with violence? Won’t finding them guilty in court discourage good people from seeking police jobs? Don’t law-abiding citizens need to support the police in all but the most egregious cases? How can you question a split second decision to fire at someone who may otherwise kill a police officer?
Those are all real concerns. But what Americans need to understand is that police abuse is not just the occasional random act of cruelty or excess. It is standard practice that targets minorities, especially Black and LatinX people. Chauvin will be genuinely surprised that he was not only charged but convicted for something that happens every day. We are talking about discriminatory violence that only rarely strikes white privilege, mainly by mistake. Systemic racism is real racism. No single trial is going to end it.
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Advice from the classics for Washington, Beijing, and Moscow
Alexandros P. Mallias, Ambassador of Greece to the United States ( 2005-2009) writes:
Secretary of State Tony Blinken, a fine diplomat and a seasoned top national security official, followed the footsteps of several American Presidents. During his first trip in Europe, he paid an important and much anticipated visit to NATO’s Headquarters in Brussels. The top American diplomat reiterated the Biden’s Administration strong commitment to NATO, while expressing the expectation that the allies will remain committed to cope with the three main challenges/threats as reflected in NATO’s reports and joint declarations. Is that so?
The response is neither easy nor linear. Let’s elaborate:
- The unprecedented though foreseeable rise of China’s capabilities. China is a privileged commercial, economic, trade, shipping, financial, and investment partner for NATO’s European allies. She is also an indispensable enabler in addressing climate change and the COVID pandemic. A Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, swiftful rising China is a global antagonist and potentially a strategic challenge for American interests. China has been a major concern issue for Congress and the top foreign policy priority, with important domestic parameters, for the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations.
China’s Asian-Pacific claims and interests as well as its global designs are supported by political, economic and increasing military capabilities, yet under a “soft power” cover. It is increasingly difficult to draw a clear line among cooperation, engagement and deterrence. Economic, energy, trade, and financial interdependence are the basic characteristics of China’s bonds with her leading global partners. It is now more difficult for the United States alone to prevent by coercive measures China’s ascent to primacy.
The 2500 years old “Thucydides trap” syndrome is now becoming a useful tool of analysis when examining US-China relations. Washington runs the risk of eventually projecting the image of a hegemon, like the city of Athens. But America’s soft power is colossal and global, much stronger than coercion. If hard power towards China and pressure on allies are the best policy option, then the probable product is a brotherhood of non-willing allies. A third powerful pole has already taken shape opposing US policies, including politico-military rapprochement among China, Russia and others .
2. Russia’s assertiveness and come-back policy under President Vladimir Putin, which includes prestige, self-confident power politics, and territorial ambitions. Russia, a big power, is today an important energy, trade, tourism and economic partner for many NATO allies, with whom it sided in the fight against international terrorism. Russia is also a key player albeit a hard power antagonist in Eurasian affairs.
The Russian Federation, also a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, is focusing on the European theater of energy, political, and military operations as well as on the greater Middle East (MENA).
Notwithstanding justified and legitimate opposition and apprehension among NATO allies and the European Union, Russia considers itself a shareholder of European cultural heritage, from the Atlantic to the Urals. But Russia’s invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the ongoing aggressive moves against Ukraine , in violation of the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Paris Charter for a New Europe are illegal. The status quo in Crimea cannot be tolerated. Russia has undermined its own role as an important stakeholder in European security and cooperation. US, NATO policies and EU sanctions are justified.
Notwithstanding the Russian Federation’s important fossil fuel resources, its economic and military capabilities at this stage may not sustain its superpower aspirations. A framework of a “principled (value based) cooperative engagement” is possible. Russia’s desire to become a big power player in Eurasia, MENA, and beyond should be matched by the Kremlin’s attachment to the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and the fundamental principles and values of the European legal, political and security post cold-war commitments and architecture.
There is a basic prerequisite before engaging with Russia. It pertains to NATO’s credibility, cohesion, and deterrence capability. Russia has managed to establish–against NATO’s interests–strategic defense procurement agreements and unprecedented confidential bonds with Turkey, a NATO member. The S-400 issue is a serious “intra muros” challenge undermining NATO diplomatically and politically. It is not an issue to be dealt with simply between Washington and Ankara. Further to Turkey’s provocative and aggressive policies against Greece and Cyprus, it poses a credibility problem for NATO as a whole and seriously affects Alliance security. It has to be addressed as a priority issue in order to preserve NATO’s credibility, restore intra-Alliance confidence, and revive the indivisible collective security axiom.
3. Preventing, countering and deterring hybrid threats. Often, the sources of these attacks directed against NATO members and institutions are also related or correlated to Moscow and Beijing. But it would be naive to attribute them solely to NATO’s two global antagonists. Cyberspace is the most difficult theater of operations for an undeclared global confrontation. More so, if associated with the possibility of rogue or failed states, authoritarian leaders, and non-state actors (terrorists, secessionist groups, etc.) getting access to nuclear weapons systems and/or long range ballistic capabilities. This is the 21st century nightmare scenario.
“Reset” global politics, starting with the UN Security Council
There is nothing new in stating that the world is characterized by power politics, rivalry between states and the promotion of state interests. Synergy is partial, alliances challenged, while the ecumenic symmetry is rather elliptic. The bipolar world order collapsed \; today, superpower monopoly is challenged. We should be in search of a new world order.
The Biden-Harris Administration’s much anticipated “reset” of multilateral diplomacy has a name: international cooperation, in particular within the United Nations and the Security Council. Multilateralism is the prerequisite for restoring the efficacy of the collective international security system: securing, shaping and reshaping the problematic world order.
It is a common secret that the United Nations is today unable to discharge its mission; synergy is missing among the five Permanent Members (P5) of the Security Council. The antagonism and conflict among the five stem both from a different hierarchy of values, attachment to human rights issues included, mostly though for geopolitical and economic reasons.
Attachment to the principles and purposes enshrined in the United Nations Charter has eroded. As long as the Security Council is unable to operate and act as mandated by the Charter, it will be impossible to reach the necessary consensus to prevent and counter threats against peace, stability, and security. The “veto” power prerogative should not be synonymous with idleness and inertia. The “zero sum game” equilibrium point cannot become the world order power equilibrium.
At times the United Nations Security Council was considered to be the refuge of the weak or the haven for weaker UN members. Now it is the indispensable condition for the P5 in resetting and restoring the much wanted world order.
In their legitimate search for common ground, the United States may wish to test the waters by hosting a ‘closed door retreat” of the P5 at Ministerial or Head of State level. Such a move could display of the American “smart power” (hard+ soft + principles and values) in reshaping the world order. Coping with the pandemic, climate change, and unity in fighting against terrorism could figure as the starting point of the agenda.
Engagement, negotiation, leadership: get advice from the Classics
What lessons can we draw from the ancient Greek classics that are relevant today? I refer to war and peace prototypes: Athens, Sparta, and Corinth were the three key city-states at the origins of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides’ History of that War remains by far the most complete handbook on strategy and tactics, on peace and war, on alliances and hegemony, on the cleavage between principles and interests, might and right, on negotiating of truces and treaties and definitely on leadership. We often use a famous quote from the Melian Dialogue:
…since you know as well as we do that right is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Thucydides refers also to the argument used by the Athenian ambassadors warning the Spartans not to start the war by saying:
….Consider the vast influence of accident in war before you start it. For a long war as it continues for the most part ends in catastrophe… It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first and wait for disaster to negotiate…
Many scholars argue that we already move in the footsteps of the Peloponnesian War. I earnestly hope that the Athenian message will not be ignored by Moscow, Beijing or Washington.
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It’s not over until the Afghans decide it is
I thought Laurel Miller of the International Crisis Group got Afghanistan right on Morning Edition today:
Like many decisions that get to the President, withdrawal from Afghanistan is a close call. It could give terrorists a chance to return there and use the country as a safe haven, but more likely post-US Afghanistan will be too unstable and violent to be attractive Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. The Americans can act from outside the country, especially if they manage to preserve at least some of their intelligence capabilities. Certainly, as Eliot Cohen argues, we owe to Afghans wanting to escape Taliban rule an open door to allow them to immigrate to the US, as we managed to do for the South Vietnamese after the North took over there.
The risks of withdrawal are real. The analogy with Iraq is imperfect, but we would do well to remember that withdrawal from there in 2011 led by 2014 to ISIS takeover of about one-third to the country. There is little question but that a consolidated Taliban regime in Kabul like the one that ruled there during the 2001 US invasion would be inimical to US interests and open to hosting international terrorists. It will now be up to Afghans to prevent the Taliban from consolidating power, a task that should be easier than ridding the country of their presence in the countryside, but one that will ensure conflict continues for years if not decades more.
That said, the two-decade US and allied military and civilian effort to build a viable, democratic, and self-sustaining state in Afghanistan has failed. President Ghani literally wrote a book on state-building that I use in my SAIS course. It hasn’t helped in Afghanistan. Two key obstacles, noted by Laurel and Jim Dobbins years ago, were never overcome: the resistance of local elites and the hostility of neighbors, in particular Pakistan but also Iran. The US effort was mainly a military one, but with a pretty strong civilian counterpart from the mid 2000s, when George W realized he wouldn’t be able to get out of Afghanistan without a serious stabilization effort. But Afghanistan was too poor, too illiterate, too fractious, too large, too violent, too religious, too remote, and too traditional to respond to Western formulas.
Two decades of effort–even if at times insincere or ill-conceived–will have to suffice. Afghans may still surprise us with their resourcefulness, either in reaching an agreement that stabilizes the country or in defeating the worst of the extremists. More likely, chaos will prevail for some time, as it did in the 1990s after the successful rebellion against the Communist regime until the Taliban imposed draconian order. The American role may be over, but the conflict is not. Now it is up to the Afghans to decide when the time comes.
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A good move, but more is needed
My reaction to this letter from the Secretary of State to the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is mixed. It is good that it presses hard on the need for constitutional as well as other reforms. It has been apparent for the better part of two decades that BiH needs profound changes in how power is gained and distributed in order to make it a functional state that can deliver services to its citizens.
But it fails to make clear, except by implication, that reform will need to go in the direction of strengthening individual rights relative to the group rights that the Dayton constitution favored. It also pretends to be modest in its goals, while laying out a broad requirement for constitutional, legal, electoral, and economic reforms. It is not clear whether those goals have been sufficiently coordinated with the European Union and its member states, who hold most of the carrots and sticks that can incentivize the needed reforms. Broad goals without sufficient incentives are not a formula for success.
In the more than 25 years since the Dayton agreements were signed, most BiH reform processes have either ended in drivel or in strengthening the ethnically-based power sharing system that is at the root of the country’s dysfunctional governance. It will take vigorous and coordinated diplomatic and political effort by the EU and US to prevent that from happening again. Milorad Dodik, the first member of the presidency to which this note is addressed, is a past master at blocking any reforms that threaten his corrupt and autocratic control over BiH’s Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska. He exploits fear of the country’s Muslim majority and Serb nationalism, including the threat of secession and union with Serbia, to ensure that he stays in one powerful position or another.
It is a particular irony that Dodik is necessarily an addressee of this letter. The US has sanctioned him for violation of the Dayton accords:
Specifically, Dodik was designated for his role in defying the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of the rule of law, thereby actively obstructing the Dayton Accords; Dodik was also designated for conduct that poses a significant risk of actively obstructing the same.
At the same time, Dodik is collaborating with a nationalist Croat leader, Dragan Covic, in attempting to implement a Constitutional Court decision in a way that favors ethnic nationalist political parties. While objecting to the authority of the Constitutional Court in principle, Dodik exploits any decisions it makes that he likes.
The missing ingredient in BiH reform proposals in the past has been popular support. The country’s citizens have left governance and reform largely to ethnic nationalists who have convinced their three respective groups (Bosniak, Serb, and Croat) that they need to be protected from one or two of the others. If there is no pressure from the street, the ethnic nationalists will do with the American initiative what they have always done: strengthen their own positions and prevent the emergence of a trans-ethnic coalition that can challenge their hold on power.
The Americans know this. What is unclear from Blinken’s letter is what they will try to do about it. Without popular demand for reform that protects individual rights and reduces the saliency of group rights, BiH will continue to be a dysfunctional and semi-democratic state ruled mainly by kleptocratic ethnic leaders who enjoy near monopolies on power. Individuals with equal rights are the essential ingredient of democratic governance. They are what BiH lacks. Only Bosnians, with some international assistance, can produce them.
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Stevenson’s army, March 8
– FT says Biden plans to use Quad [Australia, India, Japan, US] for talks about China.
– US is pressing an interim power-sharing plan for Afghanistan. Here’s the actual letter, leaked to Afghanistan’s TOLOnews.
– NYT says US plans a series of retaliations for Russian hacking, with China in the background.
– The Hill has neat depictions of the Oval office for various presidents.
– Sen. Manchin favors a more painful filibuster.
– Cost-sharing deal reached with South Korea.
– China announces 6.8% increase in its defense budget.
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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Reviving refugee resettlement in the US: ethics, policy, and implementation
Here are the remarks I made at today’s Johns Hopkins webinar on “Reviving Refugee Resettlement: Moral, Policy, and Implementation Issues,” in which colleagues and I presented and discussed our published paper on the subject.
- I collected the data on which our assessment of moral, policy and implementation issues was largely based.
- It’s one of the few times in my mostly internationally focused career that I’ve exploited my diplomatic skills to hear American views.
- The people I interviewed were all familiar with resettlement issues: as government officials, as think tankers following the issues, as NGO or international officials with relevant responsibilities.
- The range of political views was wide and included people working in the Trump Administration, but not Steven Miller or others in his inner circle.
- They either did not answer multiple requests for interviews or bluntly refused to talk with me.
- I did however talk with people inside government as well as outside generally sympathetic with the Administration’s views, especially on immigration.
- Ethical issues were not foremost in the minds of most of these people but on questioning all agreed on the moral imperative of helping resettle at least some refugees.
- All believed, for example, that the US should resettle Afghans, Iraqis, and others whose lives were in danger due to assistance they had afforded Americans during invasions.
- There was no dissent from “the duty to repair” in those circumstances.
- There was also general agreement on thinking about refugee resettlement as a human rights and humanitarian issue, albeit one that had to be limited by practical and financial considerations.
- But priority to the needy and non-discrimination, in particular based on religion were universally accepted. This was after the Trump Administration had prohibited visas for people from some Muslim countries.
- There was less agreement on the broad humanitarian imperative—partly because in its boldest form it rejects practical and financial considerations. Some also thought keeping people close to their original homes was more likely to enable returns, which they regarded as preferable in principle to resettlement and far less costly, enabling more people to be assisted.
- Personally, I think that trade-off is a serious issue: resettlement vs. aid in place, because of cost considerations.
- There was also less agreement on the contribution refugee resettlement makes to foreign policy and the legitimacy of the state system. Some insisted on this point unhesitatingly. Those closer to the Trump Administration rejected it as an exaggeration, but mainly I think because they were unconcerned with what others term the “rules-based order.”
- There was concern from some about implementation issues, including possible fraud or other malfeasance in the selection process, the capacity of the US government and non-governmental organizations to handle refugee resettlement (especially when the Obama Administration bumped up the numbers in its final year), and admission of people whose attitudes on gender and other issues might make their adaptation to American mores and law difficult.
- Some issues commonly discussed in the public sphere at the time were not very important in discussions with these experts, on the left or right. None thought there was more than a proportional and therefore small security risk from resettled refugees. Most thought they represented a far lesser threat than immigrants of other sorts and native-born Americans.
- My overall conclusion is that there is more room for consensus across the political spectrum on resettlement than on immigration more broadly. So long as due diligence is faithfully conducted and the numbers can be capably handled by the resettlement agencies and welcomed by local communities, few saw a big problem with the numbers, so long as they do not go up or down precipitously. The limits are more practical than ethical, even if the imperative is ethical.
- But reaching and maintaining this consensus across the political spectrum would likely depend on keeping the issue of refugee resettlement separate from the general issue of immigration, especially at the southern border. I’m not sure that can be done, or that everyone would want to keep the two issues separate. But doing so would be best from a refugee perspective.
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