The Fletcher Forum Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Fletcher Forum
Founded in 1975 and published biannually, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs is the student-managed foreign policy journal at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The publication provides a broad, interdisciplinary platform for analysis of legal, political, economic, environmental, and diplomatic issues in international affairs. The Fletcher Forum podcast will serve as another avenue for The Fletcher Forum and will feature interviews, roundtable discussions, and debates centered around the latest in international affairs.
KP (MALD '26) spoke with Professor Erin Coughland de Perez on the connection between climate science and climate policy.
Professor Coughlan de Perez is an Associate Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition and Science Policy at Tufts University. She is a leading expert on climate risk management at the Feinstein International Center. Her work sits at the intersection of climate science, policy, and humanitarian practice, focusing on how we can anticipate and respond to extreme events like droughts, floods, and heatwaves before they occur. Professor Coughlan de Perez is also a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report, where she contributed to global thinking on climate risk and decision making.
Matt Livesay (MGA '26) and Maya Spalding-Fecher (MALD '26) are joined by Abby Wulf for a timely discussion on critical minerals.
Abby is the founder and CEO of Lattice Strategies, a DC-based consultancy, and was previously the Head of the American Battery Metals Initiative (ABMI) until 2025. ABMI is a coordinated, interagency effort between the White House and Department of Energy to secure the minerals needed to meet the United States' electric vehicle and broader electrification goals. Before working for the Federal government, Abby was the founding Executive Director at SAFE's 'Center for Critical Minerals Strategy,' a nonpartisan nonprofit organization where she worked closely with industry, academia, members of Congress, and Federal officials to support vital critical mineral supply chain initiatives for the United States and its allies.
In this episode, Ryan Long and Katherine Walsh (MALD '26) explore the evolving landscape of intelligence, risk, and resilience, including what skills will matter even more in the AI era. Ryan also discusses the realities of building a career in intelligence today, the tensions shaping multigenerational teams, and what organizations are still struggling to develop in their analysts and security professionals. He offers clear and practical insight for anyone navigating the modern risk landscape.
Ryan Long is the Founder of INTELAB Ventures, a hybrid firm and incubator that equips risk and resilience practitioners with the advice, tools, and resources they need to succeed. Ryan is also the co-founder of the Pathfinder Collective and AI x Intelligence Exchange. He hosts The Business of Intelligence Podcast.
What does it mean to depend on a world you cannot trust? In this episode of the Summer 2026 Print Edition series, Armaan Mathur (MALD'26) and Katherine Walsh (MALD'26) sit down with scholar, columnist, and author Dr. Happymon Jacob to excavate the fractures and possibilities of a global order in flux. From the death of normative globalization to the rise of minilateralism, Jacob argues that the old architecture of collective security and multilateral institutions was never as universal as it claimed, and that its unraveling may be less a tragedy than an opportunity for the Global South to finally claim its seat at the table. Drawing on India's quest to become a pole in international politics, he maps a world where trust is transactional, alignment is strategic, and values and interests are far less separable than once assumed. Provocative, pragmatic, and cautiously optimistic, this conversation challenges us to ask not how we restore the old order, but whether we should want to.
In this episode of the Summer Print Edition Series, Fletcher Forum Editor-in-Chief Armaan Mathur (MALD '26) speaks with Professor Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, about what the evolving US-China relationship means for the world order. Professor Mitter notes how the theme of "Interdependence Without Trust" is exemplified in the paradox at the heart of Sino-American relations: the two economies are more deeply integrated than ever, yet trust between them may be at an all time low. With a landmark Xi-Trump summit on the horizon, Professor Mitter explores how trade diplomacy might navigate deeper structural tensions — and what Beijing's quiet outreach to Taiwan's opposition, its role in the Iran crisis, and its ambitions within multilateral institutions reveal about China's long game.
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The Summer Print Edition is here! Listen to Lauren Davis (Managing Print Editor), Armaan Mathur (Editor-in-Chief), and Katherine Walsh (Managing Podcast Editor) discuss the origins of the theme "Interdependence Without Trust", what pieces they are most excited to share, and how current geopolitical challenges informed the Summer Print Edition.
Want to learn more? Subscribe to the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs for access!
Shabnam Waheed (MALD '26) sat down with Dr. Sima Simar, a medical doctor, human rights advocate, and visiting fellow at the Fletcher School. They discussed Afghanistan's past and present, international responsibility, and the resiliency of Afghan girls.
Katherine Walsh (MALD '26) was joined by retired Ambassador Daniel Rosenblum for a candid conversation on U.S.–Central Asian relations as well as career advice for anyone interested in diplomacy. Daniel Rosenblum is a distinguished career diplomat with decades of service in the U.S. State Department. He retired in March 2025 after a tenure that included roles as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan. A graduate of Johns Hopkins SAIS, he serves on the board of trustees for the American Councils for International Education and is co-host of the American Diplomat podcast at Arizona State University.
Shabnam Waheed (MALD '26) sat down with Dr. Marlene Daut to break down Haiti's rich history, covering topics in her latest book, The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. Daut is a Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University
Rupture in the rules-based international order, the role of middle powers, and the future of multilateral climate governance and more! Listen to Krishna Priya (MALD '26) in conversation with Jennifer Morgan, Senior Fellow at the Climate Policy Lab on the rise of plurilateral agreements, the need to reform COP processes, and how to stay hopeful in light of current geopolitical challenges.
Matt Livesay (MGA '26) sat down with investigative journalist and author John Dinges for a conversation about Chile's 1973 coup, the era of military dictatorship under Pinochet, and the United States' involvement in Latin American affairs up until the present day.
Dinges' journalistic career spans more than five decades and he is the author of multiple books including Assassination on Assembly Row, The Condor Years, and Chile in Their Hearts: The Untold Story of Two Americans Who Went Missing After the Coup.
This episode is the final part of a series highlighting prices from the Forum Winter Print Edition, themed: "Assertions of Indigeneity: The Non-West and The Rest:. In this episode, hear Professor Sachin Chaturvedi discuss his piece titled: "Convergence and Contestations in Global Affairs: Promises and Options for the Global South.
Krishna Priya (MALD '26) sat down with Dr. Patrick Brown, executive director of Equal Right, a global NGO that works on advancing human rights, equity, and climate justice. Tune into their discussion about the future of climate finance and its intersections with climate justice, the work of Equal Right, their takeaways from COP-30 and the state of climate multilateralism.
This episode is part of a series highlighting pieces from the Forum Winter Print Edition, themed: "Assertions of Indigeneity: The Non-West and The Rest". In this episode, hear Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani discuss his piece titled: All Civilizations are Equal.
This episode is part of a series highlighting pieces from the Forum Winter Print Edition, themed: "Assertions of Indigeneity: The Non-West and The Rest". In this episode, hear Ambassador Jorge Heine discuss his piece titled: Which Way The World Order? A Rising South, A Fractured West, And The Path Ahead.
Fletcher Forum Editor-in-Chief Armaan Mathur (MALD '26) and Managing Print Editor Lauren Davis (MALD '26) sat down with Mannat Dutt (MALD '27) to discuss this year's theme for the Winter 2026 edition:
Assertions of Indigeneity: The Non-West and The Rest
This episode is part of a series on the topic of the Winter Print Edition theme. Stay tuned to hear from the authors of some key pieces in this edition!
Shabnam Waheed (MALD '26) is joined by Christina Bain, visiting fellow at the Feinstein International Center within the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Veerdittya Podder (MIB '26) and Vaibhav Panwar (MIB '26) sit down with Sean West and Steve Heitkamp (MALD '08) the co-founders of The Unruly Corporation, an AI agent for political risk analysis to discuss current challenges in the political risk environment.
Shreyanshi Sikaria (MALD '27) spoke with Charles Hua about the much overlooked power of public utility comissions (PUCs) in utlity regulation and the clean energy transition. Hua is the executive director of PowerLines which aims to empower energy consumers to lower utility bills.
Veeradittya (MIB '26) spoke with Michael Klein, the William L. Clayton Professor of International Economic Affairs and founder of EconoFact. They discuss how well designed institutions shape the stability of the global economy.
Matt Livesay (MGA '26) sat down with Professor Michael Glennon to discuss his recent article titled, "Where Have All the (War) Powers Gone?" which is his latest in a series of publications analyzing the rapidly changing international and domestic legal environments.
On this "Fletcher Focus" episode, Shabnam Waheed (MALD '26) was joined by the student organizers of the 2025 Conference on Gender and International Affairs (Emily Ruhm PhD, Maeve Murphy MALD '26). Through a discussion of this year's conference, Emily and Maeve address misconceptions of how gender is viewed in international affairs, the wide range of applications for the lens, and why it is so salient today.
The conference will take place on campus November 13 and 14th. Please see the links below for more details.
Conference Website: https://sites.tufts.edu/genderconference/
Article Referenced: https://worldpeacefoundation.org/blog/interrogating-the-authoritarian-frame-boundaries-of-belonging/
-The views shared on the Fletcher Forum Podcast are not representative of the Fletcher School or the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs-
Matt Livesay (MGA '26) sat down with Professor Mikhail Troitskiy to discuss the current state of diplomatic negotiations in the Russia-Ukraine War, the challenges of negotiating with authoritarians, nuclear risks arising from this conflict, and events at the Russia-Eurasia Center at Fletcher.
The Decolonizing International Relations Conference is back at Fletcher October 16 and 17!
DIR 2025 intends to highlight transformative practices that unsettle imperial legacies and challenge the rearticulation of colonial modes of control in policy, scholarship, and everyday life.
Katherine and Lorenzo sat down with Professor Juan Carlos Portilla Jaimes on September 12th to discuss Arms Smuggling, International Law, and the future of education in Colombia. Professor Juan Carlos is an internationally recognized speaker specializing in anti-money laundering and the global fight against transnational financial crime. He received an L.L.M. from Fletcher and currently teaches International Financial Law at Sabana University School of Law in Chia, Colombia.
(Image courtesy of Professor Juan Carlos)
The civil war in Sierra Leone ended more than two decades ago, but that’s no reason for Theresa Betancourt and Moses Zombo to turn their eyes away. In this episode, we speak about their decades of work in Sierra Leone and their most recent book, Shadows into Light: A Generation of Former Child Soldiers Comes of Age, where they present findings from tracking more than 500 former child soldiers over the course of twenty years.
Their insights are surprising but hopeful: despite immense suffering, this is not a lost generation. Theresa and Moses take us on a journey to Sierra Leone to explore the long road of recovery, resilience, and what it means to come of age after war.
Bhaskar Chakravorti is the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the founding executive director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context, where he established and chairs the Digital Planet research program. His recent book Defeating Disinformation (co-edited with Joel Trachtman) was published by Cambridge University Press in January 2025. Dean Chakravorti joins us for a frank conversation on the different use cases of artificial intelligence, and how artificial intelligence may disrupt and displace work as we know it in 2025.
Today, Marlene is joined by Emily Prey (F20), a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. Her research focuses on women and children in crisis and conflict situations. She most recently co-authored a report on Children Born of War (CBOW).
In this episode, we explore what CBOW entails, how countries can handle the trauma of victims, and why this phenomenon has always been present in wars. We touch on a variety of case studies which show that children are in the midst of every war — no matter if we continue to ignore them.
Trigger warning: We speak about sexual violence in this episode.
Children Born of War: Considerations for Policymakers by Ingvill Constanze Ødegaard and Emily Prey, co-published with the Children Born of War Project
Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Ukraine: Lessons from Bosnia by Emily Prey, Tanya Domi, and Dr. Kinsey Spears
Emily Prey offers her special recognition and thanks to Inger Skjelsbæk, leader of the EuroWARCHILD project, and Torunn L Tryggestad, Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), who co-hosted a workshop on children born of war in Oslo. Thank you to all of the participants for sharing their research and deep expertise on this topic, which have led to such a rich conversation on this podcast.
In our final installment of the 50th edition miniseries, the Forum traveled to India to interview one of the Fletcher Forum's founding editors: Dr. Shashi Tharoor. Dr. Tharoor, along with Dr. Jeff Sheehan and Fred Smith, were three of the core founding members of the Forum. Dr. Tharoor joins us to reminisce on his time at Fletcher and the founding history of the Journal. Edit: This interview was recorded in March before the May 2025 commencement of hostilities between India and Pakistan
For our third episode, the Forum sits down with Dean Gallagher to discuss the role of the Forum at Fletcher and the administration's forthcoming strategic plan. As the Forum has evolved, Fletcher has evolved with it, and we discuss the Forum's role in thought leadership as Fletcher embarks on a new journey under new leadership.
Alex is joined by Maria Selde, Colin Steele, and Pulkit Aggrwal, three of the five members of the 2017/2018 Forum Executive Board who founded the Podcast, for an informal conversation recollecting on the start of the podcast, the state of Fletcher during Donald Trump's first election, and perhaps a bit of encouragement in challenging times.
The third episode in our Forum 50 Series.
Fletcher historians rejioice! We're joined this episode by Lee E. Dirks Professor Emeritus of Diplomatic History, Alan Henrikson. Professor Henrikson was named (he would say volun-told) the first faculty advisor to the Fletcher Forum, and he remains on our Board of Advisors today in 2025. Professor Henrikson joins us to revive some of the long-untold history of the Forum, as well as to discuss his 1981 piece on Space Politics which was published in the Forum.
Between 1981 and 2025, many Fletcher students have entered the aerospace industry, and the interests of private businesses and governments in the industry surrounding space has expanded dramatically. We discuss these changes, what inspired Professor Henrikson to write on the potential politics of outer space as a tenured professor of Diplomatic History.
In this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast, host KP sits down with Professor Nigel Purvis - veteran climate diplomat and CEO of Climate Advisers, to explore the future of global climate action. From the early days of the Kyoto Protocol to the road ahead for COP-30 in Brazil, Professor Purvis shares insights on the shifting role of the U.S., the rise of non-state actors, and lessons from decades of negotiation. Whether you're a student, policymaker, or climate advocate, this conversation offers both a candid reflection on the past and a hopeful look toward what comes next in climate governance.
In this episode of The Fletcher Forum Podcast, we dive into the key takeaways from COP-16 in Cali, Colombia with biodiversity governance expert Professor Charles C. Chester. From the groundbreaking Cali Fund to the challenges of aligning global biodiversity strategies, we explore the biggest hits and misses of the conference. We break down the most pressing issues in biodiversity financing, indigenous rights, climate action and discuss the evolving role of the U.S. in international environmental policy ahead of the COP-30 in Brazil.
Following up on our episode last week, we're in conversation with Dr. Bridget Conley, the Research Director at the World Peace Foundation. Dr. Conley currently works on analyzing the impacts of mass incarceration in the US and has also recently released a podcast series titled Disrupting Peace, an investigation of how peace begins and ends which highlights her and others' body of work analyzing what peacebuilding actually looks like.
Link to Disrupting Peace: https://open.spotify.com/show/2OVCiz6iZyMywzEzqz2xpK?si=e9793ffcf47e4aa4
Loing before the big power conflicts of the 2020s, many international relations theorists were focused on how to use international law as a framework for intervention to protect human rights and human dignity. From these thinkers emerged R2P, the Responsibility to Protect, which became a broad idea that was used to justify humanitarian interventions that theoretically and practically violated the sovereignty of internationally recognized states.
Dr. Sidita Kushi, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bridgewater State, joins us today to discuss some of the flaws built into the historical applications of R2P. This is also the topic of her forthcoming book: From Kosovo to Darfur: The Regional Biases within Humanitarian Military Interventionism. Dr. Kushi explains how she created and leveraged groundbreaking data which systematizes histories of humanitarian interventions following the Cold War.
Pre-order From Kosovo to Darfur!: https://www.amazon.com/Kosovo-Darfur-Regional-Humanitarian-Interventionism/dp/0472077449?ref_=ast_author_dp
Her First Book (Dying By the Sword): https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Sword-Militarization-Foreign-Policy/dp/0197581439
In our latest podcast, the Fletcher Forum dives into the multifaceted world of DeepSeek the AI firm challenging Open AI. We're joined by Pf. Thomas Cao, an Assistant Professor of Technology Policy at Fletcher, to discuss its implications not just for technology, but also for geopolitics, privacy, and the ethical challenges surrounding AI. Join us as we unpack how this innovative technology is reshaping the US tech landscape and what it means for the future of data security and global relations. With expert insights and thought-provoking discussions, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of tech and society.
Chinese studies are a mainstay in all realms of international relations, especially in the United States. Today's guest, Dr. Daniel Green, offers his thoughts of how future US administrations could approach China as a strategic competitor in AI, security, and great power politics. He surveys these thoughts, and his contributions to a new book: Confronting China: U.S. Defense Policy in an Era of Great Power Competition.
Dr. Daniel Green is a national security and foreign affairs expert who has served for 20 years inkey positions that shape U.S. defense and foreign policy, including as a Commander in the U.S.Navy Reserves, a Political Advisor with the U.S. Department of State, and Deputy AssistantSecretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development. He is also an accomplished author, withfive books and numerous publications on defense, security, and counterinsurgency topics. Hisscholarly work includes more than 60 award-winning papers and articles in various military andpolicy journals. He holds a Ph.D. and MPhil in Political Science from George Washington Universityand a Masters in International Affairs from Florida State University.
Link to Confronting China: https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-China-Competition-Security-International/dp/1440879664
In this episode, Natasha Zarine, co-founder of EcoSattva and a TEDx Boston speaker at MIT this year, shares how her groundbreaking work brought the Kham River back to life in India. Explore her innovative approach to blue-green infrastructure, community-driven solutions, and building climate resilience. Tune in for an extraordinary story of transformation, determination, and impact.
Annie Levy and Rebecca Kelly are two of the Co-Chairs for Fletcher's 2024 Conference on Gender in International Affairs. CGIA 2024 exists to create a collaborative environment in which international systems, norms, and power structures can be challenged and reimagined through a gender and intersectional lens. CGIA recognizes that intersectional solutions that amplify a diverse range of voices are needed to effectively address global challenges in uncertain times. It's Fletcher's longest running student-led conference and it's on its 10th anniversary!
The Conference will be held in person and via zoom on November 21 & 22, register below!
Conference Registration: https://sites.tufts.edu/genderconference/register-2/
Pf. Joel Trachtman joins the Fletcher Forum Podcast to discuss his work on the Remaking Trade Project. The project aims to reimagine international trade policy for the 21st century and outline how it can contribute to a sustainable future. Pf. Trachtman is the Henry J. Baker Professor of Commercial Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and recently returned from a stint at the College of Europe. He has published numerous works including "Advanced Introduction to International Trade Law" (Elgar 2020), "Collected Essays: Trade Law, Domestic Regulation, and Development" (World Scientific 2015), "The Future of International Law: Global Government" (Cambridge 2013), and "The Tools of Argument" (Createspace 2013)."
Find out more here: https://remakingtradeproject.org/
Dr. Vivek Mishra joins the Fletcher Forum Podcast to discuss the upcoming US Presidential Election. Dr. Mishra is the Deputy Director of the Observer Research Foundation's Strategic Studies Programme, where he writes on US elections and US-India relations. We discuss the election's key inflection points, as well as his perspective of Indian observers' impressions of the election.
In this episode, we’re in conversation with Ellie Johnson and Abdullah Alharoun, Chairperson and Content Chair of this year’s Decolonising International Relations Conference, scheduled to take place on the 24th and 25th of October. We discuss the nature and importance of the decolonizing exercise, the role of the conference in bridging the gaps in contemporary narratives on IR and Fletcher’s own contributions to the Decolonizing exercise.
This week we're featuring a conversation with Maggie Adomako and Richard Geegbae, two of the three members of the 2024 Fletcher D-Prize winning Ongeza Zao Na Pato (OZP) team. OZP is bringing farmers beans and cow peas in Kenya to support a business-smart and environmentally sustainable transition. We even discuss Richard's new idea for how Fletcher students can help their classmates gain valuable experience in development work.
Our inaugural 2024-2025 episode features members of Fletcher's Russia and Eurasia Program discussing the upcoming conference on Russian sanctions and the broader economic impacts of economic warfare resulting from the war in Ukraine. Arik Burakovsky, Assistant Director of the Russia Eurasia Program, Pavel Luzin, a fellow at the program, and Akshat Dhankher, a graduate assistant and second year MALD student at Fletcher join us to discuss how they had the idea for a conference entirely focused on sanctions against Russia.
With South Africa’s historic elections concluding on May 29th 2024, the ANC is facing its first coalition since its inception in 1994. Michael Walsh, visiting scholar at UC Berkeley and Senior Fellow at FPRI joins us to discuss his latest article, covering the South African elections and providing a systematic framework to understand political landscapes through evaluating internal party conflict adjacent to their platforms.
Second year MALD, Julia Shufro, discusses the field of human security with international security professor, Rockford Weitz. Listen to their conversation about the role of protecting civilians in conflict, considering people when creating policy, and the nexus of human rights and human security.
The Self-Help Group movement that began in South Asia has now proliferated across developing countries of the world. Seen as a means of women’s financial and social empowerment, SHGs have been a popular development intervention. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Scientist at the World Bank and Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, we delve into the history of SHGs, their desired and sometimes undesired outcomes and their relevance today.
This podcast features Jordan Strouse, a 3rd year Fulbright grantee in Taiwan who joins the forum to comment on the intersections of linguistic interplay and exchange in Taiwan. The conversation also includes his commentary on Taiwan’s bilingual 2030 policy and the challenges of teaching English in an environment where students might speak any of 5 languages natively
A podcast with Ian Lesser, Vice President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States discussing the future of European Security from an American perspective. If the Helsinki Accords have been abandoned with the war in Ukraine, can Europe replace them with something new? Throughout European history, the neutral countries have played a large role in this, by tying great powers together or holding them accountable. What could this new role for neutral European states look like, and which European states can be counted upon to take up the mantle of neutrality in the future? All this and more on this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast!
The 2022 Fifa World Cup was significant in many ways. As Lionel Messi lifted the long elusive trophy, controversy was not far. One of the many discussions around the Cup was on the role of Qatar as the host. We try to go deeper into the many international relations controversies from the view of those in the Global South.
We explore the question of whether the United States is colonizing knowledge through international students. We are joined by two experts on the topic: Maria Carolina Sintura (Sintu) is a teacher and Ph.D. student in the English Department at UCSB. Her research brings together the Legal Humanities, Critical University Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Women of Color Feminisms as she studies the discourses constructed around the figure of international students and scholars at the U.S American University, and Rohini Roy is a 2023 MALD candidate at the Fletcher School with a focus on gender and intersectional analysis and human security. Currently, Rohini’s research focuses on developing queer methods for social research. We discuss how the US has historically dominated the production and dissemination of knowledge and how this has had a disproportionate impact on people from developing countries. We also explore the ways in which international students are often forced to assimilate into US academic norms, which can lead to the loss of their own cultural and intellectual traditions.
Resources on the topic
Resources shared by Rohini Roy:
- Anumol, Dipali, and Rohini Roy. "The Racism of Being Tolerated: The Experience of Being Brown Women in ‘International Relations.’" Tufts Observer, 12 Dec. 2022, tuftsobserver.org/the-racism-of-being-tolerated-the-experience-of-being-brown-women-in-international-relations/.
- Tracking Epistemic Violence: Tracking Practices of Silencing. By Moya Bailey. Hypatia, vol. 35, no. 4, 2020, pp. 878–899. doi:10.1111/hypa.12813.
- Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006.
Resources shared by Maria Carolina Sintura:
- Ferguson, Roderick A. “The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference.” Chapter 6 in The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference, by Roderick A. Ferguson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
- Ferguson, Roderick A. 2012. The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference. Difference Incorporated. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press. Chapter 5: Immigration and the Drama of Affirmation.
- Christian, Barbara. “Diminishing Returns: Can Black Feminism(s) Survive the Academy?” New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000, edited by Gloria Bowles et al., University of Illinois Press, 2007, pp. 204–15.
- Hong, Grace Kyungwon. “The Future of Our Worlds: Black Feminism and the Politics of Post-Diaspora.” Social Text, no. 26, 2008, pp. 1–24. doi:10.1215/01642472-2008-004.
The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda is a UN framework that promotes women's participation in all aspects of peace and security efforts. It is based on four pillars: participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery. Despite significant progress, there are still several challenges to its effective implementation, including a lack of political will, inadequate funding, limited participation of women, insufficient data, and gender-based violence. The WPS agenda is being implemented in various ways around the world, such as women's participation in peace negotiations, women's role in peacekeeping, gender-responsive peacebuilding, protection of women and girls, and the development of National Action Plans. In this episode, Maria Paola Silva dive into a conversation with Maria Luisa Moreira* about the four pillars of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. How does is look today? What is happening in Ukraine? Why is it so necessary?
Listen to the episode and find the answer to many of these questions.
*Maria Luisa Moreira is an Advisor and Programme Manager at PCS, a Lisbon-based think tank, and the Secretary General of WIIS Portugal. She has an MSc in Women, Peace, and Security from the LSE and a BA in International Relations from the University of Essex. Maria Luisa won the first edition of the DGPDN Award in 2021 with an original policy position paper on the implementation of the WPS Agenda in the Portuguese MFA and MoD mandates. In 2022, she was a presenter at the NATO Committee on Gender Perspective Annual Conference and a guest speaker at the NATO Youth Summit. Maria Luisa was previously selected for the OSCE-UNODA Peace and Security Fellowship and has worked at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security, the Council of the European Union in Brussels, and the British Embassy in Lisbon. Her current research projects address the future of the WPS Agenda within foreign policy and international diplomacy, and she was a guest speaker at the Portuguese Navy's International Women's Day conference in 2023, where she presented perspectives and guidelines for a feminist national defense policy.
In this first episode, Sarthak talks to David about the concept of digital public infrastructures, its role in the digital economy, and how is it different from the traditional digital development approaches. Our guest for the episode is David Eaves, who’s a thought leader in the DPI and DPG space.
David Eaves is an Associate Professor and Deputy Co-Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. At UCL he teaches and writes on the intersection of digital transformation, digital public infrastructure, and the opportunities technology presents to re-imagine public value. David also serves as the Senior Vice President of investments for Co-Develop Fund.
He previously served as a Lecturer of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Was co-founder and CEO of ReCollect - a successful civic tech start up that grew to serve over 400 governments across North America. He advises numerous governments on their digital transformation and open data strategies and open source projects like Mozilla and OpenMRS on governance.
David has also had the privilege of working with public interest technologists worldwide, doing seminars with many of the Code for America fellows, White House Presidential Innovation Fellows, and Code for Canada fellows.
Reading Recommendations -
The Narrow Corridor and the Future of Digital Government Best Practices for the Governance of Digital Public Goods
The podcast covers the role media plays in raising public awareness of key issues while also discussing the risks of conspiracy theories and misinformation. It tries to understand the different ways media can be used as a platform in climate change discussion. Thereby, we look at the need for understanding the criticality and methods of engaging in climate communication, especially in the global south, which is necessary for equitable response. About the Author- Prof. Deepti Ganapathy, is an author, educator, and a former award-winning journalist. Prof. Ganapathy is currently Chair, Centre of Management Communication, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and was formerly my professor for a course on journalism, during my undergraduate education. Her book, Media and Climate Change- Making Sense of Press Narratives covers the triggers of a debate about development over biodiversity loss and environmental risks in India.
In this episode, we explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what gender has to do with it. Our staff editor, Paola talks to Kelly Chen, who shares her work and perspectives with us and gives us a complete introduction to Gender and AI.
Kelly Chen is an interdisciplinary artist working and living in Boston, Massachusetts. She works in moving images, sonic installations, and software to reveal the intersecting histories of computation and early cinema as they relate to authority and resistance in social, political, and economic systems. Her work critically addresses invisibility and traceability in processing physical and digital artifacts, the authority given to archives, and biases in history-making with critical code. She is a student in Media Arts and Data Science at Northeastern University.
Feminist Foreign Policy seeks to incorporate a gender and human rights perspective into international foreign affairs and policy. This episode discusses what feminist foreign policy looks like in different countries, its challenges, and how it may look in the future. Our staff editor, Paola interviews Daniela Philipson, Peace and Security Ph.D. Scholar at Monash University. She has authored several Op-Eds and articles for international outlets, such as the Yale Journal of International Affairs and Chatham House. In 2022, Daniela co-founded Internacional Feminista, a multilingual platform to advance critical dialogues on foreign policy, international relations, and feminism in Latin America.
Resources cited during the episode:
· CFFP: https://centreforfeministforeignpolicy.org/feminist-foreign-policy
· Mamacash: https://www.mamacash.org/es/el-activismo-feminista-funciona
· ICRW: https://www.icrw.org/
· IWDA: https://iwda.org.au/resource/feminist-foreign-policy-anoverview/#:~:text=WHAT%20IS%20FEMINIST%20FOREIGN%20POLICY,of%20peaceful%20and%20flourishing%20societies.
· Kubernein initiative, Inclusive Foreign Policy: https://kuberneininitiative.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Opportunities-for-a-more-Inclusive-Indian-Foreign-Policy.pdf
· Internacional Feminista: https://www.internacionalfeminista.com/#publicaciones-publications
· Chatham House, Feminist Foreign Policy Needs Upgrade: https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2022-10/feminist-foreign-policy-needs-upgrade
In this Fletcher Forum podcast episode our staff editor, Hasan Towhid interviews Rear Admiral Md. Khurshid Alam (Retd) has served as the President of the International Seabed Authority Council and represented many other illustrious offices. They talk about peace and maritime security issues in the Indo-Pacific while exploring the broader universe of armed conflict at sea.
The 27th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - COP27 - is the world's most important conference on climate. The episode explores how diversity and inclusion look at COP. What challenges exist? What has been done? And what can be better for making it a space with diverse voices and representation? The speakers for this episode were: Eda Kosma. She is the Public Authorities, States, and Regions Fellow at the CDP, a global non-profit that runs the world's environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states, and regions. Lily Hartzel. Editor and Chief of The Fletcher Forum, today's sponsor for this episode. Additionally, she interned for the US Department of Treasury Office of International Affairs Office Climate & Environment during the summer. Vanessa Daza. She has vast experience in Environmental Justice in Latin America and Feminist Sustainable Development. Currently, she is pursuing her SJD at Harvard Law school.
In this first Fletcher Forum Fireside Chat, Dr. Jonathan Donner and Dr. Pramod Varma talk about an open protocol approach to counter bigtech monopoly in digital commerce towards making it more inclusive for micro-enterprises. Dr. Varma elaborates on India’s journey so far in democratizing access to public services through open technology, and the more recent efforts to demonopolize digital commerce.
Dr. Jonathan Donner is a Visiting Faculty Fellow at The Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and also, Senior Director for Research, Caribou Digital, a research consultancy focused on building inclusive digital economies
Dr. Pramod Varma was the Chief Architect of Aadhar (India's population scale unique biometric identity program), and many things India Stack. He’s currently the Chief Technical Officer at Ekstep Foundation and the Co-Creator of the Beckn Protocol.
In this first Fletcher Forum Fireside Chat, Dr. Jonathan Donner and Dr. Pramod Varma talk about an open protocol approach to counter bigtech monopoly in digital commerce towards making it more inclusive for micro-enterprises. Dr. Varma elaborates on India’s journey so far in democratizing access to public services through open technology, and the more recent efforts to demonopolize digital commerce.
Dr. Jonathan Donner is a Visiting Faculty Fellow at The Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and also, Senior Director for Research, Caribou Digital, a research consultancy focused on building inclusive digital economies
Dr. Pramod Varma was the Chief Architect of Aadhar (India's population scale unique biometric identity program), and many things India Stack. He’s currently the Chief Technical Officer at Ekstep Foundation and the Co-Creator of the Beckn Protocol.
In this episode, Princess Anene-Maidoh speaks with two Colombian feminist activists Laura Vasquez and Valeria Surc who are part of a feminist network in Bogota called Somos Un Rostro Colectivo (We are a collective face). They discuss the causes the group advocates for, their organizing tactics, and the methods they use in dealing with opposition.
This week’s interviewees: Laura Vasquez and Valeria Surc Laura Vasquez is an anthropologist with a master's degree in Migration. As an activist, she is part of the national campaign for legal abortion and also participates in the feminist collective La creciente feminista. She's been involved in Somos un rostro colectivo (We are a collective face) a network for feminist activists in Bogotá, since its creation in 2019.
You can find Somos Un Rostro Colective on Instagram @somosunrostrocolectivo
This episode was produced, presented, and edited by Princess Anene-Maidoh with cover art by Jomely Breton.
Opening music: Paradise Island by Muzaproduction
Link: https://pixabay.com/music/island-paradise-island-96456/
In this episode, the Disobedience podcast dives into the Invasion Day protests in Australia. We discuss the role that indigenous women play in the fight for liberation and the power of representation in the media. This episode's interviewee: Chelsea Watego Chelsea Watego (formerly Bond) is a Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman with over 20 years of experience working within Indigenous health as a health worker and researcher. Chelsea’s work has drawn attention to the role of race in the production of health inequalities. Her forthcoming book Another Day in the Colony, was published by UQ Press in November 2021 and has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (in two categories) and longlisted for The Stella Prize. This episode was produced, presented, and edited by Princess Anene-Maidoh with cover art by Jomely Breton.
In this episode, the Disobedience podcast in collaboration with the Fletcher Forum podcast explores the Egba women’s revolt - a feminist anti-colonial movement that took place in the late 1940s in Abeokuta, a town in southwest Nigeria. We discuss the various tactics used by the women in protesting the British colonial government as well as the erasure of women’s liberation movements in Nigeria. This week’s interviewee: Lanaire Aderemi
Lanaire Aderemi is a poet, playwright and PhD researcher committed to amplifying and archiving untold stories. Her work on memory has appeared in the Republic, Warwick Arts Centre, Tate Modern, BBC and Lolwe. She can be found on lanaireaderemi.co
This episode was produced, presented, and edited by Princess Anene-Maidoh with cover art by Jomely Breton.
Opening music: The rhythm of Africa by Zakhar Valaha
As the war in Ukraine approaches its fourth week, many Western commentators are still wondering why Russian President Vladimir Putin chose a full-scale invasion, and why now. In this podcast, Kiana Nedele sits down with Professor Christopher Miller, head of the Fletcher School’s Russia/Eurasia Program, to work through these questions and more. Professor Miller brings his years of experience working with Russians on Russian issues to share critical insights about the role of the U.S. and NATO, Putin's headspace, and the uses and limits of political theory.
Bangladesh currently hosts around 1.1 million Rohingya Muslim Minorities from Myanmar. The Rohingya people have faced decades of systematic discrimination, statelessness, and targeted violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Such persecution forced them to come to Bangladesh for many years, particularly in August 2017.
In this episode, H. E. Ambassador Ms. Rabab Fatima, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations in New York is interviewed by our Staff Editor, Md. Hasan Abdullah Towhid about the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh. Ambassador Fatima discusses the history of the Rohingya Crisis, the current situation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps and a potential security threat to the region, relocation of Rohingya Refugees to ‘Bhasan Chor’ island, and possible solutions to their repatriation. The ongoing case against Myanmar at ICJ and UNGA & UNSC resolutions; and deliberations of the International community for a sustainable solution of Rohingya crisis are also discussed.
COVID19 was a crisis that blurred the boundaries between state control and civil liberties. Technology solutions played a vital role in curbing the spread like contact tracing apps, telemedicine, vaccine scheduling and digital vaccination certificates. But it came with a lot of potential caveats like privacy invasions, state surveillance, and digital divide. In this first episode, our host Sarthak Satapathy talks about contact tracing apps from the lens of privacy, equity, and efficacy with cybersecurity expert, Dr. Susan Landau.
Zubair Torwali is a community activist, linguist and educator based in Bahrain, Pakistan who has sought to preserve and promote Pakistan's Dardic cultures and languages. He has authored and supervised a number of books in and about Torwali. In this episode, he speaks with Elizabeth Dykstra-McCarthy about hydropower development in the Swat valley, its impact on the indigenous Torwali people and how the local community have responded to it.
Jonathan Regnier interviews Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church and Diana Chigas, the co-directors of Corruption Justice and Legitimacy Program (CJL) to discuss why anti-corruption programming needs to engage with social norms and what CJL is currently doing to shift social norms from the periphery to a central component of corruption analysis and anti-corruption strategy.
Dr. Courtney J. Fung is an assistant professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong, and holds a PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School where she was awarded the Peter Ackerman Dissertation Prize for her doctoral thesis. In this podcast, we discuss her latest book, China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status, where she explains the effects of status on China's varied response to intervention and foreign-imposed regime change at the United Nations.
As a Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting, Paul Magill is an expert in growth strategy, marketing, and digital transformation. He recently came by Fletcher to discuss their latest research on organic growth and discuss the implications -- for companies, as well as for individuals planning their future careers. Listen to learn about these findings!
Following his talk at Fletcher, Sam Dagher spoke with Elizabeth Dykstra McCarthy to dive deeper into his book, "Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria." The discussion covers the makings of the Assad family as well as their intrigues and their inner workings. Dagher was a senior correspondent focused on Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and has worked in the Middle East for more than 12 years.
Want to know what Fletcher’s new Dean thinks about the school’s future? Well, listen to her in-depth and wide-ranging conversation with Shawn Ghuman exploring her vision for this important institution. In this podcast, you’ll hear why she decided to make Fletcher a part of her career story and what changes she hopes to bring to the school in the coming years.
The Fletcher Forum's Shawn Ghuman sat down with Carla Martinez and Ellysse Dick to discuss the Edward R. Murrow Center’s first annual conference on new media and democracy, "The Future of Democracy in the Age of Disinformation: Innovating Policy Solutions for a Networked World." The upcoming event will explore the shifting landscape of public diplomacy, cybersecurity and civic engagement in the digital age, from potential private sector solutions to disinformation to online threats overshadowing democracies around the world.
Shawn Ghuman sat down with Kaiser Kuo, Co-Founder of the Sinica Podcast, Editor-at-Large of SupChina, and was a founder of China’s first heavy metal band, Tang Dynasty, during his time in town for a panel on “The Digital Silk Road: Spreading the Chinese Internet Control Model.” In this podcast, we discuss with Kaiser how he went from being a rock musician to being a preeminent pundit on U.S.-China relations and his thoughts on key issues related to China as a hegemonic power in the 21stcentury.
On March 13, 2019, Mr. Brett Bruen spoke at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy on his theory of “counter-crisis management,” which he uses in his work as President of the Global Situation Room to identify vulnerabilities and develop reputational countermeasures for organizations operating in crisis-affected parts of the world. His interview was conducted by Samantha Chen, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.
FF: You served as the Director of Global Engagement at the White House under President Obama. Could you tell us about that experience, and some of the most impactful moments or lessons that informed your decision to found the Global Situation Room?
BB: It was a more hopeful time. We were looking for ways to deepen our engagement with the world, whether it was engaging with the next generation of young leaders, sparking entrepreneurial opportunities, or looking to expand international education. We believe that it was an investment in a future that would pay dividends for American influence and prosperity. Interestingly, many of those programs continue. Ivanka Trump went to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and Secretary Pompeo was hosting an event at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kansas. It’s encouraging to see those programs continue, even if they may have been reduced and the policy of the current administration has redirected to a more isolationist focus. These programs will allow us to keep, and perhaps even to cultivate, ties that will be important in a post-Trump world.
Founding the Global Situation Room came about because I was spending so much time with entrepreneurs that I think I got infected with the entrepreneurial spirit. I think that applying the tactics and tradecraft of diplomacy to helping companies and organizations navigate the complexity of today’s world is a comparative advantage, because there aren’t enough firms that provide a global skillset that can help companies seamlessly move around the world and navigate any ensuing risks. You see a lot of companies that focus on different countries, but they don’t connect that work and provide a comparative offering that can help companies to really understand how these pieces fit together.
We are especially focusing on the risk and crisis management work. I don’t think that the tools of crisis management have kept up: they are designed for an era where we had more time, when we had the luxury of working on one problem at a time. Today, companies have to be able to get out and engage, rather than hide under the desk and wait for the storm to pass. We’re focused on helping them do that.
FF: Can you talk a little bit more about what counter-crisis management theory is and what was the impetus behind developing this theory? How did it impact your work at the White House?
BB: When I got to the White House, we faced a series of crises around the world, and I had just come from working in the field. I spent the first decade-plus of my career working in countries in crisis and conflict. To come into the White House and not see the kind of capabilities to respond to these crises surprised me, and I began thinking about how we could develop better tools to be more prepared.
When I transitioned to the private sector, I was surprised to see that it was even further behind than the government. I worked to take the skills and strategies that we were refining at the White House and apply them to the kinds of risks that companies were facing. In a number of cases, it has been remarkable to see the results that we’ve been able to deliver by helping companies more clearly identify issues, and earlier. Thinking about the tools they need, we can divide them into two groups. One is infrastructure, or the kinds of materials and capabilities can you prepare ahead of time. These could range from creating partnerships with key organizations, to developing the story of your organization and the importance of the work and the people that contribute to it, all the way to thinking about how you generate reservoirs of goodwill with strategic groups that are going to allow you to have the forgivability not only to survive, but to thrive in crisis. The other is the idea that you could build a countermeasure—a program that would be deployed around a crisis to not only allow your company to survive that tough time, but to seize the next opportunity into which you’re looking to transition.
FF: Adding onto your idea about forgivability, do you think there’s a limit to the amount of forgivability that an organization or country can have?
BB: Forgivability is very easy to talk about, but it can be very hard to develop. It requires companies or countries to be willing to confront not only what is positive, but also what could be problematic. But, we’ve seen numerous cases, whether it’s Apple or Airbnb, where companies have managed to stockpile so much forgivability that they have been able to survive threats that would have debilitated, if not destroyed, other companies. It’s not something that you can have too much of. Just like some companies try to figure out how to gain more market share, companies should also consider how to conquer more of the forgiveness market in a way that will give them a comparative advantage.
FF: Do you think there are differences in responding to longer-term crises, such as the one in Yemen, versus responding to immediate crises, such as the one in Venezuela?
BB: In both cases, there is a need to respond earlier, which opens up more options. For crises that have dragged on for an extended period of time, it becomes more difficult to engage in the process of evolution because things have become so deeply entrenched. What I would say is that it is never too late. Even in a situation like Yemen, it becomes more important for us to find a way to reframe this issue and to find the future, because people are so focused on the problems of the moment. You’re ideally looking to introduce a new frame that allows people to see the possibilities of the future.
If we stay stuck on this dynamic of what has been the lens of looking at this problem that’s existed for so long, we’re never going to resolve this crisis or get countries to the stage where they’ve moved beyond the danger zone. Often, an international solution is imposed or comes in, and it is really just putting a Band-Aid on a much deeper problem. If we can focus not just on conflict resolution but also on the creation of real progress, prosperity, and new possibilities, that’s much more sustainable.
FF: How do you think the United States can more effectively respond to the threat from information campaigns, such as those coming from Russia and other countries? And how can the United States better take advantage of strategic communications to compete?
BB: First, I would say that the U.S. government is not doing nearly enough to track threats. We do not have any centralized capability to follow them, whether it’s Russia, Iran, China, or non-state actors, and what they’re doing in this space. We need to develop that capability. We need to encourage other countries to develop that capability and then centralize the monitoring. We know that the Russians will start a pilot project in the Balkans or in other parts of Eastern Europe, such as the Baltics, and then they migrate across Western Europe and then come here to the United States.
The second thing we ought to do is create more defensive capabilities. We’re entering the 2020 elections—if a congressional campaign or a presidential campaign notices a concerning series of social media posts or activist activities on the ground, who are they supposed to call? They can call the FBI, but the FBI is not going to be able to go to Moscow and break up that cell. We have to create resources within the government to support both candidates, as well as companies and other organizations. The last, and I think the most controversial, of my ideas, is that we create offensive capabilities that would serve as deterrents to tell Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran that, if you engage in this kind of information warfare, we will respond in kind. Not necessarily with propaganda, but perhaps with transparency initiations or public information campaigns that make clearer to their people the nature of their regime and the kinds of illicit activities with which they’re involved. A lot of these governments that are engaged in this kind of behaviors are actually pretty vulnerable to public exposure and it’s a tool that we should use more often.
FF: What advice would you give to Fletcher students who are interested in pursuing careers in crisis response or strategic communications?
BB: Sadly, this is an industry that will continue to grow, and students should be thinking about how they can help companies, organizations, and governments to be better prepared for the regularity of risk. One of the recommendations I had for students earlier was to develop a solution, a counter-measure, for one of the problems that a future employer is likely to face. So, when you go in for an interview, you can propose a solution to a problem about which they are worried. It will demonstrate the kind of thinking that a lot of companies and organizations are looking for these days. There are many people who are able to talk about what worked in the past. There are fewer who are coming in with new ideas and with capabilities that enable companies to be much more proactive and agile with these risks.
Image: Charge de Police
Courtesy of Sylvain Szewczyk / Flickr
Brett Bruen is the founder and president of the Global Situation Room, a consulting firm built on the experience of former American ambassadors and senior government officials that provides a range of international public affairs services. A specialist in using strategic communications to influence the course of crisis and conflict, Mr. Bruen created some of the government’s most innovative international programs for reaching new audiences around the world.
Mr. Bruen is a former U.S. Diplomat who served as Director of Global Engagement at the White House. As a diplomat, he served in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Guinea, Iraq, Venezuela, Argentina, Zambia, and Eritrea. He serves as an adjunct faculty member of the Federal Executive Institute, where he trains senior U.S. Government leaders on strategy and world affairs.
On November 14, 2018, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Mr. Clint Watts gave a talk at The Fletcher School on the social media influences of the Kremlin. This interview was conducted by Markian Kuzmowycz, Senior Web Editor at The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.
FF: Let’s start with some of your counterterrorism work. What has your experience researching al-Qaeda and ISIS taught you about the changing landscape of cross-border terrorism?
CW: The globalization of information and the media not only makes extremism spread more robustly but also more quickly, and while some ideas—as crazy or violent they might seem—may be off-putting to certain audiences yet appeal to another. It can change dynamically in months or years. I think that's the lesson of the Arab Spring in the Syrian conflict or in the rise and fall of ISIS. These groups form quicker, and they may be larger or more violent than they used to be but they can also fall away very quickly.
What we want to know in terms of international terrorism is whether the group is rising or falling. To figure this out, just look at the foreign fighters. If you're not recruiting foreign fighters you're a little insurgent group. And if you are recruiting international foreign fighters, then you’re accelerating and moving forward. This can change from one generation to another and from one fight to another.
FF: So, if an organization is in that growth phase and recruiting foreign fighters, it becomes much more of an international challenge for the FBI and other agencies to coordinate, correct?
CW: Yeah, and you need to be tracking the fluidity between groups of human manpower to understand where the dynamics are going. So, you'll always see there are some researchers that will say that a terrorist group is on the rise or is staging a comeback. You could go look right now and someone’s written an article about al-Qaeda’s comeback every year, but you can’t come back fifteen years in a row. That’s kind of silly.
The important thing is that ideas don’t die, but they wane or grow at different points based on pace and momentum. If foreign battlefields open up or if there’s repression from the government, then that’s an opportunity for extremist groups to grow. However, the presence of social media can accelerate this growth even more so than older kinds of media—like a movie—where it might take months to reach countries around the world.
So I think that's the thing that I'm always looking for: where people are going now.
FF: You led some really interesting social media efforts to undermine terrorist groups like Al-Shabab and ISIS, which you spoke about in your book. Have you employed any of these tactics to counter extremist threats like the alt-right or white supremacist groups within the United States?
CW: Mostly just with friends on Facebook, to be honest with you. So no, not on a largescale. Itry to talk one-on-one with those I disagree with, but not in a deliberative sort of way. The natural way to do that would be politics, but political campaigns loathe that sort of thinking, though maybe they won’t in 2020 — who knows? But when I talk to people about how to fight for a real value system, they get real squirmy. They want to do, like, cool Barack Obama bids. I’m like, ok, if you want to lose you can keep going that route, but you’re playing from behind. Your opponent is playing in a different game.
There are ways that you can take on a more sophisticated approach to influencing people without lying. You’re seeing it happen naturally, with things like the NowThis videos that are popular on social media. They are highly effective and all focused on policy. They go viral because they’re packaged right and they contain a real message. I think Beto O’Rouke’s campaign was very interesting. People are dying for anybody to be interesting in the political scene. They could benefit from this momentum, but ultimately they always seem to regress to the mean to play it safe.
FF: Do you think there are any kind of efforts that you've seen within the government to use any of your kind of tactics to deal with domestic extremism?
CW: Not with domestic extremism, but we did have some successes with international extremism. I’m extra hard on the government in the book out of frustration, but there were good efforts. However, a complicating factor here is the fact that declaring a group as domestic extremists just shuts a conversation down. There’s the mentality in our country — who are you to say what I think is wrong? International terrorism is doable because everyone hates ISIS and al-Qaeda. Not everyone hates domestic extremists. Their views often times receive a lot of sympathy in the US, so politicians struggle to amass a wide appeal around any of those issues. Every case is treated as a one-off, as if they’re disconnected when they’re often not.
FF: Pivoting now to Russia, one unfortunate effect of everything that's happened with Russia in the last few years is that we seem to have created a bit of a boogeyman. We now look for Russian influence in anything online or in unfavorable news. Do you think we overstate Russian capabilities, or is it more a fact that Russia just holds a mirror up to us and shows us who we really are, and lets us do all the damage?
CW: I'll tell you, the latter is their explanation. Awareness was not there in 2016. No one really was paying attention to it. Even less so in 2015 and 2014. So it took a long time for the US to react to it. Then we do the typical US thing, where we react to it to the point where we freak out about it. Bizarrely, we really didn't do much of anything about it.
You know in this circle, we haven't really changed a whole lot. The other part is Russia has simply been outpaced by others at this point. I mean, what could Russia have said in 2018 that some American politician was not already saying? I mean they literally could not have made up more crazy conspiracies than a migrant caravan coming to the US and that we're going to deploy the US military.
I mean they probably would have loved to have done that, and looking at it afar they’re just doing it for us, right? I'm sure Russia is like, there is so much political dissent going on in the US that we’ll just leave it and amplify it. We'll push it where we can and other than that we don’t have to do much. I can't imagine what Russia could have said in 2018 that was more conspiratorial than what was already being said.
FF: Yes, and I think it speaks a little bit to what you said earlier today — that the social media landscape reflects less of a technological problem and more of a human problem. So, are there human solutions?
CW: Yeah, I’d want an information rating system with labels so you rate information over time and you get a rating every year. The composite is fact versus fiction publishing and reporting versus opinion, and you would let the user know what they’re consuming. Nutritionally labeled information is essential and then it can get re-rated in a year. But it’s on the consumer to decide what they want to consume. If you tell them they’re reading junk food, and that they’re getting mind fat from it, then that’s on them. But it also gives bearing to people in the middle to sort of police the fringes. They don’t really have anything to go to right now. So, the sooner a system like this is in place, the better. This would help the public sort of reset its role in informed consumption.
FF: Who do you think could operationalize that?
CW: It has to be an independent rating system. I’d call it “information consumer reports”. Consumer reports did this around product safety, so it has some precedent. I think it should be funded by the social media companies collectively and then they all offer the ratings to their users.
FF: In your book, you’ve talked about why people fall for disinformation. Beyond these incentives, what do you think are some of the deeper things that are going on here? Why do people want to believe these things?
CW: It’s an excessive amount of choice. We have to choose our entire world, down to just about anything to make you feel comfortable. And people will do that if they have the option, and it’s very hard to push them away from that. It’s asking somebody to put themselves in a position of discomfort and to deal with something that they wouldn’t otherwise have to. If they’ve got friends that make them feel badly, they can just block them, right? You can just shut them out forever if you want to. You have these options now, where you didn’t have them before.
If you look back in the early ages, and consider why we have democracy and social capital, it is to survive and to fulfill a basic hierarchy of needs. “I want to continue to farm, but I won’t talk to anybody who I disagree with.” Well, good luck — you’re not going to last.
For example, labor unions were created because workers were getting taken to the cleaners by their boss and they wanted rights. There was a collective belief that you were being treated badly at work, which led people of different ethnic groups or religious beliefs to come together to demand workplace rights. You don't have to do that anymore. With social media platforms, you can tailor your whole life and cocoon yourself. That sort of individual preference is throwing people off, and it hurts the collective in a way that we haven’t really learned how to handle yet.
FF: Yeah, that’s sort of part of that social media nationalism that you talk about.
CW: Yeah — that you identify with something that’s half real and half false, or, not false, but in your own imagination. That’s really my biggest fear going forward for the youngest generation. That they’re going to fall more in love with their virtual reality than the actual reality, and their nature of allegiances will change. Why should you be loyal to your fellow citizen if you don’t have to talk to them? If you’re spending hours upon hours on social media or your phone, then who cares about everyone else?
I always tell younger audiences — you won’t be overtaken by the Matrix, you will enlist in it. You will yearn for it, because it will be way better than anything that happens in your real life.
FF: Do you cringe a little when you hear people talk about the solution being maybe like cyber information literacy needing to be taught?
CW: No, I think evaluating information sources, regardless of medium, is good. That’s one of the first classes they teach you in intelligence analysis in government, ironically. It’s nothing classified. It’s asking: What is the motive? What is the competency? What’s the source saying? All that stuff is laid out, and I think it’s a useful tool for everybody.
So that would be good. I don’t think more fact-checking is going to get you very far — that’s a real marginal effort. How much extra effort would it take for the New York Times to be even better at fact checking? It probably wouldn’t make a difference for readers. It’s already the best. So where you can make big differences is in helping people understand the consequences of their physical reality. So things like national service are important because these really create social capital. Not just the military, but also programs like Peace Corps or Teach for America. School is another important place where people come together. Where you’re seeing the social media nationalism play out is in places where people have always lived in one spot and have never left. They have the same friends and move around the same circles in real life that they have on social media. In this situation, it’s very easy to fall into this alternative reality where a “caravan” is marching on Mexico and is threatening our country.
FF: Just as a slight pivot — I’m a Ukrainian American myself. It’s interesting that a lot read happening here in the US has actually already been tested. Are there any other environments that we are looking at to see the evolving battleground, or to see what could be next?
CW: Yeah, I mean Ukraine was ground zero for the cyber informants’ convergence and the emergence of a new kind of warfare. It was a hybrid war.
I think China is where everybody should look for another aspect. There’s is a totally different way of doing disinformation. Those would be the two: Ukraine and China.
FF: I heard an interview of yours where you talked about how you only have five minutes to give a testimony to Congress and how you really needed to make sure that you hit the high notes and elucidated the threats that were in front of us. How can we be frank about the threats without it being politicized, depending on who is in power at that moment or who may stand to gain from any election interference of problem of that sort.
CW: It’s always going to be politicized to a degree, but ultimately we can elect leaders that are going to push that stuff aside, and that will really be decided in the next year by this new Congress. If the Democratic House just does what the Republican House just did, then it doesn’t work—the problem is reinforced. People have to put country over party and come to an agreement that they're not going to put up with this nonsense anymore. We all know that election machines should be secure. So why don't we pass this act which everyone agrees on? Honest Ads Act is another one. Why didn’t we pass it? It's just very, very basic. So, we'll see. If that doesn't play out, it’s super confounding.
What happens on Capitol Hill? Nothing. It’s a constant soap opera about nothing. It’s Seinfeld without the jokes. It’s just C-SPAN running and they’re all showboating or all racing to go get on the cable news channel. Congress as an institution is constantly devaluing itself and the system because they don't perform any of their functions. I mean, ultimately the public will react to that in a certain way but it will take some impetus.
FF: Was it discouraging as an expert in the field to testify before them?
CW: You know, I was more discouraged before I testified before the Senate Intel Committee than afterwards. I thought that they were very professional and bipartisan. There were only two senators that I thought were kind of out there to score points. It was good. I thought the committee functioned pretty well, and they were working with each other, but they’re a microcosm on that hill. They’re one of the least political committees, and they know more. They have classified briefings, so they’re on the inside of a lot of things.
FF: At the very end of your book, you have a beautiful summary of who you are and what you’re looking for from the American people to restore what’s been lost. Is there anything that gives you hope in the last few months or so?
CW: We had an amazing turnout for our midterm election—that’s great. There was a 50% increase in youth turnout, which was amazing. More activism in the last two years than maybe ever. I don’t know that even during the civil rights movement that this many people turned out. We have marches for all sorts of issues, that’s great. They’re not about people, they’re issue-based marches. I think that stuff is good.
My fears are a little bit different now, and that is Americans taking on disinformation now to win in politics, and how it can unfold in the 2020 run up.
Image: 171003-D-SW162-1216
Courtesy of the Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff / Flickr
Clint Watts is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University. His research predominately focuses on terrorism forecasting and trends seeking to anticipate emerging extremist hotspots and anticipate appropriate counterterrorism responses. More recently, Clint used modeling to outline Russian influence operations via social media and the Kremlin’s return to Active Measures.
Before becoming a consultant, Mr. Watts served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC) and as a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB). Mr. Watts earned a B.S. from the United States Military Academy and an M.A. from Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Senior Web Editor for the Fletcher Forum Markian Kuzmowycz has a conversation with Meredith Sumpter, Research, Strategy, and Operations Head at Eurasia Group and Zoltan Feher, co-chair of the Fletcher Political Risk Group. Sumpter was the keynote speaker at the Fletcher Political Risk Conference in March 2019, discussing the changes in political power dynamics. Her experience of fifteen years has made her a leading strategic thinker in the fields of foreign policy and global business.
FF: You have served as an election observer in Ukraine in the 2004 presidential election that failed to meet various international standards of free and democratic elections. You were also an election observer during the first round of the recent presidential race in Ukraine in March 2019, which was assessed as competitive and free by the OSCE mission. In your opinion, what factors contributed to the increase in transparency of the Ukrainian elections over the years?
OD: Believe it or not, I have actually observed virtually every election in Ukraine since the 1990s. What I've seen is elections have generally improved, but frankly, none of them have been blatantly unfree and unfair, except for the first and second rounds of the presidential election in 2004, which actually led to the Orange Revolution. Besides those, all of them have to one extent or another been competitive and met at least partially international democratic standards. Now, some have been better and some have been worse. For example, the first round of these elections was among the best, if not the best that I have seen. It was free and competitive, which is something you certainly do not see in Russia, or Belarus, or many other post-Soviet countries. And whether one likes the results or not, these elections basically reflect the will of the people.
I think the post-Euromaidan civil society played a role in increasing the transparency of Ukrainian elections. That’s not to say that civil society didn't exist before the Euromaidan Revolution—it did, but only really flourished after the events of 2013-2014. Today you have civil society groups and domestic observers, like OPORA and others, who monitor the electoral process and even work with the government to help improve elections, so it has been a part of a broader trend, although there is still definitely room for improvement.
FF: Voter turnout in the first round of the 2019 Ukrainian presidential race was nearly 64%. Have you noticed any major differences in the demographics of the voters in 2019 when compared to other elections you have observed, specifically with regard to age?
OD: I do not know what the actual turnout in terms of age was. Overall older people tend to vote more, and I believe that was the case in this election too. However, from what I understand, younger people did come out to vote this time around and apparently, if I am not mistaken, more of them tended to vote for [presidential candidate Volodymyr] Zelenskiy. In the Mykolaiv region where I observed, there was a pretty good demographic balance if you will. There were just as many older people voting as there were younger people. But these are just my observations, and I certainly do not want to generalize.
FF: How would you describe the Ukrainian public’s moods and attitudes on the election day?
OD: The voting process was very calm, peaceful, and relatively stress free but obviously there is a lot of frustration in the country because otherwise Zelenskiy would not have done as well as he did. Frustration with the current administration and with President Petro Poroshenko more specifically is, in my view, not completely justified. Poroshenko is not without his shortcomings, especially in terms of the ability to battle corruption in the country. However, I would argue that he has been the best independent president for Ukraine. Frankly, I think if he would have done more on the anti-corruption front, he would have done much better and been in a much stronger position. So clearly, people are frustrated but I really did not see that manifested in my observations or from what I heard from talking with my colleagues.
FF: Let’s focus a little bit on the candidates this year: incumbent President Poroshenko and TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In the first round of the 2019 election, Zelenskiy received about 30% of the vote, followed by Poroshenko with about 16%. What, in your opinion, should the international community expect from the run-off on April 21? Can Poroshenko get ahead of Zelenskiy?
OD: I would frankly be very surprised if Poroshenko were able to get ahead of Zelenskiy, but you cannot rule anything out. However, even looking at current poll numbers, it does not look good for the President. If you look further at the data of regional breakdown of the votes and related trends, those people who voted for candidates other than Poroshenko and Zelenskiy are more likely to support Zelenskiy rather than Poroshenko in the run-off election on April 21. Perhaps, if there is a much-contested debate and Poroshenko really delivers a stellar performance, then that may make a difference.
As for the international community, most people in Washington, D.C., would prefer Poroshenko for he has done a very good job on foreign policy. Despite its problems militarily over the last five years, he has strengthened Ukraine, prevented Russia from making further incursions, and implemented some reforms. Poroshenko is respected by foreign leaders, but having said that, there is still a long way to go and a lot of room for improvement.
However, the way it works is the United States will respect the will of the people and if Zelenskiy is elected president, the U.S. will work with him as much as possible. These elections showed Ukraine's commitment to democracy and that is very important. No matter the results. It means Ukraine is moving in the Western democratic direction and not in in the direction of Russian autocracy.
FF: How do you assess the Ukrainian people’s understanding of Zelenskiy’s platform? Was this purely a protest vote?
OD: I think that is exactly right. Zelenskiy is a big unknown, a big gamble, and that is another reason why there is a bit of a caution about him in the West because he is to some extent a tabula rasa. He has certainly said some things here and there, but there is no concrete policy platform, yet it doesn’t really matter. The Ukrainian people signified that they are fed up and see Poroshenko as a part of the problem. They perceive Poroshenko as being a part of the old corrupt Ukraine, rather than the new Ukraine, where the rule of law is respected. People also especially have more expectations after the Euromaidan protests, and not all of those hopes have come to fruition. I am convinced that if Poroshenko would have moved more on the anti-corruption front in terms of strengthening the newly formed anti-corruption institutions, and if he would have been more resolute on an independent judiciary, he would not have been in his current situation.
FF: Has there been any fear in Ukraine or any indication of potential election meddling?
OD: There was a lot of fear beforehand and in the first round. Russian propaganda against Ukraine was certainly relentless, but that has been going on for a while, not only during the election cycle. The Russians were mocking the elections coming up with all sorts of fake news about all sorts of violations, and either exaggerating or telling outright falsehoods about our electoral process. However, it appears that they did not actually hack into anything, unlike in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. Also, with the West’s help, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine had established all sorts of systems to prevent election interference.
FF: Turning to your experience as a Former Policy Advisor for Belarus, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine at the U.S. Helsinki Commission, how do you think that potential change in Ukraine’s leadership will change U.S. foreign policy towards Ukraine?
OD: That is a good question. I think the United States is about policies and principles. So, they will keep supporting Ukraine and encouraging it to move in the right direction of being a democratic, strong, secure, and independent country. The United States is not going to abandon Ukraine, especially given Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine, with the annexation of Crimea and the proxy war in parts of the Donbas. They are probably going to try to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty as much as possible, and help try to come up with a reasonable resolution to this war by continuing to provide assistance to Ukraine whether socially, economically, or militarily. However, the enthusiasm of this support may change if Ukraine finds itself under a new leadership—one that might see the country stop moving in the right direction in terms of democracy, anti-corruption, and rule of law.
Image: Debates of Presidential Candidates on April 14, 2019
Courtesy of spoilt.exile / Flickr
Orest Deychakiwsky worked at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), an independent U.S. government agency, from November 1981 to May 2017. His country responsibilities throughout most of his tenure included Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria. Other country responsibilities, for shorter durations, included Romania, Moldova, Hungary. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he served as casework supervisor, overseeing Soviet and Romanian emigration and family reunification cases and worked on Soviet political prisoner and other human rights issues. For many years, at varying times, he also held the positions of Intern Coordinator, NGO liaison, and Security Officer.
Orest has observed nearly three dozen elections in nine countries, mostly as a member of U.S. delegations to OSCE Parliamentary Assembly international election observation missions. He took the lead or assisted in the drafting of Congressional bills, resolutions, speeches and authored many Helsinki Commission and other publications.
Currently, Orest is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation and a Senior Advisor at the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council. He is Co-Chair of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN) Democracy and Civil Society Task Force. He writes a periodic column called “Focus on Washington” for The Ukrainian Weekly.
Orest is the recipient of Ukraine’s State Order of Merit III Degree and several awards from the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and Embassy of Ukraine to the United States, and an award from the Government of Bulgaria. He is also the recipient of various awards for his work from several organizations dealing with Ukraine and U.S-Ukraine relations, as well as from the Belarusian-American diaspora.
Orest’s education earned him a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. from Georgetown University in Government and International Relations. He speaks fluent Ukrainian and has a good working knowledge of Belarusian and Russian.
On February 28, 2019, Karen Donfried of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) spoke at The Fletcher School on the state of US-European relations in the age of the Trump presidency. This interview was conducted by Dan Scaduto and Nick Brown, Web Staff Editors with The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.
FF: Could you briefly share your background, what your role at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) is, and what your strategic vision is for the organization moving forward?
KD: I am a proud Fletcher grad! I did my MALD and PhD at Fletcher, then went on to work at the Congressional Research Service. I started out working on Capitol Hill as a European analyst, then went from there to GMF (the first time around). I was at GMF for two years before heading to the State Department to cover Europe on the policy planning staff for about two years. I returned to GMF and ultimately served as the #2 at GMF until I left to go into the Obama Administration. My last job there was on the National Security Council as the Senior Director for Europe. I now have the great privilege of leading GMF.
GMF is a transatlantic organization that focuses on how we can strengthen cooperation between the United States and Europe in the spirit of the Marshall Plan. What do we mean by that? We mean in the spirit of this liberal international order based on democracy, free market economy, rule of law, and the rights of the individual. This is a tumultuous time to be working on transatlantic relations. We do this work from our headquarters in Washington and our seven offices across Europe (half of my staff is European), namely, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Warsaw, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Ankara.
Our mix of programs is unusual. First, our oldest program focuses on leadership development. The crown jewel of that program is the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, which brings young, professional Europeans to the U.S. and sends young, professional Americans to Europe. Our selection committees have done an excellent job – our alumni even include Emmanuel Macron! Second, we support civil society in the Balkans and the Black Sea region; we believe a key part of democracy is having a vibrant civil society that holds government accountable, a concept that was not embraced in these previously communist countries. The third (and probably most well-known) basket of work is our policy work. We boast staff experts on NATO, on the European Union (EU), and on what a rising China means for the U.S. and Europe, who focus on policy-relevant research and analysis in their areas of expertise. Those are the two distinctive parts of GMF: our large geographic footprint plus the nature and mix of work that we do.
FF: This is a very tumultuous time for the transatlantic relationship. On the U.S. side, you have President Trump railing against trade and against NATO. In Europe, you’ve got the rise of populism, Brexit, and the trouble a proud European like Macron is having. Can you touch on how you assess the current state of transatlantic affairs? For example, which problems do you believe to be more deep-rooted and structural and which could be solved in the next few years?
KD: There are clear policy differences between the Trump Administration and many of our European allies on issues such as climate change, defense spending, and the relationship with Iran. There is a long list. I also think that many of the underlying trends that explain the rise of nationalist or authoritarian populism are very similar on both sides of the Atlantic. Our societies are experiencing a backlash from our citizens, who feel that they’ve been on the losing side of globalization. If I look the U.S., I see that Americans are suffering from income inequality and are concerned that their children won’t achieve, let alone surpass, the economic level they have secured. Many Americans are also concerned that their cultural identity is being frittered away by migration. On the other hand, while there are important national differences when you look across Europe, those two elements of economic insecurity and cultural identity are present and help explain the political turmoil that we see across the transatlantic space. I think we’re only going to be positive models for the rest of the world as functioning, liberal democracies if we solve those problems at home and in our own societies.
FF: You previously mentioned that, even within the European Union, there are very deep-seated divides, especially in the political arena. What’s your prognosis as we head toward the European Parliament elections in May? On one side, you have pro-European advocates who champion integration. On the other, you have anti-EU advocates who support returning national sovereignty at the expense of that integration.
KD: There are so many fault lines and divisions in the European Union today. Some of them are geographic – North-South, East-West; others are urban-rural or young-old. Can Europe bridge those divides? You’re absolutely right that we will have a first read on that after the May elections. The last time there were European Parliamentary elections, we saw EU citizens elect a Parliament that had 30% of its seats held by Euroskeptics. It’s really quite striking to think that you would run for the European Parliament for the sole purpose of trying to undermine it. At that time, I remember talking to a senior official in the European Parliament and saying: “You must be so concerned that 30% of the seats are held by Euroskeptics!” In response, he said, “Oh no, Karen. 70% are still held by people who believe in Europe.” We’re going to get an answer to my reply of “What about the trend line?” this May.
In the end, we’ll see what the numbers are, but there’s no question that the skepticism around European integration and the European project is real, it’s growing, and European leaders have to think about how to make the case and demonstrate to their citizens that their quality of life is improving thanks to the existence of the European Union. It can’t be an argument based on nostalgia. While I do believe that European integration is a powerful reason why you haven’t had war again among these countries in Europe, I think that for the current European generation, that’s not compelling. They need to understand why European integration helps them economically, politically, and culturally today. I think there’s a robust case that European leaders can make, but they need to articulate it.
FF: If I could pivot to security cooperation, the recent Munich Security Conference really highlighted the divisions that exist on issues like the Iran Nuclear Deal and how to respond to a rising China in Europe. What are the main fault lines in the security partnership between the US and Europe, with a focus on NATO and the context of President Trump’s criticisms of the Alliance?
KD: What’s been most surprising to our European allies is that they thought they shared a view with the U.S. that alliances are enduring. That’s the power of the collective defense guarantee in the NATO charter. It doesn’t matter if I’m mad at you today; if you’re attacked, I’m there for you. The European view is that they have, in Donald Trump, an American president who sees an alliance as something transactional. That is undermining [NATO] Alliance cohesion because you have certain member states who feel deeply vulnerable because they border Russia and they believe that their security fundamentally depends on a U.S. security guarantee. They don’t want there to be any distance between them and the U.S., but they see that there are a whole set of issues where the gap is widening between U.S. policy and the policy that is being pursued by the European Union, which includes 22 NATO members, on issues like the Iran nuclear deal. It’s putting those vulnerable countries in a difficult position of straddling the divide.
It is a very difficult moment in the transatlantic relationship. You saw those fault lines at the Munich Security Conference in the presentations that were made by the different speakers. That said, you also saw fifty members of the U.S. Congress go to Munich. That is the largest bipartisan Congressional delegation you have ever had attend the Munich conference. That says to me that there is still a deep reservoir of Americans who believe that U.S. interests are well-served by the alliance with Europe. The senators and representatives wanted to make the point that they will continue to be advocates for that alliance.
FF: To pivot to another recent topic of interest, it seems that the idea of technological innovation has come into focus more sharply in Europe than it has in the United States. This week, the GMF launched the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative. Could you tell us a bit about that initiative’s vision and about what opportunities exist in this area for greater transatlantic cooperation?
KD: This is a new program at GMF. I wish I could have started it even more quickly than we did because technology and digitalization are critical issues for the future of the transatlantic relationship. It is the age we have already entered and there are many elements of this debate around technology and digitalization that divide the U.S. and Europe. I was in government at the time of the Snowden disclosures, so I lived the debate over privacy versus security. There is concern in Europe about the big U.S. tech companies. Concern about how you regulate those companies. Therefore, I thought it was critical for GMF to make a contribution to that conversation between Americans and Europeans about how to forge a common policy.
The reason that is so critical is because Americans and Europeans do share the same values around wanting to have an open and free Internet unlike Russia and China. If Americans and Europeans don’t agree on a common way forward that spells trouble for both sides of the Atlantic. The name of the Initiative is also important: the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative. Clearly, digital innovation is something that is incredibly positive, but it can also bring disruptive and even negative elements with it. How do we think about that when we live in democracies? It was that interplay between innovation and democracy which has a uniquely transatlantic flavor to it. That explains why we wanted to launch this Initiative at GMF.
FF: Our penultimate question hinges on the idea that clear leadership in Europe appears absent with Merkel stepping down, Macron – who is a proud integrationist, but is clearly lacking in political capital at the moment— and then Britain, which is obviously leaving the bloc. If there is going to be a resurgence in cohesion, it seems to me that we need a new group of leaders to emerge that advocates for that. I’m wondering: what signs of optimism do you see and where do you see that leadership coming from in the near future?
KD: You’re absolutely right that it feels like there is a lack of leadership in Europe right now. There had been such hope that, after Macron was elected in France and with the German election following shortly after, you might see this renewed Franco-German leadership at the core of the European Union. We now see that hasn’t quite played out the way that we had anticipated for domestic reasons in both of those countries. Now, along with having a European Parliament election in May, we also will see turnover in several European institutions. We’ll have a new President of the European Commission, we’ll have a new President of the European Council, and I think that the immediate hope is that you will see individuals stepping into those two roles who bring with them an inspiring vision of Europe’s future, along with lots of energy to pursue that vision, which can be compelling to European citizens. I think those will be important developments for us to keep our eyes on!
FF: As you mentioned, you were an alum of the MALD and PhD programs here at Fletcher. We were wondering if you could share a bit about your experiences here and how they helped prepare you for your career, along with any advice you’d like to give current Fletcher students.
KD: I obviously have a deep affinity for Fletcher. That’s why I was so delighted when Chris Miller asked me to come back and give a talk. I’ve been back a few times since I left and there are lots of reasons for that affinity. The most important is the people you meet and the relationships you forge. Those are both with other students, but also with professors. To speak to the student side of that dynamic, Fletcher has such a wonderful, international student body. I found that I learned a tremendous amount from my classmates, who came with different experiences from their home countries. My core group of friends in Washington [D.C.] continues to be a group of women that I went to Fletcher with.
On the professorial side, I did a PhD here as well so I was able to forge some really deep ties to a small cohort of professors. Unfortunately, one of them has passed away, but the others are still doing very well and are still teaching. That represents another layer of connection to Fletcher. I always felt that it was a small enough place that you really could get to know your professors well and turn to them not only to help you learn the material you were studying, but also to serve as mentors as you enter the working world. I also feel grateful to Fletcher for the substantive knowledge I gained in the classroom. Part of that is related to the professors for sure, but part of it, too, is that you can study such a rich diversity of topics at Fletcher.
For prospective students, my advice is to be really thoughtful before you begin your studies about what courses you want to take, because your time here goes by very quickly. It was a great opportunity for me to learn about international economics and international law, because those were topics that I had not studied deeply before coming to Fletcher.
My advice for current students (and I say this as someone who now works for a non-profit, but spent a lot my career working in government) is that you may not make a lot of money working in public service, but there are lots of other benefits you will receive from serving in government. I say this because I think that government might not be such an attractive option for students at this moment in time.
It’s so important that, no matter what country you’re from, we have a smart, motivated next generation going into government for the right reason of wanting to make a positive difference. I say that because the issues that you grapple with in government are not partisan issues. They’re not Democratic issues or Republican issues. They’re American issues. To have the smartest set of people wrestling with what the trade-offs are and what the risks are, trying to come up with the best policy recommendations, is a noble endeavor. Please don’t give up on government service. We need you – that next smart generation – to take up the mantle of resp
Image: Frayed Rope and Wooden Dock
Courtesy of Tom Bech / Flickr
Dr. Karen Donfried is president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening transatlantic cooperation through policy analysis, fellowships for next generation leaders, and support for civil society. GMF is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has seven offices in Europe.
Before assuming her current role in April 2014, Dr. Donfried was the special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. In that capacity, she was the president’s principal advisor on Europe and led the interagency process on the development and implementation of the president’s European policies.
Dr. Donfried has a PhD and MALD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Magister from the University of Munich, Germany. She holds a bachelor’s degree in government and German from Wesleyan University. Dr. Donfried is fluent in German.
In this edition of the Fletcher Forum podcast, Matt Weinmann chats with Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, about her new book Peers Inc which describes how our modern, collaborative economy can tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges and change the very nature of capitalism. In this discussion, we learn how excess capacity can transform business and how Peers Inc can spur innovation to new heights. For a quick video on the implications of self driving cars, you can check out Robin's video here.
by Ertan Karpazli
On March 21, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu greeted his Greek counterpart George Katrougalos in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya as they met to turnaround strained ties between the two NATO allies. But while the diplomats may have embraced like two old friends, bubbling under the surface of smiles and handshakes lie two centuries of unresolved disputes.
For Turkey, today’s problems stem from the attitude of the Greek Cypriot government in Cyprus, which enjoys international recognition at the expense of the Turkish Cypriots in the island’s breakaway north. The Greek Cypriots have wasted no time in offering licenses to US, French, Italian, Israeli, South Korean and Qatari energy firms for the exploration and exploitation of newly discovered hydrocarbon reserves around the island. The discoveries in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) declared by the Greek Cypriot government coincide with similar discoveries off the coasts of Israel and Egypt. Such finds have interested European gas importers looking to diversify their supplies away from Russia. Regional players in the Eastern Mediterranean have also initiated joint efforts to work out a route to the European market.
In January, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority formed the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), which envisions an undersea pipeline to Europe. Having already agreed on the demarcation of their respective EEZs, member states effectively locked Turkey out. Using Greece’s easternmost outpost of Kastellorizo, an island just two miles off Turkey’s south-western coast, Athens extended its EEZ into what Ankara claims as Turkey’s continental shelf. Turkey therefore sees the EMGF as an intrusion on its rights.
Nonetheless, a number of experts have already said the EMGF pipeline is nothing more than a pipe dream, and a pipeline through Turkey is the only feasible route to Europe. Turkey, however, has demands. First, Turkey says Turkish Cypriots should be equal partners in deals made over Cyprus’ natural resources, and has countered Greek Cypriot unilateralism with its own drilling off the island. Negotiations to end the frozen conflict in Cyprus collapsed two years ago over Turkey’s insistence in maintaining the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. The treaty granted Turkey, Greece and Britain, the right to intervene to safeguard the bicommunal power balance in Cyprus. It is upon this treaty that Turkey bases its legal argument for its presence in the island’s north since 1974. The treaty is highly unpopular among Greek Cypriots, who reject it as an outdated pact now replaced by EU guarantees. Turkish Cypriots, meanwhile, have long considered the treaty to be non-negotiable.
However, on April 12, Katrougalos and Cavusoglu will meet in Greece to discuss possible alternatives. Before this, Turkey would have abruptly dismissed any suggestion of the treaty’s abrogation. So what changed? Well, economic woes aside, Turkey’s geopolitical aspirations have suffered years of setbacks. The ousting of Mohamed Morsi’s government in Egypt in 2013, the resurgence of the Assad regime in Syria, the rise of PKK-affiliated militants east of the Euphrates, an ongoing diplomatic crisis with Israel, stagnation in its EU accession process, and fall outs with NATO’s big brother the US have left Turkey with few options. Furthermore, the emergence of an anti-Turkish multinational bloc in the Mediterranean risks leaving Turkey regionally isolated. Yes, the EMGF project may be futile, with little chance of the Eastern Mediterranean reserves reaching international markets, but the idea alone is paving the way for EMGF states to boost cooperation in security.
Early in March, Greek sources reported that Israel and Greece will start building a long-range marine radar in eastern Crete, most likely to serve as an early warning system against Turkish navy vessels in the Aegean. Also in March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced ahead of a meeting in Tel Aviv with his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras, Greek Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that Israel’s navy would be deployed to protect the EMGF pipeline. Similar warnings have also been issued by Egypt. Although these statements did not explicitly mention Turkey, they came after Turkish warships blocked drilling in the region with impromptu naval exercises.
In late February, Turkey held the Blue Homeland war games in which it displayed its full naval prowess in the Black Sea, Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, seemingly to deliver a message to those seeking to box Turkey into the Bay of Iskenderun. Realistically, no single country in the region, with the exception of perhaps Egypt, can equal Turkey’s military strength in gunboat diplomacy, but a bloc of nations might. It could be argued that this is the real objective of the EMGF project, especially for France and Italy, who aim to keep Turkish influence out of Libya. However, without the support of the US Sixth Fleet, which Pompeo could not promise during his trip to Tel Aviv, such a confrontation would likely remain at a stalemate.
With both their cards laid out on the table, it seems Turkey and Greece are done testing each other’s reflexes. They can now begin down the roadmap to greater cooperation. Naturally, both sides will take cheap shots to gain leverage in talks, but for the most part, Athens and Ankara finally appear ready to set aside their differences, with regional peace proving more mutually advantageous than the status quo, or even further yet, all-out war. So, for better or worse, Turkey and Greece are likely to remain the best of frenemies.
Image: Evzones, Presidential Guard
Courtesy of Luc.T / Flickr
Ertan Karpazli is a British journalist and political analyst based in London, Istanbul and Nicosia who specializes in geopolitical developments in and around the Eastern Mediterranean. His commentaries on the Cyprus peace talks and related issues have been published by TRT World, T-Vine, The New Turkey, Daily Sabah and Middle East Monitor.
by Asaf Day
Over the past weeks, al-Qaeda has increased the frequency of its references to Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its publications, from both the central command and local affiliates. Such new focus can likely be attributed to the organization’s attempts to win “the hearts and minds” of local residents in areas which the jihadist group operates, as it capitalizes on issues that are sensitive to the broad Muslim community.
On January 20, in the wake of its large-scale assault on Chadian peacekeepers in Mali’s Kidal Region, which resulted in the killing and wounding of dozens of troops, the al-Qaeda-affiliated group Jamaal Muskrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) issued a communique concerning the attack titled “al-Quds (Jerusalem) will never be Judaized.” According to the group, the attack on the Chadian soldiers was carried out in response to the rapprochement between Israel and Arab and Muslim countries. The group further mentioned the recent warming relations between the Israeli government and the President of Chad, Idriss Deby, which manifested into mutual visits by the two counties’ leaders. Notably, on January 20, the same day of JNIM’s attack, the Israeli prime minister held a visit in Chad’s capital N’Djamena to discuss security cooperation between Chad and Israel. An additional justification for the attack included Deby’s alleged war crimes in the country, as well as his French-sponsored “institutionalized impoverishment and stagnation.”
Additionally, on February 9, JNIM attempted to carry out a suicide vehicle-borne attack against a vehicle carrying French troops near northern Mali’s city of Timbuktu. While the group claimed that five French soldiers were killed in the attack, conflicting reports indicated that the troops were able to target the bomber before he reached them, causing him to detonate prematurely. Several days after the attempted attack, the group issued a picture of the suicide bomber with al-Aqsa Mosque in the background of the photo.
Just a few days before the aforementioned attack on the Chadian troops, al-Shabab, al-Qaeda’s Somalia-based affiliate, conducted a large-scale assault on the Dusit Complex, an upscale hotel and business area in Kenya’s Nairobi, which is frequented regularly by foreign nationals. Similarly to JNIM, on January 20, al-Shabab released a communique under the title “al-Quds [Jerusalem] will never be Judaized,” claiming that the assault was directed by al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman Zawahiri and aimed at targeting “Western and Zionist interests.” Furthermore, the group stated that the assault was carried out in “support of our Muslim families in Palestine.”
In late January, the organization’s central command issued a statement praising the launching of the “al-Quds will never be Judaized” operations. Unsurprisingly, al-Qaeda drew a connection between the assaults and Israeli control over Jerusalem, claiming that the group's affiliates targeted the “Zionist-Crusader Intelligence” headquarters and their related private security companies in Nairobi. As for the attack in Mali, like JNIM’s claim of responsibility, al-Qaeda stated that it was carried out in response to Chad’s “normalization” with the “Zionist entity,” as it corresponded with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the country.
The recent surge in publications related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the status of Jerusalem underlines Zawahiri organization’s effort to capitalize on recent events concerning issues which are of great importance to Muslim communities across the globe. These include the status of Jerusalem, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, regimes which are perceived to be oppressive to Muslims, and historical tensions surrounding Western Colonial rule. By linking these issues with the latest attacks, the Sunni jihadist militant group seeks to tap local Muslims’ sentiments to attract their support.
Furthermore, the relations between Israel and such regimes, namely Sunni-Arab and Muslim-African nations, which are already perceived as oppressive by large parts of the local populace, are being exploited by Zawahiri’s organization to slander and delegitimize these rulers (such leaders are often described by jihadist elements as Taught, largely meaning “tyrant”). This, in turn, may potentially push the local populations in these areas further toward the hands of al-Qaeda’s affiliates.
In addition, al-Qaeda’s efforts to appeal to local Muslim populations are further demonstrated by the group’s multiple references to these countries’ colonial histories, capitalizing on the heightened tensions regarding the matter among locals, particularly in East and West Africa. By linking all these issues together, the jihadist organization’s publications suggest that it strives to convey an image of local residents as being under attack in a similar fashion to other Muslim communities across the globe, with the Palestinian issue standing at the forefront. This is illustrated by the photo released by al Qaeda depicting the perpetrator of the February 9 attack against the French forces with al-Aqsa Mosque at the background. Similarly, JNIM published two pictures of the perpetrators of the February 24 assault on a European Union base in Mali’s Bamako, with the mosque behind them.
Meanwhile, the above mentioned assaults and publications should also be considered in the context of increased competition between al-Qaeda’s affiliates and the Islamic State in Africa and Yemen, with both groups stepping up their activity in such regions over the past months. For instance, from September 2018 until November 2018, the Islamic Sate’s West Africa Province conducted 22 confirmed attacks, while from December 2018 to February 2019 al-Baghdadi’s organization carried out 58 confirmed attacks. In this context, the recent uptick in references to Jerusalem and the Palestinians likely serve to portray al-Qaeda as the more capable jihadist group in the eyes of radicalized elements throughout the globe. The existing criticism of the two organizations’ alleged inaction around Israel’s perceived oppressive policies towards the Palestinians further supports this reasoning. This also enables al-Qaeda to claim the title of “defenders of the Ummah’s interests.” Such title could further be utilized to attract potential recruits at the expense of the Islamic State, particularly amidst the latter’s decline.
In conclusion, the publications continue to demonstrate Zawahiri organization’s sensitivities to prevailing narratives in the Islamic World, as well as to current events that may impact the public opinion. Furthermore, the releases also show the group’s attempt to connect events carrying a local nature to a broader global narrative regarding the Ummah’s posture. Therefore, as al-Qaeda has limited ability to carry out direct acts of militancy against Israeli targets, any developments concerning Jerusalem and Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be a catalyst for further al-operations against pro-Western and Israel-friendly entities in regions where the group is active.
Image: Qubbat As-Sakhrah in Jerusalem
Courtesy of Kristoffer Trolle / Flickr
Asaf Day is a Middle East and North Africa geopolitical analyst at a private security-consultancy firm. His areas of expertise include Syria, Israel, and the Palestinians, as well as global jihad organizations. Asaf has an MA Degree in Arabic Studies from the University of Bar Ilan and a BA from Ben Gurion University, both in Israel. In addition to English, Asaf speaks fluent Hebrew and Arabic, as well as Turkish and French to a lesser degree.
Fletcher Forum Podcast Editor Mark Benedetti sits down with Professor Michael Beckley to discuss the complicated geopolitical situation between the United States and China. Author of the recently published book, Unrivaled: Why America will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower,Beckley argues that although China poses threats to American security and economic interests, it is still very far behind from dethroning the United States as a superpower. Amidst the current rhetoric and hype against China, Beckley explains that there isn’t a reason to view China’s rise with worry.
by Srimal Fernando and Yashodha Rathnayake
It has been seventy-one years since Sri Lanka entered into formal relations with the United States. Since then, a new line on thinking on U.S.-Sri Lankan relations has emerged in foreign policy circles. Sri Lanka may have been viewed as a tiny and dispensible island nation in the past, but today it is seen as a strategic maritime asset that can potentially counterbalance China’s rapidly growing influence in the region. Given its position in the Indian Ocean Rim, it would be a mistake for the United States to discount Sri Lanka’s strategic importance to U.S. policy in the region, and stronger bilateral relations between the two countries may define the partnership of the 21stcentury.
Each year, 60,000 ships pass the coast of Sri Lanka. India and China, the fastest emerging nations based on GDP, lie to the north and east of this tiny island nation. To its south and east are the key nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and not far from its western shore lies the untapped potentials of the African continent and the oil-rich countries of the Middle East. As an active member of the twenty-two-member-state Indian Ocean Rim Association, Sri Lanka's ocean economy and possession of the world’s fifth-largest natural deep-water harbor at Trincomalee makes strengthening relations with Sri Lanka an attractive option. Once occupied by the British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the location of the harbor, its updated infrastructure, and vast oil-storage capacity gives further impetus for revising the diplomatic orientation between the United States and Sri Lanka.
The development assistance extended to Sri Lanka since 1956 is a clear indication of the special importance Washington attaches to the nation. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reports the bilateral development aid was worth over USD 2 billion. In recent years, Sri Lanka has enjoyed favorable economic conditions conducive to trade, tourism, and investment as a result of this development aid. Bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and the U.S. stands at USD 3.2 billion—export figures from its garment industry alone stands at USD 2.1 billion. Sri Lanka’s economic expansion points to a phenomenal potential for further growth.
For Sri Lanka, the last seven decades of trade with and aid from the United States has enabled it to economically grow and in turn, make huge investments into upgrading and constructing new infrastructure. The outcomes of these efforts can be a huge potential benefit for the US as it builds its long-term security strategy to counter China’s expanding influence in the Indian Ocean.
India, South Asia’s largest nation and a close ally of the US, is already pushing for stronger ties with its southern neighbor, Sri Lanka, under its “Neighborhood First” foreign policy doctrine. India’s projected economic growthin the next few years will naturally have a spillover effect on Sri Lanka, presenting further opportunities for the US to engage in this region. Trade instruments such as the South Asian Free Trade Area and the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade agreements are some of the gainful tools with which the US can use to access South Asia’s consumer markets.
Forging realistic and pragmatic positions on regional issues can lead to stronger cooperation and enhance relations between the US, Sri Lanka, India and other South Asian nations by making use of these benefits. These developments will not only strengthen economic ties between the U.S. and its South Asian allies, but also the defense agenda in this region. Maritime peace and stability are vital to the growth, progress and security of the region and to this effect, the U.S. Navy has announced the establishment of a strategic logistic hub on the island for U.S. Navy operations in the Indian Ocean.
To be sure, there are still significant challenges Sri Lanka must overcome, particularly the inconsistent nature of its relations with the United States, which has been disrupted since 2012 for various reasons. One that stands out was a controversial but American-backed 2009 United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) resolution against alleged war crimesby theSri Lankan military against the Tamil Tigers during the last phases of the Sri Lankan civil war. This resolution increasingly isolated Sri Lanka from its Western allies and ultimately led to a change in government in 2015. After reaching its lowest point during President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tenure, relations between Sri Lanka and the U.S. are now regaining momentum and significantly advancing with President Maithripala Sirsena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at the helm.
Making predictions about the future of U.S.-Sri Lankan relations is a challenging task. However, there is little doubt that Sri Lanka holds substantial priority in America’s national security agenda, especially with the growing Chinese influence in South Asia. The implementation of this far-sighted South Asian foreign policy requires the involvement of shared responsibilities between various agencies in both Sri Lanka and the United States, which will create the necessary preconditions for the U.S. to secure a stronger foothold on the island nation.
Image: Mirissa, Sri Lanka
Courtesy of dronepicr / Flickr
Srimal Fernando is a Ph.D. Research Scholar from Sri Lanka pursuing his doctoral research on “Political and Economic Integration in South Asia: A Prerequisite for Regional Community Building” at the Indian Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA) in India. He was the winner of the 2017 prestigious O.P Jindal Scholarship in India.
Previously, he was awarded the South Asian University (SAU) Research Scholarship from 2014 to 2016. He completed his Masters in Philosophy (M Phil) in Sociology from South Asian University (SAU) established under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Fernando also holds a Masters of Arts (MA) degree in Public Policy and Development Studies from Sri Lanka. Recently he won the 2018/2019 Best Journalist of the year award in South Africa and is the Global editor of Diplomatic Society of South Africa.
Yashodha Rathnayake is a Sri Lankan scholar who is currently pursuing her Bachelors of Arts degree (Hons) in English at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Languages, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. She is a third year honours undergraduate scholar following classics , linguistics ,translation studies and several other language courses.
In addition to her undergraduate studies, she is currently a foreign policy analyst and a regular co-author for several diplomatic publications. She is an expert on trade diplomacy and security issues in the Indian ocean arc. Her current diplomatic focus on South Asian regional affairs combined with Sri Lanka's emerging foreign policy outlook has led to several scholarly features with the Indian-based Sri Lankan PhD Research scholar attached to JSIA in India. Currently, her main focus is on international affairs surrounding the South Asian region and on small island states like Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
by Amit K. Chhabra and Brent Robinson
Russian foreign policy appears to be driven by offensive realism. Offensive realists believe that power maximization is central to ensuring security. Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a clear example of offensive realism. The pretenses—including alleged threats against ethnic Russians—belied Russia’s true intents: the projection of naval power; access to warm-water ports in Sevastopol, Crimea, and Syria; and pushing back against NATO.
Russian desperation for a warm-water port is borne of its geographic vulnerabilities. To the west, the North European Plain has served as the stage for many European invasions of Russia and remains Russia’s primary Achilles heel. The majority of Russians reside on the plains west of the Ural Mountains, so in order to limit NATO’s freedom of maneuver on its border (given NATO’s strategic depth, strong economies, institutions and military might), Russia desires a buffer zone to protect its exposed western flank. To the east, Vladivostok, Russia’s largest port, freezes during the winter and is encircled by Japan (a notable U.S. ally and member of the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue). Also, with NATO’s domination of the Mediterranean Sea and Bosporus Strait, Russia’s ability to maneuver in the Black Sea and from ports in Syria is severely limited. The “GIUK gap,” traditionally used by NATO to hinder Russian access to the Atlantic Ocean, is currently being refurbished with the U.S. allocating USD 14.4 million to modernize Keflavik Air Station in Iceland. Thus, maritime access is a major strategic concern for Russia.
In the same vein, Russia’s latest national security strategy describes NATO as its primary—and most lethal—adversary. NATO, with a defense budget of USD 900 billion, dwarfs Russia’s USD 66.3 billion defense budget. To manage this imbalance, Russia is building 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles, eight Borei-class nuclear submarines, updating its Tupolev Tu-160 bombers, and is developing low-yield nuclear weapons while also attempting to update 70 percent of its military equipment by 2020. However, these expenditures may also cause long-term significant economic strain on ordinary Russians. Having faced Western sanctions, an aging population, and low oil prices over the past few years, Russia’s future economic power appears grim. The World Bank predicts that oil prices will increase to USD 66 per barrel for 2019, but it also predicts a nominal growth rate of 1.8 percent for Russia in the same year. Additionally, incomes have fallen since 2014 and the poverty rate remains at 14.4 percent. With FDI inflows currently at 1.5 percent of GDP, the global community appears skeptical of Russia’s prospects.
These challenges have created consternation in the Kremlin. Feeling encircled by a Western-led international order—which they see as inherently anti-Russian—Russian leaders appear determined to expand their sphere of influence and enhance their national security by adopting a policy of aggression on the international stage. The goal is to achieve a long-sought strategic aim: the ability to maintain its naval forces and to access global trade routes without concern for the seasonal freezing and thawing of ports in Russia proper.
Defensive realists, by contrast, assert that a power-maximizing hegemonic policy upsets fellow states’ security—and thus one’s own security—insofar as it generates power competitions that disturb the balance-of-power equilibrium. This perspective explains why Russia soft balances Western influence by remaining diplomatically active but keeps its hard balancing external adventures limited and selective.
Russia’s soft balancing efforts are aimed, in part, at providing it legitimacy as a great power. Indeed, Russia appears to prefer involvement through the United Nations except where it cannot achieve consensus. It regularly exercises its veto power at the UN Security Council on behalf of itself and allies and participates in economic development initiatives at the UN Development Program. Moreover, it leads mediation engagements, including with former Soviet satellite rival states Armenia and Azerbaijan as part of the Minsk Group’s efforts to resolve the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. To improve its reputation for goodwill—and, thus, legitimacy—Russia also hosted the 2018 World Cup and the recent 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
At the same time, Russia eschews most opportunities for unilateral involvement unless and until it can tilt a regional power balance to advance a core national security interest. It only acts where a “low-hanging fruit” can be gathered, i.e., where resistance is minimal as in Crimea. Moreover, the offensive realist/hegemonic view of Russian activity is confined to the former Soviet Union’s constituent states and vicinity (i.e., its own neighborhood). Throughout Russia’s history prior to as well as during the Cold War, the Soviets largely avoided acting directly outside of this zone except to encourage communism abroad, particularly in China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. An argument can be made—and Putin makes it—that Russia’s actions in its zone today merely reflect its diminished control over, and thereby less geostrategic access to resources in, its own former western frontier which broke away to find democracy and left behind a smaller buffer zone with Europe. Consistent with this perspective, we should expect to see Russia behaving in an isolationist fashion except in situations of vital strategic concern, which tend to be in its own neighborhood.
Is Russia indeed isolationist in its foreign policy? Freedom House seems to think so, continuing to list it as a Nation in Transit and ranking it as one of the world’s least-democratic countries with progressively lower annual scores on corruption, democratic governance, electoral process, civil society, an independent media, and judicial framework. It certainly feels “closed” in the sense that it reserves the option to exclude or pre-select its visitors by forbidding landing visas to U.S. passport-holders and other nationals. When attempting to spontaneously visit Moscow on a flight layover last year, the author found that Russia required advance visas; only China remains this restrictive. The next visit—including an expedition to the majestic Mount Elbrus—would need to be pre-booked and organized by a local travel agency that registers all activities with the government. This sounds a bit draconian, in contrast to Argentina’s relatively lax controls for prospects of Aconcagua.
Though the Russian Federation’s actions in Ukraine and Syria appear outrageous, if we see them through the lens of a former great power that is enamored with its own history and longs to return to greatness, we find ourselves faced with an irredentist.
To achieve a return to glory, Russia will try anything. It is thus undertaking the aforementioned initiatives to increase and project its power. However, it is carrying out these initiatives with the confidence of a former superpower, and attempting to select low-resource, high-impact actions to heighten its threat perception to Western powers.
At the same time, Russia is internally balancing to maximize its own resource-extraction potential. As discussed above, annexing Crimea represents Russia’s efforts to safeguard its energy security by accessing Sevastopol to access oil reserves in the Black Sea. Historically, the Soviets had such access when Ukraine was a constituent socialist republic. If Russia can successfully regain access, it will reap the benefits of full occupation without the obligations of governance and administration. Similarly, Russia desires to gain access to Mediterranean trade routes via its Syrian intervention without a direct or lasting investment in the continued administration of the Syrian state. Russia has also attempted to internally balance by opening its financial markets to capitalism, hoping that the open market will lead to a more-robust economy. Its limited success is perhaps due to the effectiveness of Western sanctions.
These acts are consistent with defensive realist tenets to avoid power hegemonies that threaten the balance of power. Thus, Russia is staying in its own neighborhood, not attempting to annex former Soviet republics or spread its influence abroad in a hegemonic campaign for influence in the West. As it already has plenty of territory that it has not yet sought to fully exploit, it is not aiming to maximize territorial gain. Rather, Russia is attempting to selectively obtain access to energy resources and weaken its competitors, such as through a low-cost cyberwar against Western governments, including the United States. It is playing the same game, but slightly smarter in lieu of its limited resources.
From this perspective, the U.S. and Western allies should see Russia as a stabilizing influence that wants to reinvigorate its buffer zone with Europe.
Image: Russian Honor Guard at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Courtesy of United States Navy / Wikimedia Commons
Amit K. Chhabra has lectured on International Law and Security subjects since 2012, including geopolitics, sanctions, national security and international law. His articles have appeared in the Fordham Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Boston University International Law Journal, Foreign Policy Journal and The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. He obtained his law degree from the University of Notre Dame and his bachelor’s degree in History from Cornell University. He lives and practices law in New York City.
Brent Robinson is an international risk analyst at a major financial institution. He holds a master of international policy and practice from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, a master of laws degree from New York Law School and a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Kent in England. Brent resides in New York City and writes about international politics and business on his website RiskandPolitics.com.
On November 7, 2018, South Asia specialist and British diplomat Ambassador Alexander Evans gave a talk at The Fletcher School on the topics of India and great power politics in Eurasia. This interview was conducted by Lukas Bundonis and Laura Handly, Web Staff Editors with The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.
FF: Could you tell us about the current great power politics in Eurasia and the key points of tension we're seeing?
AE: In terms of Asian geopolitics, I think the key factor at the moment is uncertainty. We've moved from an extremely predictable 20thcentury framework based on the Cold War thatwas superimposed on Asia, into a post-Cold War period where it looked like we might see a new framework based on norms and rules derived from a lack of nationalism and a lack of disputes.
Perhaps, as we hit the tail end of the 20thcentury, this new framework has given way to a new realism about the way in which the world operates. That doesn't mean we're back to nationalism and conflict and war, but it means that we're back to diplomacy and hedging and uncertainty. This is happening across Asia not just between the big states, but also with the smaller states in the continent. In fact, you can often see it more visibly when you're sitting in a small state rather than a big state.
FF: Both the United States and Russia have significant economic ties to India. How well is India navigating the competition between these two forces, and how could it better leverage its position?
AE: India is a remarkably successful diplomatic actor, and I think one example of that is the way it has managed to combine much improved relations with the United States since the1990s while still maintaining good relations with Russia. There are times when that comes into sharp relief. For example, how is India going to respond to a situation like Syria or a situation like Crimea? But I think for India, Russia is an important part of the Asian geopolitical space. India is always attentive to what Russia and China are doing together, and it doesn't want to see Russia and China move far closer together because to a certain extent, India fears that if this happens, it might be at India's expense. Despite these concerns, I do think India navigates these relationships well. You see that diplomatic practice also in evidence in the Middle East, where India enjoys good relations with Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatarand the UAE. That’s quite an impressive achievement.
FF: Earlier this year, Prime Minister Modi and President Putin were in Sochi, where they declared the relationship between India and Russia to be a special privileged strategic partnership. What are your thoughts on what this relationship looks like in practice as well as its significance for Eurasian geopolitics?
AE: As I said before, the Russia-India relationship is important to both parties. However, what has changed in many ways is the social connection between Indians and Russians, which has diminished compared to what it was before. As I understand it, there are fewer Indian students going to Russia than perhaps at the peak period in the Soviet Union. But the Russia-India relationship is still a warm relationship for understandable reasons on both sides.
When trying to anticipate what that relationship will look like in the future, I think you need to step back and think about Asia as a whole and the world as a whole. For India, the difficult choices will be in navigating its relations with Russia along with China, Japan, the United States, Australia, and the Middle East. When you have a lot of partners who may not have similarly warm bilateral relations with each other, there are sometimes going to be hard diplomatic choices to make. The real test for India in the future is going to be when it is asked to make those judgment calls, and equally that will be a test for Russia if Russia had to choose, for example, between China and India in a future stage.
FF: Turning now to your considerable experience as a British diplomat, how do you assess the current state of British diplomacy? What major challenges does Britain face?
AE: Well, unsurprisingly, as a British diplomat, I'm paid to be very warm about Britain, so I'm going to say something quite positive about this. I think it's a really exciting time to be a diplomat because of three reasons.
One, diplomacy is alive and kicking, even in the 21stcentury when many people said that diplomacy is dead. It’s more relevant today than it has been for many years because of geopolitical uncertainty in the world, and because of the relevance of political risk in judgments that frame so many different parts of national policy—from cyber to economics to trade regulation to matters of war and peace.
Second, the British diplomatic service is going for its biggest expansion since World War II. We’re growing by more than 300 diplomats overseas, as well as opening 11 new embassies and missions around the world. This is all happening against a backdrop where we're already present in most countries in the world.
Third, diplomacy is increasingly being organized around campaigns. It’s no longer just about traditional interstate diplomacy, public diplomacy or consular work. We now have to think morecreatively about how we form coalitions to advance progress on particular issues that matter to us. Recent examples of that include the campaign against sexual violence inconflict, the campaign against illegal wildlife trade, and a growing commitment to a campaign against plastics in oceans. These are areas where we think our role as diplomats can help forge new consensus and new action against these challenges.
In terms of challenges for diplomacy, I think these will be manifold. Part of it is going to be navigating a post-Brexit global Britain and reestablishing what Britain will do in the world as an actor that is no longer a member of the European Union. I feel confident and positive about that. However, I think a big part of it is going to depend on how we negotiate on issues such as cyber regulation, where we’ll have to work with countries that may not see eye to eye with us on some of the problems around this issue.
FF: What advice would you give to the new generation of diplomats given that there are new challenges and maybe even new frameworks to deal with them?
AE: I think some of the qualities of an effective diplomat remain consistent with the qualities that were needed 50 or even 100 years ago. Diplomats should still have the ability to listen as much as they speak. They certainly need to be endlessly curious about people and issues in today’s world. Most importantly, diplomats must still be able to build extensive networks beyond government and not just engage in building relationships with other diplomats.
All professional communities can become inward-looking, closed groups but one of the greatest challenges in the world is surprise. We can be surprised by the way in which events turn out, we can be surprised by new technologies, we can be surprised by circumstances. So, against that backdrop where we know surprise to be a reality of international affairs, we may not be able to prevent surprise, but we can mitigate its effects by building out horizontally extensive networks as diplomats and as diplomatic services by ensuring that we're properly challenging established wisdom and established policies as we provide advice to the political principals who make decisions.
Image: Meeting with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi
Courtesy of Presidential Press and Information Office (Russia) / Wikimedia Commons
Alexander Evans is a senior official in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He served as British Deputy High Commissioner to India from 2015-2018, and was Acting High Commissioner in 2015-2016. Previously he served as a British diplomat in Islamabad and as a member of the Policy Planning Staff in London. He also served as a senior advisor to Ambassador Marc Grossman and to the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Evans was also the 2011 Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress. Before joining the British diplomatic service, he worked with a number of think tanks and in management consultancy and journalism. He has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs and The Economist, and been a frequent media commentator. A visiting senior research fellow at King's College London, Evans is a past fellow of Yale and Oxford. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010.
In the latest Fletcher Forum podcast, Editor in Chief Elissa Miller and Senior Podcast Editor Maria Ory sit down with retired Colonel and Fletcher PhD candidate Frank Sobchak to discuss the recently published two-part volume on the history of the U.S. Army in the Iraq War from 2003-2011. The nearly 1,500 page report, according to Sobhack, one of the lead authors, aims to provide a comprehensive operational-level history of the war and examine and incorporate lessons learned within an official narrative. The panel discusses key takeaways from the report, including insights into civil-military relations and future military planning. Tune in!
This interview was conducted by Fatima Taskomur, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum.
FF: How does your book, Restating Orientalism, critique Edward Said’s Orientalism, and expand his argument to other fields? What didn’t Said address, and how do you address these?
WH: To answer your question, I want to begin with the blurb’s statement that Restating Orientalism is concerned with “re-evaluating,” “deepening,” and “extending” the critique of Orientalism. Let me begin with the last of the trio, “extending,” but let me insert a caveat first. At one level, I could not even begin to extend Said’s critique when he, like almost every scholar engaged in such matters, applies the term indiscriminately, almost to any idea or person writing about anything Islamic, Asian or African. Said erroneously thought that Orientalists are to be found everywhere, from ancient Greece to thirteenth century Latin scholars, to von Grunebaum, Bernard Lewis and their likes in the twentieth century. So it is not true that I extend the critique in any of these directions. If anything, in fact, I limit its diachronic scope, I reign it in, and refuse to accept its sweeping historical coverage. There was no Orientalism before modernity, not even in the high cultures of antiquity who, according to Said, were also “racist.” […] I may even counter by deploying an equally categorical statement: “No matter how ethnocentric and how dominating pre-modern empires all were, none could wed knowledge to power and redefine ethics as our modern empires did and continue to do.”
But how do I extend the critique, which I in fact do? First, in order to show why it is a modern phenomenon, I deepen the exploration into the genealogy of modern knowledge in order to excavate a structure of thought that is – as a hegemonic structure -- unprecedented in human history. Second, because this structure is a foregrounding structure, it obviously did not just sit under the field of Orientalism alone. If the structure foregrounds modern thinking and ways of living in the world, then it radiates onto all disciplines, especially the ones formed by this structure as paradigms. This is the accurate meaning of “expanding the critique” in the blurb. I see engineering, economics, business schools, journalism, law schools, mainstream philosophy, science, medicine, and a host of others as being epistemologically structured in the same manner in which Orientalism was fashioned. The major difference, from this perspective, is the substantive content of each discipline. Orientalism is the most obvious field for the study of the other, even more so than anthropology, and it is here, in Orientalism, where racism, manipulation, control, domination, and sovereignty show themselves most obviously.
My argument, furthermore, is also that showing and practicing sovereignty over a Hindu or a Muslim in Asia is not very different from showing and exercising sovereignty over a tree or a river in the forests of Peru or Ecuador. I call each instance an epistemological “genetic slice” where the totality of such instances amounts to a unique but structured modern attitude toward the world. Said navigated at the political level of racism, pejorative language, and exoticizing the Orient, but could not see that what is involved in the production of Orientalism was nothing short of a deeper, underlying structure of thought from which he could not extricate his own thought.
To critique Orientalism is to critique secular humanism, liberalism, anthropocentrism, materialism, capitalism -- all of which, and more, Said took for granted.
FF: What is the relationship between ‘the west’, modernity, knowledge and power? Could you elaborate on the relationship between orientalism and colonialism?
WH: I think it is important to understand that modernity is not a continuous trajectory with what preceded it. Modernization theory continues unabated in almost every academic field. This theory, foundational to writing and making history, operates on the assumption of what I have labelled a “theology of progress.” The theology is founded on the assumption that time has a homogeneous teleological structure, that this structure is inevitable, and that the earliest phases of history were preparatory for the later ones, which were in turn simply the means to reach the intended summit of real human progress: Western modernity. Integral to this understanding is that no culture or “civilization” outside of and prior to modern Europe possessed the same validity, competence, and moral and intellectual development. Whatever these civilizations had possessed of value, culturally or otherwise, was consumed in the process of preparing for a higher goal, outside and beyond themselves. The goal was Western modernity, which was imposed on the world by colonialism, coercion, and hegemony.
Even if we were to concede—however objectionable and repugnant this may be— that modernity’s violent tools were adopted by necessity with a view to improving the human condition, we find ourselves facing the bitter reality of a world in which we have destroyed almost everything around us, from communal and social structures to ecology and environment.
What many do not seem to understand is that all this is integral to modernity as a particular project, as a particular epistemology which has dictated a particular set of practices, all of which are the work of a particular subject, a particular subjectivity. My argument is that modernity’s structure of thought created a novel relationship between man and nature, one that produced a pathological sense of domination over nature, including our own.
Colonialism did not start in the colonies, but in Europe itself, and this is because early modern Europe embarked on a quest in which knowledge was systematically harnessed to subjugate nature, including our own selves. Orientalism is nothing more than a strand of discourse by which this bleak result was achieved, but every branch of knowledge – philosophy, science, law, etc.– is equally involved in the same project. That modernity now is everywhere in the world should not hide the fact of its European origins. The reader is advised to read the book for a detailed account of how all this happened.
FF: Could you speak a little more about this type of critique? Is it possible to address and confront the epistemic structures of modernity?
WH: My short answer is a resounding Yes. I think that the position which argues that one cannot critique modernity from within modernity—necessarily the only place in which we find ourselves— is a nihilistic one. It is both historically and epistemologically untenable. Historically, because every piece of evidence points to the undeniable fact that systems and cultures and “civilizations” are not only in constant change, but they come and go. Modernity came at the heel of European Christendom, just as Islam came at the heel of Persian and Byzantine empires, and Greece before it displaced Pharaonic Egypt and Phoenicia. Each one of these “civilizational constellations” was epistemologically and culturally unique, each with a particular way of seeing the world. To say that modernity is the end of history is sheer foolishness. Epistemologically, because our forms of knowledge have done us a great deal of disservice. To say the least, we have destroyed the very Earth we live on, our home, and this is because we no longer know who we are.
So the question is how do we go about exiting this situation? In Restating Orientalism and [my] new book to appear next year, Reforming Modernity , I argue that our only hope is to develop what I call an external critique, which does not mean that we can speak from outside modernity. To speak from within modernity is inescapable. In my earlier The Impossible State, I developed the concept of central and peripheral domains, both of which must exist in all cultures and “civilizations.” For example, in modernity, the state, capitalism, bureaucracy, and a particular form of reason have become central domains that govern all other domains. These central domains have formed our subjectivities, and made us who we are. My argument is that we can capitalize on the peripheral domains, through an act of heuristic retrieval, in order to displace the central domains. And ethics is one peripheral domain from which we can begin to rethink who we are. In the time and space we have here, I cannot of course tell you what the details and modalities of this project are, but the three works I have referred to above begin this continuing project.
FF: What does your work entail for academia, and for students of social sciences or public policy specifically?
WH: I think there are at least three dimensions to my writings over the past ten years or so, which has so far been the culmination of earlier work on law, philosophy, ethics, and epistemology – work that has spanned the three preceding decades. The first dimension is the urgent call for us to be self-conscious about what we are doing at large and what we are “saying” and writing in learning institutions, higher academia being a main concern. This is so because this academia manufactures much of what we know, and this manufactured knowledge has substantial power in deciding what we should or should not do in our lives. Essential to this self-consciousness is the need for us to understand and develop a deep sense of responsibility and accountability, [and] not in the narrow sense of being “conscientious citizens” or socially responsible individuals. What I mean is that responsibility and accountability must run deep into an awareness of everything we do, from the seemingly innocuous act of buying a soft drink from a convenience store to what we think of what, say, business and public policy mean to less powerful others around the world.
Yet, this awareness of deep responsibility toward the rest of the world and toward the nature that sustains us will not just develop and come about on its own. Like everything else, this needs lots of work. And it is here where academia can play a central role in educating the public, which is the second dimension. My work is calling on us to rethink not just what we do, how we do things, and what measures we should take to minimize damage to ourselves (as human beings everywhere) and to the environment. We often talk, for instance, about emission control, recycling, and the promotion of human rights in this or that country. I think all this is an external maneuvering, a bandage solution that is both superficial and unwise. My recent work […] has been arguing that there is no way to reach a genuine solution unless it begins from within ourselves. If we want to change the world, we need first to change ourselves, our subjectivities, our ways of thinking, or as [Reforming Modernity] argues, we need a new concept of the human.
Finally, the third dimension is that to make the change and to build a sense of ethical responsibility, academia must deploy what I call external critique of everything we teach and write about. External critique is to refuse the established premises and assumptions that have so far foregrounded our thoughts and actions; it is to refuse the very foundations of their logic. The critique must question who and what we are.
Image: Cover of Restating Orientalism: A Critique of Modern Knowledge by Professor Wael B. Hallaq
Wael Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches Islamic law, ethics and intellectual history. He is the author of more than 70 scholarly articles and books including Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians (Oxford, 1993); A History of Islamic Legal Theories (Cambridge, 1997); Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2001); Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2005); and Shari’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge 2009).
His latest work, Restating Orientalism was published by Columbia University Press in 2018, and his The Impossible State (2013) has won Columbia University Press’ Distinguished Book Award for 2013-2015. Hallaq’s work has been widely debated and translated into Arabic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Turkish and Urdu, among others.
This interview was conducted by Siobhan Heekin-Canedy, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum.
FF: As a journalist with the Wall Street Journal you covered some of the most historic events of the twentieth century, including the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Have these experiences shaped the way that you’ve approached your role at the Atlantic Council, and if so how?
FK: They absolutely have influenced my work at the Atlantic Council, and also my choice to come here in the first instance. I was at the Wall Street Journal for more than twenty-five years and, as you say, I had the good fortune to do what the Washington Post publisher Philip Graham famously called, “Writing the first draft of history.” When you’re there on the ground floor you really see the way things unfold, and you see the way that at history’s inflection points, determined individuals and countries have outsized influence.
The period that really shaped my life was the Cold War, and particularly its end, starting with the labor strikes in Poland that I covered in 1980 through to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I came to believe in the power of American influence and power, when properly applied alongside allies. And that, of course, is what the Atlantic Council is entirely about.
Over time as an objective journalist I lost some of that objectivity, and I came to believe deeply in the potential of America to do good in the world and to shape the world positively. Conversely, I also came to appreciate the potential for America to have a bad influence when we’re disengaged and make the wrong decisions. I wanted to be more active in working on the policies that promoted constructive U.S. engagement in the world alongside allies. So that’s why I’m here at the Atlantic Council.
FF: I know that Germany is a country you remain very focused on and involved with. Could you comment on Angela Merkel’s recent announcement that she will be stepping down? What do you think the future holds for Germany post-Merkel?
FK: I see Germany being central to the European future, just as it was leading up to both world wars. Germany is just as important now in determining whether Europe stays close to the United States, whether Europe integrates itself, or whether Europe begins to fall apart. Germany’s history is almost a morality story: the country goes through World War Two, experiences war crimes, the Holocaust, the Third Reich, and is then divided. But then it is reborn as a democratic country—with the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany (East Germany was of course in the Communist camp)—and then through reunification it has an historic opportunity given to it, almost as a gift, to do well for its people and to do good in the world in terms of driving freedom, democracy, open markets, and by binding Europe.
I think that Angela Merkel stepping down as party leader will almost certainly result in her stepping down as Chancellor soon. She says this will occur in 2021, but it could well happen earlier. The real question is whether Germany is losing its pro-European, pro-transatlantic political center. I think the task for whomever replaces her is going to be to fill the void that is currently being occupied by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Left (Die Linke). These two parties are eroding the reasonable and pragmatic political center that is so essential to Germany’s future.
FF: Under your leadership, the Atlantic Council has expanded significantly and has burnished its reputation as one of the top think tanks in the world. Can you tell us about your vision for the organization?
FK: Our mission statement is very simple to say and very hard to do: “Working together to secure the future.” That means that America cannot go it alone. It means that America can only succeed in the world when working constructively with allies. In fact, this really is our greatest asset when you compare us to Russia or China. The purpose of the Atlantic Council since its birth in 1961—its roots really go back to the birth of NATO in 1949—has always been to galvanize friends and allies to secure the future. In 1945 we had roughly 50 percent of global GDP. Now we have less than 25 percent, and falling. As such, we are relatively less capable of doing things on our own. So we have to be even better at working multilaterally with allies, at a time when we’re actually getting worse at it.
So the mission of the Atlantic Council is, first and foremost, to drive this cooperative agenda. We do it across twelve programs and centers that cover all of the regions of the world as well as many of the functional policy areas, ranging from energy to security to cyber to next-generation programming. Deepening the transatlantic community is at the core of what we do. But we are also strongly focused on other global issues, whether it’s the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, or Africa. And, finally, we’re trying to create communities of influence around the things we care about.
We’re not just writing papers that gather dust on shelves. We’re a very action-oriented, dynamic, and entrepreneurial organization. I think that is what has given us our growth and has set us apart. We hold ourselves to account. We try to move the needle on issues. We’re not satisfied with just saying smart things or with bringing smart people together. We are results-oriented.
FF: Could you go into more detail on the Council’s work, as well as your own thoughts, on disinformation? This is clearly a big area of focus for you.
FK: This is a problem that is only going to get more complicated. It is not only the weaponization of disinformation; it is also the weaponization of information. You can take real information and augment it, hype it, and create divisions in American society around it. That can sometimes be as damaging as disinformation.
We have set up the Digital Forensic Research Lab, which monitors information-related threats to democracy around the world on a 24/7 basis. We have become cutting-edge in this space. We have good partnerships with the British government, with Facebook (which is now really trying to burnish its reputation as an organization that cares about protecting democracy), and many others. We’re very proud of this activity because we are not only doing this work ourselves—pushing back real-time as disinformation spreads and utilizing troops on the ground during elections around the world—but beyond that, we are also training a new generation of what we call “digital Sherlocks”.
We, as a relatively small organization, cannot defend truth around the world on our own, which is so important for healthy democracy. So we are training these people in the necessary skills to combat disinformation, by spotting bots, trolls, and nefarious actors. We are teaching them how to reveal what these actors are doing in order to undermine the power of that disinformation. This is just one illustration of how we are a “do tank” and not just a think tank.
FF: Could you speak a little bit about the Atlantic Council’s relationship with the Fletcher School? What advice would you have for any Fletcher students interested in pursuing careers in the areas we have discussed?
FK: This is an exciting relationship for us, and we believe we can strengthen it further. I think both Fletcher and the Council can be innovative and entrepreneurial in thinking about what we could do more of. I would invite Fletcher students to bubble up ideas to the Atlantic Council about how we could be helpful in Washington. There is no doubt that having a partner like the Council in Washington gives Fletcher a place where they can embed themselves and have access. Fletcher is one of the greatest schools in the world at what it does. We’re very strong in Washington at what we do. What Fletcher does has direct importance for the policymaking apparatus in Washington, and in the sausage-making process of U.S. foreign policy.
So we hope that through our relationship, we’ll be able to give more and more of the best students at Fletcher access to Washington. I would also encourage Fletcher students to apply for our many internships across our programs and centers. We like to have graduate students from top schools like Fletcher applying, and it has been a good route for people to work their way into permanent employment by enabling us to get to know the top rising experts.
Image: Angela Merkel at the EPP Summit, 14 March 2010
Courtesy of European People’s Party / Flickr
Fred Kempe is the president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. Under his leadership since 2007, the Council has achieved historic, industry-leading growth in size and influence, expanding its work through regional centers spanning the globe and through centers focused on topics ranging from international security and energy to global trade and next generation leadership.
Before joining the Council, Kempe was a prize-winning editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal for more than twenty-five years. In New York, he served as assistant managing editor, International, and columnist. Prior to that, he was the longest-serving editor and associate publisher ever of the Wall Street Journal Europe, running the global Wall Street Journal's editorial operations in Europe and the Middle East.
He is the author of four books. The most recent, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, was a New York Times Best Seller and a National Best Seller.
Kempe is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a member of the International Fellows program in the School of International Affairs.
In the latest episode of the Fletcher Forum podcast, Editor-in-Chief Elissa Miller and Senior Web Editor Chloe Logan sit down with former FBI General Counsel James Baker to discuss the latest developments in counterintelligence and artificial intelligence. Baker reflects on his time as a public servant at the FBI, gives listeners an inside glance into the world of technology and cybersecurity, and sheds light on how the United States aims to advance and protect its interests in these evolving domains. Listen in for an engaging conversation that looks to the future.
by Dr. Pouya Alimagham
The 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution is upon us, and supporters and detractors alike are busying themselves with articles that expound their worldviews. What is lost in the cacophony of polemics, however, is the revolution’s impact beyond Iran’s borders. Iran’s 1979 revolution both empowered oppressed Shi’ite Muslims across the Middle East, and prompted a Saudi-led sectarian backlash—the modern roots of today’s Shi’ite-Sunni divide.
Like all great revolutions of the 20th century, Iran staked a claim that transcended its borders. At a time of East-West rivalry, the Persian Gulf country in 1979 posited an alternative to the bipolarity of the Cold War—an authentic, homegrown Islamic way forward.
The revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called upon the Muslim faithful—irrespective of sect—to heed Iran’s example by rising up and toppling what he believed were their godless, puppet rulers.
While the Iranian Revolution inspired Shi’ites and Sunnis alike, Khomeini’s message especially resonated with the former. Vastly outnumbered across the Muslim world, Shi’ites were often oppressed, disenfranchised, and subjugated. In the few places where they constituted the majority, such as in Iraq and the tiny island country of Bahrain, they were ruled over by Sunni-led governments that frequently discriminated against them, especially in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
In Lebanon, Shi’ites came to comprise the largest confessional group but mainly lived in the most underdeveloped parts of the country. The central government cared little to ameliorate their dire straits. When the Lebanese civil war erupted in 1975, different factions received backing from foreign powers while the Shi’ites had to fend for themselves with limited resources.
Iran, the most populous Shi’ite majority country in the world, paid scant attention to these oppressed Shi’ites—except when they started gravitating towards ideologies that spoke to their economic plight, such as Marxism. It was only then that Iran before its revolution—as part of its anti-communist alliance with the United States—came to nominally care about its Shi’ite brethren.
Everything changed, however, with the triumph of the modern period’s first Islamic Revolution. As both a political and religious leader, Khomeini used his stature to call upon all Muslims to revolt—and revolt they did, especially the already restless Shi’ites in Iraq, Kuwait, and eastern Saudi Arabia. There was even a failed coup attempt in Bahrain in 1981 that was blamed on Iran. Revolutionary Iran served as an exemplar for action—it demonstrated to peoples across the region that it was indeed possible to overthrow dictatorships through popular uprising.
This very source of inspiration threatened all the despots of the region—none more than Iraq, Iran’s neighbor and home to one of the oldest Shi’ite Islamist opposition groups. On September 22, 1980, in an effort to eliminate the threat posed by Iran, Iraq capitalized on the country’s upheaval and internal disarray by invading Iran. Arab governments, most notably Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as Western countries, funded Iraq to the tune of billions of dollars and supplied the most advanced military hardware to ensure that the Iranian Revolution was defeated—or at least blunted.
The Saudi role in helping Iraq in its attempts to put down Iran’s Islamic Revolution is mirrored in its response to the Arab Spring uprisings more than three decades later. Just as in 1979, the Arab revolts of 2011 and onwards similarly served as exemplars for action—but this time in a more burning fashion. Tunisia’s revolt spread like wildfire to Egypt and Yemen, then to Libya, Bahrain, and eventually Syria and again to Saudi Arabia’s eastern regions.
Saudi Arabia fought for counterrevolution with its checkbook and the shipment of arms—and in the case of Bahrain and Eastern Saudi Arabia, a direct military crackdown. The only exception was in Syria, where the Saudis did not try to put down the uprising but instead actively worked to co-opt it by bankrolling retrograde jihadists in what was initially a multi-faceted rebellion.
Two legacies endure from Iran’s revolution that transcend the country’s borders. The first is how the revolutionary government empowered Shi’ite allies across the world. Iran presented its revolution as pertinent to all of the Muslim world, but downtrodden Shi’ites were its most receptive audience. Most consequentially, it co-founded Hizbullah in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to uproot armed Palestinian groups. In the subsequent decades, with Iranian training, arms, funds, and ideological footing, the Shi’ite Islamist Hizbullah emerged not only as the most powerful unconventional military force in the world, but also as a dominant player in Lebanon’s government—the same government that had neglected its Shi’ite constituents in the decades before. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond, disenfranchised Shi’ite Muslims found in revolutionary Iran a patron that uplifted them.
The second legacy of the Iranian Revolution, one that is greatly to the detriment of the Iranian government and Shi’ites all over the world, is the Saudi response to Iran’s revolution. Not only did Saudi Arabia finance Saddam’s invasion of Iran, but it also sought to ensure that Iran’s revolutionary message fell on proverbial deaf ears. To that end, the Saudis deployed billions in petrodollars in a soft war against Iran via sectarianism—an ideological cold war infused with a dangerous religious dimension that became increasingly hot after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and inadvertently paved the way for Iran’s allies to come to power.
From transnational Arabic media, much of which is controlled by Saudi Arabia, to Sunni mosques across the Muslim world, Saudi-funded analysts, commentators, and preachers preyed on Iran’s Achilles’ heel—that it hails from the minority branch in Islam. They presented Iran’s leaders as heretics, the country’s branch of Islam as a heresy, and the revolution as a perversion not to be emulated but to be destroyed, all to make certain that Khomeini’s call for Islamic Revolution went unheeded both abroad and at home in the Arabian Peninsula. Integral to the strategy was the cultivation of Sunni extremism that rendered Shi’ites as “the Other.”
Whereas before 1979, Saudi Arabia and Iran were two pro-American kingdoms that worked in tandem with each other to combat shared threats of Marxism and Republicanism, Iran after its revolution called for the overthrow of the Saudi royal family. As a result, the Saudis responded with vitriolic sectarianism. Thus, today’s Shi’ite-Sunni divide is not necessarily rooted in a timeless theological dispute, as U.S. policymakers, most recently Senator Rand Paul, have argued, but in power politics between two influential regional rivals going back 40 years.
In considering the legacies of the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, an observer should look as much abroad as within Iran for a panoramic understanding of one of the 20th century’s most impactful revolutions. It inspired Sunnis and Shi’ites alike, especially empowering the latter, and for such reasons it engendered a Saudi sectarian response that explains today’s Shi’ite-Sunni war.
Image: Iranian Revolution Anniversary (11 February 2016)
Courtesy of Mohammad Akhlaghi for Tasnim News / Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the Middle East at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he specializes on Iran, Iraq, and the Levant in the 20th century.
Dr. Alimagham focuses on such themes as revolutionary and guerrilla movements, imperialism, Political Islam, and post-Islamism. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings (Cambridge University Press).
by Joseph Sadek
For ten months in 2017, I had a front-row seat to the most democratic form of diplomacy. I served as one of five Research Assistants at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s (PA) Secretariat in Brussels, Belgium. The experience left me with innumerable personal and professional memories and, most importantly, “Europe’s Capital” gave me an appreciation for parliamentary diplomacy at an international, institutional level.
Diplomacy among and between legislators and parliamentarians is an unfamiliar side of diplomatic engagement. Inside the Washington, D.C. Beltway, policymakers and Capitol Hill staffers are familiar with congressional delegations (CODELs), but the broader American public may know little about their representatives’ international trips or foreign engagements. Yet, U.S. congressional travel hit an all-time high in 2016. Even as an active constituent and student of international affairs, I had little understanding of U.S. CODELs, let alone parliamentary diplomacy and its importance for U.S. global alliances. The NATO PA experience convinced me that parliamentary diplomacy and dialogue are necessary components of international engagement if international institutions are to serve democratic societies and advance international cooperation.
Most Americans are familiar with NATO, the post-World War II military alliance of twenty-nine member states. Fewer Americans probably know who leads the alliance. NATO’s executive leadership includes the North Atlantic Council, which is composed of appointed ambassadors from NATO member states; the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who commands NATO’s armed forces; and the Secretary General of NATO, who leads the alliance’s international staff at its headquarters in Belgium. None of these diplomatic and military leaders are directly elected by the citizens of their respective democracies. NATO’s governance structure, therefore, begs the question: “Where is the democratic oversight? Do citizens have a say?”
A resident of Cleveland, Rotterdam, or Madrid has little say in the transatlantic security decisions made daily in Brussels or Washington. However, parliamentarians play an important role for democratic oversight of and engagement with NATO through the PA. While citizens may exert little influence on the Secretary General of NATO, a U.S. Representative on the House Armed Services Committee or Senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee maintains continuous ties to his or her counterparts in allied parliaments and at NATO headquarters. These elected officials are responsive to their constituents. While heads of state (i.e., presidents and prime ministers) tend to lead their nations’ militaries, parliamentarians play a central role in their nation’s foreign, defense, and security policies.
Nearly every NATO member state requires its legislature to approve military spending for NATO. In the United States, the “power of the purse” is the popular term for Congress’ constitutional authority over military and national defense spending. U.S. Congress also wields the responsibility to declare war when it deems necessary. Parliamentarians, therefore, have a responsibility to their constituents, and often to their national constitutions, to play a central role in the maintenance and oversight of the NATO alliance and its defense and security priorities.
The NATO PA works hand-in-glove with parliamentarians to ensure democratic oversight of NATO. The PA staff facilitates and organizes various fora for parliamentarians several times a year to give legislators the opportunity to learn about, oversee and inspect alliance activities within and beyond North America and Europe. Twice per year, more than 350 delegates convene a forum to discuss, debate, and deliberate NATO’s most important challenges. Members of the PA debate cost sharing (otherwise known as “burden sharing”), the impact of climate change, the deployment of missile defenses, and other diplomatic and military issues. The assembly also meets with NATO’s global partner network to promote democratic norms and to deepen cooperation with the alliance. Parliamentarians hold hearings to interrogate NATO civilian staff and to articulate national security priorities to NATO military staff. These exchanges help member states’ parliaments and congresses understand the diplomatic and military challenges NATO faces. NATO PA-led activities often conclude with summary reports, allowing parliamentarians to build consensus on vital alliance issues. Legislators return home with a current and complete awareness of NATO’s challenges, successes and failures, and they are equipped to communicate those lessons learned to their constituents and legislative colleagues.
One prominent and recent example of the PA’s indispensable role was to address alliance burden sharing. The United States has long bemoaned the relatively large sums it pays for NATO’s readiness compared with Canada and Europe. While President Trump might be the most vociferous and recent voice of this perennial complaint, NATO member states’ heads-of-state agreed to meet a 2 percent of GDP military-spending threshold in 2014. Today, member states are on track to meet the 2 percent spending goal, and parliamentary diplomacy has played a major role. Parliamentary dialogue and exchange, facilitated by the NATO PA, built consensus on alliance burden sharing and, for the most part, member states are meeting their financial obligations.
Last month President Trump postponed a congressional delegation’s foreign travel to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan. Congressional leaders were heading to Europe to reaffirm U.S. commitments to NATO, meet with Egypt’s President, and visit U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan. The President’s move threw parliamentary diplomacy’s significance into sharp relief. Although parliaments and congresses often receive little attention for their diplomatic activities, they are essential because they provide democratic legitimacy to and maintain oversight of international institutions, like NATO.
This is why institutions such as the NATO PA are essential. They facilitate dialogue, exchange, and promote consensus building among democratic but distant and diverse allies. The PA also creates a space for parliamentarians to fulfill their responsibilities to their constituents—to promote and defend their national interests on the global stage. As alliance diversity and pluralism grow, responsive and democratic diplomacy will become more urgent. Parliamentarians, and the institutions that support them, will play an increasingly important role in the years ahead.
Image: The Romanian Chamber of Deputies (Romanian Parliament)
Courtesy of Joseph Sadek (author) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Joseph Sadek is an alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (F16). After graduation Joseph served as a Research Assistant at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, Belgium, where he supported a broad research agenda. Currently, Joseph is the Executive Assistant to the Director of the Kozmetsky Center of Excellence at St. Edward's University. His views expressed in this article are solely his own.
by Waiching Li
Russia has been an independent nation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union for more than 27 years. Since then, Russia went through a painful and complex process of transition. Over the past 10 years, the 2008 financial crisis and the economic sanctions, due to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, halted the growth possibility for Russia from its existing model: sole dependence on oil and natural resource exportation for revenue. Its GDP growth rate sank drastically in 2015 and 2016. Russia's economic problem is not cyclical, but structural. Since 1991, Russia has failed to make substantial adjustments to the severe structural deformities inherited from a planned economy of the Soviet period.
However, since 2017, the Russian economy has emerged from recession and is beginning to show signs of recovery, despite the ongoing sanction. Its GDP is back to being positive; it was 2.2% by the end of 2017 and only continues to grow in 2018. The signs of growth have appeared in all aspects of Russia’s economy: industrial, agriculture and services. Fixed capital investment in many industrial sectors has advanced steadily and the unemployment rate fell from 5.5% in 2016 to 4.5% in September 2018. So, how do we explain the recent development in Russia?
Exploring the Future of Russia's Economy and Markets: Towards Sustainable Economic Development edited by Bruno S. Sergi, is a collection of revealing reports released at a much needed time, as much of Russia’s coverage by western news media today revolves around geopolitical narratives. The 13 chapters of this book penned by Bruno S. Sergi and other veteran academic authors in the fields of economics, finance and Russian studies, helps us see through the fog of geopolitical tension through a glaring reality check about Russia’s economy. The book offers a sweeping examination of Russia’s evolving economic landscape, identifying its growth potentials, risks, and development trends.
Despite its lack of coverage and attention, today Russia is an economic power. Its GDP is the 6th largest in the world (PPP 2017, World Bank). It’s a country paradoxically full of potential, with a vast landscape, rich natural resources, quality education on many levels, and a reservoir of talent in scientific and technological research. The central question is: will Russia ever be able to diversify and modernize its economy?
Bruno S. Sergi, who teaches a course on the political economy of Russia and China at Harvard University, has made steady efforts to track and reveal the political and economic momentum inside Russia. This book is his latest judicious work that offers penetrative and forward-looking analysis about the changes that are taking place in various economic spheres, including innovation, financial markets, the energy sector, and the green economy and the impact of the sanction in Russia. Most importantly, the book offers its perspective on the ongoing structural changes that are fundamental to Russia’s long-term potential.
One could understandably assume that no guaranteed progress will come from the paralyzed economy of Russia, yet this book engages Russia at the frontline of global development. Sergi not only helps us understand what is going on internally, but he analyzes the future of the country and the impact of its changes on the rest of the world. Exploring the Future of Russia's Economy and Markets: Towards Sustainable Economic Development certainly deserves more attention from the media and academic community alike.
Image: Cover of Exploring the Future of Russia's Economy and Markets: Towards Sustainable Economic Development
Waiching Li is a Ph.D. student in Public Finance at the University of Economics in Prague. Her research interest is in the field of the comparative study of transitional economies of Central and Eastern European countries, and China.
She currently serves is an Assistant Teaching Staff at Harvard University and as a researcher at the Lab for Entrepreneurship and Development (LEAD). Ms. Li has had more than 10 years of work experience in the financial services industry. She earned her MBA in Finance from American University in 2002 and her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000.
by Kenddrick Chan
At the 2018 ASEAN Summit, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sounded a rather ominous warning that Southeast Asian states would one day have to choose between the United States and China should the global political environment increasingly resemble that of the Cold War. His words reflected a situation already known to many: that the United States and China are engaged in a strategic competition for influence over the region. As China’s relative power has increased, so too has its desire to become the region's hegemon. This is much to the chagrin of the United States, which has responded strongly through its National Security Strategy by calling for a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)" in which Southeast Asian states will play key roles in "promoting an order based on freedom."
Great power competition in the region is not new to Southeast Asian states. During the first half of the Cold War, the Kennedy and Nixon administrations intervened in Vietnam in order to prevent a domino effect where the region would fall to the Communists, whose influence had already led to the Malayan Emergency. This policy of containment turned Southeast Asia into what geographer Saul Cohen terms a “shatterbelt”—a region torn by internal strife whose fragmentation is further aggravated by the involvement of external major powers. Although Southeast Asia is no longer seen as a shatterbelt since the end of the Cold War, the resurgence of ethnic tensions in states such as Indonesia and Malaysia amidst a backdrop of great power competition hints at a possible return of the region to shatterbelt status.
Despite the signs, positive alternative outcomes do exist for the region. Southeast Asia could serve as a gateway region that facilitates cooperation and furthers mutual understanding between the U.S. and China. Although Cohen readily admits that such regions have yet to exist, he goes on to claim that a former shatterbelt could blossom into a gateway between major powers if a policy of cooperation and not competition is pursued in that region. In this latest round of great power competition, will Southeast Asia turn out to be a shatterbelt or a gateway? Realists point to history to reinforce their assertion that geopolitical rivalry amongst great powers is inevitable, and that Southeast Asia looks set to be a shatterbelt in the near future.
Nonetheless, the U.S. and China should avoid turning the region into a shatterbelt of geostrategic competition for several reasons. From the Chinese perspective, the presence of a large “bamboo” network of businesses run by ethnic Chinese (termed by the Financial Times as “an extension of China and Asia’s most powerful yet invisible force”) serves as a trade link between China and local markets. Moreover, as evidenced by its status as the region’s second largest investor and recent reaffirmation of its strategic partnership with Southeast Asia, China expects to reap substantial economic benefits from the region. Given the stakes, ensuring that Southeast Asia remains a gateway is in China’s interests. Should the region descend into ethnic violence, as Indonesia did in 1998, China would suffer. A good first step for Beijing would be to halt its ethno-nationalist policies towards the Chinese diaspora in the region. Given the significant pushback against such policies in Singapore and the fragile balance between ethnic Chinese and other ethnic groups elsewhere in the region, any overt ethno-nationalist push by China, will endanger the Chinese diaspora in the region and encourage Southeast Asian states to distance themselves from Beijing—the very opposite of what China seeks.
Like China, the United States would do well to prevent the region from becoming a shatterbelt. This would help reduce the chances of accidently stumbling into a rapidly escalating confrontation with China in which both parties find themselves unable to back down. In light of China’s rise, some in the U.S. view confrontation as the best way forward, while others have called for continued engagement and accommodation. Their inability to agree largely stems from a lack of understanding of China’s true intentions. Under such conditions of uncertainty, Southeast Asia can be a critical testing ground for the U.S. in seeking to understand China’s actual ambitions. President Xi has stated that China is committed to peace and “ready to jointly maintain freedom of navigation and safety of maritime rules.” Therefore, this is an opportunity to cash in and make China put its money where its mouth is by encouraging non-military joint exercises. As noted in an article in The Diplomat, a large trust deficit exists between the U.S. and China. Non-military cooperation such as maritime navigation or humanitarian exercises can lay the groundwork for increased operational efficacy and mutual trust and understanding between the great powers. The maritime states of Southeast Asia, having already faced multiple natural disasters, are likely to welcome this multilateral opportunity that signals scores of potential benefits.
Additionally, the pressing need of Southeast Asian states to resolve their own internal ethnic tensions and prevent any backsliding into a more tumultuous past means that the U.S. and China should publicly recognize Singapore’s potential to play an increased leadership role in the region. With its high success rate of racial integration and commitment to multilateralism, the Southeast Asian city-state can serve as a role model for its regional neighbors concerning issues of race and ethnicity.
In conclusion, as the U.S. and China navigate their complex relationship, history teaches us that great powers often do clash, with deadly consequences. Yet the leaders in both countries should realize the future is not cast in stone and there is a chance for them now to usher in a new age of cooperation, starting in Southeast Asia.
Image: President Trump’s Trip to Germany and the G20 Summit
Courtesy of The White House / Flickr
Kenddrick Chan has been accepted into the MSc International Relations program at the London School for Economics (LSE) for postgraduate study in 2019/20. His research interests include the evolving role of identity politics, as well as the relationship between diaspora engagement and transnational governance in the cases of China and Israel. His works have been published by Oxford University and other outlets.
In the latest episode of the Fletcher Forum podcast, Elissa Miller, Courtney Hulse, and Maria Ory sit down with Fletcher alumna and former first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities at the US Department of State, Farah Pandith. As Pandith argues in her forthcoming book, How We Win: How Cutting-Edge Entrepreneurs, Political Visionaries, Enlightened Business Leaders, and Social Media Mavens Can Defeat the Extremist Threat,we must go “all in” to stop the spread of violent extremism worldwide. Drawing upon her time at the State Department and on the National Security Council, she shares her wisdom with Fletcher students and makes the case that we can stem the threat of extremist ideologies once and for all. The full interview can be found in the latest Winter print edition of the Fletcher Forum.
by Alice Debarre
At the end of 2018, more than 135 million people were in need of humanitarian protection and assistance across the world, and a record USD 25.2 billion will be required to respond to those needs in 2019. These people have been forced to leave everything behind as they flee persecution, armed conflict, or natural disasters. Some may be unable to leave, and continue to live in the midst of conflict. Many are victims of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. These people need food, clean water, shelter, health, and other key services to survive, but they also need much more. Most humanitarian crises today are protracted necessitating humanitarian action well beyond short-term emergency responses. The vast humanitarian needs, as well as the challenges of responding to today’s complex crises, come starkly into light in what has become known as the Rohingya crisis.
In August 2017, the massive influx of refugees to Bangladesh from Myanmar brought the world’s attention to the plight of the Rohingya people. They fled what has been described as ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where they suffered generations of economic, social, and religious discrimination and suppression. Bangladesh currently hosts close to 1 million refugees from Myanmar, most of whom live in vast camps near the border and suffer precarious conditions. While Myanmar and Bangladesh have bilaterally agreed to repatriate these refugees, returns will not be safe, voluntary, and dignified unless conditions on the ground change and the returnees’ safety is ensured. During a visit to Myanmar in November 2018, all humanitarian actors who were interviewed on the ground expressed strong concerns about the first repatriation of refugees, set to begin at the end of that month. So far, however, no refugee has returned through official channels, and many Rohingya have continued to flee Myanmar as developments in Rakhine do not bode well for their future.
Less often discussed are those Rohingya who remain in Myanmar. In addition to the August 2017 crisis, previous waves of violence in Rakhine state in 2012 and 2016 also led to internal displacement. Many Rohingya remain displaced in central Rakhine, living in camps that contribute to what Amnesty International has described as government-sponsored apartheid. Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, is an eerily peaceful place, where the locals go about their daily lives and through which tourists can safely transit to reach the archeological sites of Mrauk U. Just out of sight, however, and impossible to access without government authorization, are the twenty-three internally displaced persons (IDP) sites in which close to 130,000 people—most of them Rohingya—are confined. The government is working on a national strategy for the closure of IDP camps in Myanmar. Its methods for “closing” camps have received criticism from humanitarian actors, who have witnessed the government moving Rohingya people to new locations only short distances away from the camps, without consulting them, and leaving their living conditions largely unchanged. In northern Rakhine, many of the villages where the Rohingya used to live have been destroyed and burnt to the ground.
For the Rohingya in Bangladesh as well as those remaining in Rakhine, returning to their places of origin is, at best, a distant prospect. Meanwhile, the needs of these populations are vast, and humanitarian actors and host communities are overstretched in Bangladesh. The camps are vulnerable to flooding, landslides, and cyclones during the monsoon season, which can cut off access to certain parts of the camps and affect the ability to provide necessary services. Camps are also severely overcrowded and were described by Médecins Sans Frontières President Joanne Liu as a “public-health time bomb.” The reality is that most are unlikely to return to Myanmar in the foreseeable future, forcing donors and actors on the ground to look at longer-term plans to improve the prospects for the integration of the Rohingya in Bangladesh.
In central Rakhine’s IDP camps, the Rohingya continue to depend on humanitarian aid for survival. Their freedom of movement is severely restricted. They are cut off from most livelihood and educational opportunities, and they have limited access to services such as healthcare. Humanitarian actors require monthly government authorizations to travel and implement activities, and since the August 2017 crisis, northern Rakhine has been almost entirely off-limits. Humanitarian needs in that area are likely dire, but, as one person interviewed in Sittwe in November 2018 said, most of northern Rakhine remains a “black hole.”
Across the world, humanitarian action is challenged by crises that are increasingly complex. Unprecedented movements of people, fighting in urban areas, and crises that become protracted are forcing humanitarian actors to learn and adapt. In Rakhine, humanitarian actors must grapple with the consequences of providing aid in a protracted crisis while the government of Myanmar commits ongoing grave human rights abuses. The devastating human rights situation complicates engagement in more development-oriented efforts, that risk supporting and strengthening the government’s policies. There is therefore a need to better leverage the government’s interest in development for changes in the human rights and humanitarian situations. The evolving understanding of the role of affected communities in responding to their needs is also challenging traditional understandings of humanitarian action. In Myanmar, like elsewhere, efforts to involve local communities remain ad hoc and insufficient, and must be better systematized to ensure that local voices influence strategy and programming.
Ultimately, as former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Sadako Ogata famously stated, “there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems.” In many countries across the world, from Syria and Yemen to Myanmar, the solutions to crises will need to be political.
Image: Displaced Rohingya Muslims (21)
Courtesy of Mahmoud Hosseini / Tasnim News Agency (from Wikimedia Commons)
Alice Debarre is a Policy Analyst at the International Peace Institute, where she heads the Humanitarian Affairs program. Her current work focuses largely on issues relating to the delivery of healthcare in situations of armed conflict, as well as on tensions between counterterrorism and humanitarian action, and IDP-related issues.
Before joining IPI, she was an associate in the Policy and Diplomacy division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. She has also worked on human rights and national security issues at Human Rights First in Washington D.C., and for the International Humanitarian Law Unit of the American Red Cross.
Alice is a qualified lawyer in New York, and holds a LL.M. in International Law from the Georgetown University Law Center.
by Dr. Christopher Zambakari
On December 19, 2018, President Donald Trump called for a “full” and “rapid” withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Syrian civil war, declaring on Twitter: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there.” This decision was in line with his campaign promise to bring American forces home from a messy and prolonged entanglement in the Middle East. Nonetheless, it set off a flurry of responses, beginning with General James Mattis’ subsequent resignation as Secretary of Defense.
The Washington establishment reacted to these announcements in a typical fashion, condemning Trump’s decision and expressing shock over Mattis’ resignation. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) declared: “This is scary. Secretary Mattis has been an island of stability amidst the chaos of the Trump administration.” Senator Lindsay Graham called the decision an “Obama-like mistake” and a “big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al Assad…and Russia.” Scholars from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Center for a New American Security echoed that sentiment.
The context in which Trump’s decision to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria and approximately 7,000 troops from Afghanistan must be remembered. The Syrian conflict has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead civilians. More than 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country and another 6.2 million are internally displaced persons. The Costs of War Project has estimated the costs of the post-September 11 U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the related violence in Pakistan and Syria, at USD 5.9 trillion. At least 6,950 U.S. and 1,465 allied soldiers have died in these wars. So, how should we make sense of Trump’s announcement, as well as the resignation of Defense Secretary Mattis? I argue that both decisions should be welcomed. Trump’s persistence to honor his electoral mandate against an establishment that never says no to war is rather admirable. There is no better time to say no to perpetual war.
Trump is correct in recognizing that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been degraded in Syria and has lost most of what its caliphate held, and the Pentagon Inspector General has confirmed this fact. U.S. troops were there to fight ISIS, not Assad, and this has been achieved.
Trump did not start the war in Syria. Rather, he campaigned on a platform that called for ending U.S. engagement there. President Barack Obama made this same promise, but he never honored it. Obama’s favored “Assad must go” approach—characterized by support for the Syrian National Council, arming proxy groups on the ground, and a covert program run by the CIA to topple the Assad regime—resulted in the militarization and increased sectarianism of Syria, as well as in total failure. The assumption was that limited engagement would remove Assad. But, without a coherent political strategy of what would replace the Assad regime, the Obama administration never learned the lessons and dangers of regime change experienced by previous administrations. The difference between Assad, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Muammar Qaddafi in Libya is that, unlike the latter two, Assad enjoys serious external military support, which was further illustrated when Russia directly intervened to counter rebel forces.
Many of the contemporary international challenges—including the fate of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe; U.S. confrontations with Russia and China; instability in the Middle East; the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria; the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula; and conducting the global war on terror in seventy-six countries—were well underway before Trump moved into the White House. The many projects undertaken by the United States around the world, including nation building and subsidizing numerous wealthy allies, has resulted in the United States spending more on defense than the next seven highest-spending countries combined.
Most analysts in Washington fail to acknowledge that the problems that confronted Obama and now confront Trump can’t be fixed militarily through the U.S.-favored strategy of “surgical” strikes and the low-risk and low-cost solutions championed by the Washington establishment. Trump has inherited this situation and called for one of the United States’ greatest footprints in the Middle East to end. The policy establishment alarm bells over these decisions should be understood in the framework of an establishment that favors forceful U.S. engagement around the world, even when that produces less-desirable outcomes.
No one embodied this policy more than General Mattis. Andrew Bacevich, a retired colonel and Vietnam War veteran, pointed out that Mattis was “a representative of the national security establishment” and that Trump could not change U.S. foreign policy in the region when people like Mattis were in his national security cabinet.
Trump is right in declaring that the United States “should not be the policeman for the Middle East.” The somber reality is that the political environment in the Middle East is crowded with regional players: a rising and hostile Iran, a resurgent and scornful Russia, and a fearful and aggressive Saudi Arabia. The United States cannot rely on politics by the barrel of the gun to stabilize and influence the region. No opposition military victory in Syria is possible without the substantial deployment and long-term commitment of many more American troops to Syria and a major change in their mission.
Three essentials are required for any forward hope considering Syria’s transition, which are the inclusion of all key stakeholders, the participation of the population through popular consultation, and a comprehensive approach that addresses the root causes of the conflict. A rational approach requires a painful acknowledgment that a new Syria will include the active participation of the current regime and its backers, including Iran and Russia.
The trillions of dollars that the United States spends in failed nation-building projects in the Middle East could be spend at home strengthening our armed forces, rebuilding our delipidated infrastructure and educational system, addressing growing inequality exacerbated by the financing of these wars, and focusing America’s might on major geostrategic issues such as managing the rise of Asian powers, climate change, and immigration—issues that demand America’s indispensable energy. The United States must therefore reprioritize its resources on major issues rather than focusing on minor distractions.
Image: Return to Homs
Courtesy of Chaoyue 超越 PAN 潘 / Flickr
Christopher Zambakari is a Doctor of Law and Policy, the Chief Executive Officer of The Zambakari Advisory, L.L.C, Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow, and the Assistant Editor of The Bulletin of the Sudan Studies Association.
His area of research and expertise is international law and security, political reform and economic development, governance and democracy, conflict management and prevention, nation and state-building processes in Africa and in the Middle East. His work has been published in law, economic, and public policy journals.
In this year’s first Fletcher Forum podcast, Professor Sulmaan Khan sits down with Fletcher students Sarah Davis, Karst Brandsma, and Kacie Yearout to reflect on the origins of World War I and the centenary of the end of the war. Drawing parallels between the lead up to World War I and today’s current state of global affairs, this episode's guests discuss the similarities and differences of today's world and that of the early 1900s, as well as the role of analogies in historical analysis. This episode gives listeners a peek inside the themes explored in the Forum’s Winter print edition, "Global Transformations: A Century Since the Great War," which will be published this month. Stay tuned for more episodes this semester!
On October 3, 2018, the Honorable Derek Chollet spoke at a Fletcher School luncheon on the topic of “Foreign Policy in a Post-Trump Era.” This interview was conducted on November 14, 2018 by Elissa Miller, Editor-in-Chief, and Courtney Hulse, Managing Director for External Relations of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.
FF: We wanted to start by asking you about your 2016 interview with The Forum, which was published in our 2017 Winter Edition. You talked about your preliminary expectations for the Trump Administration’s foreign policy. About two years later, what is your assessment now? What are your reflections two years later?
DC: In many ways what we’ve seen, which should not be a surprise, is a foreign policy still deeply divided internally between various impulses. We see a president who has followed through on what he talked about in the campaign—whether it was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the Iran nuclear deal. But there has been very little follow up on what would replace each of these. So, we’ve seen a president that is determined to disrupt but has not placed much emphasis beyond disruption. But at the same time, you’ve seen an administration, which in their formal documents such as the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy, that has tried to reorient American foreign policy around great power competition, particularly regarding threats from Russia and China. So there still seems to be fundamental disconnects within this administration.
Two years ago, there was some belief that Trump was perhaps more of a pragmatist. Though he said a lot of outrageous things during his campaign, many held out hope that he would change once in office. I think there was some early optimism given some of his appointments to key foreign policy positions, but now most of those people have left the scene. It seems now that the Trump that people feared two years ago—the nationalist, ‘America First’ Trump—is the one we have. There is no illusion anymore that an axis of adults is going to contain him, or that he is somehow going to learn on the job. If anything, the presidency has only magnified who he already was.
FF: Following up on your comment regarding great power competition, the U.S. has established policy and history on how to posture and engage with Russia because we’ve been doing that for many years. But China and our relationship with Beijing has been changing. How do you view U.S. government engagement with China? Do you think it’s going in a productive direction, and if not, what should or could change?
DC: Over the last two years, we have witnessed a growing bipartisan consensus that aspired for greater cooperation with China, hoping that they would become a responsible stakeholder in the international system. I think that many of those hopes have been dashed. The most broadly accepted diagnosis is that China is a growing challenge and will be the greatest challenged to the U.S. globally in the next 50 years. There is wide agreement that previous policies [toward China] made by both Republicans and Democrats have not worked out the way people had hoped.
There are also some disputes about the return of geopolitics, especially in how the administration is going about handling the rise of China. From its handling of our allies and its vision for the Asia Pacific region, to its stepping away from efforts to address global issues like climate change—there has been a role reversal whereby China is touting itself as a global leader on climate change issues while the U.S. is stepping back. And then of course, the trade issue is a challenge that has been the focus of some attention. While there is broad agreement that the U needs to do something about China’s trade practices, there have also been some concerns that the administration is doing so in a counterproductive way. But if you look at what the administration is doing across the board on foreign policy, its approach to China is probably one that I expect the next president who follows Trump—whoever that may be, whenever that may be—will not pursue a big shift in policy. And clearly, as I said earlier, the strategic documents coming out of the administration (the NSS, NDS) have put the China threat front and center.
FF: In addition to China, the NSS and NDS also focus to a lesser degree on the return of great power competition with Russia. In your 2016 interview, you mentioned that it would be important to watch how the administration changed America’s approach to Russia. Since then we’ve seen Russia engage in a lot of disruptive activity. How do you think U.S. foreign policy towards Russia has changed, and are there implications for whoever succeeds President Trump?
DC: Once again, as with China, over the last two years we have seen a hardening of a bipartisan consensus among foreign policy experts on Russia that Moscow is a threat to U.S. interests, and that Putin is not only seeking to undermine the international system, but also our democracy. So the debate now tends to be more about what the U.S. should do about Russia’s actions rather than on Russia’s direction.
That said, this is probably the area with the most prominent divide within the U.S. government right now. In many ways, the U.S. has three different Russia policies. The first is reflected by senior officials of the Trump administration’s bureaucracy who would agree that Russia is a threat. They would be able to come up with an impressive list of sanctions and other efforts to isolate and punish Russia for its behavior around the world, including its efforts to undermine our political system.
The second view on Russia coming out of Capitol Hill from both Republicans and Democrats that have pushed the administration toward some of these tougher measures against Moscow. This is an even more hardline position than that of the administration.
And then the third policy of course comes from the president, who still seems to have a special place for Vladimir Putin in his soul. Whether it’s giving Russia the benefit of the doubt by denying interference in our election, or signaling some willingness to cut a deal with Putin—which was best displayed by the 2018 Helsinki summit and the press conference following it—President Trump has proved ready to overlook Russia’s behavior. I think President Trump is increasingly becoming an outlier on this issue within his own administration, but he’s the president so it’s difficult to isolate him and dismiss him as irrelevant here.
I think this disconnect will only increase now that the Democrats control the House and as they deepen their investigations into Russia’s role in the 2016 election and Russia’s continuing efforts to undermine democracy. This disconnect will perpetuate over the next two years.
FF: What kinds of new opportunities or challenges do you think the new cohort in Congress, particularly in the House, presents, and how might we see that playing out both on the Russia investigations or other issues?
DC: You are going to have a Democratic majority in the House that will first and foremost project an agenda of an America in the world that will be very different to that coming out of the administration. Democrats in Congress will try, to the extent that they can, to influence foreign policy debate through the mechanisms of the legislative branch, whether that’s through hearings and agenda setting or the power of the purse.
The Democrats will not have a majority in the Senate, so there are limits to what they can do there in terms of oversight. However, I expect that in the House you will have a legislative agenda that will reflect a different set of policy objectives. Often oversight gets shorthanded as investigations—ask questions and try to understand the implications of what’s happening. It seems like every day there's something in the news that warrants a follow-up question at least. For example, right before the midterm election, there were news reports about how President Trump continues to use a personal cellphone that the Russians and Chinese listen into, and he has been told repeatedly not to use that cellphone for calls. I would expect the Democrats would want to ask the CIA and others about their understanding of what the Russians and the Chinese are listening to, how they might be using this information and what the administration knows about the penetration of these foreign actors into the president’s use of a cellphone.
The Democrats can also ask tough questions on the administration’s foreign policy priorities. For example, now that the U.S. has withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), what is the president’s policy to address the enduring threat from Iran’s nuclear program? There are a host of issues that the Democrats in Congress will now look into. I also think it’s important to note that many people in this incoming freshmen class of Democrats have deep foreign policy experience who are extremely knowledgeable and experiences on these issues. Many have served as active duty members of the military, former CIA officials, or former senior administration officials. This is going to be a cohort in Congress that will be able to hit the ground running when it comes to foreign policy.
FF: With regards to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, do you think the reimposition of sanctions on Iran will have an impact or will the tendency to over-rely on sanctions backfire?
DC: I think sanctions have proven to be an effective tool. It doesn’t mean that they are always effective or that their intended purpose actually works. These sanctions will no doubt inflict pain on the Iranian economy and the Iranian people, but the bigger question is whether that pressure will translate into meaningful concessions by Iran and if Iran will address the behavior that the U.S. and others believe needs to stop. What worries me about the administration’s policy is that, while it has shown it can impose sanctions, there are still outstanding questions in terms of how effective the sanctions will be when you don’t have the world working with you. Will the U.S. be able to elicit as much pressure as it could if it had the world cooperating on the sanctions?
However, sanctions are not an end in themselves. There is also the question of whether sanctions are going to get the U.S. closer to achieving its stated policy goals on Iran. This remains to be seen. The previous round of sanctions that the Obama administration put into place was done in cooperation with the international community and represented the most stringent sanctions against Iran ever. In addition to a few other factors, this combined effort brought about the agreement with Iran to stop its nuclear program and put in place a robust inspections regime to ensure that it complied with its commitments. The U.S. has pulled out of that agreement, but so far Iran is keeping to its commitments. The administration has articulated an ambitious set of goals in outlining its vision for Iran, but its policies essentially add up to regime change. I have my doubts about whether sanctions are going to lead to such an outcome, and it’s not clear to me how sanctions can be used as leverage to achieve the administration’s goals.
FF: Will the fact that the U.S. does not have the same kind of global cooperation today in terms of the reimposition of sanctions on Iran that it did when the JCPOA was signed in 2015 have a negative impact on our alliances?
DC: Absolutely, and it is already having a negative impact. Many European officials have expressed frustration with the fact that they agree with the U.S. on its concerns about Iran’s behavior. Their view is that the nuclear agreement was able to address one aspect of Iran’s concerning behavior—the nuclear problem. Therefore, they were prepared to work with the U.S. to take some steps in response to other aspects of Iran’s behavior such as its support for terrorism, its efforts to undermine stability in the region, and its development of missile programs. However, they are frustrated that the U.S., for purely ideological reasons, seems unwilling to work with them on these issues. This has been one of the key irritants in the Transatlantic relationship. It’s difficult to see how the U.S. is going to translate the pressure it’s trying to create into meaningful progress with Iran and how it’s going to avoid further divisions with its European partners.
FF: One of the challenges that we’ve seen across Europe and that we’re also dealing with here in the U.S. is the rise of populism. What do you think it will take to defeat the resurgence of populism, and where do you think anti-populists could be most successful in upcoming elections?
DC: I think it’s important to clarify that populism per se is not the problem, because of course dealing with those who have been left behind by the changes brought about by globalization is not a bad thing. Supporting workers and helping families to provide for themselves—such policies could be interpreted as populist. I think it’s the nationalist populism that has been the problem, both in the U.S. and Europe. The exploitation of what are legitimate concerns—whether it’s economic dislocation or a sense of lost identities—to create a politics of grievance, intolerance, and conspiracy is the problem. That is what we see coming from Donald Trump and from too many corners of Europe.
In some ways our elections here in the U.S. as well as recent elections in Greece, Germany, and France are showing reasons to be optimistic that politicians and leaders are ready to step up and address legitimate issues about the pressures in our societies whilst rejecting deeply corrosive nationalist politics. It’s true that there is an uncomfortably large segment of Western societies that are susceptible to lowest common denominator politics. But I am also sensing a resurgence of a different kind of politics and in many ways, and I think the next two years will be a test of that.
Here in the U.S., I expect Donald Trump will not moderate or stop his political rhetoric. The Trump that we have seen in the rallies is the same Trump we will see more of in the coming two years, particularly as he feels embattled by a more vibrant domestic opposition. This will be a big test. We will see similar resurgences in Germany during the leadership race to replace Merkel. We will see it in France too, and in the UK as they grapple with Brexit and its aftermath.
This will be a clash of two different ways of looking at the world. I think there is an emergence of politicians who can appeal to legitimate concerns about healthcare, the economy, jobs, wages, infrastructure and other things that could be seen as populist, but these politicians will address such challenges from a very different perspective. Rather than dividing us and placing blame, or accepting and promoting intolerance, we’re going to witness a resurgence of that more positive approach to populism.
FF: On North Korea in the wake of the 2018 Singapore Summit, we appear to be seeing a fundamental difference in the way the U.S. and President Trump versus Pyongyang understand what happened in Singapore. Is there a way to bridge those two very different viewpoints in terms of the eventual de-nuclearization of North Korea? How can this foreign policy problem be addressed and overcome?
DC: Anyone who followed the summit in Singapore and understood that North Korea had not agreed to anything new is not surprised by the situation we’re currently witnessing. The administration has been trying to give some substance to the spectacle we all saw last summer in Singapore. They have been failing at these efforts thus far. The fundamental divide between the U.S. and North Korea remains, despite President Trump’s inclination to spike the football and pretend that agreements at the summit changed everything. Every day brings in new pieces of evidence to show that that is not true.
There are well-meaning people in this administration who understand that the way we got here was unorthodox, and that President Trump has been very unwise to prematurely declare success on North Korea, but that nevertheless there is an opportunity here that’s worth testing. I also think from the perspective of many Americans, wondering whether diplomacy is going to succeed or fail is a better prospect than where we were a year ago when we wondered if we were on the brink of war with North Korea. But I think that this just points to the fact that the underlining challenges are still there. It’s hard to see at this point anything new that the North Koreans have agreed to.
What to watch going forward? We will see whether Trump continues to be willing to simply have more summits that lack any substance, or whether he becomes convinced that North Korea is acting in bad faith and therefore the U.S. should ratchet up the military pressure. I think this is something we will have to watch over the next two years.
Image: President Trump's Trip to Germany and the G20 Summit
Courtesy of The White House / Flickr
Derek Chollet is Executive Vice President for security and defense policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, and author of the book, The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World (Public Affairs, June 2016).
He is a regular contributor to Defense One, and is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.
On October 26, 2018, Commissioner Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz gave the keynote address at The Fletcher School’s annual Religion, Law and Diplomacy conference - a student-organized event that examines the role of religion in international affairs. This interview was conducted by Britta Wilhelmsen, Senior Web Editor, and Laura Handly, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum.
FF: Our theme this year at the Fletcher Forum is Global Transformations: A Century since World War I. In the spirit of this theme, how would you say your role has evolved over time and how has it been shaped by the current political climate?
KA: For the last twenty-five years I’ve worked specifically on human rights issues and a subset of those human rights issues—religious freedom, or the international formulation of it, which is freedom of religion or belief. I think it’s a core and vital human right, and it is the only right in the Declaration [of Human Rights] that is both individual and communal. Article 18 specifically says that everyone should have, and I’m paraphrasing, the ability to follow their beliefs and also practice them both individually and communally. From 1948 until 1998, for those fifty years, there was a realization of two things: that what had happened in the Holocaust was inexcusable and that countries can no longer claim sovereignty over issues that are born out of human dignity. That’s why the Universal Declaration was drafted and, think about it, there was no water, no electricity, no food, and these countries came together to talk about human dignity. It’s amazing! Then fast forward to 1998, where in the United States, Congress realized that there has to be a freedom of religion component to our foreign policy. That’s how the agency to which I was named was created—the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
So, how has that changed? It’s changed enormously. Regrettably, religious freedom has been weaponized internationally. Countries that claim religious reservations to women’s rights have twisted religious freedom into something that justifies a harmful practice. That is key to our understanding of religious freedom because religious freedom doesn’t protect religion, it protects people. So, the moment that that is warped into a belief system, then people, individuals, and human dignity are secondary to that. Second, I think that there has been a tendency to separate the rights in the Declaration. Even though they are separate, they’re also interdependent, interrelated, indivisible and universal. Once you start picking one right over the others you start creating unnecessary conflicts. There has to be a holistic approach to all of the rights in the Declaration.
FF: We’re very curious about your role as commissioner. What do you consider to be your central mission in your role? Have you encountered any challenges to that mission, and how did you deal with that?
KA: When I was first named to the commission, I introduced the idea of creating a study on the intersection of women’s rights and religious freedom. To my surprise, no other organization had done that before, so the Commission worked with external partners to prepare a report that maps the presence of women’s rights in international jurisprudence and religious freedom in the international instruments that deal with women’s rights.
To our surprise, The Council for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women doesn’t mention religion or religious freedom once, except when countries file reservations against women’s rights. Also, in terms of religion or religious belief, there is very little crossover. We know that countries that have robust freedom of religion or belief protections for women have a better situation for women where they are not forced to be child brides or to get divorced and lose the rights to see their children, or the husband is not dominant in the family. So, the first challenge was to look at this closely, and it wasn’t an internal challenge because the project was approved unanimously. It was interesting to start meeting with groups on both sides and talk about the issue. To a person, all the groups thought, “Wow, we can double our advocacy presence if we can work jointly on these issues.”
Being a Hispanic woman in certain Muslim-majority countries has been difficult. For instance, I was the head of the delegation on one of our Saudi trips. American diplomats don’t have to wear an Abaya, but twice I was told I had to put one on, otherwise I couldn’t go to the restaurant in the hotel in Jeddah. To me, coffee was more important than being principled that morning, so I threw on the Abaya, had my cup of coffee, and then had an argument with the manager of the restaurant. When I met with the Vice Minister of Islam, he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I think humor is universal, so I started by saying, “You probably think I’m here to talk about women drivers, if it were up to my father and my husband women would not drive in the Americas. I’m not here to talk about women drivers, I’m here to talk about bigger issues.” It broke the ice enough that we were able to have a substantive, great conversation afterwards, but it’s very interesting that in 2018 you come in as an American diplomat and your counterpart is unwilling to look at you while you’re speaking. Eventually he softened, I think, his stance, and we were able to talk to each other.
Most countries understand that USCIRF looks at the religious freedom experience through the international universal declaration of human rights lens, not through the American First Amendment experience. It has been very productive to have conversations with government officials. I think the most difficult experience I had was going to a prison in Turkey to see an imprisoned American pastor, Andrew Brunson; that was something I will never forget. It was very hard to leave him behind, but gladly he was released recently.
FF: What would you say are some of the most common biases or assumptions about the role of religion in international affairs, and is your team working to address any of these specifically?
KA: Religious freedom is considered the eccentric uncle of the human rights family—your relative that comes to a party, people admit he’s part of the family, but no one wants deal with him.
Unfortunately, that perception has been created by a misunderstanding of what Article 18 really consists of. Even though there have been these claims that the world has become secularized and people are unaffiliated with organized religions, the fact is that over 80% of the world claims that they have religious beliefs. The world continues to be a deeply religious place. Meanwhile, the Pew Institute has stated that over 75% of the world’s population live in places where religious practice is constricted.
So how do you reconcile those numbers? That, I think, is central to the dialogue that we need to have about what religious belief is, what is protected, and whether there is such a thing as the ability to be offensive. Heck yeah, I think we were born to offend each other! Think about the option of not being able to explore your deeply held religious convictions for fear of offending others. I think there is this discomfort with cultural norms associated with being offensive, but at the same time this tremendous thirst for knowledge and understanding what people believe, as well as a desire to understand what we ourselves believe.
FF: You touched on the intersection of religious freedom and women’s rights. In situations where you see that the principles of religious freedom and gender equality appear to be at odds, how would you say we should move forward? How do you get past that? The Islamic State claims that the enslavement of women is the enactment of an aspect of a very deeply held religious belief. Are there cases where one freedom can be prioritized over another? Or is there another way to reconcile that tension?
KA: Great question. In the American jurisprudence system, we have something called the Religious Freedom Act, which was created by Congress to give courts the ability to have a balancing test. So, for instance, if you have a religious group that claims they should be able to abuse their children because it’s in the Bible, the government can say we have a compelling state interest to protect children; therefore, you cannot do it. And if the government tells a group of nuns that they have to give abortion-causing drugs and pay for them, the nuns can say--and this is a real case--you exempted X in New York City from that rule, which means you do not apply it neutrally and there is no government compelling interest, so we should be exempt from that because of our religious belief system.
In the international jurisprudence system, there is no such balancing of rights. As a result, you have nations struggling to reconcile, for instance, their security concerns and religious freedom in their own country. I think one example where this is particularly insidious and damaging to women is the practice of female genital mutilation, which has been strongly condemned by the UN and criminalized in many countries, but is still religiously justified in certain communities. As a result, women continue to practice it and states look in the other direction. Some states have made some moves—Egypt has been arresting doctors that do it—but now we find ourselves here in the United States with the first FGM case in Michigan. This is a really interesting problem, because there are half a million girls at risk in the United States. It’s going to be really interesting to watch the case, because if the United States says that this kind of female genital mutilation is protected by religious freedom, it’s going to reverberate globally in all of the countries that continue to practice it.
FF: How would you describe the role of mass media and social media in religion? How can we better leverage the media in a way that supports and defends religious freedom?
KA: Well, we hear that in Myanmar, for instance, there are more people with access to Facebook than to electricity. So unfortunately, there was a lot of spread of fake news associated with the Rohingya Muslims, which has now been found to have fueled an already bad situation and one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our time. Aung Sun Suu Kyi did not address the crisis, the world stood back because it was such a young country, hoping that she would grow strong, and what ended up happening is that the military was able to continue its practices and Aung Sun Suu Kyi made absolutely no remarks on it. So in terms of social media, you had a population of people who were incited to either participate in the violence or stand back and not denounce it because of fake news.
The country that uses the most social media in the world is Saudi Arabia. When you go there, to a Starbucks, there’s an entrance for family, which means women, and there’s an entrance for men. Until very recently there were no public events where both genders were involved. And they still have the guardianship system, where if you’re a woman and you need to have your appendix removed, you need to ask your guardian, who can be your father, your husband, or your son, for permission to have surgery. It’s very limiting on women, so the benefit of social media in these countries, when it’s not blocked, is that women are able to find out what their rights are through apps created by women and lawyers in Saudi Arabia.
Social media cuts both ways. I think it’s a great way to talk directly to the population about their rights, but it’s also a terrible way to spread fake news, particularly in developing countries that have absolutely no context for what’s going on. It’s an incredibly powerful tool that can be used in both positive and negative ways, but do I believe it should be regulated? No. I think free speech is free speech and there are other ways to regulate what people say without banning them from using social media.
FF: For anyone who might be interested in following in your footsteps and making a career similar to yours, what advice would you give to them?
KA: There is nothing better than to work on these issues. Follow your passion and the job comes along. It depends what you want to do. There are careers in the Foreign Service. If you’re a good writer there’s always a job for you in the human rights community, because there’s always a dearth of writers. If you become a lawyer and go to the best school you can, there is an enormous need for lawyers that are involved in domestic civil rights litigation and international civil rights litigation. Language skills are missing. A lot of State Department people ramp up and go to the Foreign Service Institute, but if you have an interest in a particular region of the world and you can acquire the language, that’s absolutely a great way to go.
I also tell college students to find their passion, and then you’ll figure out how to get a job where you can be passionate. The NGO business is not where you’re going to get rich, but life is short and fragile, and there is nothing better than to be in a fulfilling career that helps others and improves the world for those that come after us.
Image: Jakar Tsechu (Dance by the Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche)
Courtesy of Arian Zwegers / Flickr
Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz is the Commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. She has worked on the defense of Freedom of Religion or Belief in the United States and internationally for over 20 years as Advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Since her appointment to USCIRF, Arriaga has met with the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the Vice Minister of Islam in Riyadh, the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, among many other foreign government officials, religious leaders, and human rights advocates.
The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs is pleased to announce a general call for papers for our Summer 2019 print issue.
This edition will focus on grassroots movements and local activism across the globe, and we are seeking manuscripts that speak to this theme.
Submissions may be either Features (3,000-8,000) words or Perspectives (1,500-3,000 words). Please include an abstract and brief biography, and adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style throughout the piece.
The deadline for submission for the Summer 2019 issue will be February 1, 2019. Please send any submissions and any questions to forum@tufts.edu.
by Juan Carlos Portilla
Renzo Prieto was a student and a member of the Venezuelan political opposition at the time of his arrest in 2014, when members of President Nicolás Maduro’s Intelligence Service took him to El Helicoide, a detention facility and the headquarters of Maduro’s Intelligence Service that was notorious for being a center of brutal torture in Venezuela. Prieto never imagined that he would turn 31 years old while interned at El Helicoide for organizing demonstrations against Maduro. He spent four years unlawfully detained, where he witnessed torture, cruel treatment, and poor prison conditions.
Prieto’s torture and the crimes that he witnessed while in prison should trigger immediate action by the international community. In addition to unlawful detention and torture cases, Human Rights Watch claims that Maduro’s human rights violations include rids in low-income communities that have led to widespread allegations of abuse by Venezuelan security forces. As a result, more than 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland since 2014 due to an increase in civilian persecutions, violent crime, and food shortages.
However, Maduro controls the Venezuelan judiciary and it is therefore uncertain whether the Venezuelan government will prosecute him for his crimes. One must therefore ask themselves if international law provides avenues to bring Maduro to justice. While opinions differ and some international legal avenues may be inapplicable, insufficient, or even futile, international law could play a strong role in reigning in an out-of-control government. In particular, the Rome Statute of the ICC may hold the key to open the door for Maduro’s prosecution in The Hague.
In order to assess whether the ICC is the best route to prosecute Maduro, it is important to critically evaluate other available options in the international legal system. One such option is universal criminal jurisdiction by national governments. Under this principle, specific crimes may be considered as so serious that any country of the international community may have jurisdiction over the perpetrators of these international crimes. Some governments have invoked universal criminal jurisdiction to prosecute head of states and foreign ministers for international crimes. For example, Belgian courts are allowed to prosecute international crimes regardless of where or by whom the crimes were committed, although to date, Belgium has unsuccessfully attempted to domestically prosecute a former Congolese foreign minister for Genocide (the Yerodia Case).
Thus, under universal criminal jurisdiction, a foreign national government may prosecute Maduro in its domestic courts but it is not totally grounded under international law because it is solely based upon the nature of the crime. Universal jurisdiction does not consider the territorial principle, under which a country can prosecute crimes committed inside its territory. What is more, universal jurisdiction does not consider the nationality principle. Therefore, international law bars States from exercising universal criminal jurisdiction over international crimes committed beyond their borders. This means that this approach will do little good in bringing Maduro to justice.
Nor is the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR) the vehicle to prosecute Maduro. The Inter-American System is mainly composed of two key international organizations: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACTH). Venezuela is a member State of the Organization of American States (OAS); thus, subjecting it to the obligations set forth in the OAS Charter and the American Declaration of Human Rights.
While Venezuela falls under the jurisdiction of the IACHR, the Commission in fact has no powers to hold Maduro criminally liable for his crimes. Further, there is not a single international criminal tribunal within the IASHR under which a prosecutor could criminally investigate Maduro. Under the American Convention on Human Rights (the Pact of San Jose), the IACHR can receive and examine communications where a state party to the Pact alleges that another state party to the Pact has committed a violation of any human right set forth in it. Given this mechanism, OAS countries may bring any alleged violation to the Pact before the IACHR. Nonetheless, Venezuela’s denunciation of the Pact in September 2012 makes the IASHR insufficient to address such communications. Furthermore, Venezuela withdrew from the IACTH in September 2013, which left Venezuelans without judicial protection within the Inter-American System of Human Rights.
Neither is the use of force the solution. The UN Security Council may authorize collective action to bring Maduro to justice in order to maintain international peace and security in the region. However, the option of military intervention in Venezuela is legally uncertain because it is not clear if Maduro is a real threat to the peace and security of other countries in South America to the extent that it warrants the use of force.
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) might be a potential solution, but there is a caveat: under this doctrine, states can take military action against another state for the purpose of protecting civilians from serious human right abuses committed there. Thus, the international community of states could invoke R2P in Venezuela to stop the abuses. Yet any authorization of force under R2P must be granted by the UN Security Council and it is unclear if member states will unanimously sign off on the use of force in Venezuela under R2P.
All roads lead to the International Criminal Court (ICC), operating under the Rome Statute of which Venezuela has been a signatory since July 2002, and under which the depravation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law—such as the Prieto case, torture, and forced migration—are all crimes that fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction. The international community enacted the Rome Statute of the ICC with the goal of holding head of states and senior government officers criminally liable for organizing or participating in gross violations of human rights, which is why the ICC can be a proper forum in which to initiate a thorough criminal investigation of Maduro.
The ICC Prosecutor launched a preliminary examination under which the ICC is analyzing crimes allegedly committed in Venezuela since April 2017. Yet the ICC Prosecutor has made clear that a preliminary examination is not an investigation, but rather a process of examining the information available in order to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an official ICC investigation.
This means that the ICC Prosecutor is determining if the Venezuela situation satisfies the legal parameter set forth by the ICC to warrant a criminal investigation by her office. What does the ICC Prosecutor need more to move forward? More torture? More refugees? More persecution against members of the Venezuelan political opposition and students? French novelist Honoré de Balzac, has contended that international bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. The ICC certainly qualifies as “international bureaucracy.” The situation therefore requires a different approach from the ICC Prosecutor. Justice cannot be at risk of erosion by a non-elected Prosecutor who operates under the complex structure of the ICC bureaucracy. There is no doubt that the ICC has the power, the jurisdiction and a historical opportunity at its hands to subpoena Maduro into The Hague and get the ball rolling with a serious criminal investigation that paves the way for justice.
Regardless of which legal mechanism comes into play, there is no doubt that the situation in Venezuela requires an urgent and strong response from the international community. The Rome Statute of the ICC authorizes the UN Security Council to refer to the ICC Prosecutor a situation in which one or more crimes that falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC appears to have been committed. Depravation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, torture, and forced migration are crimes that have been committed in Venezuela and are crimes that fall under this jurisdiction. Therefore, the UN Security Council should step in to enact a resolution referring Maduro to the ICC. Although the veto power held by any of the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council may defeat such a referral in this scenario, a resolution referring the Maduro case to the ICC would be more appealing to the P5 than a resolution authorizing the use of force in Venezuela.
The hope to bring Maduro to justice seems to be vanishing as time goes on. Abuses keep happening right under the international community’s nose. While some of the international law venues may be inapplicable, insufficient, or even futile in the Maduro case, the UN Security Council and the ICC can mutually play a strong role to ensure Maduro’s prosecution. Actions speak louder than words, and both the ICC and the UN Security Council need to act now, on behalf of humanity, by bringing Maduro to The Hague.
Image: Eleicoes 2013 NA Venezuela
Courtesy of Joka Madruga / Flickr
Juan Carlos Portilla is a lawyer and former Visiting Scholar at Boston College Law School. He is representing before the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations two students of the Venezuelan political opposition, who are victims of unlawful detention in Caracas.
He previously worked for the government of Colombia. He graduated from Sabana University School of Law, Colombia, and holds a LL.M. in International Law from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
On September 27, 2018, Mr. Vuk Jeremic spoke at The Fletcher School on the topic of “Geopolitics of Confusion: How Long Can This Last?” to an audience of predominantly Fletcher students. This interview was conducted by Lukas Bundonis, a Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum.
FF: Thank you for speaking with us today, Mr. Jeremic. Could you begin by sharing with us some of your key takeaways and general impressions from the high-level talks you attended at the United Nations?
VJ: I believe that the idea of resolving world problems through multilateral diplomacy has been on the defensive for some years now, and this year’s General Assembly didn’t change that. If anything, it placed multilateralism even more deeply on the defensive. It is difficult to imagine that multilateral organizations will function smoothly if key actors—starting with the most significant actor, the United States—seem to be intent on withdrawing from multilateral organizations. Leaving the Human Rights Council, leaving UNESCO, leaving the climate treaty, leaving the TPP—these are all signals that America prefers to deal with challenges right now in a different way than when it was one of the founders, shapers, and, guarantors of the international system, particularly the United Nations.
My main feeling is one of worry, because although we don’t seem to be as close as we were last year to a potentially devastating conflict in the Korean Peninsula, the developments in the Middle East and the attitudes that key players are taking with regard to the region do not give much space for efficient multilateral engagement. This is another demonstration of the fact that the focus is far away from issues that can only be resolved through multilateralism.
The Secretary General’s report on the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals is also very shocking. It shows that no country in the world is currently on its way to fulfill the SDGs by 2030, which is supposed to be when everybody fulfills them. If no country in the world is on its way to achieving these goals, then that means that we are in a fairly problematic shape.
FF: That leads me to a question related specifically to the Sustainable Development Goals—what do you see as the chief challenges for countries striving to achieve these goals, both in Europe and beyond?
VJ: Well, aside from the domestic challenges that each and every country is facing—political, security, economic, or all—the essence of the Sustainable Development Goals’ philosophy was that you can achieve it only by working together. In other words, you can’t reach sustainable development in isolation from the rest of the world. The fact that there is less multilateral thinking in the way that nation states are now approaching resolving problems is one of the most important reasons why the current situation is so bad.
FF: I think one of the other things that you can’t accomplish in isolation is a major peacekeeping effort. Would you agree?
VJ: When I ran for Secretary-General in 2016, I presented a concrete platform with 73 detailed commitments on what I thought needed to be done and changed in the UN in order for it to be capable of fulfilling the 21st century demands of humanity. One of the most important sections, which made up almost a quarter of my suggestions, was devoted to peace and security, and the role of the United Nations in the context of peacekeeping.
Current peacekeeping strategies are stuck in the previous century. The nature of peace and security challenges today is totally different from the past. Previously, blue helmets who were sent to keep peace would most often go between the two parties at war with each other, and in cases like South Sudan and Mali, they had success. However, a majority of the situations in the world today require a multilateral approach to bringing and maintaining peace that cannot be simply addressed by the current systems in the UN.
Counterterrorism, cyber, and AI are some of the new challenges we face today. It’s unrealistic to think of new rules and treaties when the key players are withdrawing from those that exist. The Secretary-General is doing valiant work, but he is constrained by the realities of the current situation. Further complicating the situation today is the fact that the country that is making the most generous offers in contributions to peacekeeping is China, which is met with a degree of skepticism in certain parts of the world.
FF: Speaking to cyber issues, do you think that China's willingness to contribute to the peacekeeping mission of the UN might find parallels within the world of cyber and lead to the creation of an international treaty or organization regarding the control of cyberspace?
VJ: Without China’s participation, an organization or treaty of this sort is unimaginable. It would also be unimaginable without the agreement of the United States or Russia, for that matter. You have key countries in the security field that do not cooperate adequately when it comes to security. It’s really worrying because at least during the Cold War you had great transparency with regards to the maintenance of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union knew about U.S. missiles and vice versa—that was part of the treaties.
Right now, we just don’t know. The Americans don’t know what the Chinese or the Russians are developing and vice versa. There’s a degree of fear there that can cause situations to spiral out of control. That’s why I’m a big believer in the need to introduce more rules and regulations in the global cyber arena.
FF: I’d like to re-focus on Europe. Do you believe that the U.S. and NATO have neglected the vulnerabilities of the region?
VJ: The US for sure but NATO is a totally different situation. NATO is much more of a geopolitical thing. It’s possible to imagine a country joining NATO that’s not exactly democratic or up to democratic standards of governance. However, an international organization like the EU is essential. Unfortunately, they have also dropped the ball on enlargement in the Balkans, though they haven’t disengaged completely. Currently, the EU cannot consider new members because of their internal problems. God only knows how long they’re going to last and God knows how Europe is going to look after this whole thing.
In the meantime, instead of maintaining the engagement to help Europeanize Balkan countries by helping them to reach European standards of governance and the like, the EU is pretending that things are fine in the Balkans. They pretend that the accession talks are ongoing. Formally, they do come, meet, sit at the table, but nothing is happening! And then they come out and they say, “Oh, things are great! Things are progressing fine.” They’re repeating the same mistake they made with Turkey 15 years ago, and I very much hope that we do not end up in the same place like Turkey, in the sense of not being able to join for the next couple of generations.
Image: Atoms for Peace (Historical)
Courtesy of IAEA Imagebank / Flickr
Mr. Vuk Jeremic is the President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), a public policy think-tank based in Belgrade, and Editor-in-Chief of Horizons – Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development. In June 2012, Mr. Jeremić was directly elected by the majority of world’s nations to be the President of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly in the first contested vote since the end of the Cold War. During his term in office he launched the negotiations that led to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Mr. Jeremić also served as Serbia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2012. Prior to becoming Foreign Minister, he served as an advisor to the President of Serbia and various government ministries.
In this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast, podcast editor Alexander Thomas sits down with Ambassador Sinead Walsh and Dr. Oliver Johnson to talk about their new book Getting to Zero: A Doctor and a Diplomat on the Ebola Frontline. During their conversation, they discuss Ambassador Walsh's and Dr. Johnson's involvement in the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014, the international community's response since, and the currently unfolding Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Tune in to hear the latest.
On October 29, 2018, Dr. Charles “Chuck” Freilich gave a talk titled “Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change” at The Fletcher School. This interview was conducted by Lukas Bundonis, a Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum.
FF: Dr. Freilich, thank you for coming in to speak with The Forum. I understand you are giving a talk at Fletcher titled Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change. Could you summarize your work on Israeli national security to include the title and context of your new book?
DF: I spent a large part of my life in the Israeli defense establishment. I was an analyst in the Ministry of Defense, and in my last position I was a deputy national security adviser. Surprisingly, Israel doesn’t have a formal national security strategy, or hasn’t even issued major strategic statements unlike the U.S., where you have the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review; or Britain, where they have White Papers. Israel has never done that. So I identified what I think is a major lacuna, something that should have been done. I’m certainly not starry-eyed about written strategic documents--they are not engineering blueprints that you have to follow. But I think the idea of thinking things through in a systematic way, which is what writing a book, in my case, or writing a governmental national security strategy [entails]. I think that process is very valuable. Even just the act of writing it—some people are happy to just do PowerPoint or something similar—but I think you really have to work your way through it because that forces people to see where the differences are between different agencies, between different individuals. It forces people to confront the issues.
FF: Building on that, what do you believe are the primary security challenges that Israel faces today, and how is it tackling those challenges?
DF: I think there are three or four primary issues. One is obviously the Palestinian issue, and the question of whether or not we can achieve a two-state solution. I think the answer to that question for the foreseeable future is no, because I don’t think there is the leadership on either side that both want [it] and can deliver. But I think that in the final analysis that is the foremost challenge that Israel faces. And of course, that is also translated into the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
The second issue is Iran. I believe that Iran is a threat to international and regional security, but I also think it is at least a dire threat to Israel. Some people say it is an existential threat, and I can’t disagree with that—they could be right. I think Iran has to be prevented from achieving a nuclear capability and I hope it can be done diplomatically, and if not I think Israel has to prevent it at all costs.
Now the Iranian threat from Israel’s point of view today isn’t just a nuclear issue, it’s also Iran’s support for Hezbollah, which is a non-state actor but one which has capabilities that are state-like. They have something like one-hundred and twenty thousand rockets aimed at Israel, which is a simply a staggering, massive number. And it means that the next round, which could be anytime, or hopefully not, is going to be extraordinarily painful for both sides. Israel will get hit in a way that it has never been hit before—the home front. But Hezbollah [and] Lebanon will be hit even harder. Iran is busy trying to set up base now in Syria as well, to establish ground, air, and naval bases there, in order to create one joint front from Lebanon through Syria and then to have a corridor all the way through Syria, through Iraq, to Iran. Some people call it the “Shiite Crescent”. Again, I don’t think Israel can allow Iran to set up military base in Syria. It is simply too dangerous. I’m the guy who is always advocating restraint, diplomacy, and taking things easy. But this is a threat that Israel cannot allow to happen.
So if you ask me what are the primary issues that Israel faces today, one is the Palestinian question, the others are Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Gaza.
FF: How do you assess Israel’s handling of the recent Gaza war protests? Do you believe that any side won the PR battle, and what do you think it portends for the immediate future of the peace process?
DF: I think in these kinds of confrontations, Hamas tends to win because you have pictures of people—ostensibly civilians—throwing rocks against an organized army, guys in uniforms who act in a disciplined fashion. The idea that this was a non-violent demonstration is absurd. This was extraordinarily violent. There were IEDs, there were grenades, there were all sorts of things thrown and used. This is an intentional, ongoing provocation. Israel has to defend its border.
The question is whether there are prospects for peace. Now first of all, regardless of who is in office in Israel, as long as the Palestinians are divided between the West Bank and Gaza and don’t have one government (the official government is the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank), the Palestinians couldn’t sign a peace agreement even if they wanted to. The other problem is, yes, there is a right-wing government in Israel today which has no intention of making the necessary concessions, but previous Israeli governments have put virtually one hundred percent of Palestinian demands on the table. They agreed to establish a Palestinian state on one hundred percent of Gaza, nearly one hundred percent of the West Bank, and divide Jerusalem—and that wasn’t enough for the Palestinians. So, the question is whether there is any deal whatsoever that the Palestinians want to sign, or whether they are still fighting over Israel’s very existence.
FF: Pivoting back to Iran, what is the Israeli perspective on the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran? How do you see the sanctions’ effectiveness, and how do you see the Israeli perspective on them?
DF: The sanctions are directed first and foremost at the nuclear issue, which is where they should be directed, but also at its missiles and Iran’s general behavior in the region. I was a strong supporter of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], the 2015 nuclear deal, not because I thought it was such a wonderful deal, but because I thought it was the best of the bad options we faced. I still think that’s the case. But that’s spilled milk, because President Trump has decided on a different approach. Now, I could be all for the hardline approach—sanctions and more against Iran—if I thought the U.S. was pursuing a comprehensive strategy here. I don’t see that strategy in place.
In 2012, the Obama administration managed to bring most of the world community onboard for even more comprehensive sanctions than the current ones. The pain was enough to bring Iran to the table, and to get them to make some pretty significant concessions. But they were not enough to make Iran give up its nuclear program. Basically, they agreed to postpone their aspirations, not to give them up. Now the question is why it should be any different this time, when the sanctions are less comprehensive. They’re pretty comprehensive because most of the multinational corporations in the world are afraid of the effects, and so they’re abiding by the sanctions in any event. But why should the sanctions achieve more today than they did then? Well, the answer may be that if Trump pursues these sanctions for a longer period, hangs in there with it before he’s willing to cut a deal, since he says he wants a deal, just a better one, then maybe the pain will be severe [enough].
But I find this hard to believe. The Iranians have their own domestic politics. It is extraordinarily hard for them to make any concessions. From their perspective, the United States proved itself to be an unreliable partner because it signed the deal and then unilaterally backed out of it, even though no one, including the U.S., claims that the Iranians violated the deal. The American position was just that it was a bad deal to begin with. So, I have a hard time seeing how we get to the deal. Again, I hope I’m wrong. If we can’t reach a deal, then I think the Trump administration has basically used up most of their sources of leverage.
It leaves us with two other options. First is regime-change, which I think is a pipe dream. It’s certainly not going to happen as a result of external instigation; maybe it’ll happen at some point for domestic reasons. But that’s not in the immediate future. That leaves us with the military option, and I don’t see the Trump administration wanting to go the military route at all, which means in the end Israel might be left holding the stick all by itself. That’s not a happy scenario.
FF: Speaking of holding the stick, how do you see the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel? Do you think it’s stronger, weaker, or about the same as it has been for the past few administrations?
DF: I think the relationship is fundamentally very strong. Like all relationships, it has some ups and downs. People portray it at the moment as if it’s the best it’s ever been. It is certainly good at the moment, but it’s partly good because Trump is supporting Israel in all ways, he’s not putting any pressure on Israel. Obama provided more military aid to Israel than anyone in history, but he also tried to put some pressure on Israel on the diplomatic front. As a result, he was portrayed by some people as being less pro-Israel. I don’t think that’s the case.
I think Trump, if he comes to the conclusion that Netanyahu was not playing well with him on the peace process, if and when he presents his plan, he could put unprecedented pressure on Israel. As a matter of fact, he was recently quoted in a conversation— I don’t think this made the American press, but it made big headlines in Israel—with President Macron of France who asked him if he was going to do anything vis-à-vis Israel. And Trump said, “Look, I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that Bibi [Netanyahu] is not playing along on the peace process. We give them a lot of aid every year, I can put the pressure on Israel.” I think that could happen.
I also think there’s been a change in American support. If you look at the polls, overall it’s as strong as it’s ever been. But the nature of the support has changed: it used to be really bipartisan, and today it is far more on the right and has weakened on the Democratic left. That’s something that I don’t think Israel can afford. The source of the strength of the relationship was that it was bipartisan.
FF: Do you think actors like the U.S. and Russia have a role to play given they both made overt commitments to modernize their nuclear arsenals and expand their capabilities? Do you believe their credibility when it comes to steering negotiations, whether it’s for a different version of JCPOA, or the region more broadly to prevent nuclear expansion?
DF: I guess it does hurt their credibility, but the U.S. and Russia are the two leading nuclear powers. There are three other recognized nuclear powers. I do not think we can allow Iran to go nuclear, and it would be really nice if we could roll back North Korea. But in the Middle East, a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. You have to take into account that if Iran goes nuclear, the Saudis, the Egyptians, and the Turks may very well go nuclear as well.
The thought of a nuclear Iran--and Israel is thought to be nuclear--is enough of a nightmare. Now, imagine a nuclear crisis between the two—they don’t have any channels of communication, and this is an area where missiles fly in a couple of minutes, literally. Now, let’s [take into consideration] the Saudis, who have only limited channels of communication with Israel (and certainly no hotline), and have no diplomatic relations with Iran. Now bring Egypt into the picture: Egypt and Iran don’t have diplomatic relations. Egypt has ties with Saudi and can talk to Israel. Bring Turkey into it. Turkey’s relations with both Egypt and Saudi Arabia are terrible, and its relations with Israel today are even worse.
A multi-nuclear Middle East is a nightmare that I think it makes the U.S.-Soviet confrontation pale in comparison, in terms of the likelihood of somebody using a nuclear weapon. Obviously, a U.S.-Soviet conflict could have destroyed mankind—that's not the case here. These are “friendly neighborhood bombs”. (Put that in quotes!). But the danger of someone actually using it is absolutely frightening. I don’t know of any way to manage that kind of a thing.
FF: Speaking of channels of communication, how do you see the landscape for cyber threats and cyber security in the Middle East? Iran has certainly invested in it very significantly over the past decade. How do you see the Israeli perspective on countering cyber threats?
DF: Funny you should ask, because I am completing a book on Israel and the cyber threat. Israel is one of the countries that is under the greatest number of cyber-attacks in the world. It’s an advanced country so obviously cyber is everything. Now, it’s also considered one of the top five in terms of its response to the threat. U.S., Russia, China, Israel, and the UK—that's the top five today.
The reason I’m writing this book is that I think Israel’s an interesting cyber case. Yes, you can learn a lot from the U.S., but it is so big that it’s almost not a model for most other countries. Israel is very small; it’s closer in size to many European countries, so I think what it has done is something of a model to be studied and to learn from. Israel really got its act together rather rapidly for this threat—more so than for others—and, though it took close to a decade, it passed a lot of legislation. There’s a whole new law which was just submitted to the Knesset for consideration. It built national institutions on the civil side to protect the private sector and the governmental sector, and of course, the military, the IDF, has taken many measures to build up its defenses as well as its offensive capabilities. Israel is under one of the greatest threats: there are a couple of million attacks every day, most of them are low-level but some of them aren’t. Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are the primary threats, as well as various groups in the former Soviet Union. So far, Israel has dealt with this issue pretty successfully.
Image: Kotel (Western Wall)
Courtesy of Florian Prischl / Flickr
Dr. Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center and the author of Zion's Dilemmas: How Israel Makes National Security Policy (Cornell University Press, November 2012), Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford University Press, 2018), and Israel and the Cyber-Threat (forthcoming late 2018).
His primary areas of expertise are the Middle East, U.S.-Middle East policy, and Israeli national security strategy and decision-making. He has taught political science at Harvard, NYU, and Columbia in the United States, and at Tel Aviv University and IDC Herzliya in Israel.
On October 10. 2018. Dr. Lorenzo Vidino spoke at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy on the topic of ISIS-related radicalization and mobilization in Europe and America. This interview was conducted by Elissa Miller, the Editor-in-Chief of The Fletcher Forum, and Lukas Bundonis, a Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum.
FF: Can you speak to the different processes of radicalization that occur in Europe and the United States? What are the different cultural and societal drivers behind radicalization on the different sides of the Atlantic?
LV: It goes without saying that radicalization occurs in combination with all kinds of ideologies. In comparative terms, jihadist radicalization is a quantitatively larger problem in Europe as opposed to the US. With the beginning of the civil war in Syria, we saw a spike in the number of radicalization cases in Western Europe. When I was finishing my PhD in 2010, this was an entirely different conversation. We thought then that radicalization had largely plateaued, but 2011-2012 would end up surprising everybody.
Whether it’s in Europe or the US, there’s no common profile as to the radicalized individual; age, gender, class, and education make little difference, so it is generally very difficult to construct a profile that is all-encompassing. There are also many theories as to why individuals radicalize, but the only point generally agreed upon is that it is a highly personalized and complex process. Only a multidisciplinary approach gets us close to understanding how it works. Issues of discrimination, access to the job market, or simply the perception that these issues exist all become relevant in this context. There are psychological problems as well as why Person A reacts to an event differently from Person B. A third approach that is often used defines radicalization as a “contact sport” in which radicalization occurs by virtue of who you know or who you come into contact with. People also often radicalize under the influence of charismatic individuals.
FF: You just mentioned that there is no one profile or one cause for radicalization. Generally speaking, what makes a radicalized European or American seek to launch an attack on their home soil rather than travel abroad to become a foreign fighter? In a similar vein, what motivates a foreign fighter to return home?
LV: The Program on Extremism at GW tries to talk to as many radicalized (or formerly radicalized) individuals as possible as well as people close to those radicalized individuals. If radicalization truly happens in clusters and let’s say, out of four to five guys, only one ends up going to Syria, I’m equally interested in talking to the one who did as the four who did not and asking them why they didn’t. In some cases, there is a theological reason or justification that they give themselves. In many cases, it’s simply presented as an attractive, available opportunity. Three to four years ago, it was far more common, even trendy, to go to fight in Syria. The borders were porous, and ISIS had more power. Nowadays, it has become very difficult. The group that committed the attacks in Catalonia last year is a quintessential example of people that would have gone to Syria had the opportunity been available. Arguably because that was not an option, they decided to carry out an attack on European soil. Starting in September 2014, ISIS began telling individuals exactly that: “Stay home. You’re far more useful carrying out attacks on your home soil than you are coming here. Bring the war to the enemy on their own land.”
FF: Can you speak to the impact of social media on communication between radicalized individuals and the “radicalizing agents” that you also mentioned?
LV: Social media is only one of the aspects of radicalization. I cannot stress enough that the offline processes and face to face interactions are equally if not more important. However, it’s obvious that the level of connectivity that social media allows has changed the dynamic of these interactions and the two, online and offline, complement one another. From the moment radicalization starts all the way up until mobilization, or when you decide to carry out an attack, social media plays a role. We have seen cases where people troll the internet on behalf of ISIS to spot, approach, groom, and recruit vulnerable people to their cause. ISIS has also directed people who, though they may not have set foot in Syria, have some connection to the cause to carry out attacks on the homeland.
FF: Moving from the process of radicalization to post-radicalization, some countries have decided to focus on the rehabilitation of returned foreign fighters. Others have pursued incarceration and punishment for returned foreign fighters. Is there any method which is generally accepted as the most effective?
LV: Countries that have invested heavily in reintegrating foreign fighters have mostly done so because they have realized the limits of prosecution. Many returnees cannot be arrested because of lack of evidence. Having the intelligence that someone went to Syria to fight is very different from having the evidence to charge them with a crime. So, what are you going to do? You’re going to attempt to reintegrate them. This approach has proven in some cases to be really solid, but generally, countries should make significant investment in applying both approaches - reintegration and prosecution.
FF: Are there any examples of successful rehabilitation programs that you believe could be exported from Europe to the United States?
LV: I would first look to the Dutch, who have made significant investments in both their prison system as well as de-radicalization programs. They’ve taken flak for some failures that they’ve had, but such is the price of innovation. You make mistakes, but you learn from them. The idea of working with communities and with groups that have expertise has been proven through certain success stories. For example, programs that connect formerly radicalized individuals with prospective radicals, to discuss why radicalization is not the right path, have been fairly successful. As for how this could be applied to the United States, we have seen various programs aimed at de-radicalizing right wing militants, most of them run by former neo-Nazis.
FF: What about deradicalization programs that focused on women and girls? How should we think about gender and radicalization?
LV: Over the past five or six years, one in five radicals monitored by authorities in France has been a woman. Other countries are witnessing similar trends. We began with a lot of unfounded assumptions as to why women radicalize, some of which are quite frankly demeaning. The idea that they fall in love with a jihadi and that they have no agency is irresponsible. Women have agency like men and radicalize of their own for reasons that are as complex (although at times different) than men. By the same token, in recent years significant attention has been given to the potential role of women in preventing radicalization. Mothers and sisters are often in the best position to spot anomalies in the home. They can detect if a family member is going down a bad path.
FF: Looking at the United States again, are there lessons that you draw on from domestic or right-wing extremism when you research Jihadist extremism?
LV: There are certainly many aspects that are similar. Fundamentally, all extremist narratives have three key components. First, there is a narrative of victimhood that explains the problem. You belong to a community that is under siege. Second, there is a group of individuals who want to do something about it. Third, those individuals present a solution – abandon your current life and get involved in something larger than yourself. That phenomenon is admittedly much larger in Europe. The narrative of the extreme right actually feeds the narrative of the Islamists in what’s called reciprocal radicalization.
FF: How can governments tackle the challenges presented by the transnational character of radicalization?
LV: While terrorism remains an issue that each country prosecutes in their own way, we have improved immensely since the days of 9/11 on coordination and intelligence sharing. However, there will always be things that get in the way of effective cooperation. Internally, governments can suffer from personality conflicts, turf wars between intelligence agencies, and so forth. At the transnational level, intelligence sharing runs the risk of exposing sources and methods of a given intelligence apparatus. This doesn’t mean that the system doesn’t work, but only that we have a long way to go before we see seamless transnational cooperation.
FF: What advice would you give to current Fletcher students who are interested in pursuing careers in counterterrorism?
LV: I think that, at all levels of counterterrorism, there has been a greater emphasis in recent years on having strong academic credentials. Even for those who are more operational, they still read academic theories and debates. It is extremely important to understand these theoretical processes. Most approaches to counterterrorism are interdisciplinary, so the only way to prepare for a career in this area is to study a wide range of subjects, including theology, psychology, sociology, security studies, and anthropology. Read widely and acquire as much knowledge on a wide variety of topics as you can. And trying to access primary sources – court records, government documents, and so on – is as important if not more than reading scholarly works.
Image: 161224-D-PB383-082
Courtesy of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff / Flickr
Dr. Lorenzo Vidino is the Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. An expert on Islamism in Europe and North America, his research over the past 15 years has focused on the mobilization dynamics of jihadist networks in the West; governmental counter-radicalization policies; and the activities of Muslim Brotherhood-inspired organizations in the West.
A native of Italy who holds American citizenship, Dr. Vidino earned a law degree from the University of Milan Law School and a doctorate in international relations from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has held positions at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the RAND Corporation, and the Center for Security Studies (ETH Zurich).
In the latest episode of the Fletcher Forum podcast, Forum staff members Lexi Kriss and Siobhan Heekin-Canedy sit down with Assistant Washington Editor of the New York Timesand Fletcher alum Thom Shanker. Drawing on his extensive career, including as a Pentagon correspondent at the Times, Shanker discusses the evolving role of journalism in today’s digital era. He also reflects upon his time at Fletcher and how his education informed his reporting and offers sage advice to current and future Fletcher students. Tune in!
On September 28, 2018, The Fletcher School hosted The Ocean’s Turn? conference - a one-day event that looked at the role of the ocean as an avenue, an arena, and a source, and examined it all through the lens of geopolitics, sustainability and an overarching notion of innovation.
The conference brought together thought leaders from around the globe to examine critical issues facing the world’s oceans today. One of the experts who presented at the conference was Paul Greenberg, a bestselling American author on the ocean and environmental issues. This interview was conducted by Chloe Logan, Senior Web Editor, and Samantha Chen, Web Staff Editor.
FF: You recently released a new book, The Omega Principle. Could you please give a brief overview of what your book is about?
PG: When people think of seafood, they tend to think about this molecule called omega-3s, which is actually a family of molecules. And they think of seafood not necessarily as a food, [but] as a nutraceutical, like it’s this food that’s also somehow a bag of nutrients. As somebody who really loves the ecology of the ocean, I wanted to take those people by the shoulders and shake them a little bit and say, “Okay, I’ll tell you about your omega-3s, where they come from, [and] how best to get them, but let’s really talk about the very fundamental parts of the ocean that make omega-3s.” They come from the bottom of the food chain, which is plankton. So, I wanted to give an ecology lesson at the same time I was giving a health lesson. There is [also] a fair amount in the book about the scientific method, and how we know if anything works, whether it’s in health and nutrition, medicine, or environmental policy.
FF: In one of your opinion pieces, you mention that the fish reduction industry has been targeting Antarctic krill. What are the global and environmental implications of removing the krill from their ecosystem?
PG: Krill is the largest single-species animal biomass in the world and some estimates put it in excess of 500 million metric tons. To put that into perspective, all the fish that humans catch is only 80 or 90 million metric tons. So, there’s way more krill out there than fish we catch. And we’re not catching that much krill; we’re catching 200 to 400 thousand metric tons, so it’s actually fairly small. That said, the Antarctic ecosystem is what ecologists call a “wasp-waist” ecosystem, meaning that it’s like an hourglass: in the middle is a single species that’s a pinch point. So, there are all these organisms beneath krill that krill eat and then there are all these organisms above krill that krill feed. And if you negatively impact the krill population, then you have this real potential to throw the ecosystem out of order. Right now, with the present amount of [krill] extraction going on, I don’t know that we’re necessarily endangering the Antarctic ecosystem. But there are a lot of people who would like to get their hands on the krill. Developing countries everywhere see it as a potential protein source – a source for animal feed. Nearly everything else in the Antarctic is protected, so I say why not protect the krill as well.
FF: What are your recommendations for making the fish reduction industry more sustainable, and what role could policymakers play in that?
PG: Frankly, I think we’re at the point with emerging technologies that a fish reduction industry could be gotten rid of altogether. Maybe that’s a little bit extreme, and maybe the world could tolerate a certain amount of reduction. My feeling is [that] the reduction industry could be transformed into a recycling industry. Instead of doing primary harvesting of wild fish, we could be doing things like using black soldier fly larvae to feed on food waste and turn that into feed. We could be doing a lot more with the processing of offcuts from commercial fisheries. I think that [we could do] a combination of new technology where we’re either synthesizing things from algae or doing this black culture fly larvae with food waste, or doing any number of different things. Plus, we can really think about more rational uses for foraged fish – Peruvian Anchoveta is actually perfectly edible food, but 99 percent of it is used for the reduction industry. Not that I want to put all these fishermen out of business, but you don’t get paid very much for fish when it’s for a reduction fishery. My general eyeballing of the situation is, why not half the fish at twice the price, make it a food fish fishery, and try to get it into the hands and mouths of people who could actually benefit from the nutrition contained within those fish?
FF: What is the fish fraud epidemic, and what is its impact on environmental figures and reporting?
PG: I think one has to ask, is there a fish fraud epidemic? I think there is certainly a fair amount of mislabeling [and a question of] how you want to interpret that — is it an epidemic or is it a persistent problem? Fish changes hands quite a bit before it goes from the ocean to the consumer’s plate. Seven or eight times is not unusual for a fish to change hands. So anytime a product changes hands, there’s an opportunity for fraud. And especially with fish, where you have concerns about fish going bad or the need to move it quickly, traceability isn’t always the number-one concern. That’s really where it stems from. I think all these interesting things are starting to develop, like blockchain, which allow [for] more rational tracing of fish from boat to plate, and hopefully we’ll see more of that in the future.
FF: Thinking more broadly, which issue do you think will afflict oceans the most over the next ten years, whether it be what’s currently afflicting them or a different issue altogether?
PG: Probably the largest thing we have to deal with is ocean acidification and other ancillary things that climate change is causing. We are seeing massive changes in the distribution of fish. The fish are moving – cold-water fish are moving north, and warm-water fish are moving up and replacing them. We often don’t have management regimes to thoroughly take that into account. How can you have rational management, for example, of Black Sea Bass in Maine when Black Sea Bass didn’t even exist in Maine 20 years ago? How do managers catch up with that? But more overarching than those individual management issues are going to be the ocean chemistry issues and the ocean temperature issues because those change the degree to which the ocean is productive and how much you can harvest. We’re going to really need dynamic management models if we want to continue to fish rather than farm.
FF: On that note, what steps do you think the United States should take with its international partners to improve sustainability efforts and ocean conservation?
PG: Well, we certainly shouldn’t have withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. We should continue to push for traceability and to have that be a primary part of the way that seafood is presented to the American consumer. This trade war that’s going on with China is going to complicate things for seafood producers because China is the largest grower and catcher of fish in the world and they’re a very big part of the American seafood supply, so we need to work that out. I think maintaining good, open relationships with our neighbors and our distant neighbors is fundamental to any kind of rational way of running the world and, unfortunately, we’re not going in that direction right now
Image: Fuerteventura Ajuy
Courtesy of Sven Walter / Flickr
Paul Greenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of Four Fish, American Catch, and The Omega Principle. A regular contributor to the Times and many other publications, Mr. Greenberg is the winner of a James Beard Award for Writing and Literature, a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation and the writer-in-residence at the Safina Center. He has been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, TED and PBS's Frontline.
by Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir
In terms of human development potential, Morocco is a nation of immense promise, where gifted fortunes of nature such as wide-ranging organic agricultural products come together with dynamic social development frameworks. This could launch the country into a haven for community-managed projects and change in Africa and the Near East.
In particular, Morocco’s Frameworks for Development provide a comprehensive blueprint for fostering sustainable development in the country. Among the many existing frameworks, there are three in particular that have set out to structurally guide local and national growth:
- The Municipal Charter, amended in 2010, which requires the creation of multi-year community development plans that are formed by public participation;
- The National Initiative for Human Development, launched in 2005, which aims to provide access to sub-nationally managed funding for multidimensional development projects; and
- The Decentralization Roadmap, first unveiled in 2008, which innovatively synthesizes three approaches–delegation, deconcentration, and devolution–to empower regions in development.
Sadly, for the majority of people, the application of the country’s combined initiatives for development is not proving fruitful. The problem is that Morocco’s programs for national growth and development through public participation are not being orchestrated together. Integrating these programs would enable their mutual reinforcement to promote accelerated growth and success of development initiatives. Thus, the implementation of these development frameworks requires a major reevaluation and overhaul.
How then can these three frameworks better fulfill their individual purposes, and, more importantly, how can they intersect with each other to foster human development that is sustained by local beneficiaries?
The Municipal Charter
Under the Municipal Charter, locally elected representatives are required to ensure that their constituencies participate in the creation of community development plans and the selection of projects to be implemented in their villages and neighborhoods. Further, people-driven projects, such as those instituted in the Municipal Charter, are necessary for sustainable development and the actualization of the other frameworks that compose the Moroccan model.
However, in Morocco there is a constant challenge: elected members to municipal councils are typically not trained in facilitating participatory methods. The practice of employing procedures that encourage local people to discuss their development goals and create action plans for their projects’ implementation is an essential experience for elected officials in order for them to know how to actually fulfill their formal responsibilities and help advance sustainable growth.
Catalyzing widespread, inclusive development projects means first implementing experiential training programs for university students, school teachers, technicians, civil society members, elected officials, and local people to be active agents of participatory planning and development. Sustainable development necessitates the dispersion of these facilitation skills to catalyze and help maintain local dialogue and to implement most needed projects. The training process to enhance the personal capacities of individuals from different walks-of-life but who all interface with communities, enables them to help carry forward local development movements. Through training-by-doing, the aforementioned municipal development plans can then reflect the actual will of the people in regards to the projects and future they most want.
The National Initiative for Human Development
The second Framework, Morocco’s National Initiative for Human Development (NIHD), is a national fund for infrastructure projects, capacity-building, social and cultural revitalization, and job generating activities on the sub-national level. Its budget through 2023 was approved in September 2018 at the $1.9 billion level.
In theory, the NIHD should primarily help to actualize the development projects designed under the Municipal Charter. Indeed, the NIHD and the Municipal Charter can only be successful if they work in tandem. NIHD should help fund the participatory development plans embodied in the Charter, and finance the projects that local people expressed they most need and want to implement, which ensures their sustainability. If this were the case, and if the NIHD’s budget were doubled through 2023, then Morocco would see the fulfillment of its development model and vision, instead of remaining ranked 123 among nations on the Human Development Index following an enormity of expenditure, intentions, and effort.
If the Municipal Charter does not result into projects properly defined over the course of community-wide meetings, which is unfortunately often the case due to inadequate participatory training and finance, then it can be expected that the NIHD will not have adequate local projects to fund and whose aggregate of results fall short of national goals--which is also happening.
Other practical NIHD reforms to increase its development impact should include the following: First, the provincial administrations of NIHD should accept development proposals all year round. As of now, the shifting periods during the year they receive proposals mean that opportunities open and close and most local associations and cooperatives remain unaware.
Second, NIHD should be maximally flexible to fund the range of projects communities determine most important to them (whether in health, education, involving construction, etc.). The NIHD’s criteria regarding project types they consider supporting also often changes, while rural community priorities have remained consistent.
Third, the NIHD should double the amount (to $60,000) of the funding ceiling for local projects; and reduce to 10 percent (currently at 30 percent, a prohibitive barrier) the requirement that recipients contribute toward the financial amount requested. In-kind giving on the part of community applicants, such as labor and land, should be accepted by the NIHD instead of the financial contribution.
Finally, and critically, the NIHD should co-create project proposals among its staff with the prospective local beneficiaries. The majority of rural people are illiterate and cannot draft the required documents, making it so that communities who could utilize NIHD most are not accessing it. Credit Agricole in Morocco and USAID in northern Iraq are starting to gain experiences in co-creating project proposals with community representatives and beneficiaries, lessons from which might be helpful if NIHD adopted this approach. Incorporating these measures and aligning NIHD and the Municipal Charter regarding participatory planning and development, could create a sharp rise in the implementation of new local development projects that are consistent with the necessities of sustainability.
The Decentralization Roadmap
Third, the “Roadmap” of Moroccan decentralization--taken from the public statements of the King of Morocco since 2008--aims to utilize ongoing national government engagement (devolution) along with sub-national partnerships (deconcentration), to help implement community projects (delegation). In other words, the Moroccan pathway aims to rally national resources and partnerships for local development, which in principle is good for the sake of sustainability.
However, without the Municipal Charter and the NIHD working together, adequate decentralized arrangements of public administrations will not endure. Overall, decentralization is not significantly taking hold in Morocco, which further adds to the suppression of new local development. The national government still generally decides the parameters, terms, cases, and situations for sub-regional actions. However, there is reason to hope that there will be progress: the King of Morocco tasked the government to submit in October 2018 a draft Decentralization Charter, which would ideally bind national and regional government agencies to specific functions for the administration of human services.
There are concerns that the process of decentralization in pursing development may lead to destabilizing political outcomes. With regards to the Moroccan case, the emphasis on participatory approaches by local communities in creating these projects centers on their livelihoods and meeting their immediate human needs. During the course of 25 years of working in community development in Morocco, having directly or indirectly helped bring about local meetings and projects in all its 12 regions, I have observed no basis for concerns that stem beyond these developmental factors involving the unrealized plethora of socioeconomic and environmental opportunities of the people. Communities are focused on their needs and projects to meet them, on creating and furthering their associations and cooperatives toward their goals, and to somehow address what can seem stifling difficulties for progress. There certainly has been ample opportunity to redress the needless poverty, and there still is if only Moroccan leadership were to fulfill the model of decentralized participatory development to which it is committed.
Understandably, achieving decentralization, particularly in regards to the pace in which it is executed, is a delicate process. The local level is stratified socio-economically, environmentally and by gender just as it is on the national and global levels. Advancing decentralization quickly can be fraught with unhelpful consequences, such as further entrenchment of locally affluent and political classes. However, genuine implementation of the Municipal Charter in close conjunction with the NIHD could create the necessary participatory democratic conditions which would enable Morocco to eventually opt for an emerging form of communalization, or decentralized management of development planning and projects to the municipal level.
These three Moroccan Frameworks for Development contain what is needed in order for development to be catalyzed with enduring and sustainable results for marginalized areas and groups in the country. The Municipal Charter could provide the plans for projects that the NIHD may then help accomplish. Decentralized procedures and managements systems are consequently built alongside the local communities’ project implementation, involving multi-sectoral partnerships dedicated to achieving goals that are defined at sub-national levels.
It is not the insufficiency of these frameworks that accounts for the hardships that afflict Moroccan people, especially in rural areas. Rather, it is their inadequate implementation, stemming from a considerable lack of their understanding among elected and ministerial officials and local leaders, and the skills that are needed in order to translate them into reality. This is all that is needed for men and women of all ages to come together for community workshops, which, if followed through, can ultimately deliver the projects that they and their families have sought for far too long.
Image courtesy of Gal Kramarski.
Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, Ph.D., is a sociologist and the president of the High Atlas Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable development in Morocco.
In this latest episode of the Fletcher Forum podcast, editor-in-chief Elissa Miller and senior podcast editor Maria Ory sit down with Dr. Nussaibah Younis, an expert on the politics, foreign policy, and economy of Iraq and founder of the Iraq Leadership Fellows Program. Following parliamentary elections last May, Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi has only recently assumed office. Dr. Younis walks us through the current on-the-ground dynamics and sentiment of Iraq’s population and complex political system. The conversation then turns to the international level where we discuss the impact that U.S. sanctions on Iran will have on Iraq's economy. Listen in for the latest on politics in Iraq.
In this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast, podcast editor Alexander Thomas sits down with Ambassador Diego Arria, former President of the UN Security Council and a prominent member of the Venezuelan opposition. During their conversation, they discuss Ambassador Arria's career in diplomacy and his thoughts on the Venezuelan economic and migration crisis. Ambassador Arria shares his hopes for the future of Venezuela, and the role he sees the international community playing in their fruition. We hope you enjoy!
by Intissar Kherigi
Tunisia’s first democratic local elections, held on May 6, 2018, were a seismic political event in the Arab world for two main reasons. The first is the fact that they represented the country’s fourth free, fair and peaceful elections since the 2011 revolution that removed former dictator Ben Ali from power and sparked the Arab Spring. This is a significant achievement in a region where initial hopes elsewhere for freedom, dignity and development have largely faded away in the face of civil war, authoritarian retrenchment, and foreign interference.
The second reason for the importance of Tunisia’s recent elections, and the focus of this article, is that they marked the start of a process of decentralization, which could have large ramifications for both the country and the wider region. The principal aim of the decentralization process is to overhaul the old model of centralized rule by transferring power away from Tunis, the capital city, toward local and regional authorities. Under a new Local Authorities Code adopted earlier this year, democratically elected local governments will have expanded policymaking jurisdiction and resources. This is a rarity in the Arab world, where decentralization has long been taboo for many regimes, which fear any talk of local autonomy as a potential threat to their rule.
Indeed, Arab countries remain among the most centralized in the world when measured by public service delivery and the distribution of powers and resources among the different tiers of government. Between 1990 and 2006, local government expenditure in OECD countries averaged around 41 percent of central government spending (20 percent of GDP) and around 23 percent in Latin America. In the Arab world today, local government expenditure averages only about 5 percent of GDP. Calls for greater local autonomy featured prominently in many of the Arab Spring protests, from Tunisia and Libya to Yemen and Morocco.
Yet, the debate around decentralization in the region has largely been dominated by two main discourses, both of which frame decentralization as a direct threat to stability and the foundations of the state. The first discourse presents calls for local autonomy as the work of secessionist groups that seek to undermine social harmony, national unity and stability. The second discourse presents them as the work of foreign powers that (either directly or indirectly via minorities) seek, again, to undermine social harmony, national unity and stability. The recent Kurdish referendum on independence, as well as the standoff between the Catalan region and the Spanish Government, were widely seen to vindicate these fears, proof that any talk of empowering local or regional authorities is the start of a slippery slope that can only end in chaos and fragmentation.
Tunisia’s bold step to devolve power stems from demands during the revolution for greater social, economic, and political inclusion of the country’s impoverished interior regions, where protests originated. The uprising focused national attention on the deep regional inequalities and marginalization – the consequence of decades of highly concentrated rule centered in Tunis and a handful of other coastal regions. French political scientist Beatrice Hibou maps this history of “spatial polarization” in Tunisia by linking it to a political alliance between the rulers and coastal elites, resulting in asymmetrical budgetary policies that have dedicated 80% of public investment to coastal regions and only 20% to interior regions.
Since 2011, political consensus has emerged regarding the need to introduce profound, structural solutions to tackle these entrenched inequalities. This new consensus led to the decision to devote an entire chapter of the new post-revolution constitution—adopted in January 2014 - to decentralization. Chapter Seven, titled simply “Local Authority”, has been called the most “revolutionary” section of the constitution and codifies a radical departure from Tunisia’s tradition of centralized authority. Article 14 of the constitution commits the state to “promote decentralization and adopt it across the whole national territory, within the framework of the unity of the state.”
However, deep divisions remain on this issue. Indeed, the reference to the “unity of the state” (wihdat al-dawla in Arabic) was inserted into article 14 at the request of the Ministry of the Interior, which oversaw local and regional authorities with an iron fist until 2015, when jurisdiction was transferred to a new ministry. Tunisia’s state structures and traditions have historically been heavily influenced by the French Jacobin model of a strong national government. As such, it is not surprising that decentralization has provoked nervousness among the central bureaucracy, as well as Destouriens (those who support a centralized model of governance, many of whom grew up under a presidential system dominated by former President Habib Bourguiba) and national politicians, who fear that their authority will be diminished by the empowerment of local governments.
Tunisia’s experiment with decentralization is still in its very early stages. A ministerial committee charged with overseeing the reforms has stated that the process will take a staggering twenty-seven years to fully implement. If it succeeds in promoting local development and revitalizing local services, while avoiding the much-feared fragmentation of national unity and state authority, Tunisia’s decentralization process will have important implications for how citizens in the rest of the Arab world view local rule. To do this, significant work is needed to build the capacities of local authorities, which have long been deprived of financial, technical, and human resources. Furthermore, a big push is needed to ensure that authorities are given the powers they need to exercise real autonomy, in the face of inevitable resistance from vested interests. Ultimately, it will be the responsibility of Tunisian citizens and civil society to maintain the pressure on decision makers to implement the new legal framework. With both great opportunities and challenges ahead, Tunisia’s decentralization drive is yet another reason to keep a close eye on the country’s ongoing democratic transition.
Image: Tunisians Commemorate Revolution Anniversary
Courtesy of Magharebia / Flickr
Intissar Kherigi is a co-founder of the Jasmine Foundation, a ‘think and do tank’ in Tunisia specializing in citizen participation in decision-making and youth empowerment, and the application of social science research to create innovative social solutions. She has worked as a researcher at the House of Lords in London, the UN Security Council in New York, and the European parliament in Brussels, and is currently a PhD student in Comparative Political Sociology at Sciences Po in Paris. Her academic research focuses on decentralisation, regional inequality and local governance reforms in post-revolution Tunisia.
by Swathi Gokulan
This past August marked a year since the forced displacement of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar – an act that sparked global outrage. To make matters worse, not much has improved for this stateless population. As Bangladesh and Myanmar stagger over a premature and faulty deal for the return of the Rohingya, their neighbor to the west has mostly sat out of the crisis. India, the most stable democracy in the region, has done little more than threaten to deport Rohingya refugees from its soil and extend support to the repatriation agreement between Dhaka and Naypyidaw.
A look at India’s refugee response over the years shows why India is unlikely to budge on the Rohingya issue. An increase in sentiments of religious nationalism over the years makes it unsurprising that an otherwise constitutionally secular state would allow religion to determine the fate of refugees who knock on its borders for asylum.
The violent partition of the Indian subcontinent following British colonial rule led to one of the largest mass migration movements in history. In many ways, the cross-border movement and displacement of people along religious lines shaped the formation of states and national identities in South Asia. As Pakistan became a homeland for Muslims in the region and displaced Bengali Hindus arriving in India, the onus fell on India to grant refuge to Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
More than 70 years later, this post-colonial legacy continues to shape India’s refugee policies. Like many of its counterparts in South Asia, India is party neither to the UN's 1951 Convention on Refugees nor its 1967 Protocol for several reasons. First, citing its non-alignment policy, India perceives the Convention to be Eurocentric and steeped in Cold War politics. Second, it claims that the Convention places undue burden on developing nations to handle refugee influxes when they struggle to meet the needs of their own citizens. Third, it sees acceding to the Convention as compromising its sovereignty and national security concerns.
A combination of porous borders, hostile neighbors and external militancy means that the Indian state would want complete autonomy in regulating the entry of foreigners. India’s position in a volatile region—a Hindu majority nation surrounded by mostly Muslim-majority nations— also makes it very cautious about refugee flows disturbing its demographic makeup. Keeping these factors in mind, India has avoided putting in place an official refugee policy.
However, this stance is complicated by the fact that every conflict in the region has sent several waves of refugees to India. After the Partition refugees of 1947 came the Tibetans fleeing Chinese persecution in the 1950s. The liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 sent thousands over the border. Ethnic Tamils flocked to the southern parts of India at different points in the Sri Lankan civil war. Protracted conflict in Afghanistan has sent several waves of Afghan refugees to Indian cities. In addition to the Rohingya from Myanmar, refugee groups have also come from parts of the Middle East and Africa.
Indisputably, relations with these refugees’ country of origin play a huge role in India’s policy response. However, it cannot be denied that the question of which refugee groups gain government patronage is painted with a communal hue. Despite India's constitutional status as a secular country, the legal vacuum in refugee protection allows India to act selectively. Successive governments have turned to vote-bank politics to muster electoral support from different refugee groups.
Rising Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done little to put out these communal flames. In its 2014 election manifesto, Modi’s political party explicitly called on persecuted Hindus to seek refuge in India. In this vein, a citizenship law was amended in 2016 to naturalize all undocumented migrants from neighboring countries belonging to minority communities—specifically excluding Muslim migrants. In addition to being discriminatory, this law completely ignores the fact that Muslim minorities face persecution in these countries like the Shias, Ahmadis, and Sufis in Pakistan. The same can be said about the Hazaras and other minority groups caught in Afghanistan's ongoing conflict.
Non-Muslim refugees, including the Tibetans and Sri Lankan Tamils, were assisted directly by the Indian Government. They were granted full legal protection, and access to land and other services. The Tibetan refugees even have a government-in-exile based in India. Meanwhile, those groups neglected by the government live in segregated settlements in cities and are vulnerable to abuse. Often, it is up to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to deal with other groups like the Afghans, Burmese, Palestinians, and Rohingyas by conducting refugee status determination and issuing identity cards to groups that approach them, despite the fact that the Government of India does not recognize them as refugees.
The lack of an official asylum policy in India has led the government to pursue an ad hoc approach to different refugee populations. With no distinction between a foreigner and a refugee, India’s refugee response revolves around politics rather than protection. Identity politics is nothing new in India and has been a mainstay across successive administrations. With upcoming national elections in 2019, the Modi government’s efforts to legitimize the state as Hindu can have grave consequences for its refugee policies and its perception by the international community.
The Rohingya are among many communities fleeing repressive governments. It is abominable that the most persecuted communities in the world find themselves unwelcome amidst the Hindu nationalist aspirations of the Indian state. India, with its relatively stable and democratic disposition in the region, must take the lead on formulating an inclusive policy for refugees. At a time when it aspires for a permanent seat the UN Security Council, it is imperative for India to have a refugee policy that protects, rather than divides, those in need.
Image: Displaced Rohingya Muslims
Courtesy of Mahmoud Hosseini / Tasnim News Agency (from Wikimedia Commons)
Swathi Gokulan is a recent graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. As a researcher, she is interested in forced migration and minority rights. She has worked as journalist in India for Reuters and Scroll.in, where she covered international politics, urban development and culture.
She holds a BA in Journalism from Sophia College for Women, Mumbai and a diploma in human rights law from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore.
In this edition of the Fletcher Forum podcast, podcast editor Shawn Ghuman sits down with Dr. Amjad Saqib, the Executive Director of Akhuwat, the largest Islamic microfinance organization in the world. While microfinance takes many forms all over the world, Dr. Saqib's interest-free microloans program in Pakistan serves as a noteworthy testament to both human nature’s inherent generosity as well as every human’s desire to provide for themselves and their family. In this discussion with Dr. Saqib, we learn about what inspired him to start Akhuwat, the organization’s successes so far, and how he hopes to expand this model across the globe.
On September 19, 2018, U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro visited Tufts University and spoke with students on the foreign policy challenges facing the United States today. This interview was conducted in conjunction with the Tufts Daily.
Q: You’ve spoken about President Trump’s lack of foreign policy leadership. Who, in your view, is picking up the slack and serving as a foreign policy leader in his absence?
JC: I think you see some countries trying to do that. China, for example. Early on in President Trump’s term when he had announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, Xi Jinping went to the Davos World Economic Forum and talked about climate change. In other areas, I think Angela Merkel is doing this in Germany, Japan is leading in TPP 11, etc. So there may not be one country alone that has tried to step into different voids, but different leaders are trying.
Q: Is there anyone in the U.S. government who you think is picking up the mantle of foreign policy leadership to make up for the shortcomings of the president?
JC: I feel like it’s an ensemble effort right now, with many of us working together. Democrats, but also some Republicans, are pushing back against some of the changes the president has tried to make in his approach, as well as the road that he’s taking us down.
Q: How do you think the inconsistencies in U.S. leadership will impact the ways that adversaries and allies see the U.S.?
JC: I think our adversaries see it as an opportunity to advance their own agendas and get closer to nations that have historically been aligned with the U.S. As the president has alienated Mexico in some ways, China has been paying more attention [to] and focusing on Mexico. In terms of how they see the U.S., my read is that many of our allies are still hoping for the best. They’re hoping that the president’s words are only words and that they won’t result in significantly different actions. I also think that, like it or not, they’re starting to move around the U.S. and make new alliances and pursue new agreements and opportunities with each other, rather than with the U.S. at the helm.
Q: You spoke about serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the ongoing investigations into the Trump campaign. What effects, if any, do you think these investigations will have on the upcoming midterm elections?
JC: I think Americans have a lot of concerns about interference with our elections and what role the people close to President Trump played in helping with that interference. It’s hard to quantify exactly how much, but I think it will play some role in how people decide to vote, especially now that several of President Trump’s associates have either been indicted or entered into a plea agreement. It’s certainly going to play some role. I hope that everything that has happened will inspire people to get out and vote and participate, instead of undermining people’s confidence in government and everything reverting to partisan tribalism where Republicans just believe what President Trump’s said, and Democrats just believe what’s said against the president.
Q: You mentioned mutual cyber defense treaties in your talk. What role do you think the U.S. Congress should play in the cyber arena, and to what extent do you think the Administration should require Congressional approval to take defensive or offensive cyber actions?
JC: This seems like a case of first impression because, until recently, we’ve never dealt with challenges like this where our democracy was tested in cyber space. I think the Congress should not just be a spectator as we work through these issues. The Congress should have a role in designing mutual cyber defense treaties, or in encouraging bodies like NATO to include more robust language in the existing NATO agreement. There is cyber language in the NATO agreement, but it only deals with attacks on military targets, and we need to deal with civilian targets, like an election system or a power plant. There’s still a large area where we need to govern and legislate. I think the Congress should have a very active role in that. I think the Administration should play a role, too; the question is whether they are willing to do that. They haven’t shown any interest in designing a mutual cyber defense treaty or interest in pursuing one, so that’s concerning because I think, every day, we’re losing ground. We’re becoming more vulnerable and if we don’t act in concert, we’re giving up a lot of leverage.
Q: The UN General Assembly is next week. Historically, Democrats have been very supportive of the UN, but can you share any examples of bipartisan support for engaging with the UN and other international organizations?
JC: There are certainly different members of Congress who are engaged with international organizations, including Republicans. I see evidence of that when people take CoDels [Congressional Delegations], which are official trips to other countries, and visit with different international bodies and organizations about their work and ask how they can be helpful. One example is the Global Development Lab which tries to address the world’s development challenges. The rhetoric can often be kind of harsh from conservatives, but if you look beyond that rhetoric, you’ll find there are a good number of them that are actually working in an international spirit.
In fact, I just passed a bill with Mark Meadows (R-NC), who’s a leader of the Tea Party, basically the Freedom Caucus, on global electoral assistance where we would send over folks who would observe and learn from the elections in other nations, and they would do the same for the United States. We were doing it to promote democracy, but you would think at first blush, why is this Tea Party guy doing something that’s involved in elections in other countries? But Mark and his staff were very helpful partners in the legislation. We passed it through the House, and now it’s got to make it through the Senate. I also passed cyber legislation with Mike McCaul (R-TX) last Congress. Again, we got it through the House and it didn’t make it through the Senate.
Q: How do you negotiate the issues that don’t necessarily come into the public consciousness as much, both in terms of getting the word out and in terms of bridging the divide between what constituents and legislators experience day to day?
JC: You’re right, some issues are much higher profile, and there are some issues where people get it right away. If people think the country is going to go to war and their spouse is going to be deployed because of that, there’s an immediate concern. On other issues, I try to point out why it’s important for San Antonio, for my constituents, to have an opinion on these things, to be supportive of a certain position. But often times, they give you latitude as a representative and entrust you with the responsibility to take on these issues, and say, “if I have a strong opinion on one or two or ten of them, I’ll let you know.” Otherwise, on a lot of the stuff that we do, we might get one or two emails, and sometimes we don’t.
Q: Because of the low information nature of some foreign affairs issues, how do you deal with the fact that some other rhetoric can become easier for people to grasp?
JC: That is a concern. To the extent that politicians or others can use issues as wedges to generate fear or concern, which can become problematic. Once in a while, we’ll see that happen. For example, Texas religious organizations have settled a lot of refugees. That had not been controversial at all for many years, and then the governor in Texas last year moved to, if not halt, then severely curtail a lot of the refugees that were coming in. That, to me, is an example of something that existed as policy that the public was fine with and there wasn’t a strenuous objection, but you have a politician inserting himself into the debate and trying to stir people’s fears, and it can have an effect.
Q: Part of the Tufts campus sits in the Massachusetts 7th district. The recent primary victory of Ayanna Pressley over Congressman Capuano has raised questions about the nature of representation and how deep representation has to go. As a major force in Latino representation in Congress, what are your thoughts on diversity and representation?
JC: You want the congress to look like the United States of America and hopefully we’re getting closer to that. It looks like we’re getting closer to that in this election cycle. There’s still a long way to go. Also, we talked about Hispanics and the lack of voter participation. Sometimes it’s a challenge because you have communities that don’t see themselves reflected in their elected leadership. Houston, Texas over the years has been an example of that for Hispanics. You’ve got a lot of Hispanics living in Houston, but in terms of elected officials, there were relatively few examples to look up to, and I think that also stunts political participation. It looks like, not only with people of color, but also with women, we’re taking a step in the right direction in 2018.
Q: With the Kavanaugh hearings in the news and the #MeToo movement being a significant force in America today, can you speak to how that has impacted Congress and how issues of sexual harassment have been approached differently recently?
JC: The first thing is, the Congress, like other industries, has had an issue with problems of sexual harassment over the years and it did not have policies and an infrastructure in place to address that. The Congress has been trying to work on that, but it has not yet gotten where it needs to be. I think the movement in that sense accomplished its goal, because it made an institution reflect upon itself and start to change in a meaningful way. That’s the purpose of a movement, whether it’s #MeToo or another movement it has been very significant to the American Congress and to society.
We also saw what was going on in the entertainment industry and in the business industry. Politics and entertainment happen to be two of the higher profile industries, so many of the stories will come from there, but it’s been a problem across sectors in the U.S. One of the things that we dealt with in the U.S. Congress has been people being allowed to pay settlements with federal money, and I have stated I don’t believe they should be allowed to do that. The discussion on that issue has been interesting. There were some folks, including some women in Congress, who made the case that you should be able to do that because if you don’t allow it, then there are times where the victims of sexual harassment may not get anything. So I thought, many members of Congress are very wealthy on their own, so you could still collect from them, but there are others that aren’t. We’re still working through some of those issues, but it’s moved further along.
Image: United States Capitol Building
Courtesy of Kimberly Vardeman / Flickr
U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro is a third-term member of Congress and former member of the Texas House of Representatives who sits on the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees and is First Vice Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He also serves as Chief Deputy Whip and is a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.
by Dr. Bruno Sergi and Dr. Ernesto Gallo
Europe today is a significant importer of natural gas and crude oil which remains dependent on the major regional producer, Russia. EU demand for Russian gas imports has increased since 2015, a fact which reflects Europe’s condition of dependency, which in fact originated in the early 2000s when President Vladimir Putin had promoted the opening to Europeans of the Russian energy market. On the EU’s side, however, there are significant energy security risks, that is, insufficient diversification of supply routes, not supplier risk. 53% of Russian gas delivered to Europe is transported via pipelines through Ukraine (down from 80% a few years ago). Any disruption along this route is the biggest threat to supply. On the Russian side, there is an ongoing effort to secure Western investment, technological capability, and technical expertise so Gazprom can replace and modernize their natural gas infrastructure. Only Germany seems to enjoy exclusive and close relationships with the Russian energy industry. The new EU energy policy, by contrast, is to diversify the geography of oil and gas imports. At the same time, the new imperative of the United States is to bring shale oil and gas to the world market starting in 2018, which is an enormous competitive challenge for Russia.
In Italy, this issue is gaining momentum in the media and public opinion due to the ongoing works on the TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline), which will connect Southern Italy (in particular, the beautiful and sun-kissed Salento) to Albania and ultimately Azerbaijan, from where natural gas will be sourced. Environmentalists’ protests over the pipeline construction have been going on for years and the new Italian government, elected in June 2018, at first dubbed the project “pointless,” changing its mind after Prime Minister Conte’s meeting with President Trump on July 30, when the latter urged Italy to proceed with it. At the moment, TAP seems to be firmly on Italy’s agenda, but the country’s political uncertainty does not help. A lot will eventually depend on the overall state of West-Russia relations.
The West-Russia confrontation on energy has moved from the “South Stream” vs. “Nabucco” pipelines to the new “Turkish Stream” vs. “Southern Gas Corridor.” In the 2000s, the European Union and the United States backed the Nabucco pipeline, which would have originated in Azerbaijan, transiting through Turkey. Although this proposal seemed to have a better chance of success, the U.S. and the EU argued that while they were no longer able to reduce Central Asia’s dependency on Russia, they could still help Europe, which was relying too much on Russian natural gas. Later, the “South Stream” project emerged as a rival, a $39 billion and 1,500-mile pipeline that would carry Russian gas to the heart of Europe The effort gained particular momentum after 2006, in light of Russia’s natural gas transit disputes with Ukraine.
However, Nabucco and South Stream would be incompatible; regarding both supply and demand, only one could be successful. Meanwhile, smaller players emerged that muddied Nabucco’s prospects for success in Azerbaijan. Among them is the Southern Gas Corridor (six countries from the Caspian Sea, i.e., SCP (South Caucasus Pipeline),TANAP (Trans Anatolian Pipeline), TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) that would carry just one-third of the volume promised by Nabucco.
After the collapse of the US-EU backed Nabucco pipeline, the prominent issue concerning the Southern Corridor became that of gas production in Azerbaijan. After all, the whole project is dependent on Azerbaijan’s gas supply, whose production prospects are now in decline. A few years ago, Dr. Vitaliy Baylarbalov, Deputy Vice-President of SOCAR (Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company), spoke about the possibility to scale up the Corridor’s capacity to 60 billion cubic meters (bcm), but now the estimates of what Europe will receive are a modest 10 bcm; doubling the pipeline, as is often proposed, is not an easy option. Azerbaijan had a significant supply squeeze in the early 2010s and even started importing gas from Russia. The Shah Deniz II field, which will supply the corridor, started producing in June but is expected to reach a peak of maximum just 16 bcm. There are several other gas fields in the country, but they are currently poorly or not developed, due to a range of economic, technological, and financial issues.
Moreover, domestic gas demand from Azerbaijan and its closest customer, Georgia, has been rising. It is thus rather unlikely that, in the years to come, Europe will receive more than 10 bcm, which corresponds to just 2.1% of the total gas consumed in the EU in 2017; less than 14% of Italy’s total. There are two options: the expected 10 bcm that will cross the Italian coast are either distributed all across the EU or entirely demanded by Italy that would retain all the new gas for itself. While 10 bcm would be a significant amount of natural gas for Italy, it would be much less if Italy were to distribute the gas among all EU countries, and definitively 2.1% of total consumption needs is an insignificant amount for a European Union seeking to rebalance its energy mix in favor of more natural gas. That is, the expected 2.1% would make an even smaller impact should the European energy mix change in favor of more gas consumptionNor would the impact on average gas prices be of any significance.
As illustrated by Dr. Simon Pirani (OIES, University of Oxford), an extension of the Corridor’s capacity (including its doubling) looks unlikely until new investments start, and in a rosy scenario it might only become a reality in the 2030s. Other countries’ – including Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Israel -- participation would be welcome but could take time and provide modest benefits. Turkmenistan, which is resolving its issues with the other Caspian states, has massive reserves but is committed to selling them to China (which connected via pipeline as early as 2009) and might resume gas trade with Russia, which could then re-export it to Europe cheaply; it is unlikely it will attempt to connect to Azerbaijan via a sub-Caspian route . The recent significant finds in the Eastern Mediterranean are mainly in Egypt, which looks poised to become a gas hub itself rather than connecting to networks such as the Southern Corridor
In other words, the Southern Corridor that is expected to arrive on the Italian shore through Albania and all the way to its origin in Azerbaijan with its three components seems to provide modest benefits to Europe’s diversification from Russian imports. Too little, too late, and too costly perhaps for what the EU dubbed a “key infrastructure priority.”
Image: European Union
Courtesy of Motiqua / Flickr
Dr. Bruno S. Sergi is an Instructor at Harvard University, Scientific Director of the Lab for Entrepreneurship and Development (LEAD) at Harvard, and Associate of Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Concurrently, he teaches International Economics at the University of Messina. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and is an Associate Editor of The American Economist.
Dr. Ernesto Gallo received his PhD from the University of Turin. He has lectured in several British universities, among which the Birkbeck College and the University of Birmingham, and is currently based at Regent’s University. Dr. Gallo has published in English and Italian on issues of international relations and political theory, globalisation, empire, and Eurasian politics.
On the latest episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast, senior print editor Emma Friedheim and senior podcast editor Maria Ory sit down with cybersecurity and policy experts Angela McKay of Microsoft and Herb Lin of Stanford University. Relatively speaking, cybersecurity is a fairly new field. The impact of cybersecurity on the intersecting roles of public and private institutions, challenges facing good governance, and personal responsibility remains contested. How does privacy relate to all of this? What about cultural norms? Listen to this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcastto explore these questions and find out why one of our guests argues that the Russian election meddling isn’t necessarily a cyber issue.
by Gal Kramarski
During an empowerment workshop in a small village in the High Atlas Region of Morocco, we asked participants to take a moment to visualize their own future. Twenty-five female participants were present in the room. None of them reacted to what we asked. At first, we thought the word "vision" was not clear to them and tried to explain it in several different dialects and languages. When this did not help, we realized that the problem was not the lack of comprehension of the language. In fact, a possible reason could have been the lack of understanding of the very concept that one has the option, the ability, or the right, to visualize her own future differently.
"Feeling that one has the right to something is much more powerful than simply needing or wanting it; it implies that someone else has the duty to respond" (Green, 2012). Indeed, there are indications that rights promote development. However, could raising awareness of rights, on its own, be sufficient to promote development processes? We frequently ask ourselves why governmental decisions and national laws that promote human rights, which often influence development processes, struggle to reach remote areas. Is this what keeps marginalized societies behind in the process of development?
On the quest for an answer, a team from the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) including Fatima Zahra Laarbi, Ibtissam Niri, Amina Samkane, Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, and myself conducted a participatory assessment of needs and awareness of personal rights in 2017. The research included group discussion workshops targeting rural women of the High Atlas Region in the Al-Haouz Province. The research showed that 94 percent of study participants had never heard about Moudawana – the Moroccan law that established distinct women's rights – even though the law was enacted in 2004. Indeed, providing a legal structure, raising awareness and enforcing it, might not be enough to promote sustainable development. However, combining other participatory methods with a Rights-Based Approach (RBA) might be the key to reaching a sustainable progress.
Recently, there has been an increased interest amongst different development actors and agencies in shifting to RBA, as it encompasses human rights as a central tool to promote development processes. It emerged as a distinct paradigm in the late 1990s, combining internationally recognized human rights with local development actions aimed at poverty reduction (Kindornay, Ron and Carpenter, 2012). RBA implies that participation in development processes is the right of every individual. Furthermore, development, in many cases includes a process of securing access to rights and its enforcement, whereas the existence of rights enhances development processes.
Based on our field research, I would also claim, that in order to maximize the use of rights-based development, it should be utilized with a Capabilities Approach and a Capacity Building Approach (Sen, 1999).
There is a difference between one's actual capacities and one's sense of capacity. While the first describes the ability to use existing skills, the second discusses acknowledging its existence (Nussbaum, 1997; UNDP, 2009). These two approaches—and multiple others that are part of the participatory development framework—emphasize the important role of engaging the community in the process of achieving sustainable development and situating the individual and his community at the center of the process.
The above model that utilizes rights, capabilities and capacities, can be applied in the case of women's rights in Morocco. Human rights and freedoms are enshrined in the Moroccan Constitution as "immutable constants", (article 175). In 1956, Morocco enacted Moudawana, which is entirely based on the Islamic sharia and the Maliki School. The 1956 Moudawana did not conform with international human rights law as women’s rights were not equal to those of men. However, following decades of civic struggle, in January 2004, the new family code law, Moudawanat Al-Osra (Family Moudawana), was ratified. This reflected Morocco's consideration of different restrictions and local social elements, to make international human rights laws, potentially, easier to implement in its society. The new law follows the principle of equality between men and women in family, community, and Moroccan society. It raises the minimum age of marriage for both men and women to 18, includes rights for women to obtain a divorce and inherit property, requires a women’s approval to allow polygamy, and includes other such rights within its 400 legislations.
However, its implementation faces different barriers in terms of both public awareness and law enforcement, mainly in remote areas (Harrak, 2009). Using Moudawana, HAF aims to integrate a rights-based approach into its existing programs to create an inclusive women's empowerment strategy that involves strengthening capabilities, capacities, and implementation of rights.
From August 2017 until January 2018, we conducted participatory research using focus groups to find rural women's level of awareness of their rights and personal needs. 204 women took part in the assessment; 193 women were from the rural Al-Haouz Province in the Marrakech Region and 11 students from Marrakech University in the urban area. As women are usually socially excluded from decision-making processes, they were specifically targeted as participants to allow a different point of view on the needs of the community. This decision corresponds with the increasing global interest in women's role in promoting sustainable development and community growth.
94% of the women from Al-Haouz, had never heard about Moudawana before, whereas all women from Marrakech indicated they knew the law. Rural women shared sentiments that if they could not learn what their rights were, they would remain dependent on their husbands, families, and communities. Moreover, they mentioned several core reasons for their lack of awareness including: lack of education, lack of access to information due to inadequate infrastructures, and social norms that stand between them and the knowledge of their rights. Additionally, three main needs were identified: strengthening women's capabilities (including literacy, financial skills, bureaucracy etc.), developing and reinforcing women's independence, both socially and financially, and changing certain social norms to improve women's status.
The needs that were raised in the discussions led to our understanding that a strong connection exists between rights, capabilities, and sense of capacity. The actual existence and enforcement of laws that secure rights allow reinforcing capabilities, whereas awareness of rights strengthens one's sense of capacity as people feel a part of a "whole" who deserve respectable treatment.
This process takes into consideration three main questions: 1. What do I/we have? 2. What can I/we do? 3. How can I/we do it? In conclusion, I would like to suggest three main recommendations for any practitioners using an RBA approach:
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Create an inclusive participatory process, which involves different stakeholders from the very beginning. RBA acts as a catalyst that can transform the framework of development from focusing on providing needs, to focusing on people who can recognize and claim their rights as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Nyamu-Musembi and Cornwall, 2004). This imposes higher self-awareness, which provides the power to create "your own change", particularly among societies that are usually marginalized or discriminated against.
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Encourage local leadership to promote independence and sustainability. Participatory development, according to different development entities, promotes sustainability. For instance, in our project we suggested doing so through the promotion of relationships between rural women and university students. As students from Marrakech University mentioned, "We see the issue of using Moudawana as a shared responsibility or even as a national mission." Bringing together university students and rural women to learn about Moudawana and designing suitable local implementation of the law encouraged local participation that led to local leadership.
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Financial development is the method; social and human development is the main goal. It is common to measure development in terms of financial progress. However, through this perspective, to achieve sustainable development a program should target social and human development as well.
Examining the links between RBA, capabilities approach and capacity development reveals the advantages of rights-based development and the ways it can support sustainable changes. Placing women at the heart of the process by using participatory methods provides a different point of view on community development. Furthermore, as Moudawana is based on Islamic sharia, which is highly respected among Muslims globally, it has the potential to evoke change regarding women's rights and their role in society in other Muslim countries. Throughout local implementations of international values, RBA can be utilized with other methods to support both individual and collective social change.
Image courtesy of Gal Kramarski (author).
Gal Kramarski holds a B.A in Middle East and Islam studies and Political Sciences, and a M.A in International Development, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As part of her masters research she conducted an internship in Marrakech, Morocco, where she worked with rural women on designing a project for raising awareness of women's rights. Her master's thesis focuses on the experiences of Palestinian students at the Hebrew University, and the connections between visual appearance and sense of belonging. Gal is a project coordinator in Manarat Center for Jewish-Arab Relations in the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
Kicking off the 2018-2019 school year, the Forum's Editor in Chief Elissa Miller and Senior Podcast Producer Maria Ory sit down with interim Dean Johnstone. In the inaugural podcast for the academic year, Dean Johnstone highlights why he chose to accept the position as interim Dean of the Fletcher School and what his hopes and priorities are for the upcoming year. Gleaning from Dean Johnstone’s extensive experience with the United Nations and international organizations more generally, he also discusses the upcoming opening for UN General Assembly and how international organizations can and should stay relevant in today’s ever-changing global order. Have a listen!
by Radhika Chhabra
China’s 2015 White Paper on defense clearly states its ambition to maintain the security of its overseas interests and strategic sea lines of communication by entrusting the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the PLA Navy (PLAN) with the task of doing so. In light of this, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has provided China a gateway for enhanced interactions and strategic developments in the Indo-Pacific region through which it aims to link more than 65 countries via an ambitious network of ports, rails, roads and other infrastructure, encompassing about 40 percent of the global GDP.
China has invested close to 15 billion USD in Sri Lanka where its transnational infrastructure building program includes the dendro (biomass) power plant project, the Mattala airport, the Hambantota Port and a brand-new financial district called the Colombo Port City. Originally the brainchild of former President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Hambantota port was originally intended to be a project between Sri Lanka and India. Ultimately, Mr. Rajapaksa allowed China to come in after India rejected the offer due to the lack of economic viability the port would provide. The port, which has been handed over to China on a 99 year lease, has considerable strategic influence since it provides China a maritime route to connect to Europe, which will further help Beijing boost its trade volumes.
Aside from Sri Lanka, China’s steadily creeping influence has also expanded to other countries in the region such as Maldives. Since opening its embassy in 2012, China’s influence and interest in the island has grown at an unprecedented scale, which has caused disruption in the long-standing relations between India and Maldives. Under the leadership of President Abdulla Yameen, Maldives’ historically pro-Indian government has slowly been replaced by a pro-Chinese one. As a consequence, Beijing continues to expand its presence in this strategically important archipelago without much resistance from the new government.
China signed a free trade agreement with Maldives on 8 December, 2017, the terms of which have been widely interpreted to be unequal. Under the agreement, the trade balance remains highly in favor of Beijing than Malé as the former has more goods to offer compared to the latter, which is mostly relying on the export of tuna and the flow of tourism to prop up its end of the bargain. Additionally, the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, which recently opened on 30 August 2018, has generated apprehension that China may be using debt trap as a disciplinary tool to succumb Maldives to its demands and has intensified India’s concerns that it would plunge the island state into an economic crisis.
The fact that China is financing a large number of ports in and around the region has also nettled India. Currently, China has a naval base in Djibouti and ports in Pakistan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Maldives–all of these infrastructure have been placed under the rubric of the BRI. Despite China’s claims that these ports will be used strictly for commercial ventures, it seems likely that the accompanying military presence in the area will widen the range of capabilities and resources available to China and reduce the time required to deploy them.
In light of China’s efforts to restructure the Indo-Pacific Region by making debt-equity swaps, India needs to consolidate its neighborhood and rethink its foreign policy strategies. Given the disparity that exists between China and India in terms of defense expenditure and military capabilities, the most pragmatic solution for India is to build domestic allies and partnerships, which can be achieved through several ways.
First, India needs to expand its own set of connectivity projects in order to counter China’s growing influence in the region. The Asia- Africa Growth Corridor, which plans to link Asia, Europe and Africa, is one such project that fits into India’s plan for promoting economic growth, connectivity and development. Other ongoing projects include the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit project with Myanmar and the long delayed Chabahar port project with Iran. When completed, these projects will give India access to other Asian markets as well as the North-South transport corridor with Russia that runs parallel to China’s BRI.
Second, India should capitalize on the United States’ own attempts to strengthen strategic bilateral alliances. This pivot can be elucidated by the diplomatic and economic support the U.S. has provided India in recent years. The recent designation of India as an STA-1 country is an illustration of how the U.S. wishes to strengthen cooperation with India. Additionally, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy includes plans to expand America’s defense and security cooperation with India to balance the rising Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific, with Washington’s envoy to New Delhi Kenneth Juster saying in January 2018 that India can become the alternative hub for U.S business in the Indo-Pacific region.
Third, India’s readiness to modernize and develop its maritime infrastructure under the Sagarmala Project would eliminate its concerns regarding the Hambantota Port. Most of Beijing’s interest in Maldives can be explained by the island’s geographic location near the Eight Degree Channel. Not only does this channel contain valuable mineral deposits such as gold platinum, tin-iron, titanium and diamonds, it can also further augment China’s ability to dominate the designated sea lines of communication (SLOCs) through which Middle Eastern oil transits flow to countries in East Asia. India certainly can’t afford to lose its partnership with Maldives in the ambitious iHaven project, which straddles the Seven and Eight Degree Channels and aims to connect Southeast Asia and China to Middle-Eastern Europe; thus, playing a pivotal role in the global trade.
Last, India should also continue developing a more robust bilateral relationship with China. To be clear, India should not compromise when it comes to border disputes; however, it should still pursue other channels of engagement. For example, the Informal Summit held in April 2018 was a unique platform for both countries to discuss each other’s concerns and interests. In the future, similar dialogues should be encouraged with the objective of setting more realistic and prudent goals for the future of Sino-Indian relations.
To date, New Delhi has denied joining the Belt and Road Initiative due to sovereignty and territorial integrity issues. However, the bigger question to deal with is whether India, with its arsenal of strategies, will be able to block Beijing from filling in its colored pegs in this strategic game of Chinese checkers. If not, then India should be prepared for a future where all roads will lead to China.
Image: President Jacob Zuma visits Russia, 7-9 Jul 2015
Courtesy of GovernmentZA / Flickr
Radhika Chhabra is a graduate of Political Science from the University of Delhi and a former intern with the Indian Ocean Region Division at the Ministry of External Affairs, India. As a graduate, she is really enthusiastic about pursuing a career in strategic and disarmament studies.
Fletcher Forum (FF): Let’s start by talking about your latest book called The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany. Could you briefly explain what your book is about?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss (CMI): The book was an accident, meaning that I didn’t set out to write it. I had finished writing an earlier book about youth identity in Germany called Blood and Culture, and I was at a conference in Berlin in February 2009 and this book was about to be published when my editor asked me to find some photos that might be useful for the cover photo. So I took an evening off the conference to look at an anti-fascist archive that I had previously worked with. They document material on the culture of the far-right, and they put me in touch with three photographers who track the far-right at public events like protests, marches and festivals across the country. In turn, these photographers gave me access to their archive and I looked through ten years’ worth of photos to find one that would be appropriate for the cover.
At that point, I had been away from Germany for five years. There was a transformation that had happened during the period I was gone, where that sort of hard racist skinhead look had disappeared and I saw all these new kinds of clothing styles that looked very mainstream, like Abercrombie and Fitch, showing up in all these different photos. I just started digging into it and it became an obsession. I just couldn’t let the project go and it went from being a topic for an article to a much bigger book.
I had stumbled upon these new forms of commercialization while I was looking through these archives and as a cultural sociologist, I was initially fascinated in it as a case of how youth culture transforms through the use of coded symbols. But as I began doing the research and writing the project, the far-right became much less a subcultural niche and much more mainstream across Europe and North America. It began to then be a book that I felt had much broader implications than just a subcultural study of something happening half a world away.
FF: What exactly is a “far right youth culture” and how has it changed over the years?
CMI: On the surface, the far-right youth culture has turned into a gameplay of resistance against authorities and adults but I argue that this is still really dangerous because as you’re consuming those messages and wearing them, it also socializes you into dehumanizing migrants and minorities. It helps shape your identity and what you’re committing yourself to. I use the term ‘far-right’ because in Germany, there is a legal distinction between the phrases ‘right-wing extremism’ and ‘right-wing radicalism’. The former refers to actions that are against the constitution – these are illegal offences for which you can be arrested. The latter refers to fringe, right-wing ideas that are not quite illegal but they’re still actions that are monitored because they are still troubling to society and may stray into illegality. In the German context, I didn’t want to use either of those terms so I found it better to use the term ‘far-right’, which better captures the whole range of behaviors.
The clothing that I study is deliberately marketed to youth who are in and around far-right scenes with messages, symbols or iconography that either directly invokes or indirectly evokes themes that appeal to the far-right. On the one hand, you have a lot of Nordic symbols and references, which are a way of talking about whiteness without directly referencing race. On the other hand, there are also direct references to Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. In other words, there is an ideological component to these messages but one of the things that I argue in the book is that young people may have some sort of a disposition to find those messages appealing but they also find this sense of rebellion through the coded symbols fun.
The clothing itself, through the symbols and gameplay, become a mechanism through which youth can rebel against authority. They can simultaneously mark themselves as part of an insider group and something to which they belong, but also a way to lash out against adults and against control. That’s the kind of coding and manipulation that becomes a constant re-creation of getting around what adults tell them they can’t do, like wearing a swastika.
FF: Let's circle back to the differences in terminology you mentioned earlier. In the German context at least, though there is a grey area in between right-wing extremism and right-wing radicalism where you can get away with certain things and not others. This idea of a far-right youth culture, as you’ve described it, seems to fall a lot in this grey area. Do we see a similar culture with far-right movements in the United States?
CMI: It’s different in the US in a couple of different ways. One, we have much stronger free speech protections. Europe in general and Germany in particular has much stronger public support for policies on censorship and that comes from World War II and the Holocaust in the sense that the nation agrees that there are just some things that shouldn’t be allowed because free speech is less important than certain democratic protections like the protection of minority rights. There are many more constraints on free speech in Germany than there are in the US.
I think that notion has really been challenged in the US since the Charlottesville rally, where people such as academics, policymakers and legal authorities are struggling with this idea of limiting free speech and delineating free speech from hate speech or dangerous speech. In other words, I think the idea that we typically have is that free speech becomes hate speech when it incites hatred or violence. For a long time, we had a very liberal view of when that would happen. After Charlottesville, I don’t think there’s been direct action to quite change that notion but certain spaces, such as university campuses, have now had a sense that these types of speech are preventable because it is creating an unsafe environment for students.
FF: How did the cultural commercialization start and how does it relate to the global resurgence of far right organizations and ideologies worldwide?
CMI: The commercialization that I study around the clothing really started in 2002. A brand called Thor Steinar came on the market in Germany and it was highly contested because they combined two banned symbols that were associated with the Nazi party independently into a new logo for their brand. From a cultural studies perspective, they interestingly won all of the lawsuits against the logo on a semiotic argument that the combination of two banned symbols creates a new symbol that no longer directly references the banned organization. So right off the bat, it was intellectual in a different way and the company laced their clothing with all kinds of evocative references to symbols and messaging that appealed to the far-right.
This was a highly profitable market and the brand started building physical stores that are now found throughout Europe. Other brands quickly followed in their footsteps and now you have over a dozen brands that market, in different ways, ideological positions on their clothing items. What distinguishes them from what we had previously in far-right scenes are the quality and price of these items. The clothes are very well-made and well-stitched. They’re expensive, much like J Crew or Abercrombie and Fitch in price point. What we had before was just someone selling cheap, screen-printed cotton t-shirts that would fall apart after a couple of washes out of the back of their car at a concert.
These new products are also more modern in their styles and colors so you could blend in better with other young people and feel more mainstream while still expressing your ideology. This makes far-right style more palatable to people who might have the same beliefs and opinions but won’t necessarily commit to shaving their head and wear a bomber jacket or combat boots, which kind of marks you in every place you go as someone on the far-right.
FF: Speaking of clothing brands, in addition to those that are overtly involved in far-right activities, there are also brands that have been co-opted by far-right groups due to their symbols or imagery they use, whether intentionally or otherwise. What is the line between consuming a culture or a product, say by purchasing a seemingly harmless t-shirt, and becoming indoctrinated or radicalized into it?
CMI: The co-opting of brands is actually where all of this really started. In the first place, I’m always careful when I refer to “racist skinheads” as an aesthetic because this was also co-opting the look of the British leftist skinhead during the 1980s and the 1990s. However, at that time, they were already co-opting brands for symbolic resonance. For example, they wore New Balance shoes in Germany because the ‘N’ supposedly stood for Nazi. The Lonsdale shirt is where it really all began. So if you wore a Lonsdale shirt and zipped up your bomber jacket halfway over it, the letters ‘NSDA’ were visible, which evoked ‘NSDAP’ or the five letters of the Nazi party. I assume that these tactics gave the founders of some of the more overt far-right clothing brands the idea of tapping into this market and profiting off it.
There have been various reactions to the co-opting. I feel bad for Lonsdale because they’re horrified to be associated with this stuff. They launched a whole anti-racism campaign and tried to get folks on the left to reclaim the logos by wearing Lonsdale t-shirts. One of the things I always tell people is that you never know, from seeing one brand or another, whether this represents someone’s ideology or not because they could also be trying to disrupt this symbolic connection by wearing these brands. I think there’s a kind of randomness to the co-opted symbols so you can’t always infer someone’s ideological position from their consumption of that product, nor can you stop buying a Lonsdale t-shirt or New Balance sneakers because of that. As regular consumers, I don’t think anybody should be trying to avoid brands unless those brands are deliberately profiting from it without trying to interrupt the process because for the most part, brands are either ignoring it or countering the effect.
FF: Your research looks at culture and aesthetics as a gateway into far right ideology for young men. Where do you situate young women in this scenario?
CMI: That’s a great question because there are definitely women in the far-right movement, but this particular development around the aesthetics is much more male-oriented. The clothing companies have, almost exclusively, products for men. The women’s lines are much more limited and interestingly, the iconography is also different.
For example, I analyzed a t-shirt in the book that does appear in both the men and women’s line of a far-right clothing brand. This t-shirt had a German phrase on it that had multiple meanings behind it, one of which being something that could be translated as a direct challenge to police. It was something like, “I’m ready for contact and adventure.” In the men’s version of the t-shirt, that phrase is overlaid with spattered blood so it kind of plays on this idea of contact and adventure by linking it to violence. However, the women’s t-shirt has an overlay of puckered lips, so it’s sexualized in the women’s line.
I think that reflects the fact that a lot of women do get involved in this movement through boyfriends or partners, and the direct appeals to women are less. Women do vote for far-right parties but at lower rates. They are less involved in the violent aspects of the movement such as fighting or attacks against migrants. There are exceptions but for the most part, the men are more heavily involved. So for women, I would say that the aesthetics play less of a role of being a gateway into the movement than it does for men.
FF: What is the most pernicious aspect of the shift in far-right aesthetics that, as you mentioned, now relies more on symbols and iconography rather than a straightforward declaration of belief?
CMI: I think the most pernicious part is that in many ways, it softens dangerous speech by making it more humorous. The thing that shocked me the most in the interviews that I did when I showed young people a series of different images of products with far right symbols and iconography was how much they laughed at a couple of them. One of these images showed the back of a t-shirt with a stick figure hanging from a noose with the phrase “Dancing in the Air.” It turns out that this phrase was also the name of an anti-far right, anti-fascist, anti-racist concert, so you can see how the t-shirt plays on that phrase by linking it to this image of someone twitching or dying as they’re being lynched.
To me, it was one of the most horrifying images that I showed, particularly because of the history of lynching in the US but the people I spoke to almost all laughed at it. They thought it was a funny, clever play on words. That, to me, is dangerous – that aspect of dehumanizing through humor that can desensitize young people to these horrifying things.
From a teacher’s perspective, it’s also much harder to identify which students need intervention or support because they blend in better. There’s much less of an obvious far-right identity, from an aesthetic perspective, so that parents and educators are less likely to know who might be suitable for deradicalization or who needs to be engaged and challenged. These softer styles have a much broader appeal, which makes it easier for people to hide themselves more in everyday ways.
FF: In some countries, laws are used to mitigate the public presence of far right organizations. Do you think legal mechanisms are still effective in light of the movement’s increasingly empowered status and less recognizable culture, or do we need new strategies for dealing with the resurgence of the far right?
CMI: My feelings on this evolved after Charlottesville because I had very much argued in my book that bans are ineffective in part because they sometimes backfire and make the far right even more appealing. I think they have directly contributed to the game-playing culture that has made the coding and the manipulation so much fun for so many young people. But then when Charlottesville happened, I started to understand more personally, as an American, how bans might serve a second purpose – to make a community within a place, like a university or school, feel safer.
In other words, I don’t think bans are an effective strategy to combat the far-right, but there might be good reasons to implement those bans anyway as a way of drawing the line in the sand for what a community stands for. This can be a marker to make sure more vulnerable minorities and students of color feel protected or supported on campus, even in the face of these kinds of egregious things.
What has the potential to be effective is something I’ve seen in Germany but not yet in the US, which are strategies to try and flip the script on the far-right. There was a big protest march last year in a town in Germany. It was a far-right march and this anti-fascist group decided to use that march as a fundraiser by having a walkathon. The group put out a call to action on social media, asking people to donate to anti-racist groups for every step a neo-Nazi took during the protest and many people responded by pledging some amount, like 10 cents per step. In fact, they actually raised a lot of money for anti-racist work but they also used the march against the racists by turning it into a fundraiser and furthering anti-racism activist work.
One of the overall arguments in my book is that entry points to extremism are emotionally rooted. Young people are attracted to extremist movements, I argue, for the emotional appeal of being part of something bigger than themselves or to lash out against communities and adults who they feel have let them down. That’s true for foreign fighters in Europe and the far-right – ideology often comes after the emotional attraction. Yet all our interventions have been so rationally and ideologically based. Its not a bad idea to correct dangerous or misunderstood beliefs but it’s not going to draw these people out of the movement if what they were drawn to was an emotional sense of belonging, purpose and meaning.
We have to be thinking much more seriously about these issues, especially for young men in particular as well as what has gone wrong in our education systems and communities that young people are not getting what they need. We have to be thinking about how to use creative strategies to mobilize anti-racist work. If we can start coming up with those kinds of strategies, as well as basic empathy curriculum trainings, we can start to address these challenges more effectively.
Image: A portion of Dr Cynthia Miller-Idriss' book cover
The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany
Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is Professor of Education and Sociology at the American University in Washington, DC, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR). Her primary research areas are on the cultural dimensions of radical and extreme right youth subcultures and school-based responses to radical and extreme youth engagement, and on knowledge production and internationalization in higher education.
Her most recent books are The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany(Princeton University Press, 2018) and Seeing the World: How US Universities Produce Knowledge about the World (with Mitchell Stevens and Seteney Shami, Princeton University Press, 2018).
Miller-Idriss also writes frequently for mainstream audiences on issues of youth radicalization, nationalism, education, and parenting, most recently for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, and Fortune.
by Nurul Izzati Kamrulbahri
If one is an avid observer of Southeast Asia’s political landscape, one would also be familiar with its colorful political dynamics. Authoritarianism, exploitation of identity politics, and restriction of democracy have plagued the region for decades and, over the years, have become increasingly played out amidst political power contestation amongst different entities with different sets of interests and goals in mind.
In the thick of these developments, the region saw two major elections happening in Malaysia and Timor-Leste in early May 2018. Both elections were similarly historical yet led to dissimilar impacts and reaction. While Malaysia recent historic political change is laudable, the struggle of ensuring smooth democratic processes in the country has been historically rough. The same can be said about the rest of Southeast Asia. While the region’s infrastructural and financial developments have grown at a positive pace, dissenting voices are not always celebrated. Rather, they are often policed through numerous draconian laws that restrain freedom of speech and dissent.
Like a wildflower, Timor-Leste flourished to grow as an outlier to the rest of Southeast Asia’s nations. As stated in the Democracy Index report conducted by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, Timor-Leste scored the highest among its neighbors. Similarly, a 2017 report conducted by Freedom House that measured political rights and civil liberties rated Timor-Leste as “free,” while Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, and Myanmar were rated as “partly free” and the rest of the region as “not free.”
How does democratic space manage to navigate with relatively easier flow in Timor-Leste, despite the country’s occasional violent clashes and political unrest, compared to the rest of the region? In answering this question, there are at least two recognizable key contributing factors that could help explain the phenomenon.
The first key factor is the vibrancy of youth movements and youth participation in Timor-Leste. With over 60 percent of its population under the age of twenty-five, simmering frustrations have always been channeled by the active involvement of young people in civil society organizations, mainly those that aim to address unemployment and inequality. Despite lingering uncertainties about the country’s pace in catching up to the rest of the region mainly in areas concerning economic, financial, and infrastructure developments, as well as skepticism about the over-participation of older generations in politics, Timor-Leste’s youth see significant impacts in projecting their voices through activism and participation within the democratic spaces provided by both governmental and non-governmental bodies.
Youth groups like Lao Hamutuk, Hatutan, Alola Foundation, and Arte Moris have dedicated their resources to encourage discussions of diverse issues and confidence-building measures over the past two decades. Additionally, in 2010, the Foinsa’e Parliament (youth parliament) was set-up by the government to introduce democratic processes and civic participation to 130 youths between the ages of fifteen and nineteen years old. This activism paves the way for youth-based political parties like KHUNTO, which won five seats in the National Parliament in the 2017 election, to take up meaningful positions in national governance. Moreover, KHUNTO’s ability to attract large votes from the rural area signifies the party’s ability to command the attention of disenfranchised youths in not just the capital Dili, but all over the country.
At the same time, Timor-Leste's democratic maturity has also been associated by societies' openness in recognizing and celebrating vulnerable groups. By acknowledging the importance of empowering these groups for the country’s long-term socio-economic development, significant resources have been devoted to deliver the right avenues for these communities to voice out their opinions and, consequently, to craft effective and issues-sensitive policies. The case of banning contraceptives for unmarried women, for example, has been one of the most recent debates surrounding women’s rights in Timor-Leste, and subsequently highlights the country’s willingness to acknowledge the importance of celebrating different views, beliefs and ideologies.
In a separate scene, more than 500 people took part in Timor-Leste’s first ever pride parade in July 2017 to celebrate the LGBTQI community after then-Prime Minister Rui Maria De Araujo openly stated his recognition of the group. Even though same-sex marriage is still not legal in Timor-Leste, the warm acceptance from both the country’s leaders and its people breathes hope into the future of inclusivity, equality and democracy in the country -- particularly at times when some countries in the region are battling the exploitation of identity politics in favor of demeaning power brawls.
However, for all the optimism, it is not always sunshine and rainbows in Timor-Leste. Even with a praiseworthy democracy, the processes are not always peaceful. In 2016, youth unemployment stood at 16.7 percent and the poverty rate was 40 percent. Occasional violence, such as that which emerged throughout the 28 days of campaigning before the recent election, was of no surprise to keen observers of Timor-Leste’s political events. Against this backdrop, violence and political unrest are not new phenomena. Owing to its nusantara roots, the manifestation of ongoing instability has been mostly demonstrated by the Timorese in the form of martial-arts fighting and has been fueled by former resistance fighters’ romanticization of conflict and struggle.
Like many other Southeast Asian countries, personality politics can also tend to dominate in Timor-Leste. After years of political absence, Xanana Gusmao made a surprising political comeback after defeating Freitlin’s Mari Alkatiri, who is often considered his arch-nemesis. Both have held premier positions twice since the country gained independence in 2002. Gusmao, the first President and fourth Prime Minister of Timor-Leste is a pivotal leader and an old elite of Timor-Leste -- well-known for his ambitious plans for the country's infrastructural development. Like Gusmao, Mari Alkatiri is another key leader with strong personalities to match. Being Muslim in a majority Catholic country, his appointment as a Prime Minister in itself was a projection of Timor-Leste’s democratic maturity.
The relations between the two have also seen ups and down throughout the years. Gusmao was particularly outspoken towards Alkatiri’s administration in 2006 when the latter was accused of arming a secret civilian security team at times when the country was at the brink of a civil war. The relationship only saw a brief stint of consensus when Gusmao elected Dr Rui Araujo from Freitlin to hold the post of Prime Minister, ushering in a period of cross-parties cooperation – only to be broken after the 2017 Presidential election when Freitlin refused to elect a Prime Minister from CNRT.
Despite Alkatiri’s and Gusmao’s strong personalities and popularity, observers are pessimistic about the possibility of eliminating dominance of old elites in their power struggles. Personality such as Gusmao, Alkatiri, and other leaders of resistance movements could in a long-run pose negative impact to the grassroots, specifically to the potential young leaders in the country. The fact that both leaders have conveniently ignored the people’s demand for a younger line-up of leaders after the previous two elections signaled the elites’ refusal to step out of the game.
Regardless, Timor-Leste’s democratic resiliency in era of intolerance is something worth emulating. Despite existing major socio-economic challenges, the young country strives to remain poised in guaranteeing overall stability, and the new government ought to pay attention in paving more ways to encourage a more modern and inclusive administration.
Image: A political rally in support of Lu Olo (Baucau, Timor Leste, March 2012)
Courtesy of Kate Dixon / Flickr
Nurul Izzati Kamrulbahri is a researcher in the Foreign Policy and Security Studies programme of ISIS Malaysia. She graduated from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) with B.A (Hons) in International Relations. She is also an alumni of the DAAD-Frankfurt University ‘Social Rights, Social Justice and Social Policy’ project.
Her research interests include terrorism and radicalization in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as well as on ASEAN politics. Izzati previously interned with ISIS in 2013.
by Dr. Christopher Zambakari
On June 12, 2018, President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea held a historic summit in Singapore which resulted in two broad opinions. On one side are liberal interventionists including leaders of the Democratic Party and on the other side are Trump supporters, China, South Korea, Russia, and a few discerning intellectuals.
The Economist and Washington Post claimed that “Mr. Trump made big concessions for no return,” and the editorial board of the Washington Post warned, “No More Concessions.” A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 56 percent supported the summit meeting between Trump and Kim. What explains this near unanimous verdict on the summit by media analysts, and the divergence between what a significant portions of Americans think about U.S. foreign affairs? And what are the lapses between what the polls show and what popular media reports? This margin is rooted in a failure of analysis that is grounded in history and the uncritical embrace of “facts” disseminated through popular media. In this article, I will argue that by setting up an unrealistic expectations that cannot be fulfilled diplomatically, the failure to force North Korean to surrender leaves only a military confrontation.
Foreign Affairs, a leading liberal magazine, published several articles concluding that “Kim Jong Un May Have Outwitted Trump at the Summit.” In one of these articles, the author lamented “How China Ended Up Getting the Best Deal.” On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the host also lamented the president’s call to end war games as “an absolute jackpot offered to the North Korean dictator for free by Washington.” The New York Times’ expressed anxiety over the break in war games with Nicholas Kristof stating a widely accepted myth in the West that U.S. suspension of military exercises with South Korea was a terrible “concession” with “astonishingly little” return. Apparently, the U.S. got robbed and everyone else was a victor in Singapore.
Nevertheless, analysis by Gallup poll in February 2018 indicated that 45 percent of Americans were satisfied with the position of the United States in the world. The poll showed that 52 percent approve of the president’s approach in handling the nation’s policy toward North Korea. Almost 75 percent of American voters approve of President Trump’s planned summit with North Korea according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Chung-in Moon, Special Advisor for Unification, Diplomacy and National Security Affairs for President Moon Jae-in noted correctly that there “were no losers” at the summit. He notes that a new survey of South Koreans before the summit showed that 81 percent of South Koreans expressed an “optimistic attitude toward the summit and its prospects.” Another Gallup poll two days after the summit still showed 66 percent of respondents approved of the outcome of the summit.
To American liberal elites, the Singapore summit was alarming because the U.S. conceded too much to North Korea, thereby reducing the threat of nuclear war. One example is the letter that Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and his colleagues sent to the president, which demanded that North Korea dismantle their nuclear arsenal, as well as their chemical and biological weapons, end uranium enrichment, and suspend ballistic missile tests.
Most analyses in the U.S. regarding the summit fails to historicize the crisis in the Korean peninsula and understand the key stakeholders in the conflict, the legacy of the war on Koreans, and how conflicts end. The Kempton Park Agreement, the most famous settlement in Africa that paved the way for South Africa’s transition, began by decriminalizing political adversaries before the settlement was reached. Moreover, the political negotiation and settlement that ended Mozambique’s civil war began when the Mozambican National Resistance, a militant organization and political movement, was first decriminalized and allowed to participate in negotiations as a political adversary.
Most analysts have forgotten that Richard Nixon embraced Communist China in the early 1970sby lifting trade and travel bans, which solidified the relationship between China and the U.S. in 1972. This move diffused long-held tension between the two countries since 1949. Conflict has never been resolved by first advancing unrealistic expectations on a political adversary unless an adversary is militarily defeated on the battlefield. Given that most pundits forget or omit key examples from history and have no knowledge of how conflicts end, it is better to draw lessons from another contemporary example. Mearsheimer observes that maneuvers by the West on Russian borders provoked violence from Russia leading to the annexation of the Crimean peninsula. He writes, “Imagine the outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it.” It never dawns on popular media and its ever-warmongering pundits to realize how North Korea and South Korea feel about war games in their backyard. How would Americans feel if China joined North Korea and Mexico to organize military maneuvers near the U.S. southern border, simulating nuclear bomber attacks?
These same analysts have also failed to realize the lesson learnedfrom the fate suffered by Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi regarding nuclear deterrence. The hard lesson that Korean leaders learned from watching what happened in Iraq and Libya was simple: “If you had nukes, never give them up. If you don’t have them, get them.” In early 2011, the Korean foreign minister echoed the lesson, stating that “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson.” The deal to persuade Libya to end its nuclear ambition was a ploy for “an invasion tactic to disarm the country.”
Pundits and political elites have also ignored the cost of war. War advocates have failed to consider the terrible cost that war imposes on combatants, civilians, and society. For example a Pew survey in early 2008 showed that most Americans believed the U.S. made the wrong decision in using military force in Iraq, while 38% believed it was the right decision. Fifteen years after the Iraq invasion, nearly half of Americans (48%) said the decision to use military force was wrong, compared with slightly fewer (43%) who said it was the right decision. Still on the case of Iraq, in 2002, Lawrence Lindsey, President Bush's chief economic adviser estimated that the costs of war against Iraq would be $100 to $200 billion. So far in 2018, the estimated costs of war total more than $5.6 trillion. The mass media decided to ignore historical lessons, and the political elites have substituted moral certainty for knowledge. The cost ($5.6 trillion) of failure of analysis has been exorbitant for Americans and far worse for societies abroad because Western elites feel virtuous even when history shows that such actions produce undesirable outcomes.
By setting an unrealistic expectation that cannot be fulfilled diplomatically, the failure to force the North Koreans to surrender leaves military conflict as the only option. Given that Libya unilaterally surrendered its chemical and nuclear weapons programs and Saddam Hussein gave up his nuclear ambition only to be met by violent overthrow and death, it will be a master act to disarm North Korea. Niccolò Machiavelli reminded those seeking power that “all armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.” Karl Marx warned that history repeats itself: "first as tragedy, then as farce." Liberal analysts and mass media pundits suffer from historical amnesia, but for North Korea, Iraq and Libya, farce is a tragedy compounded.
Image: Kim and Trump shaking hands at the red carpet during the DPRK-USA Singapore Summit
Courtesy of Dan Scavino Jr. / Wikimedia Commons
About the Author Christopher Zambakari is a Doctor of Law and Policy, the Chief Executive Officer of The Zambakari Advisory, L.L.C, Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow, the Assistant Editor of The Bulletin of The Sudan Studies Association.
His area of research and expertise is international law and security, political reform and economic development, governance and democracy, conflict management and prevention, nation and state-building processes in Africa and in the Middle East. His work has been published in law, economic, and public policy journals.
On May 9 2018, Malaysia held its 14th general election. The election culminated in the landmark defeat of the then-ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN), which had governed Malaysia, and its predecessor state, Malaya, since the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1957. The Fletcher Forum recently spoke with Professor Meredith Weiss from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at SUNY Albany about the historic occasion and the changes she expects to see in Malaysia moving forward.
Fletcher Forum (FF): Could you begin by laying out why the recent Malaysian general elections was so historic for the country?
Meredith Weiss (MW): Malaysia has had one of the world’s longest lasting, single-party dominance political systems. What that means is that one party, or one political coalition in the case of Malaysia, has governed for longer than is the case in almost anywhere else in the world. Mexico had also for a long time had a similar system, and of course there’s Singapore, which gained independence later than Malaysia so technically, it has had a shorter period of governance under the People’s Action Party (PAP). The Malaysian election was particularly significant in comparative terms mostly for ending that dominance.
In the political science literature, Malaysia is considered to be a competitive electoral authoritarian state, which is to say that elections matter and those who seek power compete for power through elections. There are opposition parties who fight and see elections as the best way of getting into power. They may win some seats - the state level in Malaysia has often been described as a sort of safety valve where opposition parties can win at that level. However, they have never been able to win at the federal level because of a combination of the more authoritarian features of this system such as the malapportionment, the gerrymandering, and the curbs on civil liberties and the media.
The former governing Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition has also had genuine popularity and political legitimacy by bringing development and protecting communal rights. So this isn’t a flat out authoritarian system. Those who refer to former Prime Minister Najib or, before him, Mahathir as dictators are overstating the case. At the same time, it’s not a liberal democracy either and it has made no pretense of being a liberal democracy. In fact, I’m not sure that this change in government will necessarily usher in liberal democracy. If it does, it’ll take some time.
FF: You mentioned that Malaysia is typically considered a competitive electoral authoritarian state, and you also mentioned that the former governing coalition had actual legitimacy for a very long time. Given these conditions, how was this victory achieved?
MW: Some of that legitimacy and some of that popular support had been slipping. In the 2013 elections, the opposition won a majority of the popular vote. So we saw, in 2013, that it already seemed like popular support had declined quite a bit for the BN coalition. Even before that, in 2008, there had been a so-called “tsunami election” when the then-opposition made unusual electoral headway.
There are a couple of different ways that we can interpret this. One is that the goals BN propounded were no longer the goals the people sought. At an earlier period in Malaysian history, there was much greater stratification and alignment of income or class as well as occupational category with ethnicity. Malaysia is now about 70 percent urban. People are much more mixed and there is a multiracial middle class. For many, goals based on communal rights may no longer have been their core objective.
In addition, there is a second dynamic whereby even if the objectives that BN claim to support and the promises they made still seemed attractive, its own liabilities were working against it - and by that I largely mean the corruption. So, for instance, the 1MDB scandal. Leading up to the elections, many, if not most, observers assumed that 1MDB would not make a huge impact on the election. It especially wouldn’t convert those who weren’t already supporting the Opposition, and part of that is because it’s such a huge and complex financial mess that is really hard to translate into something that people think their vote could fix or that it was something relevant to their own lives. I think once the Opposition figured out a way to translate that more into household economics and make the information accessible, it helped to further erode BN’s legitimacy.
FF: You have written extensively on social movements in Malaysia. How would you compare the role of civil society activism in the recent elections to the elections in 2013, or even elections prior to that?
MW: In some ways, it’s a continuation of what we’ve already seen but there are also some differences. Some of the key changes had to do with the increasing advent of new media platforms such as online blogs and social media, which were frequently under the domain of civil society such as student groups. This phase started around the Reformasi movement in 1998, and it reflected the increasing integration of civil society with opposition politics.
There was a little bit of a diminution in the growth of alternative media around the early-2000s, but by about 2007, we saw a new phase within politicized and often partisan civil society engagement that involved mass mobilizations happening in overlapping communities. This had to do with the formation of Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) and the involvement of the Malaysian Bar Council in political activism. But most importantly, we had the Bersih movement demanding clean and fair elections, which persisted over the years since it began in 2007. Whether one thinks these protests have been a success or not, part of what they’ve managed to do is drum up a lot of interest in elections and motivate younger people to vote, which they tend not to do.
I think the new phase for civil societal engagement has to do with these fairly professionalized groups of often young people using great computer wizardry and the Internet to set up a range of online platforms that help people connect in different ways. This phase really stepped up around the 2013 elections and then picked up even more this time. For instance, there was the creation of websites to track irregularities in ballot counting and of movements through social media to help Malaysians abroad fly their ballots home for the elections or to organize carpools for Malaysians around the country to go back to their hometowns and vote. These are creative uses of different tactics that often take advantage of Internet-based tools to try and bring new ideas from civil society to the electoral process.
FF: One criticism that has often been lobbed against the Bersih movement in the past is that it is often very much urban-focused, and doesn’t really listen to people in the rural areas and their concerns. Going off the idea of using social media to mobilize voters, do you think this new form of civil society activism or engagement has managed to bridge that divide a little bit more?
MW: It’s hard to say. Malaysians’ use of social media is among the highest in the world and it’s not just in urban areas. Most people have access to the Internet, whether through a smartphone or something else. The estimates are near 100 percent, which means that there is Internet signal and coverage even in the most rural areas. So in that sense, in a place like Malaysia, moving to virtual platforms offers the possibility of bridging that activist divide. However, in places where you really don’t have that sort of widespread access to the Internet, it would probably magnify rather than undercut an urban bias to activism.
I think the other aspect that tends to be overlooked in Malaysia in critiques of the urban bias of civil society is the extent to which religious organizations, particularly Islamist organizations but also Christian and others, have really mobilized. The new part of that has been the increasing movement towards partisan politics, which has become less hesitant and less low key over the last couple of elections. These organizations have helped to mobilize electorally, in both urban and rural areas, and sometimes in really functional ways.
For instance, there are organizations such as the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM) that will train people who want to run in office and give them the skills they need to contest - both men and women, and whatever party they might want to run for. Though these groups were not necessarily part of the Bersih movement, I see them as part of a larger enterprise of gearing up civil society and activists to make people care about participating politically and to think about coming up with better measures for evaluating electoral politics.
FF: What are some of the biggest changes that you anticipate in the next 5 years for Malaysia?
MW: The single biggest change I see, and the only one that I would say is pretty much certain at this point is the revamping and restoring of civil liberties. I think we will see greater rights and freedom of speech, association, the press and so forth that could make a really big difference. A more open political climate changes the odds for political parties, but it also will simply constitute a real change for Malaysia.
Another important change to watch, though I’m not sure how far it will go, has to do with the nature of political Islam in Malaysia. Over the last several years in particular, there has been a strategic flirtation between PAS, Malaysia’s largest Islamist political party, and UMNO, the largest party in the BN coalition, through policy items such as hudud law being held up as a carrot that UMNO would constantly wave and pull away. PAS no longer has that leverage.
I think that this sense of “spiraling Islamization” will taper off at this point but that could change as the next election looms. PAS remains a player, at least in the northeast, and if, for instance, PAS and UMNO or some other organization join forces, we could see a specifically Malay and Muslim unity government or coalition that promotes a specific set of Islamist policies. This can be difficult for many to contest, just because of the sense of who has standing, legitimacy and religious authority. Taking these issues off the table for a few years might clear the air a bit.
FF: How can or should Malaysia’s new political leaders capitalize on the momentum of hope, change and progress that is symbolized by their success in the recent elections?
MW: There are some instructive lessons from their experience at the state level. Cutting off avenues for consultation and inclusivity may be tempting at times when you have really assertive voices pushing you on their issues, which might be one of 600 issues you have to deal with. At the same time, putting in place mechanisms for consultation and more active participation could really help to bring those voices into the process to give people more of a sense of buy in.
I think this crazy Tabung Harapan crowdfunding endeavor signals that Malaysians want to take part, they want to share this sense of hope and excitement. The new government can really capitalize on that by now, while spirits are high, really developing institutionalized mechanisms, not for co-optation but for listening, so they’re not just pushing ahead without thinking about expert feedback or opinion.
The next most important thing would be to go ahead and change bad laws, open up civil liberties, reinstitute local elections and do all of these things they’ve talked about doing for a long time. Enacting these changes sooner rather than later would keep the momentum going and also make it harder to reverse course because you would then have pressure from all corners. Beyond that, just don’t screw up.
Image: Hari Malaysia 2011
Courtesy of esharkj / Flickr
About the Interviewee Meredith L. Weiss is Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. She has published widely on political mobilization and contention, the politics of identity and development, and electoral politics in Southeast Asia, with particular focus on Malaysia and Singapore.
Her books include Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow (2011) and Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions for Political Change in Malaysia (2006), as well as a number of edited volumes, most recently, Political Participation in Asia: Defining and Deploying Political Space (with Eva Hansson, 2018).
A forthcoming book explores the resilience of electoral-authoritarian politics in Malaysia and Singapore; other current projects include a collaborative study of “money politics” in Southeast Asia and a co-edited volume on Malaysia’s 2018 general elections.
This interview was conducted by The Fletcher Forum in conjunction with the Tufts Daily, the Tufts Observer, the Tufts Podcast Network, Tufts University Television and Senior Lecturer Professor Julie Dobrow.
Q: On the back of your book, it says that you led the first women-led politics team in the history of network news. What was that like and what did you learn from that experience?
KT: It was amazing. The team was all women, not by design, but by hard work. It was Hallie Jackson, Kasie Hunt, Andrea Mitchell, Kristen Walker, and me. We pounded the pavement, we built sources, and we devoted our lives to covering the 2016 campaign. We lived out of suitcases for a year and a half. In this moment, Donald Trump was accused by a number of women of harassment and misconduct, and he was saying demonstrably sexist things on the campaign trail. It was a nice dichotomy to have a strong, powerful group of women coming out and being the voice of journalism for 2016. He was going after journalists as well. It was a privilege to stand up and say that this is not the way it is, and to help inform the voters about who exactly they would be voting for in 2016.
Q: How do you think the election will set the precedent for future elections and how do you think the news coverage in the 2016 election will change public perceptions?
KT: Well [Trump is] definitely defying all norms. He’s cutting down institutions. He’s going after the judiciary, the Intelligence Community, his own party when he feels necessary, the media, our allies, and the voters who didn’t vote for him. He will go after anybody who doesn’t agree with him or who doesn’t praise him. How that’s going to affect 2020 remains to be seen, but right now we’re living in scary times because of the lack of accepted facts. We don’t have a shared set of facts any longer and, without that, it’s hard to tell where people will look to get their news or a report that they trust. It’s dangerous and it’s shortsighted.
What will 2020 in terms of coverage look like? I hope it looks like reporters talking to more people as opposed to just covering the horse race of politics. Politicians are obviously very newsworthy, but just as newsworthy are the people. What are people thinking, worried about, want to see change, and want to see stay the same? All of the factors that got Donald Trump elected are still there, so at this moment, it’s not unreasonable to say that Donald Trump has a very good chance of getting reelected in 2020.
Q: Have you found social media to be a huge part of how people consume information?
KT: People are getting a lot of information from social media, absolutely. In some ways, it’s great, as you can get real-time information. If I’m not at a rally or an event, or I’m not listening to the press briefing, I can go to my Twitter feed and find out what’s happening. I know which posts and which Twitter users are going to be more accurate than others. I know what might not sound right, and I’ll think, “I need the context of where that was said.” But I’m an extraordinarily educated media consumer because I work in the business. It’s hard to tell who’s trustworthy on Twitter unless it’s somebody that you follow all the time, unless you’re really educated about who’s saying what. A blue check mark is not going to do that. Facebook is another place where it’s really hard, because you have news feeds full of information, some of it true, some of it false. But it’s up to us to be critical of everything that we read and to get as many opinions as possible to make a decision for ourselves.
Q: We understand that you were the lucky individual who got to tell the Trump Campaign that NBC had the Access Hollywood tape. Could you tell us how that went?
KT: It was a surreal moment. You couldn’t see the people behind the voices, but Donald Trump’s voice is so singular, you recognize it immediately. I had to write it up for broadcast for MSNBC as quickly as possible. In order to get it on the air, we needed to at least try to get a comment from the campaign. So I wrote an email that said something to the effect of, “NBC News has obtained a copy of a tape with Donald Trump on a hot mic in 2005 being interviewed by Billy Bush. He brags about having sex with a married woman. Oh, and he also brags about grabbing women by the pussy. Do you have a comment? Is any of this incorrect? Best, Katy.” I couldn’t sugarcoat it. They never responded. We, as in the American people, didn’t get an official response until later that evening. [Trump] goes on Facebook and it looks like he’s in a hostage video being forced to apologize. At the end, like clockwork, he points to Bill and Hillary Clinton. So, it was an apology with an asterisk next to it. A qualified apology.
Q: In some countries, there is no freedom of press. Do you feel that the political environment during the 2016 election, and the Trump Campaign in particular, affected the freedom of the press in the United States?
KT: Yes, I do. You come from a place [Ecuador] where you know what it’s like to be unable to speak your mind. You can risk your life for that. Social media can be helpful in situations like that, but it’s still dangerous. In this country, we have a long history of freedom of the press. It’s built into our constitution. It’s not that it hasn’t been fraught—there’s been push and pull on the freedom of the press for a long time. Politicians don’t generally like what reporters say because reporters push back on them and correct their spin. It’s always been a contentious relationship, but the degree to which Donald Trump went after us is new. If you want to go after me, you don’t agree with my reporting, I don’t care. But when you tear down all of us, you’re tearing at the fabric of what makes us great, and I don’t use that word lightly.
Q: Given this current culture of fake news, do you think this is an exciting time for journalists to be getting into the field, or is the public increasingly hostile?
KT: Journalism is most exciting when it’s scary. We have certainly been seeing a hostile environment, but subscriptions to newspapers are up, and viewers on cable news are up. People are engaged, and that is great. There’s a market for [journalism] in a way that there hasn’t been, and there’s some really great investigative journalism coming out every day, from the The New York Timesand the Washington Postto Politico, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, and even Fox. There’s great stuff coming out of regional papers, for example the Boston Herald. That being said, while some papers are hiring, the Los Angeles Timesand the Denver Postare cutting back. [The American people] need to read newspapers, watch television, subscribe to podcasts, and make podcasts. Engage, get involved, and encourage everyone to get involved. When you lose the newspapers, broadcast journalism, and the people who are informing you, that sets you down a very slippery slope and you’ll ultimately find yourself at the worst end of things.
Q: During the campaign, you were singled out and targeted by Donald Trump. Do you think that was because of your gender?
KT: I hate that question. Everybody asks that question. I think it’s a sexist question. [Trump] went after men, too. You can speculate on the reasons why [he went after me more than he went after anybody else], but I was the first person from a network assigned to Donald Trump full time, so I was there longer than anybody else. We developed a push-pull relationship early on, and I also come from a network at which he used to work [NBC]], so I think he thought that NBC should be a friendlier place for him. I don’t think he’s underestimating me any longer.
Q: I want to ask you about resilience—that’s an issue that touches on everything we’ve talked about today, including free speech and media consumers, and it is relevant in the context of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony on the Hill. What is the purpose of a platform like Facebook, and at the end of the day, when these platforms can be manipulated, how can media be resilient and how should media in the United States respond when it’s under attack?
KT: It’s complicated. Resilience is about sticking up for our values and our mission as journalists. There’s also the financial aspect of it. We have PBS [in America], but we don’t have a system like in the UK where you have to pay a fee if you’re consuming any type of broadcast, and that’s how they’re able to continue doing journalism. We’re mostly financed by corporations and billionaires. Is that business model going to be sustainable? I don’t know. Is Facebook going to undercut it? I don’t know. The resilience factor, I think where it’s most important, is not just a resilience among journalism, but a resilience among the American people. Resilience should be shared among all of us. If you’re worried about the state of our country, then consume. If you’re worried about facts not mattering, make sure they matter. Have conversations with people you don’t agree with. Enlighten where you can. Learn and understand where you can. If you’re on Facebook and you see something that’s just factually incorrect, and you know it’s incorrect, check it. Try to understand everybody, because often there isn’t just one answer to something, but multiple answers. I think we’re at a point where we’re not listening to each other and a lot of disagreements come from a place of misunderstanding.
Q: What’s your advice to budding journalists about trying to get into the field?
KT: The best piece of advice I got was from a mentor of mine was, “it only takes one person to say yes,” as in, “you’re going to get a lot of noes.” You’re going to have a lot of people tell you no, but only one person needs to tell you yes. When you get that yes, run with it, and look for your next yes. You might think that at some point you’ll stop looking for your next yes, but you never will. You’ll continue fighting for whatever you have in your head. Don’t get down if you get rejected. Pick yourself up, submit again. Take a job at a smaller place, work your way up, and take criticism to heart. Learn from it.
Image: President of the United States Donald J. Trump at CPAC 2017 February 24th 2017
Courtesy of Michael Vadon / Flickr
About the Interviewee Katy Tur is an NBC News Correspondent and anchor of the 2 p.m. ET hour of “MSNBC Live.” She emerged as a breakout broadcaster in 2016 while covering the entirety of the Trump campaign across all platforms for NBC News and MSNBC.
Prior to joining NBC News’ 2016 political team, Tur was stationed abroad as a foreign correspondent in the NBC News London Bureau. From 2012 to 2014, Tur was a correspondent in the NBC News New York bureau, where she earned a Gracie award.
Tur released “Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History” in September 2017, which debuted on the New York Times best seller list.
In our latest podcast episode, the Forum’s incoming Director for Marketing and Communications, Courtney Hulse, speaks with Ambassador Peter Selfridge, former U.S. Chief of Protocol and current Senior Vice President & Global Head of Digital Government and International Affairs at SAP. During the conversation, he sheds light on the preparation for and the real-time offense and defense that happens during state visits and summits to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Ambassador Selfridge also talks about how the lessons he learned from the world of diplomacy have transferred to the private sector and benefitted him in his current role. Have a listen and check it out!
The Forum’s incoming Director for Marketing and Communications, Courtney Hulse, sits down with Rufus Gifford, former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark under President Obama, for a lively conversation. Ambassador Gifford takes listeners behind the diplomatic curtain and discusses his unique approach to diplomacy, the importance of people-to-people interactions in this field, and delves into more detail about his time in Denmark. Fun fact: Ambassador Gifford is the subject of a docu-series I Am The Ambassador, which is another unique tool he used to promote public diplomacy. You can find it on Netflix! Ambassador Gifford is now running for U.S. Congress in Massachusetts’s 3rd congregational district.
On the latest episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast, executive team members Matt Weinmann and Colin Steele sit down with Fletcher and Tufts University Bridge Professor Susan Landau, whose focus areas are cybersecurity policy and privacy. Author of the recently released book, Listening In: Cybersecurity in an Insecure Age, Dr. Landau discusses the need to re-tool law enforcement capabilities in the age of “going dark,” and what individual citizens can do to protect themselves against future cyberattacks and data breaches. She also weighs in on the latest with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica amid the Capitol Hill hearings, the upcoming implementation of GDPR, and the recently passed CLOUD Act. Listen in for a lively discussion on all things cyber!
by Jack Bevacqua
The migrant crisis is Europe’s greatest challenge today. No other issue facing the continent constitutes a more urgent humanitarian emergency or meaningful referendum on its liberal democratic principles. No other question of public policy encompasses as many complex geopolitical conflicts and sensitive domestic debates or provokes as visceral moral reactions. And in the absence of a firm solution, perhaps no other will more profoundly shape the continent’s future.
The immensity of the challenge and millions of lives at its stake demands a comprehensive, multi-tiered response. To live up to its democratic ideals, promote lasting regional security, and advance human dignity, Europe must work tirelessly and strategically to alleviate the plight of migrants. Although access to basic needs and relief such as food, shelter, and healthcare should be the most immediate concern, a critical element of the continent’s long-term plan must include paths to socioeconomic integration.
Yet European governments are ill-equipped to carry out this duty alone. They must find ready and willing partners across civil society whom they can rely on to tackle integration at the grassroots, interpersonal level. In recent years, some of the most innovative and impactful solutions have emerged from the continent’s growing tech industry. As linchpins of the modern economy and hotbeds of socially-minded talent, tech startup and social entrepreneurship ventures are uniquely positioned to lead the way on this issue. By partnering with tech, European governments can advance integration-driven solutions that offer sincere benefits to migrants and their countries.
The Crisis and its Costs
Part of Europe’s difficulty in developing an effective course of action has been the sheer magnitude of the crisis. In 2015 and 2016 alone, more than 1.3 million migrants from across the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe arrived in the EU while over 2.5 million applied for asylum. Although arrival rates have fallen by almost half since then, nearly 1 million migrants remain trapped in asylum limbo and thousands more in Mediterranean states such as Libya with hopes of reaching the continent.
These migration levels and the perilous nature of the migration paths have created a humanitarian crisis that European officials have failed to manage, and often exacerbated. The journey to Europe is treacherous: most migrants travel by foot and sea, where they face threats of human trafficking, rape, and forced labor in addition to disease and famine. Since 2014, over 15,000 deaths and drownings have been reported from crossing the Mediterranean—the most common path—while thousands more have been reported missing, including 10,000 unaccounted for minors. A near-absence of solidarity or common action between European Union member states has further aggravated this profound tragedy.
Upon arriving in Europe, the gap between migrants’ hopes and realities has been immense. Rather than protection, liberty, equality, or opportunity, they have been met with opposition, neglect, and deprivation. Makeshift tents on city sidewalks, mostly in peripheral neighborhoods, are pervasive. Access to food, shelter, and clean water is scarce and provided largely by NGOs or volunteer groups. The majority of migrants face unemployment or job discrimination, including those with college degrees and years of professional experience.This treatment stands in direct contradiction to European government and society’s humanitarian principles.
The continent’s mangled public response has inflamed the regional politics, crippling opportunities for meaningful policy action and posing critical threats to the EU. Far-right populist parties threatening to dismantle the continent’s order and halt immigration continue to gain power across the EU. Cultural and political fault-lines between Western and Eastern Europe have reopened while officials in countries such as Hungary and Poland proudly tout ethnic nationalism and political illiberalism. The present and potential consequences of these developments cannot be underestimated. Without a moderate and well-coordinated political system based on common principles of solidarity, the crisis will worsen, Europe’s internal problems will multiply, and migrants will continue to suffer.
Clearly, the status quo is not working. European officials must look to new strategies, including better and more intensive engagement with on-the-ground actors. Overburdened and limited in scope, government alone cannot relieve migrants’ burden. Partnerships with civil society groups that work with migrants at the grassroots, human-to-human level can better position European governments to provide relief, direction, and opportunity to these people’s lives.
European Tech
Some of the most engaged and innovative of these groups have emerged from the continent’s rapidly growing tech and social entrepreneurship sectors. Working directly with refugees at each step of their settlement and integration process, groups such as Konexio, Techfugees and Refugees on Rails have fought to improve living conditions and barriers to opportunity through language training, job and educational placement, cultural integration strategies, and digital learning. As a uniquely dynamic, education-focused, and human connection-driven industry that has attracted talent from across the globe and received record investments in recent years, tech is uniquely positioned to help governments better strategize and implement solutions for relief and integration.
Tech skills are among the most critical in empowering people personally and socio-economically. Yet many refugees arrive without basic computer skills, let alone knowledge of how to apply for jobs or navigate bureaucratic online processes. For refugees with advanced educational or professional backgrounds, many lack language skills or paths to finding education or entering the job market. Professional development and skills training programs offered by organizations such as Hack Your Future and Refugees Code are equipping migrants with the skills and resources necessary to thrive.
Through my work with Konexio, one of the growing leaders of this movement, I have had the fortune of seeing first-hand these how these strategies can change human lives. Welcoming over 100 students from more than 22 countries, Konexio provides innovative courses in digital literacy, coding, teamwork and communications, and French and English for France-based refugees, as well as a supportive network. The educational, professional, social, and cultural opportunities that we offer have helped realize tech’s goal of fostering human connection, belonging, and well-being. Such strategies can help refugees integrate today and will benefit Europe in the future.
Image of coding students courtesy of Konexio
About the Author
Jack Bevacqua is the community engagement manager at Konexio in Paris and a graduate of American University’s School of Public Affairs.
In its inaugural podcast, members from The Fletcher Forum’s executive team, Maria Selde, Pulkit Aggrwal, and Colin Steele, discuss the latest Winter print edition 42.1. The team highlights features that include an interview with Lord Michael Dobbs and a photo essay by photographer Saskia Keeley. Tune in to upcoming Fletcher Forum podcasts for exciting guest speakers, interviews, roundtables, and debates!
by Pawan Mehra, Arsalan Ali Farooquee, and Jayant Prasad
The largest contribution to the growth in global energy demand for the next 20 years is likely to come from India, which is twenty seven percent more than that expected from China and much above the expected growth in energy demand anywhere in the world.It is imperative that this energy demand is met through sustainable means.
Historically, energy transition has globally been a slow and protracted process taking several decades to unfold. However, there have been several instances of accelerated transitions in selected segments. While it took an average of fifty years in the United Kingdom for sector-specific energy transitions, Brazil shifted from an oil-based transportation system to one based on sugarcane-ethanol in only six years . As a percentage of total car sales, the sales of cars that operate on alcohol-based fuels in Brazil increased from less than 1% in 1979 to 96% in 1985.
With the current per capita energy consumption in India being less than one-tenth of that in the US,the rapid growth in the energy demand over the next two decades will be a result of an organic increase in energy usage associated with economic development. As highlighted in the table below, India’s GDP is expected to increase from $2.4 trillion in 2017 to $15 trillion in 2040. In the same period, the peak electricity demand is expected to rise from 162 GW to 526 GW.
However, Economic growth and development can run in parallel with the need to decarbonize energy systems.India has committed itself to reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 level under the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). While a slew of policy measures to promote low carbon strategies and renewable energy have already resulted in the decline of emission intensity of India’s GDP by 16% between 2009 and 2014, the absolute emissions during the same period increased by 28%.Given the need to control the absolute increase in the carbon emissions as well, it is prudent to structure policies and market interventions that facilitate faster energy transition.
Source: IMF, PWC, International Energy Agency, Central Electricity Authority
The World Energy Outlook 2017, projects India’s energy demand to increase by 1005 MTOE (Million Tonnes of Oil Equivalent) by 2040. To put it in context, an increase of 1 MTOE is approximately equal to the annual electricity generated in a country like Georgia.
Meeting this additional energy demand and also meeting the climate change commitments made by India in its INDC and the Paris Accord would entail bringing about efficiencies on both the demand as well as the supply side. By transitioning to sustainable energy sources, India can save approximately 2300 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. This estimate is equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions from 2500 billion pounds of coal.
This sustainable energy transition, is expected to happen on 3 key fronts:
- Increasing the amount of renewable energy generation
- Accelerating industrial energy efficiency, and
- Improving transportation efficiency
A full scale energy transition in a developing country like India could take several decades. However, transition in selected segments can be accelerated with appropriately structured capital and policy action. There are several efforts underway such as World Bank providing $625 m to State Bank of India, and Asian Development Bank providing $500 m to Punjab National Bank for lending in grid connected solar rooftop projects. Financiers exclusively focused on sustainable energy are also quickly growing in India and energy specialists such as cKers Finance are taking leadership in emerging segments such as distributed solar and energy efficiency.
In India, 20 GW of energy savings can be realized through efficiency measures, which is more than the combined generation capacity of Ireland and Morocco. The development of a market for energy efficiency-as-a-service is an effective measure which can accelerate the adoption of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs). Energy savings performance contracts (ESPC) are a means to execute commercial and industrial ECMs. Under the contract, the customer pays for an energy efficiency project over time using savings from utility bills, thereby avoiding upfront costs. The Energy Service Company (ESCO) executes the project and guarantees a certain level of savings on energy costs. The market for ESCOs offering energy efficiency as a service needed capital to the tune of $5 billion for India. In India, ESCOs lack access to traditional finance owing to risks perceived in a new business segment. However,some newer financiers are stepping in to fill this void. For example, cKers Finance is offering innovative financial products for energy efficiency contracts for lighting, heat pumps and other industrial applications in India. Examples of such efforts in developed markets include $32 million funding of UrbanVolt by a Swiss energy efficiency fund.
Globally, 1.2 billion people are without access to electricity, and more than 2.7 billion people rely on biomass for cooking. Out of that, India is home to 244 million people without access to electricity. Providing these segments of the population with access to clean and affordable energy is critical to India’s transition to sustainable energy.
While expanding the national grid to rural areas is among the most economical options to increase access to electricity, such expansion is restricted by financial and operational constraints.Years of subsidized electricity has turned most public utilities in India into financially burdened entities, hindering their ability to extend services into remote areas.Alternatively, renewable Energy mini-grids are emerging among the cheapest sources of energy in rural areas.However, adequate financial and policy interventions are required to support faster deployment of mini-grids. A market-making approach is needed to further develop this solution and attract commercial capital for investments. As the business viability of mini-grids gains traction, the segment will attract private capital. This can be facilitated through project finance at micro-scale, capacity building of local project developers and policy articulation to mitigate risks in mini-grids.
Globally,the deployment of utility-scale solar and wind energy has seen rapid growth. For example, in 2016 alone, 161 GW of renewable energy capacity was added globally with investments of around $241 billion. In India, the share of non-fossil fuels in the total installed capacity is projected to change from 30% in 2015 to about 40 % by 2030. This also includes large hydro projects, many of which are stalled. To offset the slow growth of hydro projects, wind and solar power, both utility scale and distributed, need to be ramped up faster then ever.
The Government of India has set the target of 100 GW of solar by 2022. Out of this, 40% is estimated to come from distributed solar projects. However, unlike the utility-scale projects, the deployment of distributed solar power has been slow due to lack of access to adequate capital. One of the effective ways to unlock the mainstream and institutional capital for rooftop solar is through aggregation and subsequent securitization of distributed solar projects.
Local expertise and institutions are essential to catalyze the transfer of capital and technology. By accelerating the combined public and private sector efforts to provide capital in selected areas such as energy efficiency, distributed renewable energy and transportation, India can achieve a low-cost and timely transition to sustainable energy. And what happens in India can determine the discourse of climate action globally.
Image "Off the grid, but on the up" Courtesy UK DFID Photo / CC BY-NC-ND 2.
About the Authors Pawan Mehra is Director at cKers Finance in India. In the past he has served on the guidelines drafting committee for Responsible Banking, has been on the advisory board of the Impact Investing Policy Collaborative, and was on the founding board of the Global Impact Investing Network. Arsalan Ali Farooquee is a Senior Associate-Investments at cKers Finance in India. He has worked on renewable energy, designed innovative financing initiatives and has advised public agencies on energy finance and policy. His writings have been featured in Elsevier and Institutional Investor Journals. Jayant Prasad is Executive Director at cKers Finance in India. He is a senior banker with two decades of experience across different banking verticals at ICICI bank where he led several initiatives in India and internationally. He also headed the Financial Inclusion group at the bank.
During his recent visit to Tufts University, The Fletcher Forum had a chance to sit down with former Vice President Al Gore to discuss the political, social, and environmental implications of climate change, as well as what current students can do to prepare for a challenging future.
This interview was conducted in collaboration with Tufts Daily and Tufts Now.
Fletcher Forum (FF): The Fletcher Forum’s spring/summer theme is “The World in 2030.” What do you believe will be the biggest challenges and opportunities the climate will pose in the world in 2030, and how might we, as students and future policymakers, prepare for 2030?
Al Gore (AG): Great question. I don’t even know where to begin because there’s so many different challenges. I’ll just name a few. We have already seen in the past couple of years the political disruption that accompanies large flows of climate refugees. And there is a high risk that over the next 12 years, between now and 2030, the numbers of climate refugees will increase significantly, so we need to prepare for that. Of course, we need to prepare for continuing climate-related extreme weather events, but we need to focus at the same time on all of the policy changes needed to reduce emissions and slow down the climate crisis until we can bend the curves definitively downward. I’m optimistic because technology is working in our favor and market developments are now beginning to work in our favor, but we need policy changes—and, in order to solve the climate crisis, we need to spend time fixing the democracy crisis. I’m encouraged at the possibility that this election year here in the United States may begin a shift in the political winds, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Tufts Daily: Given that climate change has been driven by over a century of industrialization, it can be hard to know where to begin trying to create solutions as an individual person. What are some concrete examples of things that students can be doing to fight climate change?
AG: Well of course the factors that are making the climate crisis worse have accelerated quite significantly in the last 15 years. But the response is also building, and young people (especially college students)have been in the vanguard of every great social revolution—civil rights, anti-Apartheid, women’s rights, gay rights more recently—and the climate movement is in that tradition, so there’s no doubt in my mind that the increasing amount of activism by college students is one of the most important factors in speeding up the response to the climate crisis.
Tufts Now: We have a post-doc here, Klaus Bittermann, who said that even if we hit our goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global average temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, it would be wiser to limit it to 1.5 degrees rather than 2 degrees. Do you agree with that?
AG: I totally agree with that. And during the Paris negotiations, I was part of a group that succeeded in adding the aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees as part of the agreement. There’s a balance between aspiration and realism, because the difficulty in stopping the increase at 1.5 is very high, but we should definitely aim toward that goal. I mean the difference between 1.5 and 2 is not as small as half a degree might lead you to believe. The real-world consequences are vast, not least for the low-lying island nations and low-lying regions and areas like Bangladesh.
Tufts Daily: For activists who are truly passionate about the climate change movement, what are the questions we can ask candidates to determine whether they are truly committed to combating climate change?
AG: Do they support a price on carbon, directly or indirectly? Are they willing to make it one of their top two or three priorities in the agenda they’re promoting? Are they staffing up to master the subject and provide meaningful leadership? Several of them are, and I’m optimistic about that.
Image "Middelgruden Offshore Wind Farm in Denmark" Courtesy United Nations Photo / CC BY-NC-ND 2.
About the Interviewee Al Gore is the founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit dedicated to solving the climate crisis. He is the author of the best-sellers Earth in the Balance, An Inconvenient Truth, The Assault on Reason, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, and, most recently, the New York Times best-seller An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.
He is the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and a new film which premiered in July 2017, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. In 2007, Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received the Nobel Peace Prize for "informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change." Previously, Gore served as a U.S. representative and later a U.S. senator from Tennessee before serving as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993-2001.
by Michael Corgan
For over 150 years, the United States has been an Arctic power. And yet, that region has remained as far from national political consciousness as it is from the national capital. The United States has never reached the same level of commitment of effort and resources to this region as most others in the eight-member Arctic Council. Why hasn’t a keener national interest developed despite the accounts of those many thousands of Americans who study, explore and write about it? In my opinion, it is because the Arctic does not have a US champion to compel attention to the region’s place in our national consciousness. By a champion, I mean someone- like Rachel Carson for the environment, or Jacques Cousteau for the oceans- who can compel attention to an important and endangered part of our world. The Arctic faces extreme challenges that will affect the entire world, and a prominent American advocate to fight on its behalf is a key piece to solving the puzzle.
Following Secretary of State William Seward’s Alaska Purchase in 1867, the Arctic and Alaska came into national attention only fitfully: the gold rush of 1898, expeditions to the North Pole by American explorers, the brief World War II occupation of some Aleutian islands by Japanese forces, and the transit under and surfacing at the North Pole by US Navy submarines in the late 1950s. When President Obama became the first US president to visit the Arctic in his last year in office, it seemed there was a chance for a greater American awareness of the region. However, the current administration has demonstrated little interest.
This American apathy has become especially problematic as the Arctic today demands solutions to truly existential problems: the sea ice is melting and temperatures are rising. Melting permafrost is causing seaside towns, as most are in the Arctic, and their infrastructure to simply collapse. Climate change occurs in the Arctic twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. The United States is, by capability, wealth, and location, best placed to remedy these ills. However, the current administration is populated by climate change skeptics and headed by a President who seems primarily concerned with American “energy dominance.” It seems unlikely, therefore, that a new Arctic “champion” will emerge from the executive branch. Enter Senator Lisa Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski has taken an interest in Arctic affairs beyond merely where they have to do with Alaska. She is not an avowed climate change skeptic and has shown considerable concern for the well-being of the indigenous people of that region. There are also thousands of Americans in academia, scientific and environmental communities- even business- who value the Arctic and want to see it preserved. But of all the people in the ‘Arctic aware’ community in the United States, none is better placed to become a possible champion than the senior senator from Alaska.
However, although Senator Murkowski appeared to be a possible champion, when the Republican Tax Bill came up for a vote, she secured a quid pro quo that seemed to contradict her Arctic awareness and championship. She agreed to vote for the bill if off-shore and restricted-area oil drilling was approved for Alaska and other states, a result that Congressional Republicans had tried and failed to achieve for over 26 years. “This is a great day to be an Alaskan” she boasted, when drilling was approved. Does this mean that the United States has lost its only Arctic champion? I don’t think so.
Senator Murkowski was above all true to her constituents, whose interests she is obligated by law and honor to uphold. She is, after all, a senator from Alaska, not the Arctic. Unfortunately, what this implies is that we cannot look for an Arctic champion from our political leadership. A true American Arctic champion likely has to be someone who is a Washington outsider.
Global Arctic history gives us compelling examples of who such a person might be. For example, Norway can point to a pair of explorers, Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. One of the more unusual and indefatigable champions of the Arctic was Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a Canadian explorer born of immigrant Icelander parents and educated in the United States. From 1906 until well into the 1940s, Stefansson was everywhere promoting the Arctic region, calling the Arctic Sea “the true Mediterranean of the world.” In the 1930s, he lobbied President Roosevelt and spent time in the Soviet Union promoting further Arctic activities. He might have had more success in the US had he not spent so much time in the Soviet Union and thus arousing suspicions about his political outlook. Sadly, however, he seems to have been one of a kind.
So where might we find an American Arctic champion? It would have to be someone who commands public attention like the explorers of old, perhaps a figure like an Elon Musk or an Oprah Winfrey, but who also understands the region. However, no one now seems capable of filling such a role. For the interim, the US must rely on someone who does command national attention and who does understand the region. That someone likely remains Lisa Murkowski. Although she is an Alaskan first, she is closer to an Arctic champion than anyone else on the horizon. In time, perhaps a new Vilhjalmur Stefansson will emerge.
We haven’t lost an Arctic champion, we just haven’t developed one yet.
Image "Polar bear looks out over a barrier island on the arctic coast of alaska" Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/ Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
About the Author Michael T. Corgan is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He specializes in American government institutions, international security studies, and Icelandic government and politics. He has participated in extensive government service in political and military planning (especially NATO). In his naval career he was a Surface Warfare Officer with two combat tours, an instructor at the US Naval Academy, the Dean of Academics for the Vietnamese Naval Academy of Nha Trang, a Professor of Strategy and of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College, Political Advisor to the Commander of the Iceland Defense Force, and head of the NROTC Unit at Boston University.
by Carter Banker
Indonesia is viewed as a moderate Muslim country by the West, and its political leadership has been lauded for its success in handling Islamic extremism. Compared to Muslim populations in France, Australia, or Belgium, proportionally fewer Indonesian citizens have joined The Islamic State (ISIS). Indonesia’s government and security forces have also been largely successful in wiping out Jemaah Islamiya, the terrorist organization responsible for the murder of 202 people and the wounding of 209 people in Bali in 2002.
Despite a recent decline in high-profile terrorist attacks, the Setara Institute, which tracks religious violence in Indonesia, reported 177 instances of religiously motivated violence in 2014 and 236 in 2015. An increase in violence in a country credited for its stability is deeply troubling. While the response of the government and national-level organizations to the rise of extremist rhetoric and violence has been relatively well-documented, less information is available about local initiatives to counter violent religious extremism.
Local Approach I arrived in Yogyakarta, known as The City of Tolerance, in June 2016 to ascertain how local moderate Muslim organizations, largely affiliated with either Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) or Muhammadiyah, the two largest Muslim organizations in the country, were countering religious extremism. What I found was that the groups I spoke with were not explicitly implementing programs to counter extremism so much as they were promoting early Islamic education, which they believed instilled the values of tolerance and an appreciation for pluralism. These groups were using a positive, proactive approach as opposed to the negative, reactive approach that is often used at the government level and by the international community.
Islamic Education Among the people I spoke with, it is widely believed that attending a pesantren, or Islamic boarding school, gives Indonesian youth a deep understanding of Islam and the Qur’an from an early age and prevents them from joining intolerant groups in university and later in life. An early religious education teaches students not only to read the Qur’an in Arabic, but also to understand its context. In Indonesia, where Islam is influenced by Buddhist, Hindu, and Animist traditions, the Qur’an is often interpreted through a lens of pluralism and tolerance of different beliefs.
Whereas the perception in the West is often that Islamic schools are “hotbeds” for radicalization, my interviewees told me that much of the radicalism in Indonesia comes out of secular universities, an observation that is backed up by scholars. Students who attend secular, government-run universities can be more likely to lack a strong background in Islam, as many of them find religion later in life and did not attend religious schools in their youth. This can leave them vulnerable to the teachings of radical preachers.
How Can Islamic Education Prevent Radicalization? In July, I visited Pesantren Aswaja Nusantara, located on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. The school's library was filled with books on a variety of subjects, including sex education and other religions. Ayu, whose husband directs the program, has a master’s degree in religious studies from Florida International University, told me pluralism and tolerance are embedded within Islamic teaching and that she and her husband Musdafied try to lead by example. Pesantren Aswaja Nusantara has an annual program inviting seminary students to stay in the pesantren to learn about Islam and to discuss Christianity. They also invite other speakers throughout the year. On my first visit to the pesantren, I encountered a professor from Grinnell College in the United States who was presenting her research on the difference in civic skill development opportunities in mosques compared with churches in Yogyakarta. On my second visit, I noticed that a whiteboard in one of the classrooms contained a song about peace, with lyrics in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. Ayu and her husband remain true to their mission to promote tolerance and pluralism through religious education.
Early religious education with a focus on pluralism and tolerance is promoted outside of schools as well. Lembaga Kajian Islam dan Sosial (LKiS), or in English the Institute for Islamic and Social Studies, a foundation that is culturally associated with Nahdlatul Ulama, works with children and religious teachers to expose them to the religious and cultural practices of others, and to teach them about the compatibility of Islam and human rights. This program was started after 9/11 when LKiS realized that negative stereotypes about Islam had implications for pesantrens in Indonesia, as the schools were seen by foreign media as sources of terror.
Members of Muhammadiyah have generally been less involved in the promotion of pluralism than members of NU because they believe pluralism is associated with Christianity and the legacy of colonialism, but there have been some exceptions. Subkhi Ridho, a university lecturer at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, founded a program in 2006 to work with religious teachers to promote tolerance among youth. Like LKiS, the program takes religious teachers to different places of worship to learn about other faiths. The organization was officially shut down by Muhammadiyah leadership, but has continued to operate independently nonetheless.
Thus, I found that many NU and some Muhammadiyah-affiliated groups are countering the spread of religious extremism by encouraging early moderate Islamic education with an emphasis on tolerance and pluralism. These groups also hope to help change the image of Islamic schools in the eyes of the Western world.
Broader Implications I had recently completed my research on the spread of tolerance through Islamic education, when the AP released a story in August about leaked documents obtained from ISIS detailing the lack of knowledge about Islam possessed by its recruits. In a document asking the recruits to rank their knowledge of Islam from 1 to 3, with 3 being very knowledgeable, the recruits self-reported themselves to be extremely ignorant of the religion for which they desired to fight. The article also includes interviews with defected fighters, two of whom ordered the book “Islam for Dummies” on Amazon. Very few Muslims would be surprised by these findings, yet to the media and the general public outside of the Islamic world, this story was breaking news.
The perception that Islam is inherently dangerous is pervasive in the political and educational spheres. The truth is that the rise of groups like ISIS and the influx of Saudi-funded Salafi schools all over the world have made moderate, early Islamic education more important than ever. The Australian government and USAID have both provided funding to pesantrens, but such funding risks alienating schools that resent what they see to be foreign government influence on their curriculums.
I propose a two-fold solution: First, foreign governments that wish to support Indonesian pesantrens should transfer government aid to international NGOs and cease any efforts to influence the curriculum of schools. For example, USAID attempted to introduce American History books that had been translated into Indonesian into the pesantrens they were funding. Such efforts are seen as imperialistic and are counterproductive. Second, interested parties, including the Indonesian government, foreign governments, international NGOs, the media, and religious organizations across the spectrum should make an effort to counter the perception abroad that all Islamic schools are hotbeds of extremism. Such views demonstrate the enormous gap of understanding between the Islamic and non-Islamic world. The sooner we bridge that gap, the better we will be able to work together to combat the scourge of violent extremism in all parts of the world.
Image of children at pesantren school Aswaja Nusantra in Yogyakarta, courtesy of Carter Banker
About the Author Carter Banker is a first year Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) candidate currently studying International Security and Southwest Asia & Islamic Civilization. She is a former intern at the Council on Foreign Relations and currently a research assistant to Farah Pandith, the first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the State Department under Secretary Clinton.
by Pouya Alimagham
Iran has a long and rich history of protest that spans more than a century, yet the recent nationwide protests that erupted in late December, 2017 and continued into January are part of a history that is distinct from its predecessors. Properly situating Iran’s latest round of contentious politics within the context of Iranian history helps us understand not only the difference between Iran’s revolutionary past and present, but also where Iran stands today vis-à-vis the role of the United States.
The start of Iran’s modern history of protest activity is often attributed to the Tobacco Revolt of 1890-2. Successive shahs of the Qajar dynasty had continuously granted foreign powers rights over the Iranian economy, and the proverbial “last straw” was the deeply unpopular tobacco concession. The British monopoly over the production, sale, and export of Iranian tobacco as a result of the concession sparked a popular revolt and the concession’s cancellation. Yet, these monarchs continued to sell off the Iranian economy for grants and loans—funds they in turn spent in Europe during their lavish getaways. Thus, the coalition that gave birth to the Tobacco Revolt eventually morphed into a revolutionary movement in the early 20th century that aimed to establish a constitution in order to limit the power of such treasonous shahs. The imperial powers of the day, Great Britain and Czarist Russia, refused to relent and plotted to subvert the new order. The Constitutional Revolution ultimately succumbed to a Russian bombardment of the Iranian parliament in 1908, a joint-British and Russian intervention in 1911, and the British-orchestrated coup in 1921 in which a colonel of the Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan, took power and later crowned himself Reza Shah Pahlavi—the founder of the short-lived Pahlavi dynasty.
As a result, for Iranians, the issue of the day was foreign powers strangling Iran’s economy by way of pliant and beholden Iranian kings—though Reza Shah ultimately proved to be an unruly client and was deposed by the Allied-invasion of Iran in 1941. At the time, Iran shared a border with the U.S.S.R., and the Allies used the Persian Gulf country as a supply route in support of the Soviet war effort after the Nazi invasion.
The Allied-occupation inadvertently created the space for political leaders to assert Iran’s dormant constitution. Between 1941 and 1953, Iran’s political life blossomed, eventually facilitating the rise of Muhammad Mossadeq—the democratically-elected nationalist prime minister. Like his predecessors in the Tobacco Revolt (1890-2) and the Constitution Revolution (1905-11), Mossadeq, an internationally-trained lawyer, saw Iran’s political independence as intimately tied to its economic sovereignty—one could not exist without the other. He was elected on a platform to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, which the British controlled through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).
After the British unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Mossadeq, they turned to the U.S. for assistance. At the time, America enjoyed much goodwill in the eyes of Iranian citizens and leaders, who did not expect the United States to subvert what was essentially Iran’s struggle for independence from Britain. After all, the U.S. had fought a revolutionary war with Britain to obtain its own independence, and Iranians believed America would be sympathetic to their struggle for independence.
The U.S. decision under President Dwight D. Eisenhower to overthrow Mossadeq after a two-year stalemate with the British shocked Iranians and effectively positioned America as the new imperial power in Iran. 25 years later, after a century of struggle against imperialism and its local monarchs, Iranians launched a protracted revolutionary movement early in 1978 that culminated in the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the seizure of the U.S. embassy—the same embassy that spearheaded the operation that overthrew Mossadeq. While the United States suffered a catastrophic defeat, the events of 1979 did not go unanswered as the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran.
The Iranian Revolution spurred tectonic shifts in the geopolitics of the region. The emergence of Islamism as a “Third Way” during the bipolarity of the Cold War ensured that the shockwaves of the revolution went beyond Iran’s borders. The revolution also changed the calculus of social movement activity in Iran. Before 1979, popular movements took aim at British, Russian, and American imperialism and their local agents, the shahs. After the Iranian Revolution, however, when Iran finally obtained its independence, protesters focused on Iran’s post-independence leadership—a leadership untainted by foreign power meddling and intrigue.
From the student-led protests of 1999 and 2003, to the historic post-election uprising in 2009—the Green Movement—and the recent protests in the winter of 2017-8, the issues pertaining to modern Iran largely revolve around domestic issues. To name but a few of those issues, demonstrators have mobilized to protest corruption, the long-arm of a seemingly ubiquitous state and human rights violations, legal sexism, controlled elections either through a rigorous vetting process, institutional democratic weakness in the face of a hardline power structure, or outright fraud—which protesters alleged in 2009—and an enfeebled economy that benefits those close to the government while many more live economically insecure lives. To be sure, while continuous U.S. sanctions—even after the historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 (or “the Iran nuclear agreement”)—as well as the high risk that foreign investors face investing in Iran’s economy during the Trump era have certainly hurt the Iranian economy, for now protesters have continued to direct their anger not at the U.S. but their own government.
Foreign power meddling through overt and covert interventions—most consequentially Mossadeq’s overthrow that effectively ended Iran’s experiment with democratic governance for a quarter century—has long retarded Iran’s political evolution, sparking several uprisings. Since 1979, however, protest activity has mainly focused on domestic matters. While the Iranian government unjustly portrays such dissent as a part of a foreign conspiracy that aims to subvert Iran’s independence—a sentiment that understandably resonates with many Iranians given the very real history of foreign subversion—the struggle for good governance continues.
The United States would be wise to heed the lessons of history and let Iranians determine their own fate as any further intervention—whether soft or hard—could easily derail Iran’s organic political evolution in unforeseen ways. Soft intervention by way of presidential statements in Washington or at the United Nations in support of dissent would enable the Iranian government to cast its dissidents as part of an American plot. Any hard military intervention would provoke a nationalist backlash that would sideline calls for change from within.
The Middle East is full of tumult, and Iranians affecting peaceful and piecemeal change from below constitutes a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak political landscape of war and counter-revolution.
Image "Iran Protests" Courtesy Milad Avazbeigi / CC BY-SA 2.0
About the Author Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the modern Middle East at MIT's Department of History, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings (Cambridge University Press).
by Ole Gunnar Austvik
Russia currently supplies as much as one-third of the European Union’s gas imports. For many new EU member states in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), the share is much higher. For these countries, the loss of a significant portion of their energy supply overnight in a crisis entails serious social problems. In addition, the long-term implications of being dependent on monopolist, single-supply routes and on natural gas as a dominant energy form can be detrimental to a country’s welfare and independent policymaking. Russia’s relationship with Ukraine is a clear example of these security threats. Many countries consider their one-sided dependency on Russian gas a top security problem and a significant element in their relations with Russia. The Russian gas monopolist, Gazprom, often seeks bilateral agreements, setting prices based on what market position and political relations allow in each case. At the same time, Gazprom and Russia also face their own security-of-demand challenge, with few export routes to the West, resulting in the building of Nordstream in the Baltic Sea and possible Turkstream across the Black Sea, to circumvent Ukrainian bottlenecks.
East-West natural gas trade in Europe today is largely based on investments made during the Cold War, when the former Soviet Union emerged as a main petroleum producer. Under the Soviet system, petroleum management was guided by extensive investments to fulfill production targets in all sectors of the economy. The Unified Gas Supply System (UGSS) connected producing fields across the major industrial centers of the Soviet republics. Owned by the Soviet Ministry of Gas, the UGSS exercised vertical control over all aspects of the Soviet gas industry, from production and transportation to storage. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the state company Gazprom took over control and management of all enterprises in the industry. Gazprom currently controls the majority of Russian gas production and processing units and owns all high-pressure transmission pipelines. It also has sole rights to export gas to Europe. Hence, the structure of the Russian gas industry and the logic of its organization have not changed much since Soviet times.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia lost control over its republics and satellite states. Meanwhile, all of the CEEC and the Baltic states became members of both the EU and NATO. Gazprom continued to subsidize gas both domestically and to Russian allies. Conversely, countries considered less friendly, especially those that became EU and NATO members, had to enter negotiations where hard currency prices replaced the symbolic prices of the past. Gas to the West which was previously sold at the East-West border now had to transit through a number of independent former Soviet republics and satellite states. Beginning in the 1990s, disputes over prices, supplies, transmission tariffs, debts, and political relations arose. Most notable are the tensions between the Ukrainian oil and gas company, Naftogaz, and Gazprom. These disputes have grown beyond simple business discussions into transnational political issues involving several countries. They stem from their importance to both Ukraine and Russia’s energy, economic, and political interests, and from Ukraine’s role as a dominant transit country to the West. In January 2009, as many as eighteen EU countries lost their Russian gas supplies because of transit problems in Ukraine. Economic activities came to a halt, and many people froze to death in these countries. Another climax occurred in 2014 when supplies to Ukraine were cut following the Russian annexation of Crimea. The controversies over this conflict have not yet ended, and the outcome is unclear.
With the gradual opening of EU gas markets, Gazprom has used the opportunity to invest downstream, prompting regional fear that Russia will gradually increase its control over the EU gas industry. By including Russia in the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and in consultations regarding the EU’s Third Energy Package (TEP), the EU has sought to make Russia abide by the Western regulatory system. The EU sees Russian gas policy mainly as a market failure. It aims to create a single energy market decoupled from dependence on Russia and to repair for the lack of jurisdiction over the whole market. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced these policies as Western schemes to exert their control at the expense of Russian interests. Thus, the EU and Russian systems confront each other in terms both of whose interests policy should take precedence, and how it should be exercised. A key example of this clash was the EU’s issuing of a Statement of Objections (SO) that demanded Gazprom abandon resale obligations, market discrimination and unfair pricing. Around the same time, Russia raised a WTO Dispute Settlement case against the TEP on the grounds that it discriminated against Russia and prevented market access.
In today’s global environment, the character of the interdependence between EU economies and between EU gas importers and Russia is gradually changing due to a variety of factors. These include growing globalization and integration in the natural gas market, convergence of economic growth between the East and the West in the EU, substantial increased Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) trade, new fossil supplies (such as shale oil and gas), energy efficiency measures, environmental policies and more renewables. The EU’s Energy Union and its 2020 Energy Strategy aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%, increase the share of renewable energy to at least 20%, and achieve energy savings of 20% or more. EU countries should also achieve a 10% share of renewable energy in their transport sector.
Following these developments, the issues of security-of-supply for the EU and security-of-demand for Russia may gradually group together, based on whether prices are too high or too low, the degree of price volatility as in the oil market and regulatory schemes. Additional and improved access to alternative suppliers and better interconnectivity would bring the internal energy market closer to reality and mitigate, albeit not solve, the effects of a new gas crisis. However, for the CEEC concerned, Russian energy power remains a threat both in terms of sensitivity and vulnerability dependence. Its negative effects on security-of-gas-supply cannot easily be fully neutralized, albeit some countries may change their situations from being vulnerable to (only) sensitive in their import dependencies. Hence, over time, with a better functioning of the EU natural gas market, the dominance of Russian gas may be less problematic for the security-of-supply concerns of the CEEC and other countries.
Image "kremlin" Courtesy Larry Koester / CC BY 2.0
About the Author Ole Gunnar Austvik is a professor of political economy at Innlandet Norway University - Lillehammer (HiL). He is also an appointed Senior Fellow at The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and has been working with The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), BI Norwegian Business School and Statistics Norway. Professor Austvik is the author of numerous articles and books, regarding international political economy, European integration, global energy economics and policy. Just now he is publishing a book on European Integration; Economics and Politics (in Norwegian language).
By Nayef Al-Rodhan
In May 1998, a group of hackers called L0pht had a meeting with a panel of senators in Washington to warn them about the many security risks of the Internet. At the time, computer networking was still in its early days but was nevertheless beginning to become popular for commerce and communication. The hacker group foretold some of the problems with internet (in)security, which remains to date a vastly complicated matter. For example, the “WannaCry” ransomware attacks of May 2017, which quickly spread globally, exposed the incredible vulnerability of services and companies reliant on the Internet and internet-based communications.
In the 1990s, the L0pht group discovered an easy way to crack the cryptography for user password protection for Windows, which they deridingly called “kindergarten crypto.” At the public hearing in May 1998, one member of the group said that “If you are looking for computer security, then the Internet is not the place to be,” adding that the Internet itself could be taken down “by any of the seven individuals seated before you.” Offline platforms may seem less exposed and vulnerable than online sites but security and password protection is crucial there too.
We have certainly come a long way since the late 1990s, but security concerns remain a high priority for tech companies, individual users, and government agencies. This applies to online and offline sites. Anything from access to personal photographs stored on a computer to entrance into the Pentagon or nuclear sites relying on passwords is exposed to varying risks of security breaches.
In recent years, following advances across biotechnologies, security companies have started to take identification systems to unconventional realms. This is the result of a growing realization that passwords are weak security systems: a string of letters is hardly theft-proof and it can be hacked within hours. “Security through biology” is indeed a very enticing idea and already with a good but controversial track record. After 2011, police departments across the United States have relied extensively on scanning biometric data, with the help of devices such as Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS). Additionally, research on iris scans, voice data, and other systems is fast-developing. Another technology known as “biometrics of intent” (which scans for suspicious behavior and malevolent intent before it materializes into action), raises serious concerns in terms of profiling and civil liberties – yet it may be ultimately useful if strict and transparent oversight mechanisms are put into place.
One trend is clear: research into password security is closely looking at biology for better and uniquely reliable security.
Alternatives to passwords: Looking inwards – literally
For a start, the change of paradigm in password security has manifested in a search for alternatives to passwords, or to make passwords as one step in a multi-stage authentication system.
However, the best security locks could be within one’s own body and mind. The use of fingerprints to unlock devices is already common but these systems are not fail-safe and security companies recognize the need to go a step further. Moreover, the mechanisms to bypass the fingerprint systems are multiplying each year. In 2016, it was reported that the police in Michigan approached a University Professor to help develop a system to unlock criminals’ phones, based on prerecorded scans. The solution (which is still in testing) was to recreate 3D printed fingerprints that could then unlock the phones. This is a revealing case: in this instance, it was law enforcement that needed to break a security barrier, but it could well be the case that rogue actors will attempt similar stratagems in the near future.
Other prospective security solutions developed in recent years include heartbeat monitors, voiceprints, face and vein recognition devices, ingestible devices, and finally, “brainprints,” which draw on the uniqueness of each human brain’s processing of information. Some banks are already starting to rely on voice-recognition technology and have started to slowly phase out passcodes or replace them with individuals’ voices.
Another approach is to use the signals and patterns of one’s heartbeat to replace passwords. This could be made possible with wearable devices that authenticate identity based on one’s unique heartbeat or electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements. The Canadian company Nymi has already put one such device on the market. The product is a band which provides “always-on authentication”, promising “to transform the burden of authentication.” The HeartID feature uses an individual’s unique ECG signals, and the band communicates with the enabled devices via Bluetooth.
Other companies have charted similar territories, in the form of sub-dermal implants of silicon chips or “wearable computer tattoos.” These tattoos feature sensors and ECG monitors embedded under the skin, as well as a wireless power coil.
The search for smarter authentication methods is seen as a race against time because the community of hackers, acting alone or on behalf of rogue states, does not lack ingenuity. But bio- and neuro-technologies that can go as far as to process distinct personal signals and use those as identification codes, hail a new era in authentication security. Biometric systems that use the uniquely intimate responses of our bodies, such as heartbeats or brainwaves as security keys are – theoretically – much more difficult to break and a step ahead of the know-how and tools commonly used by hackers today.
Brainprints: making use of the uniqueness of the brain
Our thoughts and reactions to the surrounding world are unique to each and every one of us, in a very profound way. Human neurochemistry shares many baseline features across our species, but there are distinct reactions at the neurochemical and neurocellular levels that are distinct from person to person and cannot be replicated in two individuals. “Uniqueness” is a fundamental selling point of the brainprint technology.
Many studies over the years have demonstrated that “brainprints” – or reading how the brain reacts to certain words or tasks – are unique to each individual simply because each one of us is wired differently and thus thinks differently. In other words, being exposed to an image of a book will not trigger the same reaction in the brains of two people.
Brainwave-based authentication uses sensors to capture electroencephalograms (EEGs) – or the measurement of brain waves. Setting the password takes place by looking at an image while being connected to an electroencephalograph, which record the specific brain activity in response to that stimulus. Next time an attempt is made to unlock the system, the user is exposed to the same image (or stimulus) once again, their reaction is recorded and compared against the record established initially.
The turn to electroencephalography (EEG) came after initial studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity differently as it tracks changes in blood flow. fMRI is less practical because it involves lying still in the scanning machine for a prolonged period of time. EEG works by applying small electrodes on the brain, which track the brain waves; the EEG machine then amplifies those signals and records the wave patterns. In everyday life, EEG is also impractical as it involves wearing a cap of gel-based electrodes, an option which is hardly convenient. However, alternatives to the typical EEG, such as in the form of wireless devices or standard earphones, could prove to be more convenient and thus more likely to enter everyday use. The team of researchers at UC Berkley who used a low-cost brainwave-reading headset called this authentication method “passthoughts”, essentially premised on the same principle as the brainprints.
Absolute protection – ownership, neuroplasticity and hacking
In theory, brainprints could provide high-security sites with unparalleled levels of protection. For instance, a team of researchers at Binghamton University in New York recorded the brain activity of 50 volunteers who had looked at several images and the results showed 100% identification accuracy.
A major problem that has yet to be overcome regards the reliability of brainprints. Neuroplasticity – which refers to the changes in brain connections as a result of experience – means that the response to certain images could well vary and evolve over time. Looking at an image of the Statue of Liberty, for example, can evoke a specific reaction for a certain amount of time, but the reaction could change in time if, for instance, there is a new, different mental association to that image. Would this mean that repeated and frequent updates with EEG will need to be made? Most likely so, but this could be a price worth paying if brainprints could provide unbeatable protection to high-security environments. Even so, there remain open questions of feasibility because the frequency of EEG updates could be quite arbitrary.
Another issue that could arise is that, ironically, one might have “too much” control and ownership over their brainprint, meaning there is no way of passing it on to others, even in cases of emergencies. No other person could understand and have an EEG identical to your own, and thus your brainprint is in your complete ownership, and cannot be transferred or shared with others even if one would want or need to do so.
If the technology is to go full-speed ahead, such conundrums will need to be addressed responsibly and with foresight. No less important is that as soon as the most advanced and reliable of security protocols are in place, there will inevitably be attempts to hijack or break them. Given the unique characteristics of brainprints, it is still hard to anticipate how these attempts will play out, but we must never remain complacent about the creative capacity of those who want to do harm.
Image "ENTER YOUR PASSWORD" Courtesy marc falardeau/CC BY 2.0
About the Author Professor Nayef Al-Rodhan is a Neuroscientist, an Honorary Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and Senior Fellow and Head of the Geopolitics and Global Futures Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He is also the author of The Politics of Emerging Strategic Technologies. Implications for Geopolitics, Human Enhancement and Human Destiny (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011). Tweets @SustainHistory.
The Fletcher Forum had the opportunity to speak with Hady Amr in October about recent developments in the Middle East, his work on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and prospects for American relations with Middle Eastern countries under the Trump administration. Read the excerpt from the interview. The entire interview will be available in our forthcoming Winter 2018 print edition.
Fletcher Forum (FF): You recently served under the Obama administration as Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations focusing on economics and Gaza. How did you see these embattled negotiations progress and stall during your four years of diplomatic work?
HA: When I was first approached to join the team, I was skeptical about whether negotiations could possibly succeed. Why would President Obama be able to succeed where countless others had failed? But in the end, I was convinced that Secretary Kerry and Special Envoy Martin Indyk had a plan that made sense and had at least some chance of success. Even before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, I was a believer in and an advocate for a two-state solution. In the end, it was hard to pass up the chance to work with a great team towards a goal in which I believed, so I joined the team. I don’t want to get into the details of the ups and downs of the saga. This is a story for Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Indyk to tell, should they desire to do so. But there are a few things I can say.
There were areas where at least potential progress was made. A tremendous amount of work was done on the security dimensions of not only Israeli-Palestinian relations, but also how Israel and Palestine would fit into a regional security arrangement. That was not a central thrust of my own work, but it was a huge contribution to any future effort to achieve a two-state solution. What became clear to me, at least, was that if we did not reach an agreement, it would not be because we had not sorted out an arrangement that would make both Israelis and Palestinians far more secure than they are today.
FF: How have economic issues played a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and negotiations? What economic concerns have been especially contentious, and where has there been potential for progress?
HA: Let’s start with the basics. Israel’s GDP is well over $300 billion per year, whereas the GDP of the West Bank and Gaza is a mere $13 billion or so. On a per capita basis, $38,000 for Israel versus $2,800. That represents not only astonishing success for Israel in recent decades, but also an astonishing contrast in living standards between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s hard to imagine two states in essentially the same land, joined at the hip, with such a stark difference in living standards. Meanwhile Gaza is in even more of a crisis than the overall Palestinian situation: it has an unemployment rate higher than any country on earth, estimated at over 42%. Further, 96% of the water is unfit for human consumption. But the situation need not be like this. As crazy as this comparison sounds, Singapore is another densely populated city-state on the water, near major world trade routes, and it is doing just fine. What Gaza needs is peace, good governance, and the same freedom to trade and prosper as its neighbors, and it too can flourish. So early on, under Secretary Kerry’s direction, a plan was mapped out on how best to undertake billions of dollars in direct foreign investment in the West Bank and Gaza, in the context of an agreement, or at least very significant progress towards a two-state solution. That political progress obviously never came to pass, but a very deep dive into the Palestinian economy was done, and there is a blueprint out there for how to grow the Palestinian economy in a peaceful context. So, when it became clear that the odds of reaching that outcome were diminishing, we also turned our attention to steps for the interim. But before we get to that, it’s important to note that the lack of progress towards two states, and a viable Palestinian economy, have meant that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are increasingly losing faith in the concept of two states. It took some decades for Palestinians to accept the concept of a two-state solution—at first they were against it—but then they finally signed a peace deal. As we approach three decades of failed attempts to achieve two states since the joint agreement to pursue peace, many Palestinians are losing faith in two states. They think it just won’t happen. And you have Israeli ministers making statements like “There is not, and there will be no Palestinian state.” So in that context, if the aspiration of two states truly dies, what happens next is anyone’s guess. Will the Palestinian Authority collapse? Who will replace the 30,000 Palestinian Authority Security Forces that keep the peace in Palestinian areas in the West Bank? How will the world, and indeed Israel itself, react to a situation where Israel is ruling over millions of Palestinians in the West Bank? It didn’t work in the past, and it is unlikely to work in the future.
FF: What do you predict will be the most significant development in the Middle East in the coming years? How should the U.S. government engage with this change—if it all?
HA: I don’t have a crystal ball. Although I, just like anyone taking a good hard look at the data, could foresee disaster in Yemen, I couldn’t predict how or precisely when it would unfold. So let’s deal with the enormous challenges already on the table as they will remain central to all developments in the years, indeed decades, ahead.
I can’t stress enough the importance of the confluence of economics and politics. Although the Arab baby boom is slowing down, the central challenges remain. First, can the Arab countries grow their economies fast enough to provide jobs—good jobs—for their rapidly growing youth populations who face some of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world? Can they tackle corruption and create cultures of meritocracy and entrepreneurship in the work force, so that even kids who aren’t from the elite can rapidly get ahead? If within the Arab world, business, the government, media, academia, and civil society come together to address these pressing social problems, then there is hope. If not, then Arab societies are in for a continued rough ride, and so is the U.S. And so is Europe by the way, perhaps even more so, as we have seen with the refugee crisis.
But I also want to address another obvious trend. How societies in the region deal with violent extremism will matter tremendously—most of all to the people of the region, who are the primary victims of this extremism. The question is not only if al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) fail on the battlefield, or if we in America suffer the occasional horrific attack. After all, we were just reminded by the Las Vegas attack that we don’t need al-Qaeda or ISIS to inspire violent extremists to wreak terror at home. The question is how much resonance do terrorists like those in al-Qaeda and ISIS have in Middle Eastern societies. So I would pay careful, careful attention to analyzing public attitudes in the Arab world—about terrorism, about violence, about democracy, about women’s rights. And while it is no more our job in the United States to seek to transform attitudes in the Arab world than it is the job of Arabs to transform how we Americans think about ourselves, we can and should be careful not to feed the narratives that undermine our interests. We need to make sure that U.S. policy—what we do, and how we officially speak—does not play into the hands of those who would seek to malign us. We should engage with the region—not just its elites, but also its ordinary citizens—with a sense of mutuality, a dialogue with dignity, as we manage the necessary Realpolitik of the day.
The U.S. can and should engage with these challenges. They will affect us deeply in more ways than we can imagine. As Martin Luther King wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Image "L1005987-Edit" Courtesy Guido van Nispen/CC BY 2.0
About the Interviewee Hady Amr is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served at the U.S. Department of State from 2013 to 2017, most recently as Deputy Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations focusing on economics and Gaza, and before that as Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at USAID from 2010 to 2013. In addition to having earned a masters in public and international affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, he graduated with a bachelors in economics from Tufts University in 1988.
The Forum asked Fletcher professors to give our readers their responses to President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union (SOTU) address. Specifically, we asked what was your biggest takeaway from the address and/or what are potential implications of the address on your area(s) of expertise? With the tremendous range of expertise among its faculty, it’s no wonder that the Forum received such a wide array of diverse responses.
"The President stayed on script and played to his base, by invoking peace through strength, closed borders, the 2nd Amendment, and the nuclear family. It remains to be seen if his call for unity is sincere. It is worrying to me that he demonized immigrants by equating them only with murder and drugs, and that he proudly proclaimed that Guantanamo will remain open – as if it is a badge of courage rather than a symbol of torture and shame. He continues to make his case by invoking “us versus them,” both domestically and internationally, and that is decidedly not a unifying message." Eileen Babbitt, Director, Institute for Human Security; Professor of Practice of International Conflict Analysis and Resolution
"The student of African politics learns a few rules of thumb for assessing presidential speeches. Number one is that presidents make inordinately long speeches because they need to hear their own voice, because that's how they convince themselves that what they're saying is true and important. Number two is to beware of the personal anecdote or individual sob story, which are designed to make you assess the immediately-following policy proposal with your emotion, not your reasoning. Three is to shudder when a leader demands that the police and military deserve "total and unwavering support." Alex de Waal,Executive Director, World Peace Foundation; Research Professor
"I found little in the speech worth hearing, reading, or discussing. As with most of Trump's formal speeches, the best advice is John Mitchell's (referring to Nixon's speeches): "Watch what we do, not what we say." Michael Glennon, Professor of International Law
"President Trump argued that, since taking office, his administration has created 2.4 million new jobs, including in manufacturing. President Trump’s administration can hardly take credit for this development only one year later, and President Trump also did not describe any policy changes by his administration that would have driven this change. On a positive note, President Trump promised to improve vocational training and education. The US is lagging behind other advanced industrialized countries in offering good vocational training programs. As unskilled workers are increasingly falling behind in job security and earnings potential, improving vocational training and education will be key for many unskilled Americans." Jette Steen Knudsen, Professor of Policy and International Business; Shelby Collum Davis Chair in Sustainability
"In the area where business confidence matters – non-residential fixed investment – the US did enjoy 6.3% real growth over Trump’s four quarters. But much of that realized investment would have been decided before his election. In this sense, 2018 will be more telling. Tax cuts will boost demand in 2018, so some supply response (faster GDP growth) can be expected. But unemployment is already low. More than stronger demand, the US needs faster productivity growth, which policies targeting education, training and infrastructure would address. Yet, only the last of these is offered with a hefty price tag of $1.5tn! How this can be comfortably financed remains a mystery in light of coming tax erosion and higher defense spending." Lawrence Krohn, Professor of Practice of International Economics
"On rhetoric, Trump gets high marks for telling a story instead of cloaking his points in abstractions. Trump gave much space to depicting the brutal nature of the North Korean regime and, hence, the regime's growing lethal threat to the U.S. Pointing to the death of Otto Warmbier, the U.S. college student, and Ji Sung-Ho, a North Korean survivor, Trump put a face on the problem--Pyongyang's disregard for human life." Sung-Yoon Lee, Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor in Korean Studies; Assistant Professor at The Fletcher School
"Women lawmakers attending the address wore black to signify their stance against sexual harassment and assault. At a time when attention to the staggering levels of sexual harassment and assault in nearly all industries is coming to the fore, their presence was particularly powerful in the face of a President who has been accused of sexual misconduct with at least 17 women and who brags about sexually assaulting women. His own wife refused to travel to and from the State of the Union with the President. Women and girls deserve the right to a life without violence and degradation, to live in clean environments and receive health care, to control their own bodies, to their civil rights, to economic security, to work with respect and dignity, and to be paid fairly and equitably for their work. This President said nothing about these issues." Dyan Mazurana, Research Director, the Feinstein International Center; Associate Research Professor
"President Trump’s first State of the Union address was a masterful performance by a masterful performer. He took full advantage of this opportunity to choreograph the Administration’s list of impressive first-year accomplishments and future agenda uncluttered by destructive tweets or fake news. He not only reassured his base but also attempted to reach out to the broader audience whose support will be needed for future legislative victories. Whether the deep partisan divide evidenced last evening can be bridged remains to be seen. His call to lift sequestration constraints on defense is welcome, although I would like to have seen greater emphasis on strengthening missile defense as a national security priority." Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr., Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies
"In terms of foreign policy and national security, the [speech] was terribly light on specifics. He called out his typical bogeymen of North Korea and Iran, as well as warning of threats coming from China and Russia, but there were very few details. Perhaps the most specific policy calls he made were regarding his pronouncements to end the sequester on defense spending—basically a call to abandon the spending mechanism that has capped defense spending since 2013—and to bolster nuclear weapons defense. Beyond that, there wasn’t much on offer in the speech when it came to national security and defense." Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics; Director, Center for Strategic Studies
"In comparison to his campaign themes, the address provided very little content on trade. In the campaign, he highlighted complaints about all the “very bad deals”, and promised to terminate some and engage in greater protectionism. In the President’s first year in office, there has been very little action in this field. In the SOTU address, there was only a mild call for renegotiation and greater reciprocity. This is a positive development and it seems to reflect growing recognition of the complexity of this area, and the reciprocal benefits that the U.S. receives from trade agreements. The dogs that didn’t bark: NAFTA or KORUS termination, new tariffs on steel or aluminum, and new trade confrontations with China." Joel P. Trachtman, Professor of International Law
By Nandini Deo
As the #MeToo movement continues to gain traction across the world, it has given way to the #himtoo debate among Indian academics. #MeToo became a global phenomenon as famous actresses revealed a Hollywood producer’s sexual predation. As their stories circulated on social media, more women (and some men) began to post accounts of being harassed at work, on the streets, and in schools and universities. Ever since, the movement has made the cover of Times Magazine, and affected careers of prominent names in media, politics, entertainment and other sectors. It didn’t take long for Indian academia to find its #MeToo moment.
Christine Fair, a scholar of international security studies focusing on South Asia, added her own twist to the public revelations in a personal account of sexual harassment. In her article, she didn’t shield her harassers from public scrutiny and instead, identified herself and her perpetrators. She named several men, who occupy positions of power and prestige in American academia including several Indian academics and those in the field of South Asia studies.
Fair’s action prompted law student Raya Sarkar to put together a list of sexual harassers in Indian academia, which could serve as a warning to other women about whom they need to watch out for. She posted the list on Facebook and used a Google spreadsheet to keep track of the accused and the nature of the accusations against them. Of those named in the list, which is no longer available online, some had multiple accusers. Some of them were alleged to have committed rape while others were accused of creating a hostile environment due to inappropriate jokes and comments. This was an astounding turn. Instead of victims of sexual harassment being forced to lay their entire sexual histories and characters in the court of public opinion in order to be believed, the list puts the onus on male aggressors to defend themselves from anonymous charges.
Some of India's most eminent feminists wrote an open letter to Sarkar highlighting the importance of following due process to lodge formal complaints instead of an informal list. The critical response to them has been to suggest that savarna feminists are attacking a young dalit bahujan feminist by writing this letter. Savarna refers to Hindus within the caste system entitled to caste privilege as opposed to dalit bahujans, who are deemed to be outside of the caste hierarchy and, therefore, socially oppressed.
Nivedita Menon, who was one of the signatories, has written a long defense. Essentially, she rejects the idea that caste is a significant aspect of this debate. She positions herself as a feminist elder, who offers support and guidance to newer feminists. Sociologist Srila Roy has argued that this generational division within feminism is a way of framing the feminist movement as singular and linear when it has always been much more complex. She suggests that the generational tropes obscure the far more important debates over caste and its presence or absence in the Indian women’s movement.
It is interesting how caste, gender, ageism, and academic hypocrisy have all come together to produce a toxic brew. I think the naming and shaming of harassers is probably a necessary and positive development in our thinking about sexual politics. But I am also dismayed at the way in which some are dismissing the work of feminists like Menon and Krishnan as if these scholar-activists should be silenced rather than "called in" over their caste politics.
Caste in the feminist movement can be analyzed through the idea of hauntology. Hauntology refers to the idea that there are certain “ghosts” that make themselves felt even as they are absent in a material way. That is, caste is not spoken of, and yet shapes the interactions between all Indians, including in the feminist movement. Until, the ghostly presence of caste and its effects in Indian academia are openly discussed, the division the list created will continue to persist.
In the 1990s, Flavia Agnes and others pointed out that the Indian women’s movement, which presented itself as secular, was actually deeply influenced by Hindu language, metaphors, and assumptions. Today, Dalit feminists are drawing our attention to the ways in which the feminist movement in India needs to be self-conscious about caste. It always matters, perhaps especially, when some claim that it is irrelevant.
What began as a discussion of sexism in the workplace in the United States, quite naturally has become a discussion about how sexism and casteism work together in Indian academia. Dr. B.R Ambedkar, considered to be one of the founding fathers of the Republic of India, long ago pointed out that caste and gender oppression are inextricably linked. In the Indian context, to imagine that women’s equality is possible without an end to caste discrimination is simply foolish. The two have to go hand in hand.
Image "India-Delhi-St Stephens" Courtesy/Matt Booth/CC BY-NC 2.0
About the author Nandini Deo is an Associate Professor in the department of Political Science at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, USA. Her research is at the intersection of religion, feminism, and social movements in South Asia. Deo’s first book The Politics of Collective Advocacy in India was co-authored with Duncan McDuie Ra and focused on the gains of NGOs networking transnationally. Her second book, Mobilizing Religion and Gender in India: The role of activism compares the rise and fall of women’s movements and religious nationalism as an outcome of activist strategies as they responded to changing political structures. She is now editing a volume for Bloomsbury Press called Feminisms Beyond the Secular.
by Admiral James G. Foggo, USN
When a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, lit himself on fire in front of a government building in Tunisia in December 2010, a wave of protests and upheavals spread across North Africa and the Middle East. Pointedly referred to as the Jasmine Revolution or the Arab Spring, the tragic events in the Muslim world and the ensuing Syrian civil war highlighted two things: the complexity of the African continent and the Middle East; and how our ethnocentric, western, northern and Judeo-Christian worldview needs to be revamped and revised to fully grasp our changing global reality.
For more than 70 years, the NATO Alliance has tackled conventional problems with overwhelming military might, pursuant to the mantra that "one size fits all.” The Alliance defaulted to its “NATO-centric” mentality to enforce the 1973 United Nations resolution that called for protecting civilians and enforcing an arms embargo in Libya in 2011. During the operation, the Secretary General of NATO said, “The alliance’s work was able ‘to support the United Nations Security Council and help implement its decisions that add to the credibility of the UN.’” While NATO viewed its actions in Libya favorably, they did not take into account one glaring and important aspect: NATO’s perception by Africa. A study done by the NATO Defense College in 2013 revealed that the Libya operation’s strategic objectives were perceived as a shift from civilian protection to regime change, and blatantly relied on brute military force. Additionally, NATO’s intervention demonstrated a lack of flexibility to afford the African Union ample time or opportunity to push for a negotiated settlement.
What are the issues and perceptions that prevent us from developing an attitude of “us and them” instead of “us versus them”? This antagonistic relationship between distinct entities, elements or human beings emerges from our fears, uncertainties and, above all, our lack of understanding about one another. In essence, the Arab Spring and the Libya conflict brought to light NATO's inability to clearly interpret the nuances of the Arab world, specifically in the realm of the individual norms, customs and behaviors of each nation. The fallout of Libya, combined with the instability in North Africa and the ensuing Syrian refugee crisis, highlighted NATO’s conventional “ethnocentric approach” towards Africa and the Middle East. The shifting international landscape forced the Alliance to rethink its long-standing and successful Cold War-centric model and reorient its mindset in a more comprehensive way suited for today’s asymmetric challenges.
The plurality and intricacy of the South can clearly be viewed in diagram 1 (below), where cultural, economic, and political activities interact in a convoluted space to harness and safeguard specific interests—in many cases unbeknownst to the central governments.
Diagram 1
The multi-dimensional nature of this region copiously demonstrates the need for more flexibility when analyzing its threats and ambiguities, while capitalizing on the array of opportunities that African and Middle Eastern regimes can offer in terms of stable and steady governance.
The dynamic and precarious post-Arab Spring backdrop has necessitated the Alliance to collectively amend its perception of the factors that effectively constitute long-term regional stability in the South (the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel, and Sub-Sahara). By establishing the NATO Strategic Direction-South Hub in September 2017, headquartered at Allied Joint Forces Command in Naples, Italy, the Alliance broke with tradition by establishing a new standard for a 29-nation military establishment. The overarching objective behind the Hub is to change NATO’s mindset on how civil and military organizations find common ground, how to seek and build upon capacity and capability-building initiatives, and how to bridge the gaps of mutual understanding that ultimately contribute to long-term stability and peace in NATO’s southern borders.
The Hub is chartered to scope out new opportunities to develop and strengthen institutions by forging unique relationships with civilian stakeholders. Linking with these non-traditional NATO partners through collaborative information sharing to gain a more complete picture and in-depth understanding of the indicators of instability. Strong and enduring alliances with International and Non-Governmental Organizations will ultimately alter how NATO currently manages and exchanges information, as well as how it builds and fuses networks of knowledge between civilian and military organizations—all in an open and unclassified environment.
The Hub construct is revolutionary for a military organization like NATO, originally cultivated for deterrence in a bipolar Cold War world. It must now morph and strive to de-conflict and act in concert with security sector reform efforts, defense capacity building initiatives, and institution-building measures in the South. For that reason, the Hub is actively building relationships with United Nations agencies, as well as regional bodies like the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In summary, the Hub is is an unorthodox and bold experiment to vigorously transform how NATO anticipates and responds to the drivers of instability. NATO is now inclined to respond and actively invest its limited resources in vulnerable and susceptible regions before they evolve into a full-blown crisis. The Hub’s critical task and overarching goal is to reach out to a mosaic of private and civil sector entities—across the Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and Information (PMESII) spectrum—in search of improved situational awareness. Once the bonds of trust have been established between civil-military partners and confidence-building measures are cemented, the potential for NATO success in the strategic direction South is immeasurable. This holistic understanding will aid in anticipating, preempting, limiting, and overcoming challenges, while simultaneously serving as a positive force through which non-military results will lead to long-term stability and prosperity for local populations in “the South.”
Image "hub" Courtesy Andy / Andrew Fogg / CC BY 2.0
About the Author
Admiral James G. Foggo III, U.S. Navy, is the Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples; Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe; and Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Africa. He is a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Admiral Foggo is also an Olmsted Scholar and Moreau Scholar, earning a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) at Harvard University and a Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA) in Defense and Strategic Studies from the University of Strasbourg, France.
Fletcher Forum: In a speech given at the U.N., you stated that climate change is a powerful weapon of mass destruction, and we were hoping that you could elaborate on how you see climate and climate control as security issues.
KGK: Absolutely. Climate and climate control are intertwined with security in every possible way. We’ve seen entire countries starting to disappear, small island countries. But even for Croatia as a coastal state, we’ve seen the level of the sea rising, and in Italy, across the Croatian coast, Venice is sinking, one of the reasons being also the rising levels of the sea because of the melting polar ice caps. Climate change is definitely one of the elements that will continue to contribute to the migratory waves that we’ve seen so far that consist of asylum seekers, people fleeing from war, destruction, terrorism, oppression, et cetera, economic migrants, but also people who will be running in search of a home to live once their countries disappear. So I believe that this is one of the security threats of the future that we have to start working on very firmly today. Croatia has signed and ratified the Paris Agreement, we will continue to stick not only to the provisions of the Paris Agreement, but will continue to do whatever is in our power to provide for climate control and for control of environmental pollution and the protection of the environment in Croatia. Our forests, for instance, are disappearing, especially the evergreen forests because of the acid rain that we get from the west, from other parts of Europe that are more developed and where there is more industrial pollution. So climate control is something that cannot be stopped by walls or wires or borders, it’s something that is our joint obligation for the future of mankind.
FF: Can you speak a little bit about “real” versus “imaginary?” Our theme for this semester for the print edition is the global battle for truth, so looking at all sides of different debates. A lot of problems that are racking the EU right now and similar institutions come down to these competing claims for truth. For example, the truth that Europe’s long history of violence or the EU’s continuing imperfection versus the truth that European integration has brought unprecedented stability, prosperity, democracy, et cetera. So how do you confront these competing claims, such as the ones stated, or others that come to mind.
KGK: It’s not always easy, but for me, European integration has absolutely been a very, very positive process that has truly brought Europe together. But we still see these differences in imaginary geography between the East and the West. And we need to erase that, in physical and all other terms. So, you still see that there is lack of an infrastructure, of energy, of transportation, and other infrastructure—and thus my Three Seas Initiative that has been embraced by twelve EU member countries. So we need to pull the continent closer together. It has been imperfect, it has had its setbacks, but I think that the accession process, or rather what I call the consolidation of Europe—because Europe will not be enlarging anywhere, it will be incorporating the areas that truly belong to the continent—is a natural process that will guarantee freedom, stability, and prosperity on the continent.
Of course, there will always be skeptics in our own country and in many other countries, there will always be push and pull factors, and unfortunately we’ve seen more pull than push factors lately. Brexit has been an event that has shocked us all, and we do respect the will of the people of the UK that they expressed in the referendum. We’ll be sorry to see the UK leave, but I hope that the UK will remain engaged, especially in the Euro-Atlantic structures, and this is also where we see the role of the United States, closely connected to the European continent to keep the peace, to keep the stability, and to keep the prosperity. Because the threats to security today are becoming so volatile, so unpredictable, and develop so fast that none of us can protect ourselves individually and, as I’ve said already, no walls, no razor wires, will protect us. It’s only collaboration and sharing of values, which often we forget about. And one of the basic ones, solidarity, is what will protect us from the dangers of the future.
FF: Just expanding a little bit more on the theme for the current edition, we at The Forum have been very concerned this year with prevailing dueling narratives. Recently the suicide of General Praljak shocked the world. He’s been identified as both a war hero and a war criminal, and we were wondering to what extent this has reopened old wounds in the region, especially as they relate to miscarriages of justice in both the verdict and the war.
KGK: It has, it has, and when I go to New York on Wednesday, I’ll be speaking in front of the UN Security Council, and I have to tell you very honestly, I’ve been writing that speech in my mind over and over again, over and over. I think I’ll be up late at night, perhaps I won’t even go to sleep, come Tuesday night, until Wednesday’s session, because I, first of all, have to be responsible for the future of my country. The past has burdened us for such a long time, and I do have personally mixed feelings about the ICTY—we did support its founding, and we did support the fact that they should have tried individuals for war crimes perpetrated on the territory of the former Yugoslavia in different wars, to bring about the conditions for reconciliation, but it dragged on for a long time, and I think that we really need to be objective in looking at the results that we’ve seen. It’s basically been one of the first, apart from the court on Rwanda, one of the first international criminal courts—if we forget about the Nuremberg Trials a long time ago—and we have to be realistic and look at the lessons learned, and see where the court has done right and where the court has done wrong.
And, of course, for me, being a Croatian and the president of Croatia, it’s not easy to speak about that, because we feel injustices that have been done in the work of the court. But on the other hand, I feel the responsibility for the future not just for Croatia but for the whole neighborhood, and my primary intent, my primary goal, is to complete that reconciliation between all the countries in the region and all the peoples of the region, to put those open issues behind us, to resolve them with a view of the future, and to be able to look at our young people and say, we want to keep them in the region, and for that we need to keep an open mind. Croatia has been dealing with our past—it’s not easy to acknowledge that members of your own ethnic community have committed crimes, but we’ve done that, and we expect others to do that as well.
And I don’t want for any of the indictments of the ICTY to be some sort of grounds for future bickering and fighting and shifting guilt. What I want is to really look into the future. Bosnia and Herzegovina is so important to us, it’s so sensitive, we have the three nations living there, and for you who live in democracies that are based on individual participation, it’s difficult to accept and to understand the concept of the three nations, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the functioning of that country, it’s so important. So, I want for this case not to put further obstacles in terms of friendship for the Croat and the Bosniak people, or the Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I just would like to draw that line and look into the future of friendly mutual relations and of keeping the people in the country, of keeping Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because without Croats there will be no Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country might fall apart, and I’m really concerned about some of the developments that could lead to opening up some of the old wounds and some of the old problems from the past. I’d really rather close them and move on, than keep talking about the past all the time.
Image "Background flag" Courtesy Simon & Vicki/CC BY-NC 2.0
About the Interviewee Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović was elected Croatia’s first female, post-independence head of state in January 2015. Under her leadership, Croatian foreign policy has been concerned with such issues as the European migrant crisis, reaffirming good relations with Iran, expressing support for the territorail integrity of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, climate change and global warming, and the Three Seas Initiative (the twelve EU nations that border the Adriatic, the Baltic, or the Black Sea). Prior to her election to the Presidency, Grabar-Kitarović served for three years as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy where she was the first female Assistant Secretary General in NATO’s history and the highest ranking woman in NATO. From 1993—2008, Grabar-Kitarović served in the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs where her positions included Minister for European Integration (2003-05), the first female Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration (2005-08) where her mandate was to lead Croatia on the road to Euro-Atlantic integration (NATO membership and EU accession), and Ambassador to the United States (2008-11).
President Grabar-Kitarović earned her first degree in English and Spanish languages and literature at University of Zagreb, pursued further study at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, and earned a Masters in International Relations at the University of Zagreb. She has been a Fulbright Scholar in international relations and security policy at The George Washington University and a Lukšić scholar for management training in high-level government structures at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2017, Forbes magazine listed her as the world’s 39th most powerful woman.
The Fletcher Forum had the opportunity to speak with Lord Dobbs in October about global politics, leadership, and writing in an age of fake news. Read the excerpt from the interview. The entire interview will be available in our forthcoming Winter 2018 print edition.
The Fletcher Forum (FF): One of the great dangers of untruth—fake news, alternative facts, and alternative reality—is that once it takes root, it’s extremely difficult to eradicate by facts and logic. How, based on your political and authorial experience, do you suggest that we counter or speak against untruth?
LMD: That’s a very good question. It’s one that I have been pondering over a great deal. First of all, I think it’s easy to exaggerate the impact of fake news. The idea that Russia somehow put out so much false news that it persuaded people to vote one way or another in the American elections—I would like to see the evidence on that, rather than just a propaganda threat. I suspect that there a lot of people who make up their minds without rushing to news channels 24 hours of the day, or newspapers, or whatever it happens to be. They make their minds up on a more general or long-term basis. But, I’d like to see the evidence on that.
False news is always difficult. It’s one of the reasons why I am really worried about what happens increasingly on campus where you have safe spaces, which I regard as being the end of education essentially. The only reality is the reality that I wish to insist upon. Don’t let me go too far down that route yet, let me come back to your question.
There is a problem with the new ways that we are communicating—social media essentially. I’m sitting here thinking that I may just pull the plug on my Twitter account. Why? Because I see what Twitter and other social media do. It restricts your intellectual compass to 140 characters. It makes it much easier to scream and shout and be negative and destructive, rather than set out a good coherent argument in favor of something. It’s an echo chamber. It’s self-selecting. You don’t talk to other people. You choose only to listen to those who magnify your own prejudices. I also think there’s a big problem with things like Facebook and the other apps where young people are encouraged to share too much of their lives, something that they will regret later on.
Now, what to do about this? The Chinese have a very clear idea on what to do about this, and so does Russia. They clamp down on this. They want to stop this. They want to control this. I don’t think that should be our way of dealing with this issue. The first thing is to actually recognize and analyze it as an issue. Is it an issue? I think it probably is. But there are many more people who are looking into that in much greater depth. If it is an issue, then what do you do about it? I think education in the earlier stage has a huge role to play in that. When I was a kid I was taught how to write literally—you know that old thing you do with a pen—I was taught how to send messages in a letter. That was part of my education. We should be teaching kids how safely to use these new forms of communication. And that is a much better than it is to try and ban things and to become authoritarian about it. But I have been really impressed and strengthened in my view that there is a problem, as recent research has suggested that young people feel intimidated by social media. They feel that they have to belong on it and they feel pressured into using it in such a way that they don’t actually feel very comfortable with it. There is also evidence that suggests that the way some social media are constructed is as if people are being forced to like chocolate. It is constructed to make you feel almost addicted to it. There are real problems there. Maybe we need to have a grown-up conversation about how far the constructers of these apps should be going in order to gain that sort of market share. I mean, after all we have rules and regulations for lenders, banks and people like that. Is it unreasonable that we should look at the way Twitter works for instance or Facebook? Even I feel the pressure. If I’m on Twitter, I’m supposed to tweet. I don’t want to be reacting all the time to what other people are saying. There is really compelling evidence, although at its very early stages of research, that kids that get off social media actually feel released. They feel liberated because they feel that social media is a pest or put pressure on them in what are already overly pressurized lives. So, I think there is a whole area that we are learning about, which is changing every month and every year, which we have got to explore to see if there’s a problem and come up with solutions. Not simply to let it drift on.
FF: You also said that so much in politics is not a matter of facts nor a matter of record. So, what is it beyond the facts?
LMD: Politics is all about vision. It’s all about the future. It’s all about creating something that hopefully will be better. This is where we come back almost full circle to establishments and elites. They have a worldview that tends to be very cautious, very self-satisfied, and often very arrogant and disconnected with the realities. There are moments of great crisis where great leaders emerge. It often takes a great crisis for a great leader to emerge, but it is very rarely the establishment view. In fact, I can’t think of a single situation in a great crisis where the establishment view prevails. It is the establishment which usually caused the great crisis. Talking about leadership, I take the example of Winston Churchill. A man whose life had so much failure. A man who came to power on the 10th of May 1940 when he was expected to be a catastrophic failure, when almost every single part of the elite and the establishment was saying “We cannot win this war, we must do a deal with Hitler”. Knowing that that deal with Hitler would involve Nazism and Fascism dominating the whole of continental Europe. That was the establishment view. The establishment caused the crisis. The establishment was carrying on to the logical conclusion of its actions. It took a maverick and a very difficult man like Winston Churchill to say “No, there is another way”, and to be forceful enough and fortunate enough—because luck is a huge part of this—to be the right man, in the right time, in the right place to change history and to lead history on to a much better place. It doesn’t make Winston Churchill perfect and he made many, many mistakes. He was incredibly fortunate in many things, but he made his luck too. I believe, and most people would accept, that Winston Churchill was the only man who could have done that at that time because the rest of the establishment, including the Royal family, was against him and against what he wanted to do. Sometimes history hangs from a very, very delicate thread. Yet it is a huge fortune that we had, that somehow the right person emerges at the right time to lead us on from the wreckage left by the established view, which has run out of time. It’s that which actually has made our history and, by and large, not always, but by and large, for the better.
So, are we at that moment right now when the establishment is getting itself so much into the mire that it’s going to be submerged? Possibly. We haven’t done very well over the last twenty years and it’s very difficult to see carrying on as we are where we’re going to make things better. It does require new thinking, new ideas, and new inputs. It requires more than just screaming at each other through social media or the headlines. It actually still does require listening to each other. Winston Churchill knew what the establishment was talking about, knew what they wanted. Disagreed with them, but was able to, in the end, lead them on—even those colleagues that opposed him—to lead them on to new territory.
A wonderful film that is about to come out, called The Darkest Hour, shows Winston just in that moment where Britain was in the hours of defeat and the hours of giving in. It could have all gone so very differently. The film doesn’t quite get the cabinet government right, but it sort of alludes to it in a way that he was able to lead them on. The film makes him seem a little too shouty and perhaps not listening quite as much as he did then, but he was the man who did it, but he didn’t do it by himself. He required to lead others on with them. I suppose that is what leadership is about. It’s getting others to do what you think is right, getting them to accept that that is what is right. I think that we—electorates and systems everywhere in the West—are all looking for people to come up with new solutions that will then lead us forward. Whether we have found that yet is another matter. But certainly, the question is being asked. Everyone. Everywhere. The cry is going up. The establishment must change or be changed.
Image "Westminster" Courtesy Hernán Piñera/CC BY-SA 2.0
About the Interviewee Michael Dobbs, Lord Dobbs of Wylye, is Britain's best-known political novelist and an active member of the House of Lords. He was the UK Conservative Party's Chief-of-Staff and later its Deputy Chairman. He has also been a current affairs presenter for the BBC, a newspaper columnist, and deputy chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi. Somewhere along the way he picked up a doctorate in nuclear defense studies from the Fletcher School. He is the author of House of Cards, the hugely popular political novel that through Netflix has become a global television sensation. He has also written four award-winning novels about Winston Churchill.
by Daniella Burgi-Palomino
Chants of building a wall between the United States and Mexico have been the central rallying cry of the Trump Administration’s xenophobic rhetoric against Latino communities in the United States, fueling its harsh anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies. Much of this has focused on one vulnerable group in particular: the unaccompanied children, women, men, and families seeking refuge from the violence, corruption and impunity in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America (NTCA), namely Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
After the last two years, the refugee crisis in the Northern Triangle remains unabated. In 2016, the three NTCA countries had a combined total of 14,870 homicides. Individually, each country was still well above the minimum identified by the United Nations to constitute an epidemic of violence, with El Salvador at 81 murders, Honduras at 58, and Guatemala at 27 per every 100,000 inhabitants. In the first six months of 2017 alone, children have been the victims of multiple homicides and massacres in Honduras. Extortion and gender-based violence against women and children continue to increase. The vast majority of these crimes remain in impunity, while citizens lack trust in their authorities and access to justice. Internal displacement, often a precursor to international migration, continues to increase in El Salvador and Honduras, with a lack of government response to ensure that internally displaced persons (IDPs) have access to services and protection.
While the Obama Administration’s policies addressing the refugee crisis in our own backyard were far from perfect, the Trump Administration attacks the very motivation for Central Americans to come here in the first place, going so far as to equate them to the perpetrators they are often fleeing: ruthless gang members.
Criminalizing unaccompanied children & their families at the border and interior
Since the end of last year, NGOs have documented a concerning trend: asylum seekers from Central America are being turned away at official ports of entry by Border Patrol agents, a violation of U.S. and international law, leaving them stuck in dangerous areas along Mexico’s northern border states. This is reflective not only of an empowered Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the Trump Administration, but also of broader efforts to restrict access to asylum and tighten credible fear standards. For example, earlier this year former Secretary of Homeland Security, John F. Kelly, stated that asylum seekers are being coached by coyotes, or smugglers, to make up credible fear claims. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, meanwhile, has asserted that the majority of unaccompanied children are in reality gang members, “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” attempting to take advantage of the U.S. asylum system. This concerning rhetoric criminalizes the very notion of seeking asylum.
Unfortunately, these have not been the only efforts to punish unaccompanied children and their families. The Administration is continuing its rhetoric to threaten to separate children from their families at the border as a deterrence measure and has amplified its definition of gang affiliation. Youth suspected of being gang members are now specifically the targets of raids, while U.S. families receiving unaccompanied children are being accused of child trafficking, simply for wanting to keep them safe.
Terminating the only program allowing children to seek refugee protection
Besides restricting protection access at the border, the Administration has also recently terminated the Central America Minors (CAM) program, implemented under the Obama Administration. CAM offered a way for children to apply for refugee admission or temporary humanitarian protection in the United States without having to leave their home countries and after undergoing months of background checks. Now, an estimated 7,000 children who had submitted applications are left with no other option but to turn to smugglers to seek protection.
Targeting the undocumented population in the U.S.
Beyond the border, we have seen other threats targeting undocumented individuals in the United States—many of which hail from Central America. After Mexico, for example, the top countries of origin of the 800,000 Dreamers that were protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Should Congress not pass a legislative solution, an estimated 122 Dreamers will lose protection from deportation every day from now until March 5, 2018. DACA was even cited as spurring the arrival of unaccompanied children to the United States, despite the fact that only those who have continuously resided in the United States since 2007 are applicable.
The Administration is already in the process of terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Central Americans, a less well-known form of temporary protection from deportation. On November 6th, it was phased out for around 2,500 Nicaraguans, and early next year the Department of Homeland Security will make a decision on whether or not to renew TPS for 195,000 Salvadorans and 57,000 Hondurans who have been living in and contributing to communities in the United States for up to 20 years.
Why this matters
All of these attacks against Central American asylum seekers are an affront to the United States’ responsibility to recognize those who seek international protection at its borders and abroad. Contrary to what members of the Administration have stated, there is no evidence that unaccompanied children are being recruited by gangs that are as transnational as the Administration has made them out to be.
This is deeply concerning, not only from a humanitarian and moral standpoint, but from a U.S. foreign policy perspective. While deportations to Central America have not yet increased this year, a substantial increase in returns of undocumented migrants, including Dreamers and TPS recipients, could further destabilize an already dire public security situation, cut off remittances to weak economies, and potentially set off another wave of displacement and migration to the United States. Since 2015, the United States has allocated an estimated $2 billion USD to the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America to address the root causes of migration in the region. Returning individuals to danger and ending crucial protection programs would have profoundly negative impacts, while undermining U.S. investments in improved security, prosperity, and governance in Central America.
The Administration would do well to change the course of its rhetoric. We should recognize Central American asylum seekers and their families for what they are - valuable contributing members of our communities, future Americans, and in many cases, refugees - before there are long-term impacts to the United States and their diplomatic efforts abroad.
Image "Welcome asylum seekers and refugees - Refugee Action protest 27 July 2013 Melbourne" Courtesy John Englart (Takver) / CC BY-SA 2.0
About the Author Daniella Burgi-Palomino is the Senior Associate for Mexico, Migrant Rights and Border Issues at the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), where she directs and implements advocacy strategies to strengthen human rights, accountability, and access to justice in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border region and to promote the rights of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees from Mexico and Central America. Prior to joining LAWG, Daniella worked for six years on the protection of migrant rights in the U.S.-Mexico-Central America corridor with a variety of civil society organizations and foundations. Daniella was the first coordinator of the Central America and Mexico Migration Alliance (CAMMINA), a Fulbright García Robles Fellow in Mexico from 2010-2011, and a Program Associate at Oxfam America. Daniella has completed research and fieldwork contributing to organizational advocacy strategies on issues such as transitional justice, migrant rights, gender and internal displacement. She holds a BA from Tufts University in International Relations and History with a focus in Latin American studies and a Master’s in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy where she focused on human security and migration.
Published in Saskia Keeley's blog
Saskia Bory Keeley spent ten days documenting the We Love Reading (WLR) initiative in Jordan. During her time on the ground, she met many hardworking and inspiring people from the WLR community - from support staff and coordinators to women (and a few men) training to become reading ambassadors.
WLR ambassadors foster a love for reading in young children living in indigenous communities and Syrian refugee camps across Jordan, with ambitions to spread across the Middle East and around the world. Each and every one of those interactions was meaningful and poignant, a testimony to the great mission of We Love Reading. Here, she chronicles her two days in the Azraq Camp.
Azraq Camp Eerily quiet streets in Azraq Camp Azraq Camp Walking with children in Village 6 Inside the main room in the mosque A new book that talks about the refugees’ plight Reading sessions in Jordanian communities Reading sessions in Jordanian communities Ismail Yasin Al Thaher in Village 2 Reading session on the soccer field with Village 6 beyond the blue fencing Photographing a reading session in Azraq Camp - Village 2 Sharing photos with young girls in the mosque in Village 6 Dr. Rana Dajani
The instant I connected with Dr. Rana Dajani, the founder of the NGO We Love Reading, I knew I wanted to collaborate with her. A Jordanian molecular biologist, Dr. Rana is an Associate Professor at Hashemite University in Jordan. After spending 5 years abroad, witnessing the easy access to books and libraries, Dr. Rana came back to her country with a heightened awareness that instilling the love of reading wasn’t a high priority for most cultures in the Middle-East. Through personal experience, she saw the positive impact literature can have and how children’s aspirations can be raised when they see the world through someone else’s eyes. So Dr. Rana set up her very first library in a local mosque more than ten years ago.
The concept is simple: to foster the love of reading among children. Make reading enjoyable and it will provide hope and an ability to dream. Reading aloud regularly to children aged 4 to 10 helps them to discover their inner potential. It seems so basic, this notion could easily be dismissed. But the stories Dr. Rana shared about what We Love Reading offers in Jordanian neighborhoods and in Syrian refugee camps were truly inspiring. As with many communities limited in resources, proper education is scarce in camps. In addition to providing literacy and an appreciation of written words, reading is also a tool for increasing well-being, promoting resilience and alleviating mental stress. It also helps to create a sense of community.
The We Love Reading (WLR) program advocates for child literacy. To date, they have mentored and trained 3460 individuals - mostly women - in techniques of storytelling. The program empowers the adults who wish to better their own lives and the lives of those around them. These efforts have led to the establishment of 1570 libraries throughout Jordan, enriching the literacy of over 15,000 children.
Beginning with weekly reading sessions in a local mosque in 2006, the program has since grown into an established NGO with libraries - meaning a place where the trained volunteers hold weekly sessions – in 33 countries. Based in Amman with a staff of 30 employees, WLR’s mission is to expand the program as far as it can, and to monitor and evaluate every library that has opened since its implementation. The ultimate goal is to reach every child in every neighborhood in the world by 2020.
“Even if I vanish now, it’s all right, because the most important thing is that I brought help and support for people in need. ” — Majed Mohammad Qasham The opportunity I had to witness this truly transformative and purpose-filled program was beyond inspiring. In all the Jordanian communities we traveled to—from Ma’an in the Southern part, to Irbid in the North, to Mafrak in the East—I listened to true storytellers reading to groups of rapt children. Those storytellers, called ambassadors, are volunteers who have finished the two-day training to become WLR readers. The groups of children I observed ranged in size from a dozen to more than 40. The ambassadors all shared their enthusiasm about the program and what it offers the children: a chance to dream, grow, and learn. They also spoke about what they had gained by becoming committed participants. Majed Mohammad Qasham, an ambassador, said, “Even if I vanish now, it’s all right, because the most important thing is that I brought help and support for people in need.” The opportunity to spread joy and bring hope is precious, but it’s especially meaningful in a context often devoid of occupation and purpose. The program is transforming cultures from the ground up and empowering individual change-makers who wish to make a real difference.
Possibly the most moving interactions happened during my two-day visit to the Azraq Syrian refugee camp. I accompanied two WLR coordinators—Ms. Sarah Shahin and Ms. Sukayna Anbtawi—to hear the latest group of ambassadors reading to the young in their communities. I was granted official permission to enter only three days prior, as camps are tightly restricted.
Azraq Camp opened its doors in 2014. It now has 35,000 refugees, with space for thousands more. To get to the camp, one drives an hour and a half, about 70 miles east from Amman. Looking out the window, the scenery is one of barren desert for most of the ride. The striking landscape, with a whiteness of light and sand that stretches as far as the eye can see, gives off an eerie feeling of remoteness. But even this doesn’t prepare the newcomer for the desolate vision of Azraq. In the hot desert landscape, far from any urban area, the camp suddenly comes into sight. From a distance, one can see endless rows of white steel “caravans”: hundreds upon hundreds of shelters, each family assigned to one. While clearly a well-planned and thoughtfully designed camp, enclosed in fences and barbed wire, it looks like a military camp.
Only with governmental permission can one get an entry permit, pass the strict security gate check, and gain access to the “villages” that constitute the camp. All visitors must be accompanied by a camp official, but there was even more security around our arranged appointments. As I am a photographer, and because this was mentioned in my paperwork, we were followed by a policeman throughout our two-day visit. I learned early on that there were restrictions as to what I was allowed to photograph. During the first day, the policeman asked to review photos on my camera’s LCD screen and made me erase all images taken up until then. The stated reason was to protect the displaced people but my perception was that they monitor closely the images and the reports coming out of the camp. It is clear that the management of the camp is strictly controlled not just for visitors but, more critically, for the refugees inside, which limits mobility, hence opportunities for employment both inside and outside the camp. It is challenging for residents to have any control over decisions as crucial as making a living, let alone finding ways to fill their days with meaningful activities.
There is a sense of temporariness to Azraq. One has the feeling that time is suspended. It is eerily quiet, with none of the life and noises we are used to in any typical large community: cars, music, the buzzing of activities or children playing. Most people seem to remain indoors. While it’s evident that the camp is not intended to be permanent, there is no avoiding the disquieting feeling that without a political solution, the suffering of Syrian refugees will continue and camps such as Azraq will continue to be more than just temporary shelters.
“At this stage, there are 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, representing almost 20 percent of the country’s population. ” At this stage, there are 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, representing almost 20 percent of the country’s population. The Jordanian communities that host refugees feel the impact of providing for them. Mohammad Momani, Minister of State for Media Affairs, talks about “standing on high moral ground when it comes to aiding refugees,” but stresses the crucial importance of the international community in helping to shoulder responsibility in this crisis. Many local and international organizations collaborate—such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], UNICEF, and the Norwegian Refugee Council [NRC], INJAZ, and WLR—providing large financial and technical support to the camps in Jordan, supplying basic needs such as shelter, sanitation, food, medical treatment, and education. But the sheer number of civilians in need of aid presents challenges to relief groups on the ground.
This is all part of what I experienced when I spent one day in Village 2 and the next in Village 6. I saw the efforts of international organizations and the benefits that come from their generous support, I witnessed dedicated local workers on the ground who make the refugees’ lives more bearable. But families coping with the stresses of life far from their Syrian homes can only adapt so much in a confined, highly secured and enclosed area. They struggle to provide for their families and to access essential services – including education for their children.
The initial worry was that a WLR initiative would be hard to get off the ground in a camp where refugees would be more concerned with satisfying basic needs such as food and shelter. Many children are not even sent to school, as there is little faith in what education can provide while living in a challenging setting and in a traumatized state. Against all odds, WLR held two training sessions, the first in 2016 and the second, just a couple of months ago. They met with great success. More than 30 trainees became reading ambassadors and they all opened libraries: finding places such as their home-caravan, the school center or the mosque where they can hold reading sessions on a weekly basis. Some gather children even more regularly. Ismail Yasin Al Thaher, an ambassador who reads every afternoon in Village 2, says he has counted 150 children who come at different times to hear his stories.
Our two days in Azraq were planned to document the reading sessions given by some of the newly trained volunteers. Sarah and Sukayna also needed to do the follow-up that takes place after every training program. In the camp, storytelling occurs either in a “class” caravan or outside in an open-air area surrounded by caravans, making it an enclosed area.
There is no doubt that I created a distraction as a tall, foreign-looking visitor equipped with photography gear. The children excitedly looked my way as I was setting up my equipment. The reading ambassadors knew of my visit and welcomed me warmly. They are proud of their storytelling skills, which attract dozens of children to come and listen to their every word, and provide an opportunity to step away from the grim daily reality. They are also immensely grateful to have the opportunity to use literacy to bring meaning to the lives of children, as well as their own. Her own love of literature compelled one ambassador to the project, in order to help “build a generation of readers, an educated and civilized generation.”
I was deeply impressed by the way the sessions are structured and planned out, how they have become such an important part of any day’s activities. Many of the books are read over and over, but the children still love hearing about Jude or Amal or Samir, the protagonists in some of the stories. They interject and laugh, they wait eagerly for specific moments in the narrative. This visit to Azraq was all the more special: two new books were just published and printed by WLR and we brought them with us. They depict the refugees’ plight. These beautifully illustrated stories show Syrian families leading happy lives in their country. Then the war comes and they need to flee to survive. The bright and colorful pictures turn dark and grey, capturing the fear and anguish. The palette remains somber with the arrival in refugee camps and the hardship of adjusting to unfamiliar, restricted dwellings. The end of the story is hopeful, speaking of new beginnings and fresh possibilities in an environment that at first felt foreign and distant. Children paid close attention, a sort of quiet observation, to this new story. I sensed it is a narrative they know all too well.
Najla Abdulla Sharah
For the ambassadors, reading aloud becomes an essential medium for communication between generations, a way to heal trauma inflicted by war. When I spoke to them individually, with the help of a translator, they all mentioned the sense of purpose those reading sessions have provided them, a gift beyond anything they hoped to get from the experience. Najla Abdulla Sharah says, “I wept profusely the day I participated in WLR.” She sees this as an opportunity “to create a cultured, civilized, educated generation, literally a building block for the new generation.”
The second day was even more revealing. We listened to the first five ambassadors reading, each to their own group of children. These sessions were all given within the physical structure of the school and activity center for Village 6, a larger structure than Village 2.
Over and over, I experienced the same dedication and passion coming from the volunteers and the same earnest attention from the children, as they leaned forward to see the illustrations of the book, to be a full participant in the storytelling.
Our last two sessions were in the Village 6 mosque. This place of worship is an especially large caravan where our last two ambassadors read. The mosque is a half a mile away from the school center, and our assigned policeman relaxed the strict restrictions. He allowed us to walk, giving us the opportunity to go by home dwellings and spend more time with refugees.
Curious children followed us as the women explained more about the structure of their communities and how to subsist when so little is available. The rainy season is about to begin. The dry soil will turn into mud and the dusty air into a dampness that will permeate their homes. Winters are harsh and gas supplies given to families aren’t distributed often enough to keep the shelters warm.
With this unique opportunity to experience all that was around us, we ended up rushing to the last two reading sessions in the mosque. The ambassadors and the small, endearing group of girls gathered quickly and efficiently.
Being behind schedule, we moved from the main room to a smaller one when it was time for prayers and men came in for the afternoon gathering. One of the two ambassadors used to be an English teacher in Syria and it was wonderful, as well as heart-rending, to hear her account first-hand. Some of the vibrancy of such exchanges is lost waiting for translation by a third party. The uniform account from all was how much this program has provided in terms of building hope, joy, imagination, and in promoting culture and education. All of the ambassadors commended Dr. Rana Dajani and her NGO for a vision that has been life-transforming and salutary. On the ride back to Amman, it was too early to sort through the overwhelming and conflicting feelings those two days had prompted. Witnessing the level of adversity, the forced confinement, the extreme limitations brought about a concrete reality beyond anything imaginable. Even with the stark accounts and images on the news, the lives of refugees remain abstract until seen first-hand.
In the greatest humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands are facing extreme hardships with no solution or end in sight. But the Syrian war has also given humanity a chance to act. During my two days in Azraq Camp, I witnessed acts of human compassion countless times: in the kindness of teachers, in the aid and assistance of relief workers, in the dignity that can be restored through programs such as We Love Reading, in the uncompromising commitment and dedication of reading ambassadors. It is to those ambassadors—exemplifying virtue, spreading light, being moral beacons amid the darkness of a tragic war—that I dedicate this article.
Image (top) and gallery courtesy Saskia Keeley
Saskia Bory Keeley is a Swiss photographer based in Manhattan. Saskia principally partners with humanitarian organizations, taking into account their sensitive and noble endeavors. She strives to paint a picture of what is possible, and to promote changes that happen when understanding and empathy converge. Saskia has collaborated with a number of institutional organizations to record signature, public events and candid moments for promotional use. Her work has been featured in several magazines, corporate annual reports, and on numerous websites.
By Forum Staff
On November 16, on the sidelines of the Conference on U.S.-Russia Relations presented by The Fletcher School and MGIMO University, the Fletcher Forum sat down Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes and Dr. Marc Lynch to discuss U.S. and Russian interests in the Middle East.
Fletcher Forum: What are Russia's current ambitions in the Middle East and how have they changed since 2011?
TCW: The breakdown in regional order in the past decade has created opportunities for a number of actors, both external to the region and internal. It did not surprise me to see the Russians exploiting those opportunities for greater influence in the Middle East.
ML: I agree. One of the things that goes all the way back to 2003 is that the regional order in the Middle East based on U.S. hegemony has declined. This has created those kinds of opportunities Tamara is talking about. Russia has punched well above its weight in the Middle East, but largely in unsustainable ways. Moscow has done a very good job of offering itself as an alternative to the United States. But I don't think Russia has really accomplished all that much in terms of new alliances in the region. Still, Moscow has become much more of an active player than it was ten years ago.
FF: As ISIS loses territory in Iraq and Syria, how does Russia view this development, including the return of foreign fighters?
TCW: I think the foreign fighter problem has been a significant concern for Russia for a long time, as well as for multiple countries. We have yet to see precisely how ISIS is going to reformulate its strategy or its approach now that it has largely lost its territorial base in Syria and Iraq: whether it will focus on regional targets or Western targets. I think the responses of states will be a reaction to ISIS’ strategy as it emerges. But it is worth noting that Russia has faced threats from domestic terrorism continuously for the last decade or so more. This is not a new problem for Russia.
ML: ISIS has actually been very useful in a way because it has facilitated U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria; ISIS is a common enemy. As ISIS disappears or evolves back into an insurgency, the United States and Russia and other actors in the region are going to have to confront things that they've been able to sweep under the carpet as long as they have been focused on fighting ISIS. We could potentially see the emergence of a real conflict between the United States and Russia over the new map of the Middle East over issues that have largely been set aside for the last two years.
TCW: I don't expect that actually, at least not with the current U.S. administration. I agree about the dynamics, that given the thin common purpose of fighting ISIS now having been largely resolved, other conflicts will come to the fore. But those are primarily conflicts between proxies, not conflicts between the United States and Russia. By and large, neither the United States nor Russia is interested in engaging in a confrontation over the fate of Syria or the division of power within Syria.
ML: I think that's right. My point was that what happens in eastern Syria and who is going to rule is now an open question. The issue of whether the United States is going to try to topple Bashar al-Assad is not an open question. But there is open space in Syria now, which is we see Assad’s forces racing in and trying to grab land and territory. Fighting ISIS was the strategic glue that allowed us to ignore the existence of other conflicts.
FF: Speaking of U.S.-Russia competition in Syria, what is the impact of the UN Security Council's failure to extend the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, the mission looking into the use of chemical weapons in Syria?
TCW: This marks a very consistent, in the face of evidence, attempt by the Russian government to shield Bashar al-Assad from culpability for his actions, which constitute war crimes. I think it reveals very clearly the lack of Russian commitment to the international norms at the heart of this process. This endangers the counterproliferation effort at the UN overall. For the sake of defending Assad, Moscow has done real damage to the broader global effort against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
ML: I completely agree with that. It has been the case for a long time that when there is a U.S.-Russian agreement at the UN, we can accomplish a lot. But when there is U.S.-Russian disagreement at the UN, the institution becomes stymied.
FF: Broadly speaking, how do you view the trajectory of the U.S.-Saudi relationship? What is the impact of changes currently happening in Saudi Arabia on that relationship?
ML: From my perspective, Saudi Arabia has been very destructive actor in the Middle East since 2011. It has worked actively to subvert democratic transitions; its support for all sorts of rebels in Syria helped to contribute to the failure of the Syrian uprising; and its war in Yemen is an absolute crime against humanity and indefensible. Going back to 2011, we have seen a real and justifiable conflict between the United States and Saudi Arabia over these issues, which the Obama administration tried to soothe over with massive arms sales. But there is a fundamental divergence there. Saudi Arabia is actively degrading the state system in the Middle East through its foreign policy choices, and I do not see Riyadh as the solution to problems in the region.
What is going on inside Saudi Arabia right now is absolutely fascinating. I don't think anybody foresaw the speed and audacity of what Mohammad Bin Salman is doing. I would hesitate to speculate as to whether he's going to succeed or not. The bottom line is that he has been far more successful at seizing power for himself domestically than anybody expected. But his foreign policy has been far worse than anybody expected. This tension is currently defining the Saudi role in the region.
TCW: From the perspective of the United States, the challenge of trying to re-establish a stable order in a disordered region is, if you do not want to make massive investments yourself, you need to rely on strong local partners. And there are no strong local partners in the Middle East right now. The United States used to lead a status quo coalition with Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia as its anchors. Today, Egypt is mired in its own mess. Israel can only project power in certain ways. And the Saudis have been playing the role that Marc described, but have their own internal challenges as well. Right now, the Saudis are very focused on regime security and regime consolidation. Therefore, the United States does not have its pick of partners. It is trying to work with what is available because the alternative of acting without partners is unpalatable and lacks public U.S. support. That is the dilemma from the American policy perspective.
It is all too common for American administrations to seize on the emergence of a new, bold leader in an autocratic partner and say, "This guy is really going to change everything. He's going to help solve our problems. He's a reformer. He's a moderate. He's a modernizer." We hear a lot of this language today about Mohammad bin Salman. I think that is more American wishful thinking about our partners than it is about these individuals and what they're actually capable of. What Mohammad bin Salman displays is a leadership style that is very different for Saudi Arabia, which you can see both at home and abroad. Hedging has been a key component of the Saudi approach, regionally and domestically, for a long time. Mohammad bin Salman is not hedging; he is taking risks abroad and consolidating his own power at home. But it is unclear how that approach is going to function in a region with such unpredictably and rapidly shifting dynamics. It is also unclear whether the transition he is trying to affect is going to be meaningful enough to win the allegiance of young, ambitious, impatient Saudi citizens.
FF: During the Obama administration, there was some concern regarding Egypt moving closer to Russia. It seems that perhaps those concerns have subsided under the Trump administration. What is Egypt’s current relationship with Russia? Does Russia possess the capacity to invest in that relationship?
ML: The Egyptians are on the same page as Russia in Syria. A very interesting aspect of Egypt’s foreign policy is that since the 2013 coup Cairo has been much more supportive of Assad than of the Syrian uprising. This is quite interesting given Cairo’s dependence on Saudi financing. More broadly, Russia does not have have much to offer to most of the Arab states, including Egypt. Moscow can offer arms sales and has had some success in that area. But the kinds of arms Moscow is selling tend to be interchangeable systems, as opposed to the major U.S. weapons systems in which all of these Arab regimes have invested and require long term training and supplies. Russia’s weapons sales in the Middle East mark a tactical rather than a strategic shift. Beyond that, Moscow has simply been able to enhance its influence in the region by being present. That does not mean that Russia is developing new alliances. For Egypt, I think Cairo likes having the Russians to play off against the Americans to enhance its own bargaining power.
FF: In terms of academia, what role can think tanks, universities, and the like play in responsibly contributing to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East?
ML: I think there are real problems with this administration specifically. I’ve been trying for a long time to increase the ability of academics to engage on policy issues and I think we've done a very good job. But right now, we are faced with an administration that actively opposes expertise. The administration is not receptive to the kind of expertise that academics can offer. This means we need to find other ways to influence public opinion.
TCW: Given how upended Middle East regional politics have become, this is a situation in which academic analysis can be more helpful because we really are looking at big historical shifts. We are looking at shifts in the nature of the social contract, at demographic shifts, and geostrategic shifts. These are issues for which academic work has a lot to offer. I think this is a moment of opportunity for more academic-policy dialogue.
FF: Do you have any advice for students that are interested in pursuing a career in this field?
ML: One of your best investments will be in portable skills. By that I mean, spend time in the region and develop real expertise in an area, regardless of whether it is currently in the news. Don't choose classes or thesis topics or expertise based on what you think the market is going toward, because no one knows what the market is going to look like five years from now. If you develop confidence and expertise in languages or knowledge of a particular country or issue, that will always give you something that stands out.
TCW: I agree. I also think that students should follow their passions. Grad school can be hard, and if you love what you're doing, you will be motivated. The state of the Middle East today is such that we are going to be grappling with these big questions for a good long time.
Image "Return to Homs" Courtesy Xinhua/Pan Chaoyue / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
About the Interviewees Tamara Cofman Wittes is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Wittes served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from November of 2009 to January 2012, coordinating U.S. policy on democracy and human rights in the Middle East during the Arab uprisings. Wittes also oversaw the Middle East Partnership Initiative and served as deputy special coordinator for Middle East transitions.
Wittes joined Brookings in December of 2003. Previously, she served as a Middle East specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace and director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in international relations and security studies at Georgetown University. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Professor Lynch received his B.A. in Political Science from Duke University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. He teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics and international relations. He is the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science, a contributing editor for The Washington Post's Monkey Cage political science page, editor of the Columbia University Press series Columbia Studies on Middle East Politics, and a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
by Luciano Zaccara
The conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom France and Germany), with the support of the European Union, represented a great accomplishment for multilateral diplomacy. The 2015 deal represented a serious Iranian commitment vis-à-vis the international community. For the first time, Iran agreed to decelerate its nuclear development, reduce its number of centrifuges and convert some nuclear facilities, and submit its nuclear activities to international scrutiny for at least 25 years. In return, Iran obtained international recognition of its right to develop a nuclear program under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as well as promises to lift all sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council, and US and EU sanctions leveled specifically on the Iranian nuclear program. Most importantly, the international community enacted definitive transparency and safety conditions on Iran and set a precedent for possible similar scenarios, such as North Korea. Since the agreement, Iran has expressed its desire to fully comply with safeguards agreements and additional protocols under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Although President Donald Trump has decertified Iran’s compliance with the agreement, the consensus within Iran is to continue abiding by the agreement and refuse any alterations to the deal that could include broader issues, such as Iran’s missile program.
Several developments in Iran facilitated the signing of JCPOA. The election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in June 2013 paved the way for a more diplomatic approach in Iranian foreign policy. In addition, despite a narrative of “resistance” by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the political establishment, sanctions imposed on Iran since 2006 had become increasingly harmful for the Iranian economy and people. Genuine engagement in nuclear negotiations was unavoidable in order for Iran to normalize its position in the international community and achieve economic recovery. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, in his second term, was liberated from internal pressure to pursue a more militarized approach towards Iran. Both Rouhani and Obama were also aware that the nuclear agreement was necessary to reduce the existing tension in the region, although neither leader was absolutely satisfied with the final terms of the deal. After its signature in 2015, Obama acknowledged that the JCPOA was “a deal between states that are not friends,” and “not built on trust [but] built on verification.” Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, stated that JCPOA “was not a perfect deal”. Simply, while it was not ‘the’ best deal, JCPOA was the best deal that was possible.
The situation drastically changed in the United States with the victory of Donald Trump in November 2016. His position against the JCPOA, which he repeated throughout the campaign, was clear. In October 2017, Trump decertified the deal, claiming that “the Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the U.S. has ever entered into.” Trump’s decision pushed the issue to Congress, which now has to examine the deal and Iran’s compliance. In Iran, though, the situation has remained relatively stable. Despite strong criticism of the deal from Iranian hardliners, there remains a consensus on the need to preserve and comply with the negotiated conditions regardless of Trump’s position. None of the six Iranian presidential candidates in the June 2017 elections, including the most conservative candidate, Ibrahim Raisi, even suggested the abandonment of the deal. While there was always, and remains, a consensus among the political elite on Iran’s right to have a nuclear program, there is an equally strong unanimity on the need to continue the Iranian commitment to comply with the JCPOA and the international community.
Despite the negative reception that the decertification of the deal generated in Iran, there is a general understanding that President Trump cannot unilaterally cancel the deal without embarrassing himself in front of the other signatories of the agreement. President Rouhani said after the October decertification that “every day (Trump) says this deal is the worst in the US’ history. As he put it, it is shameful for America, but still he has not been able to do anything with this agreement.” At the same time, Iranian authorities believe that Trump is using the argument that the deal resulted in an increase in Iran’s regional influence as a reason to cancel the JCPOA. However, the Rouhani administration is determined to keep a clear distinction between non-nuclear issues and compliance with JCPOA. For the Iranian presidency, as well as for the Supreme Leader and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the missile program and Iranian support for or alliances with other regional governments, such as in Syria and Iraq, have nothing to do with the JCPOA, and are therefore not negotiable with the US.
In sum, the Iranian position is clear, from the top of the political system to policy makers, analysts, and researchers: as long as the United States is the only actor opposing JCPOA, it is in the benefit of Iran to remain within the deal. First, Iran should focus on compliance with the deal, which has been confirmed by the IAEA, the EU, and the UN Security Council. Iran only recognizes the IAEA as the organization with the authority to verify Iran’s fulfillment of safeguards obligations under the JCPOA. Second, Iran must prevent the European Union from moving towards Trump’s stance. European support for the deal is due, in part, to a need to access the Iranian market and a desire to promote investments and bilateral trade and become a strategic partner of Tehran. Iran also wants and needs this economic relationship. Third, Iran will seek to increase cooperation in the realms of trade, security, and international politics with Eastern countries such as China, South Korea or India, as an alternative to the Western powers.
Image "President of Iran Addresses General Assembly" Courtesy United Nations Photo / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
About the Author Luciano Zaccara is a Research Assistant Professor at the Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University. he is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and Director of OPEMAM, based in Madrid.
The Fletcher Forum recently sat down with Sean Callahan, CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), who was visiting The Fletcher School for the 2017 Religion, Law, and Diplomacy Conference: Approaching Religious Literacy in International Affairs.
Fletcher Forum: To begin, how would you sum up the Catholic social values that are vital to Catholic Relief Services’ mission? How do Catholic social values differentiate CRS from other humanitarian aid organizations?
Sean Callahan: Human dignity is one of the key principles behind what we do, which is respect, promote, and care for the human dignity of people; save, protect, and transform human lives; and assist people in reaching their own empowerment.
We are a relationship-based organization. We don’t go out to tell people how development needs to be done, rather we find out what they want to have happen, and we try to work with them and assist them to flourish in their particular environment.
FF: With anti-immigrant and nativist sentiment on the rise in the United States and around the world, do you see opportunities for CRS to get involved in opening public dialogue on this issue based on interfaith solidarity?
SC: We see tremendous opportunity. We do not do interfaith projects; we are an interfaith agency. Everything we do, everyday, is interfaith. For example, my staff of over 300 people in Afghanistan are all Muslim. In India, they are mainly Hindu. In the different countries in which we work, we are a reflection of those countries.
When you look at Catholicism, there are two ways of thinking about it. The first is religion, and the second is about universal values. We are part of an organization called Caritas International, which is a 165-member catholic organization that reaches out throughout the world. We are invited into countries through the local churches and by the governments, but then we see ourselves as establishing an interfaith platform once we’re there.
The Catholic Church is a social service network around the world and is second only to local governments. That outreach allows us to connect with all different groups. The idea is not that we are promoting our religion but that we are promoting the values of our religion.
FF: You talked about the interfaith nature of CRS. How does such an organization contribute to conflict resolution in the future? What are the challenges and limitations of that interfaith nature and what are the opportunities?
SC: I really think we are only limited by our own imaginations. I am very much an optimist on what we can do and I have seen the tremendous efforts of what we have done so far. Sometimes when we talk about religion, a lot of things that are misunderstood. When we go out to the field in Afghanistan, for example, we don’t go with armed escorts. We go with the local people protecting us. When I was in India and some of the rebel movements in different areas called on foreigners to go, the villagers said “no, the foreigners are with us.” It is the local people with whom we build those relationships. We break down barriers. If we can show that religions are together, that we can work together in different ways, we can hopefully break down a lot of these barriers that are being created by others.
FF: Based on your experiences and knowledge, how have you seen the field of international development change over your decades of work in the field? What trends do you see for the future?
SC: First, the local capacity of the people where we work has shot up exponentially. It is absolutely incredible. When I go out to the field now, our staff on the ground for the countries where we serve is top notch; they are the best people out there.
Second, when I grew up in the United States and learned history, I used to learn about the old world and the new world. The new world was this dynamic, energetic place where you could do anything. The old world was more closed and concerned about different people and languages coming in. Today [in the United States], we are the old world. There is a youth bulge in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America. These demographics could be a problem, but they could also be an opportunity and an engine of growth and entrepreneurship for Africa. We just have to figure out how we can assist on and provide that little bit of investment that these greatly talented people need.
FF: With the rise of populism around the world, do you find it a challenge with people assuming you, as an American, believe what President Trump believes? How do you convince someone about what your organization believes versus what is being tweeted by the President?
SC: It’s a great question. I understand a policy of America First, I think there is a lot to that, in trying to help your domestic constituency. At the same time, for organizations like us, it ties our second hand behind our back. When we go into a community, right away there are questions about why we are there. To blatantly say “America First” puts us in a position where we now almost have to doubly explain ourselves.
I think the advantage that an organization like ours has in being a faith-based organization is that people can see that there is something beyond our nationalism, where we’re from, and that we have higher values that are critically important to us.
People see that we not only practice what we preach, but frankly, we employ what we preach, because we have people from different religions who are there. For example, I’ve got a staff member who is working here who is from India, then she became an international staff member and worked in Africa, and now she’s working in the United States. Although we are an American agency, people see in us that positive, pluralistic part of America. But again, I think the values also help us touch base with the values of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and others and people can see we are working for the common good.
FF: You have spoken in the past about pushing CRS to be a little bit bigger and bolder and to be the best technical agency it can be by providing the right services to the most people at the most critical time. Could you explain or elaborate on your vision a little more?
SC: The key word in development for me is trust, because with trust, you can stimulate behavior change. I think we need to do two things. One, insure that we have that trust. Two, think boldly about what we’re going to do next.
I asked my staff, “why the heck did we not think of covering all of West Africa with mosquito nets?” Someone said that’s an outrageous idea. Yes, it is an outrageous idea, but it’s a good idea. Because we can stop malaria by doing it. Right now at CRS we cover the country of Niger –19 million people with mosquito nets. We were just asked last year to do it for 30 million people in Nigeria, and they just asked us to up it to 80 million people. This is what I mean by being bold.
The two things that hold us back are, one, our own imagination, and two, that organizations and groups try to do it alone. We’re not going to try to do this alone. We’re going to do it with the Global Fund, with the President’s Malaria Initiative, and the local governments. In Guinea, we’re working with the Ministry of Health there on computerizing their supply chain management and warehouses. These technologies, what we call ICT4D, ICT for Development, can be really powerful.
FF: We also want to talk about your time here at Fletcher. Who was your favorite professor, what skills did you learn at Fletcher that helped shape what you wanted to do?
SC: Two of my favorite professors – one was Professor Hewson Ryan, and the other was Alan Henrikson. They were just really helpful to me. My areas were public diplomacy, history, and Western Hemisphere.
My Fletcher experience provided me with the right credentials. It also tested me and challenged my thinking in various ways. I also really thought I was lucky to have this opportunity. I said to myself, I need to give a year back. Someone came from CRS and said, will you give a year back working with us? They sent me to Costa Rica, and then a hurricane hit Nicaragua at the time, and they switched me to Nicaragua. That one year turned into four and a half in Nicaragua. My mother gave up that I was going to get a real job.
I also continue to use my studies out in the field, because we are continually students. Sometimes when you come to Fletcher you can think that we are the masters of the universe, and I think when you go out to these countries you come to realize that they are the masters of the universe. Maybe jointly, we can benefit from that mutual collaboration.
Image "BLUE HARVEST El Salvador - CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES" Courtesy Maren Barbee/CC BY 2.0
About the Interviewee Sean Callahan is president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. A 28-year veteran of CRS, Sean, had held a wide variety of leadership roles overseas and at agency headquarters. For the past 5 years, Sean served as the chief operating officer for CRS, responsible for Overseas Operations, U.S. Operations and Human Resources. In this role, he ensured CRS’ commitment to its mission to cherish, preserve and uphold the sacredness and dignity of all human life, foster charity and justice, and embody Catholic social and moral teaching. He enhanced performance, stimulated innovation and positioned CRS for the future. Callahan holds a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School and a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University.
an interview with Graeme Reid
The Fletcher Forum interviewed Graeme Reid, the director of Human Rights Watch's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program, in November 2017, following Mr. Reid's participation on a panel discussing 'Queering International Relations' as part of the 2017 Conference on Gender & International Affairs.
Fletcher Forum: What is the role of the LGBT Rights program within Human Rights Watch?
Graeme Reid: The LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch is a relatively small program of 7 staff members, but we are fortunate that we work in an organization of 450 people working in 90 countries. Human Rights Watch researchers work around the world, keep an eye on LGBT issues, and bring country expertise so we can tackle LGBT issues in a broader country and regional context.
As an example, when there was a purge against gay men in Chechnya, we were very well placed to document the atrocities there, in the face of denial by Chechen authorities. The Russia program director, based in Moscow has been working in Chechnya for 16 years. She has the contacts, the trust of different groups, and was well placed to speak to individuals who were highly traumatized by their experience, to document that, and then use that research to press the international community to put pressure on the Kremlin to take action in Chechnya. That international attention was effective, and the mass incarcerations came to an end. We were also able to highlight the plight of refugees who had fled to Russian cities, and advocate for their resettlement.
Being part of a broad-based human rights organization is also politically appropriate because it means LGBT issues are not addressed in isolation. Given that the main challenge to LGBT rights at the international level, as we see in the disputes at the UN, is whether LGBT rights are human rights at all, this is key. It is important, symbolically and beyond, that a mainstream human rights organization like Human Rights Watch is emphatic and unapologetic about dealing with LGBT rights within a broader human rights agenda.
FF: Can you give us a snapshot of LGBT issues in the world, what is the trend in where things are heading?
GR: I hesitate to talk about trends because I think that we need to usually look at country-specific or sometimes regional-specific issues. But nevertheless, I think it’s a useful question. I think if we look at what’s happening at the UN, we’ve seen rapid progress in terms of the appointment of an independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity - that has been a significant milestone.
If we look at the process that led to that appointment, we also see a shift in attitudes around the world. In all regions, there has been an increase of support for the various resolutions that led to this appointment. And even though the appointment was subject to extreme opposition, it nevertheless went ahead. So if we look at the meta-level, we see a trend towards greater inclusion and acceptance as well as a growing recognition of the level of discrimination and violence that’s experienced by people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and the need to redress that in some way.
There have been worrying developments internationally which I see in part as a pushback against some of the advances that have been made. My particular concerns are around the proliferation of laws that seek to restrict the so-called ‘promotion’ or ‘propaganda’ of same-sex relations. These laws seek to outlaw the expression of identity. They really go a long way to violate rights of association and expression.
Nigeria is one example. The Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act passed in 2014, implies that the law is very narrow in focus when actually it is extremely broad. It forbids any public expression of identity or any support of LGBT groups and it comes with a heavy penalty. While the law has not been implemented in any systematic way, it nevertheless sends a very negative message which has an inhibiting effect on LGBT populations, and it also creates a climate in which violence occurs, as our research has documented.
FF: Building on that example of Nigeria and propaganda laws, could you talk about addressing the substance and broader effects of these propaganda laws over its stated anti-LGBT focus.
GR: I could use a number of different examples but given that we were talking about Nigeria, I’ll stick with that. The origin of the law had a lot to do with geopolitics within Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria presenting itself as ‘authentically African’ and using the law to distance itself from South Africa, which is portrayed as uncomfortably aligned with the West. Remember that the draft law was introduced soon after the South African Constitutional Court paved the way for same-sex marriage there.
The bill stayed dormant for a long period of time and it only gained momentum when Goodluck Jonathan, who at that time was aspiring to become president of Nigeria again, used this as a way of garnering political support and distracting attention from corruption scandals and the security threat from Boko Haram. A useful ruse at that point was to create a moral panic around a perceived threat to Nigerian sovereignty. Your question is: “well how do we address that?”
In practical terms, what we did was an initial visit to Nigeria shortly after the passage of the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act. We met with a number of NGOs including groups that worked on LGBT issues, on health issues, on women’s rights, broader human rights organizations, a number of different players and discussed what would be an effective way of talking about the impact of the law.
In the end, we focused on the impact of the law on freedoms of expression and association, and also on the issue of violence because we learned that not only had there been an increase in the level of violence, but that LGBT community members felt utterly disempowered from reporting any form of crime or violence to the police. Our report exposed the extremely negative consequence of the law — which has got nothing whatsoever to do with same-sex marriage.
FF: You have written about countries like Russia using “the defense of traditional values” as a wedge issue, at the UN and elsewhere, against human rights. Can you talk about how that plays out in practice?
GR: The propaganda law does political work in Russia for Putin by helping to consolidate his conservative support base. By clamping down on LGBT rights, Putin presents himself as the defender of ‘traditional values’ against his more urban and cosmopolitan opposition.
But that was only part of the story. Internationally, Russia increasingly took on the mantle of traditional values. This was used as a wedge issue for those former territories of the Soviet Union that had aspirations to join the European Union and those who were being pressured or persuaded to join the Eurasian Customs Union. The LGBT issue was very explicitly deployed as a wedge issue that caricatured the West as being hedonistic and overly permissive, and to cast the human rights conditions of EU membership in a negative light.
Russia uses ‘traditional values’ to forge and consolidate alliances with other states at the UN. The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Africa Group consistently speak in the language of traditional values. Propaganda laws, and their equivalents have been discussed extensively in Eastern Europe and much further afield, including Nigeria, Uganda, and Egypt.
FF: The Trump administration is taking a different line than the Obama administration on these issues. How does the US taking a step backwards affect your work, and how do you see it impacting the organizations and communities you’re working with?
GR: Since Hillary Clinton’s ‘gay rights are human rights, human rights are gay rights’ speech at the UN Human Rights Council, and Barack Obama’s memorandum, LGBT rights became an explicit part of US foreign policy.
This combination of political cover and material support meant that internationally, a number of groups have been emboldened to be more visible and vocal. The withdrawal of political support and the rise of populist and autocratic leaders internationally, leaves LGBT groups exposed, and because they are more visible they are also more vulnerable.
That is not to say that it is an entirely black and white picture. Nikki Haley has spoken out against the atrocities in Chechnya. The US has supported the wording of the Olympic Truce inclusive of sexual orientation. Recently, there was a controversy about the US not signing the death penalty resolution that for the first time explicitly mentions sexual orientation, although the back story is that the US doesn't support the resolution and it never has because of the death penalty, not because of the LGBT issue. In fact, the U.S. delegation strongly pushed for the inclusion of sexual orientation in that resolution. But overall, the Trump administration has had a very negative impact because it has put the wind in the sails of social conservatives and autocrats internationally who feel like they can get away with human rights abuses in general and abuses against LGBT people specifically.
FF: If the US is taking a step backwards, what countries are filling in the gap?
GR: Canada has been exemplary, not only in the advances they have made domestically but stepping up internationally. I also want to emphasize the strong role of Latin American states that have not only made advances domestically, but have also played an increasingly prominent international role. We’ve seen that both in the core group of LGBT-friendly states at the UN and also the strong representation of Latin American states in the Equal Rights Coalition, a broad network of states that seek to support the rights of LGBT people internationally.
FF: One observation of the panel at the Gender Conference was that as LGBT groups grow, and become more visible there is a backlash that rises to meet it; and outside organizations offering support, can be seen as an unwanted outside or even colonial influence. What do you think about this concern, and how has your organization experienced it?
GR: I am cautious about the word “backlash” because it implies an automatic response, and that can disguise the real organization of opposition. Opposition groups are also social movements, that are well resourced, increasingly sophisticated, and operating in a lot of different spheres.
As an organization operating globally, we are meticulous about working with credible in-country organizations, and seeking guidance from local LGBT leaders or, in the absence of an LGBT organization, a human rights organization, about what would be useful and what would be harmful.
FF: In the spirit of the Gender Conference, what is something you would want foreign policy thinkers and practitioners to change about how they think about LGBT issues?
GR: I think the one thing is not to treat LGBT rights issues as a side issue, because it is often symptomatic of the broader human rights situation in a particular country. If there is a clampdown on LGBT people, it is almost inevitable that there is going to be a clampdown on civil society writ large. If you let that go, ignore it, don’t pay enough attention to it, you can be sure down the line there are going to be other human rights abuses that take place. It needs to be confronted very directly, and not seen as a secondary issue.
Image "Rainbow flag" Courtesy Jaime Pérez / CC BY-NC 2.0
About the Interviewee Graeme Reid, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program, is an expert on LGBT rights. He has conducted research, taught and published extensively on gender, sexuality, LGBT issues, and HIV/AIDS.
Before joining Human Rights Watch in 2011, Reid was the founding director of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa, a researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research and a lecturer in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies at Yale University. An anthropologist by training, Reid received an master’s from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and a PhD from the University of Amsterdam.
By Fletcher Forum Staff
The Fletcher Forum recently sat down with Professor Monica Duffy Toft, who directs the Center for Strategic Studies at The Fletcher School. With the Forum, Professor Toft shared her insights on US foreign policy as it stands today and the challenges posed by it.
Fletcher Forum:What are the current challenges facing US foreign policy? Monica Toft: I think there are three major challenges. First, in the immediate term, the current administration is trying to find its foreign policy “sea legs.” There is still a question of what the direction of US foreign policy should be, what the priorities are, and who our allies in the different theaters are.
Second, looking domestically, foreign policy has never been a priority for Americans. The economy has always been the priority. But we face a great number of threats, not least of which is in cyber, but also from global jihadism, climate change, and WMD proliferation. We are also still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq while trying to help defeat the regime in Syria and prevent a power vacuum from emerging there. In addition, there is the threat from the conflict in Yemen. The question is how to get Americans to care about these issues and come to at least a partisan consensus (bipartisan would be ideal); particularly at a time when domestically we are thinking about budgets and gross inequalities of income.
There is also a third challenge; which is the changing international environment and dealing with the rise of China, hostility from Russia, and challenges to what was the existing global order for 60 years. That order emphasized the rule of law, international norms and values, institutions, and alliances. The question is whether that order will be resilient enough to last and help protect and guard American interests; or whether it will suffer the fate of the League of Nations, with similarly dire global consequences.
FF:The current administration’s foreign policy appears in many ways to be reactionary. How can the US move away from a reactionary foreign policy? MT: We need a sense of what it is that the United States stands for on a global scale and what we want to achieve. First and foremost, that entails the protection of the homeland and of US citizens. We then need to think strategically about how to best secure those vital interests. One problem is that we have not had a conversation to identify the primary, secondary, and third order threats to US sovereignty and the protection of the homeland. We also need to think through the interests of our allies, what threatens them, and how best to help them secure their interests.
A critical issue is that this administration has yet not released its National Security Strategy. It is currently working on the strategy, and once released, it will help guide US foreign policy and the tools and mechanisms used to secure US interests. But until we have a concrete idea of what this administration stands for, only then can we think about a strategy in practical terms (as opposed to ideal ones). We are in need of a national dialogue in which we identify a goal, form a strategy, and think about the tools we can use to implement it. For example, this administration seems to view “radical Islam” as a primary threat against which armed force must be brought to bear. I would hope that we could have a conversation about that, because an axiomatic resort to arms may not be the best route to defeating that threat.
On the issue of cyber, the problem is that most of the infrastructure is in private hands and the current administration doesn’t seem to be thinking through how to incentivize private industry to take the cyber threat seriously (the Obama administration did, but was warned off due to the need to prevent the 2008 recession from becoming a global economic depression). The question is whether there can be a partnership between government and private entities to help enhance the secure use of the evolving cyber domain.
We also need to think through the non-securitized, non-militarized ways to advance national security—namely diplomacy and trade—as well as good old-fashioned intelligence gathering. But given the current budgets and the fact that the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and to some extent the Department of Veterans Affairs are getting big boosts while the State Department and USAID are being gutted, I am not optimistic that we will make progress on this front.
FF: What are the consequences of a foreign policy strategy that tends towards force rather than diplomacy? MT: Really there are two problems I see. First, over-reliance on the use of armed force has historically solved short-term problems at the expense of creating much bigger problems down the line: winning wars only to lose the peace. This is largely because the use of armed force promises to spare its users from having to understand the underlying causes of threats and contingencies by simply killing ‘bad guys.’ President George W. Bush’s famous “mission accomplished” speech in 2005 is a case in point.
Second, when you are the world’s most powerful military and largest economy, and when you’re armed with an unparalleled arsenal of thermonuclear weapons and live relatively safe from powerful adversaries geographically, the over-reliance on armed force can easily make you look like a bully. In other words, what seems to the United States as a necessary resort to armed force, will tend to be perceived, even by allies, as gratuitous use of force.
Ironically it is the US military that remains most reluctant, in almost every case, to advocate for the use of armed force as a first resort. Key members of our armed services elite have recently expressed deep concern about the diminished role and resources of USAID and the State Department; arguing that, as I would, a withered diplomatic and aid effort makes a resort to force more necessary over time and sets in motion a vicious and self-sustaining circle of violence demanding violent action, stimulating more violence, and demanding yet more violent action.
Such a strategy limits the tools for foreign policy. That issue has not just bedeviled this administration; the State Department and USAID have always been underfunded. It means that the Department of Defense becomes the only arm of the government that has the competence and the resources to act should a crisis arise. I am particularly concerned that there are professionals who have been serving in the State Department for decades that are leaving and retiring, while at the same time morale is low and there is little incentive for young people like our Fletcher students to go in and serve in an under-resourced State Department and USAID. This leads to a further decline of the institution in the medium-term, and in the long-term we lose professional expertise further hampering our capacity to act without having to resort to military force.
FF: What is the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy? Is there a way to connect these two separate conversations -- one about America domestically and the other about foreign policy? MT: As I just argued, the dividing line between foreign and domestic policy continues to shrink and blur. But many Americans are unaware of this. It is therefore difficult to connect those two conversations, in part because the economy, not foreign policy, is the priority for most Americans. Where these two issues intersect most obviously is on immigration and migration issues. While there is a possibility of connecting the domestic level with the international level on the issue of immigration, because this issue has become so politicized, I am not optimistic; in part, again, because although we have good evidence that immigrants are initially costly, once settled they first become neutral in terms of costs, and after a few years become a powerful net gain to a host’s economy. But these arguments are difficult to support in the current political environment.
FF: What role can the Fletcher School and its students play to shift this narrative and build consensus? MT: First, it is important to read a lot, listen to people, and have empathy. One of the things in this country that we have lost is the capacity and ability to listen to and hear what other people are saying, especially those with whom we disagree. People have been talking about feeling displaced and feeling as though the United States is not serving them anymore. It is therefore important to work hard to reach out to people across the aisle and read what they are saying and writing. If you wake up every morning and read the New York Times, Financial Times, and the Washington Post, try instead reading the Washington Times and Breitbart News to get a sense of what their readers are learning and how they are responding to current events.
For Fletcher students, I think it is important to get in touch with fellow Americans and understand why they feel the way they do and work with them to find common solutions. We have one of the strongest conflict and negotiations programs here at Fletcher, and we can use some of those skills in these efforts. These would include something critical about which you’ll rarely hear: understanding an issue and having “the facts” is no longer enough to change people’s minds. To do that we’ll need to start teaching our students not only to listen, but to advocate (understanding an issue and being able to change a listener’s mind about that issue are not the same thing). Writing about these issues and emphasizing a desire to change this situation is also important. Finally, Fletcher students should also think about running for public office themselves and, while in public office, should display empathy to understand where people are coming from. Only then can we achieve a consensus on the direction our country needs to go as part of an effort to make positive change.
Image "US Flag" Courtesy carolineCCB/CC BY 2.0
About the interviewee Professor Monica Duffy Toft is Professor of International Politics and Director of Center for Strategic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Before joining The Fletcher School, she taught at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. While at Harvard, she directed the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs and was the assistant director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. Her areas of research include international security, ethnic and religious violence, civil wars and demography.
Monica is a research associate of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is a supernumerary fellow at Brasenose College, University of Oxford, a Global Scholar of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Minorities at Risk Advisory Board and the Political Instability Task Force. In 2008 the Carnegie Foundation of New York named her a Carnegie Scholar for her research on religion and violence, in 2012 she was named a Fulbright scholar, and most recently served as the World Politics Fellow at Princeton University.
Fletcher Forum: How would you describe the U.S.-Pakistan relationship in three words?
Aizaz Chaudhry: A long-standing relationship.
FF: With the change in leadership in the U.S. and Pakistan, how do you see the relations evolving in the near future?
AC: I think there is a desire on both sides to take the relationship forward. We need to build on areas where we agree, and work on areas where we differ.
FF: What are the implications in the long term for this change?
AC: Pakistan and the United States have worked with each other to pursue our common interests, irrespective of which political party holds office in either capital.
FF: It has been 70 years since India and Pakistan gained independence - what are the common challenges to both and what can they learn from each other?
AC: India is Pakistan’s neighbor. Naturally, we would like good relations between the two countries. Unfortunately, the Government in India has decided it will not engage with Pakistan. I think both sides realize that we need to resolve our issues. Pakistan believes there can be no lasting peace in South Asia without resolving the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir. Indians believe the issue of terrorism needs to be resolved; we also share that concern. Bottom line is if we do not talk to each other, we cannot work out our differences and move forward.
FF: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) cuts directly through Pakistan. Do you see any implications it might have down the road in terms of disproportionate and imbalanced geographical and economic growth?
AC: CPEC is a project for the whole of Pakistan. Several CPEC projects are related to energy. These projects come online soon and we would hopefully have overcome our chronic electricity shortage for good. CPEC also comprises major railroad projects, which will modernize our infrastructure and open up some of Pakistan’s more underdeveloped areas. CPEC enjoys the full support of all major political parties and provincial legislatures. This is because CPEC will bring prosperity to all regions, especially Balochistan which would be its terminus. Ultimately, we believe it is a project that will also yield dividends for the entire region.
FF: You mentioned energy. On the one hand, Pakistan is a nuclear power but on the other hand, there are regular power outages. How do you square these priorities?
AC: We have some nuclear power generation capacity. But our nuclear capability is dictated by our security concerns. It was driven by the imperative of deterring any aggression from our east. The important point, as I said, is that we are now very close to overcoming our energy deficit.
FF: What role is the Pakistani diaspora playing in state-building in Pakistan. What role does the Embassy play in facilitation and in providing resources to the diaspora to help them achieve their goals?
AC: I think the Pakistani diaspora in the U.S. is a national asset. They are a bridge between Pakistan and the United States. They offer the advantage of being a permanent resource because they are insulated from the ups and downs that are natural in any bilateral relationship.
The Embassy is closely engaged with Pakistani-Americans and I, personally, place great emphasis on reaching out to the community. When I came to the Fletcher School to speak at the invitation of Professor Shultz, for example, I made it a point to meet the Pakistani diaspora in the area. This is my habit wherever I go in the United States.
FF: Afghanistan has been mired in conflict for three decades. Do you think the conflict is chronic? What role can Pakistan play in statebuilding of the country?
AC: Pakistan has a greater stake in Afghanistan’s stability than any other country. This is because we have paid a higher price for instability in Afghanistan than any other country. We have been hosting between 3 to 5 million Afghan refugees for 38 years. And we have borne the spillover effects of the conflict in Afghanistan in the form of drugs, violence and extremism.
Our stakes in Afghanistan’s peaceful future are even higher now because we have made enormous strides in reversing the tide of terrorism. We have taken the fight to the terrorists and forced them to flee. Our economy is on the up and there is genuine excitement about Pakistan as an emerging market. So, naturally, we want to see peace in Afghanistan. Otherwise, the gains we have made – at enormous human and financial cost – would be at risk.
This is why we find it strange when we are told that there are militants hiding in Pakistan. This is simply not true. One, militants are on the run in Pakistan. This is backed up by evidence of the sharp fall in terrorist incidents in the last three years. Two, why would militants live in Pakistan, where they would be under constant threat from our ongoing counterterrorism and combing operations, when they have access to 40% of Afghan territory that is ungoverned?
We think that a comprehensive approach is required to resolve the Afghan conflict. A military solution has been tried and it has failed. We need a political approach that engages all Afghan factions. The United States and Pakistan have both paid a high price for the Afghan conflict. We both want peace in Afghanistan and should work together to that end.
FF: Some people purport that instability of Afghanistan is in the interest of Pakistan. How would you counter that argument?
AC: Since joining the war against terrorism, we have suffered direct economic losses of $125 billion. There is accounting for indirect economic losses. We have suffered a huge number of casualties: 6,000 security personnel and 23,000 civilians killed. Why would we allow this to continue? To kill our own people? It hurts us when such preposterous accusations are made. Pakistan wants peace in Afghanistan. It is Pakistan that suffers because of instability in Afghanistan. In the last 10 years, we have suffered over 2,500 terrorist attacks that originated in ungoverned spaces in Afghanistan. We should move past media stereotypes and look at the facts.
FF: What has changed, if anything, from your time at Fletcher in 1990s and now?
AC: Well, frankly, I did not see a lot that has changed. The only change that I saw was in the geopolitical setting, the environment, and the subject matter that you guys study. When I was there – it was 1989, the Berlin Wall was coming down. I remember sitting in Blakeley Hall dormitory and watching this momentous event unfolding before my eyes on television. We thought the Cold War was over and there would now be peace. There was great euphoria and hope. This time around, I felt that students were more worried than hopeful about the world. I think there is a lot more uncertainty and fear about the future.
FF: What brought you to Fletcher?
AC: I was already in the Pakistan Foreign Service when I came to Fletcher as a mid-career officer. I had come from an organization called the Economic Cooperation Organization, which is now a regional organization for promoting economic cooperation between Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and the Central Asian States. So I was more interested in studying international economics than international politics.
FF: Who was your favorite professor at Fletcher?
AC: I studied international trade and monetary system from Professor Benjamin Cohen. He was a very good professor and I really enjoyed his classes. I also took some courses on diplomacy with Professor Andrew Hess. I should have taken more courses on international politics because after 9/11, the security paradigm has become the dominant discourse.
FF: What is one piece of advice for graduate students as they embark on their journeys in international affairs where they will interact with people of different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences?
AC: I have learnt that one should always be open to new ideas. I have benefited from reaching out, but I have seen no benefit in arguments. Every culture has its own wisdom. It is more important to understand others than to impose your own ideas on others. To those of you who are starting your careers, be open to new ideas and you would see that as you go higher in your career, you will find these new ideas always helping you.
Based on my own personal experience, I will advise all of you that, whatever you do, keep notes. They will help you in later years. As someone once said, “palest of ink is better than sharpest of memory.” That would be my advice. I have not strictly followed it. I started doing it in the latter part of my career but I wish I had done it right through the years.
FF: What advice do you have for the participants of the first-ever Fletcher Pakistan Trek taking place this December?
AC: Visitors to Pakistan are always overwhelmed by our hospitality and love. You will feel this for yourselves. I hope you will meet all kinds of people — elected officials, people on the streets, government functionaries — you will discover the real Pakistan, not the one you see on TV or read about in the newspapers.
FF: Thank you for your time. It was a real pleasure for us to interview you and to listen to your experiences and thoughts.
AC: I am also very pleased that you took this initiative. I wish I was as agile and active as you guys are, when I was your age. It gives me great confidence that every succeeding generation is better than the previous generation. My best wishes to you in your careers.
Image Courtesy Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C, U.S.A
About the Interviewee Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry has been a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan with 36 years of bilateral and multilateral experience. Since since 13 March 2017, he has been serving as Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States of America.
Earlier, he served as Foreign Secretary of Pakistan from 27 December 2013 to 12 March 2017. Prior to this, he served as the Foreign Office Spokesman.
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Chaudhry has served as Additional Foreign Secretary for UN and Disarmament Affairs, and Director General for relations with South Asian countries, in which capacity he has remained closely associated with the peace process with India.
Overseas, he served as Ambassador of Pakistan to the Netherlands, where he engaged in active public diplomacy in cooperation with Pakistani community to win friends for Pakistan. He also authored a book “Pakistan mirrored to Dutch eyes” published by Sangemeel publications.
In his other overseas assignments, Mr. Chaudhry served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York, Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary General of ECO in Tehran, and Pakistan Embassies in Washington, Doha and Cairo.
He holds Masters in International Relations from Tufts University, Massachusetts, and a Bachelor of Science from Punjab University, Lahore.
Bio Image "Generalsekretär Linhart trifft pakistanischen Staatssekretär Chaudhry" Courtesy Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äußeres / CC BY-NC 2.0
Fletcher Forum: What, according to you, does religious literacy entail in the context of business?
Paul Lambert: In the context of business, religious literacy is familiarity with, and understanding of, religious influences on people. At the core, business is all about people: it is people who are making your product and it is people you’re bringing these products to in the market place. If you want to be successful in creating your product and running a business, you need to understand the primary things that influence people. Religious literacy is about understanding those influences. You don’t have to be a scholar of religious studies to be religiously literate. But you do need to make an effort to understand.
FF: How important is religious literacy for businesses? Why so?
PL: I’d say a lot! In today’s globalizing world, you have to understand that religion is becoming more important, not less important. The data that organizations like Pew Research have put out suggests that while the world is globalizing, the secularization isn’t happening as predicted in the secularization theory. Religion is not losing its place as an influence on people. It is quite the opposite. For example, look at the 10 fastest growing economies in 2017 according to the World Economic Forum. Every one of those ten is a religious majority country. This suggests to me that if you want to be successful, to retain talent on one hand and be able to sell effectively to the clientele on the other, you have to understand religious influence on your stakeholders and inculcate religious literacy.
FF: Do you think business schools are introducing interdisciplinary studies to make students aware of different cultural and religious contexts and sensitizing them towards those issues?
PL: They should. While I don’t think everyone needs to go get a Master’s or a Doctorate degree in religion, I definitely support the idea of including it in an MBA, or a program like the MALD. Addressing it in those contexts is critical, because all these programs are interdisciplinary. A successful business cannot exist by only understanding strictly business topics like finance, accounting, and leadership. You cannot do those things in a vacuum in today’s globalized business world.
FF: Do you see that happening as of today?
PL: A little bit, but not nearly enough!
FF: If you could reflect on your experiences at the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute where you are a Research and Development Consultant, how would you say the development and design of religious literacy education programs has changed over the years?
PL: Religious literacy and diversity has been part of the course of study much more degree programs such as the MALD, or those of other international relations schools. That’s been going on for a while. If you take a closer look at the US Department of State, you’ll notice that there is finally an increased awareness of religion in diplomacy. Go back some years ago and look at Kissinger’s book, Diplomacy: a 900 page book from a true heavyweight in foreign relations, yet religion is never addressed. I think they have overcome that and realized that it is something they must talk about given the world we live in today. It is not so much present in the business world, however. For example, you referenced my work at the Newseum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center. Our attempt there is to do exactly what you are asking about: to bring religious literacy into the business world. We’re trying to adopt an empirical approach to study the role of religious diversity and freedom and how that impacts business and economics. We have created courses around this, showing how religious diversity, freedom, and literacy have significant impacts on business and economic growth.
FF: You direct programs Leadership, Strategy and Change Management. What would you say is the difference between being a leader at an international organization versus being one in a business organization?
PL: In many ways, leadership is not that different in either case. I think an effective leader in either of those contexts is aware of influences on people and values empathy, understanding and contextual awareness. Having said that, I’d add that this awareness may be slightly more obvious in an international organization like the UN or the World Bank, because it is critical to know that in order to work effectively. But, there is no denying that such awareness is also critical in businesses. Understanding the influences on people you work with, why they think what they think, and why they come to conclusions they do, is critical for a leadership in both areas.
FF: You spoke of globalization and we see that in today’s context, organizations are becoming highly multicultural. This could be both an advantage and a challenge. What approaches could a leader adapt to address the challenges and leverage the advantages?
PL: As far as the challenges go to multiculturalism, many would say that it is challenging to adapt. But it is adaptation or failure. There are plenty of case studies out there, business or otherwise, that reiterate that if you don’t adapt, you will fail. In terms of advantages, you can look at study after study that demonstrates that diversity in business leads to very positive outcomes. Perhaps the most obvious positive outcome is innovation. A study commissioned by the European Union looked at the levels of diversity within societies in Europe and found that those that have higher levels of diversity, including religious diversity, had a much higher level of innovation in the business sector. So the advantages, I think, significantly outweigh the challenges.
FF: Do you think business organizations are doing enough to inculcate a sense of cross-cultural sensitivity?
PL: We have started to have conversations, but there is a lot further we need to go before we are where we need to be.
FF: What skills do you think, we as Fletcher students must inculcate to be effective leaders in the 21st century? What is one thing you wish someone had told you as you were about to start your career in international affairs?
PL: Being interdisciplinary is a really important skill to have. For instance, while I haven’t been in the field of “development” in my career, having an understanding of from taking advantage of a class I took in development here at Fletcher has been hugely helpful to me. Nothing is done in a vacuum, especially when your work is international. Everything is interdisciplinary. Along those same lines were my interactions with my peers - really trying hard to understand their perspectives and learning from them. I learned so much from my peers, and that experience instilled in me a desire to learn in an interdisciplinary way. As much as I can, I try and read articles or books that are pertinent to something I am interested in but not directly related to my career field. Often when I do this, I find myself turning to my wife to say “look at this, this is so interesting, the argument that they are making here. I totally disagree with it, but it is so interesting.” That’s what school is all about. It’s a real tragedy if a student is in a place like Fletcher and doesn’t take full advantage of all it has to offer, from students to the classes to the alumni.
Another answer that is common, but common for good reason, is being a part of something that is bigger than you. That can be a number of different things: a social cause, a religious belief, dedication to a country, or a number of other things. Committing yourself to something larger than yourself will guide you in a way that keeps you grounded, honest, and progressing.
Image "Crucifixion and Resurrection in Stain Glass" Courtesy
Wayne S. Grazio / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
About the Interviewee Paul Lambert is responsible for developing and implementing Georgetown McDonough’s custom programs centering on global leadership and operations, strategy, and change management for U.S. and international organizations. Prior to arriving at Georgetown, Lambert was an assistant professor and academic officer at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. In this capacity, he served as a daily representative of the United States to defense and foreign affairs leaders from more than 75 nations enrolled at the university in programs focused on leadership and strategy. Lambert also directed the university's American Studies Program, which educates foreign leaders on American policy, government, and global partnerships.
Lambert received his master's degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor's degree in American studies from Brigham Young University. He also is a graduate of the Seminar XXI Fellowship Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies.
By Pamela Kennedy
Just as U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats imply a vague policy outcome without any actionable specifics, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Make Alliance Even Greater” hats, presented to Trump during his visit to Japan last week, exemplify an alliance that has worthy goals but hazier details, in particular regarding North Korea.
At the working level, the U.S.-Japan alliance has been moving towards improved interoperability, more strategic coordination, and more active partnership from the Japanese side for years, and there will continue to be room for development. But at summits that signal an overall direction for the alliance, Trump’s statements are characteristic of the most persistent roadblock for progress: a gulf between what Japan can – and should – realistically do in the partnership, and what the U.S. wants.
Reports have emerged that Trump believes Japan, as a nation of “samurai warriors,” should have shot down the two North Korean missiles that flew over Hokkaido this summer. In addition to giving an oddly aggressive and anachronistic description to a state that now prizes pacifism, Trump’s viewpoint shows a lack of understanding of Japan’s security calculus. Given the tension between Japan and North Korea and the real threat that North Korea poses to Japan’s population, attempting to intercept test missiles could worsen regional tension. Whether or not Japan’s missile defense hits its targets, and missing is an uncomfortable possibility, North Korea might interpret the anti-missile missiles as an attack and attempt retaliation. China, too, might use Japan’s missile defense as another example of what Chinese leaders say is evidence of Japan’s return to militarism.
Moreover, the legality of Japan’s use of its missile defense systems for shooting down test missiles is unclear in these circumstances, especially if the missiles do not pose an existential threat to Japan. The constitution of Japan, penned by the American occupying forces, severely restricts the activities of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF). For both test missiles, which the SDF determined would land in the Pacific Ocean, the government of Japan decided that using missile defense was not justifiable, necessary, or worth it. Trump appears unaware of these restrictions.
Trump backed away from his opinion in a joint press conference with Abe, but walked right into another critical area where his expectations and Japan’s reality do not meet: he stated that Japan will commence shooting down North Korean test missiles after purchasing “massive amounts of military equipment” from the U.S. Abe clarified that, while Japan will buy more equipment from the U.S. to “enhance” its existing defense capabilities, Japan would only shoot down the missiles “if it is necessary.”
Trump’s emphasis on the equipment sale implied that Japan does not yet possess sufficient missile defense capacity against North Korea, which is not true and contradicts his own earlier opinion. (Whether the systems are capable of successfully intercepting all missiles is another matter.) But he also indicated that there was a major arms transaction in progress due to his visit to Japan, whereas the Self-Defense Forces’ acquisition is driven by the National Defense Program Guidelines in five year increments. The most recent guidelines for 2014-2019 were established in 2013, well before Trump entered office, and include purchases of American systems like Aegis-equipped destroyers and F-35A fighter jets. While some officials in the Ministry of Defense are apparently considering further increasing the amount of foreign military purchases from the U.S. based on Trump’s encouragement, the comments ignore the constraints of Japan’s budget.
In short, Trump’s views of the U.S.-Japan alliance assume that Japan has more flexibility in its defense policy than it actually does, and these restrictions are unlikely to disappear. It is no secret that Abe desires the political equivalent of sea room to maneuver the Self-Defense Forces in Japan’s defense. But while Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito retained their majority in the Lower House of the Diet after the October 22 snap election, and while there is a chance that Abe could convince enough Diet members to support a constitutional revision, there is no indication that a majority of the Japanese public supports changes to the constitution’s Article 9, which renounces maintenance of war potential and belligerency. Moreover, the changes Abe has suggested for Article 9 merely focus on granting the SDF constitutional legality. Without changes permitting broader use of force, offensive as well as defensive, the SDF will continue to face questions about the legality of using its defensive capabilities – including missile defense against test missiles.
As long as efforts to improve the alliance at the working level continue apace, it is tempting to ignore incongruous statements at the leadership level. After all, Trump’s limited understanding of the alliance will not push Japan into reckless actions. But the message at the top matters for maintaining clarity of the alliance’s purposes, the roles of both countries, and the evolution of the partnership to sufficiently meet complex security challenges. A unified face on mutually understood policies is important for trust and strength. Further, disconnect between American and Japanese policies, from responses to North Korean provocations to acquisition practices, can project uncertainty about the alliance’s future and perhaps embolden North Korea to play the U.S. and Japan against each other.
Just as Japan strives to maintain agreement with the U.S. on the proper approach to North Korea, despite Trump’s vacillations between negotiation, sanctions, and military force, the U.S. president must exert himself to fully understand Japan’s defense situation and relevant domestic political situation. If he cannot, then it is critical for Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to promptly correct his misconceptions and assert that the U.S. government, on the whole, recognizes Japan’s defense limitations and is willing to work within them. Only then can the U.S. and Japan show a united effort to strengthen the alliance.
Image "Fleet of Ships 1" Courtesy Stuart Rankin // CC BY-NC 2.0
About the Author Pamela Kennedy is a Research Associate with the East Asia program at Stimson. She holds a M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. summa cum laude in Government and East Asian Studies from the College of William and Mary.
Fletcher Forum: You’ve spoken about the contrast between the personal positions that CEOs take and corporate positions, as well as how – for a lot of companies – they are increasingly becoming one and the same. How has your personal vision driven the work that you do at Oliver Wyman?
Scott McDonald: It is pretty new that CEOs are taking these personal positions.
I take relatively limited public views on behalf of Oliver Wyman. I’m quite careful as I represent a multi-dimensional group of people. I don’t want to speak on their behalf unless I’m confident that they want me to. I have taken views on things like climate change, refugees, and immigration. I think that they have had – for good or for bad – some shaping of Oliver Wyman because they have often become policies of the company. For instance, my view on refugees got taken up enthusiastically by most of the company.
I have mixed views on whether me taking positions is a good thing or not. It’s obviously satisfying because I get to pick a cause that I think is important and that I care about. However, I could easily imagine a situation where someone in my position could wake up next week having a different cause that could be forced on the company – I think I’d find that really irritating.
FF: Do you think when a cause that a business might take up is so interwoven with the politics or the interests of the CEO, it might become harder for businesses to evolve going forward?
SM: When you’re talking about the social causes of a company or where it chooses to politically intervene – the question is, who are they associated with? If it’s the CEO, it means every time you change the CEO you get a new set of causes for the company. But on the other hand, it would also be a bit strange in the current environment if you had a business with a set of social policies with the CEO not having a say in any of them. I suspect you’ll start to see situations in which companies, rather than CEOs, have policies because you can’t have a company change administrations and have all existing social policies change. On the other hand, CEOs often do change everything – they change the organizational structure, they change the people, and the strategy, so why not change the social causes? Until we clarify how this will work, I think it will be confusing for the staff, the customers, and the shareholders.
FF: Do you think as businesses increasingly take up a political mantle they are increasingly going to have to take on factors that they’ve traditionally left up to public entities – such as risk, resource allocation, and environmental protection?
SM: Absolutely. If you are a company that decides to open a new business, the case you’ll have to present is: what are the financial returns, what are the various risks and what have we done to address them, how does this affect customers, and where are we going to find the people to do it. For the moment, I think people are supporting social causes without that kind of robust case, without really having thought through everything you might in the pure business case. That will have to change.
FF: Where do you see the business case for being more environmentally sustainable? Do you witness this in the clients that you interact with today?
SM: I think the environmental case for most companies is starting to become pretty strong. If you don’t do it, the publicity around you is going to be so bad that you’re going to struggle to attract employees, you’re going to struggle to find customers, and you may struggle to find shareholders. I think for Oliver Wyman, we have to go back and think about our main groups and shareholders and ask ourselves: if we do more work around climate change, are we able to attract better people, can we do more work with clients, and do we make our shareholders happier? My own view on the answers to those questions is yes, yes, and yes.
FF: How much of that will be driven by governments and do you think corporate strategy will be to pre-empt what government regulation will exist in that space? Or will it be largely a government induced set of priorities?
SM: I think both will happen in the end but, there’s a long tradition of companies that know they’re on the brink of regulation taking action to prevent that and trying to show that they can get the situation under control and can make the right decisions. I actually think the most important thing is that most of the important areas will be regulated to some extent, and it’s essential to have a productive relationship with the regulators. We found this in the financial services sector where we do a lot of work. There used to be no relationship at all but in the last five years, they have had to develop productive relationships to try and get this balance right between regulation and business.
FF: How do you think that might play out for the fintech sector, particularly in the U.K. with the new Open Banking Ruling?
SM: The fintech sector is a huge focus now, and so far they’ve been relatively lightly regulated because governments want innovation; they want challengers to the existing sector; they want new ideas. Ultimately, there needs to be a balance between what makes a strong safe system, what provides better services and pricing for customers, and what still leaves the opportunity for a business to have a decent return. I think Open Banking is a good example of this kind of development that they’re going to have to continually monitor and adjust.
FF: What do you think has been the general reaction to that ruling of financial services firms and how do you think that might translate to a similar initiative here in the U.S.?
SM: I think it’s early and just exploratory. What we see with a lot of our clients is open-mindedness around trying to understand more about how it will work, and especially how it will work at scale, as well as understand both how it will affect customer experience and what it ultimately means for the business. What will the businesses look like in the end? Where will you make the profits and returns?
FF: What is the perception in the industry of how Brexit might affect business?
SM: There is a great deal of uncertainty. No one knows precisely what’s going to happen. While most businesses are evaluating and planning for multiple scenarios, our clients are deeply frustrated by the lack of direction, which is forcing them to make decisions without the facts.
Image "binoculors" Courtesy Edith Soto / CC BY-NC 2.0
About the Interviewee Scott McDonald is the President & CEO of the Oliver Wyman Group, which includes Oliver Wyman, NERA Economic Consulting and Lippincott. Scott sits on the Executive Committee of Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC), which has four leading brands – Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer and Oliver Wyman – and more than 60,000 staff in over 100 countries.
Scott has degrees in Finance & Economics from McGill University and International Relations from Cambridge University.
by Ronald E. Neumann
The State Department reorganization process has led to dysfunction, loss of critical experience, and reduced capability for the department. Something better is promised but actions to date leave little room for optimism.
Like any large, long existing organization the State Department has added bits and pieces over time so that reform is justified. In the 2015 study American Diplomacy at Risk, the non-partisan American Academy of Diplomacy, which I head, called for a complete review of the department’s personnel regulations as well as a large scale reduction in the number of special envoys. We also suggested reductions in some leadership positions and the consolidation of some bureaus. In short, we are neither against reorganization nor trimming. However, the effort to date lacks visible logic for many actions and is causing a long term weakening of America’s diplomatic capability.
Current efforts are proceeding along two different tracks. One is personnel reduction with an announced goal of cutting staff by 8%. The other is to be a broad reorganization but ten months into the efforts only vague general intentions have been spelled out and many observers doubt that there is yet a plan.
The staff reduction appears to be connected to the White House dictated goal of a 30% State Department budget cut, but no specific logic has been described and the number appears disconnected from the unfinished reform effort. Since the lowered budget has been twice rejected by the Congress, funding for current staff is available. To date the process is destructive. Steps to encourage attrition have included refusing new assignments for senior officers who are due to transfer, assignment of senior offices to trivial tasks including document declassification (a sudden priority after the Department got rid of its retired employees who were doing the work as contractors) and abrupt removals from senior positions. I know of at least three acting assistant secretaries who received calls on a Wednesday or a Thursday telling them to be out by Friday even though no replacement was ready to go or had even been named. It is a management style characterized by pointless rudeness and a singular lack of feeling for those they lead. The result is a hemorrhage of experience.
Sadly, we have seen this picture before. In 2008 the Department of State was suffering large scale personnel shortages abroad and at home as a result of post-Cold War cuts made by administrations of both parties. As the Academy showed in its 2008 study, A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future, positions all over the world were empty. Now we are replicating that situation except that the cuts are concentrated at the top; the level from which voluntary retirement is easiest. As a result, officers at the level of Career Minister (the equivalent of a three-star general) have been reduced from 33 to 19 and Minister-Counselors (the two-star equivalent) from 431 in 2016 to 369 in 2017. Promotions have been slowed. Positions are left empty as officers depart. Without any plan for how work is to be reorganized the result is more work for fewer people.
Perhaps the long-promised reorganization plan will somehow repair today’s problems. That is the goal of the second track announced by Secretary Rex Tillerson. It was announced as a bottom up process driven by the employees. It began with a survey of employee opinion that was fed into a number of subject specific working groups. The survey showed a work force frustrated by outmoded technology and some bureaucratic obstacles but proud of its service to the nation. Some parts of the survey suggested that the consultants hired to run it had only a vague idea of what the Department does and some of the consultants’ recommendations, such as moving the consular function out of the State Department, had no basis in the opinions of employees. A reorganization plan sent to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the end of September has not been publicly released. From the briefings given to Congress it appears to have been aspirational rather than specific. The one step of significance to date was cutting about half of the special envoys, a step we had recommended.
In the end, the reorganization is intended to produce a more effective and efficient Department. But to what end? More efficient at doing what? At what price, since some current work will go undone (unless the new efficiency is supposed to allow all the old work to be done by a reduced staff)? How State's purpose is defined is complex. Unlike a business with a clear bottom line in dollars made or lost, diplomacy is less clear and more multifaceted. The State Department is the essential place where all the foreign policy interests come together. Should an arms sale pay more attention to domestic repression or anti-terrorist assistance in a given country: CIA, Defense, Treasury and others will have different views. Trade issues will involve multiple views from different cabinet departments. State’s job is to see the whole picture.
For example, is a recently eliminated sanctions office in State duplicative because the Treasury Department handles the implementation of sanctions? Or is State's view vital because the imposition of sanctions can involve conflicts with other policy goals that Treasury isn’t concerned with? One senior official told me that State’s voice has become particularly muted at interagency sanctions meetings recently. This is the cost of one of hundreds of such decisions impacting complex, cross-cutting issues.
Perhaps these questions will be correctly answered. Perhaps the new technologies desired by numerous previous secretaries will be acquired (and paid for despite budget cuts) and the work load sized to the work force.
But nearly a quarter of the way through the administration's term there are no answers. The world does not stand still and many in the State Department complain of an inability to get timely guidance, of procedures that have become more cumbersome than before and of an opaque and uncommunicative senior leadership. The work of diplomacy is still worthwhile. The desire to serve the nation is still strong in Foreign Service and Civil Service employees alike. Maybe it will all work out somehow. But to date there is little to show from the reform and much to worry about.
Image "Secretary Tillerson Delivers Welcome Remarks to State Department Employees on his First Day" Courtesy U.S. Department of State/United States government work
About the author Ronald E. Neumann was US ambassador to Algeria, Bahrain and Afghanistan. He is now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy but his views are his own.
by Jalel Harchaoui
In November 2011, mere days after the end of NATO’s intervention in Libya, at a time when the North-African country was still portrayed as a success story in Western capitals, rebels were already fighting each other. Among them, a former Qaddafi-era colonel by the name of Khalifa Haftar—who had returned to Libya eight months prior to help topple his former boss—was already criticizing Qatar for the support it gave to Libya’s Islamists since February 2011. Two and a half years later, on May 18th, 2014, Haftar’s forces would attack the parliament in Tripoli, claiming to purge the North-African country of Islamists.
That month of May 2014 proved the start of the still-ongoing civil war in Libya. Belying the population’s size of just six million, the conflict's complexity and mercurial nature have been immense. Yet, one fixture throughout has been the stark simplicity of Haftar’s rhetoric. The latter, conflating jihadism and moderate political Islam, dubs all political opponents as “terrorists.” This worldview has, since 2013, earned the warlord diplomatic and military support from a wide array of foreign states, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Russia, France, and Chad. Recent months have also seen increased diplomatic recognition for Haftar from Tunisia, Congo-Brazzaville, and Italy. This international embrace is a tribute to the efficacy of the field marshal’s stubborn discourse.
No Shia-Sunni divide exists in Libya, and socio-economic agendas are seldom discussed. The country is awash with well-armed brigades often quick to switch allegiance. This topology makes it impossible for one coalition to prevail over another through a brief, decisive confrontation. Instead, Libya is witnessing a low-intensity conflict in which narratives—of Haftar and his enemies alike—play a central role, perhaps more than physical force. In this propaganda-packed environment, some realities have become distorted even in the eyes of external watchers. The below is an attempt to dismantle three such myths.
Myth #1: Haftar’s coalition is secular While Haftar himself does not promise secularism, his foreign sponsors do. The UAE’s ambassador to Washington Yousef al-Otaiba said in July that the his country favored strong, secular states, including in Libya. Ilya Kharlamov, a pro-Kremlin pundit, wrote that a victory by “general” Haftar would be synonymous with “the return of a secular regime in Libya.” British weekly The Economist, too, portrayed Haftar as “a secular strongman.” Such depictions are fictional. Since 2014, the commander has de facto relied on rigorist Salafis in eastern Libya. These ultra-conservative fighters, while they do combat jihadism and political Islam alike, pursue a non-secular agenda in ways the field marshal does not fully control or command. Actions instigated by eastern Libya’s Salafis include fatwas against religious minorities; an attempt to ban women from traveling alone; seizure and burning of “anti-Islamic” books; and many other incidents. The resulting reality is that, in Haftar’s Libya, there is no “return” to secular governance to speak of.
Myth #2: Misrata is a monolithic anti-Haftar bastion By virtue of its military power, business networks, and aura as a commercial hub, the western city of Misrata exerts substantial influence on national politics. Many Libyans who oppose the counter-revolutionary campaign led by Haftar indeed see in the city and its eclectic tribal makeup their main power base. Several Islamist figures, such as the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, are Misratis. Moreover, weapons have flowed from the port-city to the Islamist militants fighting Haftar in the east of the country. However, there are other components to Misrata. In August, a prominent member of Ajdabiya Revolutionaries’ Shura Council with a history of collaboration with ISIS was arrested in Misrata by the city’s Anti-Crime Unit. The latter includes rigorist Salafis whose assertiveness in Misrata has increased over the last two years. This autumn, in Sabratha, another city in western Libya, members of Haftar coalition fought alongside local Salafis. The Sabratha precedent is proof that other Salafi groups in the west, including Misrata’s Anti-Crime Unit, may emerge as tactical allies for Haftar. At the same time, Misrata’s so-called “moderates” managed to stave off an attempted takeover by their city’s hard-liners in the spring. They also support a potential entente with Haftar. These incidences are reminders that the merchant city of 300,000 is not the anti-Haftar bastion it is often made out to be.
Myth #3: Libya’s conflict is a neck-and-neck race for territorial control between the two rival governments In October, Haftar claimed that his army controls 1,730,000 of Libya’s 1,760,000 square kilometers. Haftar’s boast conveys the notion that every square kilometer in Libya matters equally and will be fought over until full control is achieved. Yet it would be wrong to view the conflict as an intense race for full territorial control. After Misrata’s Third Force withdrew from the south in late May, ISIS grew stronger in the area, a tangible indication that the Haftar coalition could not or would not expend the efforts necessary to achieve order there. Similarly, the key southern city of Sebha remains in a tense equilibrium, divided between different tribes and contending loyalties. Some armed groups there are aligned with Haftar; yet, they do not control the city. In northwestern Libya, a tentative convergence may be taking shape between the internationally-recognized government Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj and Haftar. As the latter’s army continues to tell the media that it is preparing to march on Tripoli, the notion of fierce rivalry must be qualified. After Sabratha’s battle concluded, both Serraj and Haftar were satisfied with the victory of a local group called the Anti-IS Operations Room. And when, in early November, another Serraj-aligned militia, the Zintan Military Council, launched an assault on a pro-Qaddafi stronghold southwest of Tripoli, the Haftar coalition neither criticized nor tried to impede it. It tacitly approved of the move. These instances point to a modus operandi vastly distinct from the most common depiction of the war.
Haftar may continue to neglect territories other than vital logistical nodes or crucial urban areas. When it comes to the latter, he is likely to avoid efforts at frontal conquest. Instead, the anti-Islamist leader may settle for shallow arrangements and tactical alliances with existing local groups that can help marginalize his most threatening political opponents. During a recent meeting in Cairo, the Haftar army’s spokesman made it clear that the coalition intends on taking Tripoli and Misrata peacefully by coordinating with local groups of “nationalists.” Speaking of western Libya, Haftar himself has drawn a distinction between “armed youth who lost their way but are still patriots” and “extremists.” Such local alliances will be frail, take time to work out and ultimately will fail to give the strongman complete territorial control in major cities. Still, they may be enough for the 74-year-old commander to claim “victory” in Libya.
Image "Prime Minister of Libya visits NATO" Courtesy NATO/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
About the author Jalel Harchaoui is a PhD candidate in the department of geopolitics of Université de Paris 8. His doctoral research focuses on the international dimension of the Libyan conflict.
The Fletcher Forum recently sat down with Krista Bard, Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Lithuania to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as a Tufts graduate. She gave a talk at Fletcher, “Detecting Bullshit: Lessons from the Baltics, US Politics, Science & Psychology,” where she discussed how to weed through fake news narratives to strengthen our muscles of discernment. With the Forum, she elaborated on this and talked about her experiences as an honorary consul strengthening business, scientific and cultural ties between Pennsylvania and Lithuania.
Fletcher Forum: First, let’s talk a bit about what you do. What are some of the initiatives that the Lithuanian consulate is undertaking to foster cultural and scientific ties between the two countries?
Krista Bard: A bit of background: the Lithuanian Embassy, like all embassies, is in DC and then every country has a different number of consulates. Lithuania has a general consul–a career officer–in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. There are also about two dozen honorary consuls, and then three honorary consul generals.
Really, the title is a thank you for the amount of work I’m doing. I appreciate it. As honorary consuls, we really have more leeway to self-determine our projects, but then going back to the embassy, double-checking if our plans are okay, and sometimes checking in with the US Embassy in Vilnius as well.
In 2013, I organized the largest Lithuanian festival since the 1939 World’s Fair. We had two dozen events, and there were two anchors. One was the first Lithuanian-American-Jewish symposium in the U.S.. I brought together the Israeli Embassy and the American Jewish Committee. We held it at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. The second anchor was bringing two-dozen Lithuanian artists for the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, an event that drew nearly 20,000 attendees. I’m now working with a Philadelphia-based Lithuanian artist on building another Holocaust memorial.
In science, we’re working on some university exchanges and some MOU’s between different Lithuanian and Pennsylvanian universities, particularly in the life sciences. Things haven’t been finalized, but it’s very exciting. Philadelphia is known for education and medicine, but they also coined the term “Cellacon Valley” because they have several companies doing work in genetics.
Pennsylvania also has a federally mandated relationship which, for 25 years, has been centered around the Pennsylvania National Guard training Lithuanian troops.
In business, there is a major Lithuanian manufacturer that is considering coming to Pennsylvania and building a plant. We’re talking 400 jobs. It made sense for Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Community and Economic Development and his Director of International Business Development to visit the Baltics. I felt it was important to organize this trip and see what other relationships we can develop. We also held export workshops to assist Lithuania in entering the U.S. market.
FF: Can you tell us, in one or two sentences, what you mean by “detecting bullshit” in the media, based on your experience?
KB: Individually, we are now all called upon to educate ourselves more and to learn how to develop the muscle of discernment by finding and verifying trusted sources, and then also to cross-train or cross-read.
FF: During your talk, you mentioned that in times of great chaos there’s also a lot of opportunities. Can you talk about some of the opportunities from the perspective of diplomacy and for students?
KB: There’s the Chinese blessing and curse, “May you live in interesting times,” and we’re in interesting times right now. It can be scary. It may take a decade to move forward but I think that we will have a stronger grounding in interpersonal relationships, in dialogue, and in problem solving.
FF: You mentioned in your talk about the reason some analysts like Michael Lissack use to explain why Trump, and other populist politicians perhaps, has been so successful. Their language is vague so you can sort of attach any meaning you want to what they say. How can politicians be more specific in their discourse and still be able to attract a plurality of voters?
KB: I think Trump is being honest. Some people have criticized him for the way he speaks. Other people have lauded him because he says things in understandable language. Are you trying to communicate and reach people or are you trying to show people how intelligent you are?
FF: Could be a lesson learned from Trump, in that sense, but do you think that it’s the message itself that arguably people are--or should--be voting on?
KB: The manner in which he speaks is unorthodox in American politics. It is something that we are not used to. We’ve been listening through a certain kind of filter and with expectations thatwe now have to adjust. We went from “good”, “bad”, “wrong” to a political correctness, and the concept that anyone who was not politically correct is deplorable. That was a huge mistake. So, Hillary Clinton may be really intelligent, but holding people who disagree with you as deplorable doesn’t work as a leader. Language, particularly this one word, conveyed the message and embodied the campaign.
FF: Do you think that there is a failure among people like Clinton who are not as skilled at communicating in a way that really gets through to people, and that Trump is better at this? Or do you think people are generally attracted to the ideology that Trump and other populist leaders have been bringing to the fore?
KB: There isn’t a simple answer. I’m in a place of questioning right now, so when you say, “are people really for Trump’s ideology?” I don’t know that his ideology is really understood or correctly being presented or reported on.
FF: Looking back at your younger self, what were some of the things you would’ve liked to wish you had known, let’s say, or wish someone had told you as you started your career?
KB: Back then, I was really very concerned about choosing my major and making a decision. And then Buckminster Fuller gave a lecture here and he talked about linear thinking versus circular thinking. I realized that some people have linear careers and some people have circular careers! Follow your heart and don’t fret.
The other thing too is that I was here when women’s liberation was first taking hold. They pooh-poohed people who had children. I ended up having a career first and then getting married and having a child. Having a child and being a parent is the best thing I’ve done in my life.
FF: As a diplomat, what is one suggestion that you would want to pass on to graduate students as they embark on their journey in international affairs?
KB: A suggestion for students in dealing with people of different backgrounds–strive less for agreement and strive more for understanding. Listen more than you talk.
FF: How do you seek out opposing viewpoints and prevent yourself from kind of going full steam ahead on a track that’s comfortable?
KB: You’ve got to be conscious and aware of other points of view. You may, at times, need what is called a “safe space” where there is no disagreement or difference of opinions. But if you want to solve the big problems in the world, you have to get out of that space and actively engage with people who have different points of view.
FF: Thank you for your time, Krista Bard.
Image: Nico Trinkhaus, Vilnius Castle, Vilnius, Lithuania / CC by NC
Krista Butvydas Bard has since 2010 served as Honorary Consul, and since 2016, as Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Lithuania to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Bard founded an award-winning marketing consultancy in 1985, working for 25 years with Fortune 500 companies, SMEs and organizations in diverse industry sectors. She served for ten years as President of Philadelphia’s small business association, designing programs to support business development and civic engagement for over 400 companies.
Talk of peace and post-conflict has been plentiful in Colombia since the revised peace deal between Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) and the Colombian government was signed in November 2016. After more than 50 years of armed conflict and more than 8 million registered victims, this is perhaps the closest Colombia has come to achieving peace.
However, what exactly do we mean by 'peace' and 'post-conflict'? Is it the absence of armed violence between belligerent forces? When exactly does 'conflict' end and 'peace' begin? Does it come in chronological order? Is it a mutually exclusive state? The complexity that arises when trying to answer these questions speaks to the challenges that lie ahead for achieving a comprehensive peace in Colombia.
As sociologist Johan Galtung argues, since the nature of the violence-peace phenomenon goes beyond the infliction of physical violence, avenues towards peace must also consider less visible and more structural and ideological manifestations of violence. In Colombia, the systematic targeted killing of social activists and members of the political left has been pervasive. Largely remaining in impunity, this phenomenon has been one of the driving forces behind Colombia's precarious human rights situation and a major spoiler of previous peace attempts with insurgent groups.
Putting an end to targeted killings is at the core of the peace deal. Yet, eight months into its implementation, the pattern has persisted. 173 murderers have been reported in the past 16 months and 39 since the deal was signed. This calls into question the capacity of the Colombian State to deliver on its end of the bargain. It not only illustrates the risks that FARC combatants will face on their transition to civilian life, but also the implications that post-agreement political violence could have on the prospect of peace in Colombia.
Colombia's Long History of Targeted Killing
Colombia is often referred to as Latin America's most longstanding democracy. Unlike most of its neighbors, it has not experienced a fierce military dictatorship. The robustness and inclusiveness of its democracy is, however, far from immaculate, as promises of pluralism have been reduced to restrained political participation and outright persecution.
Reform efforts have been associated with communism, armed insurgency, and more recently, terrorism, giving way to a logic of criminalization that has served to justify human rights abuses committed against political dissidents. The emergence of right-wing paramilitaries Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) was precisely a by-product of this reasoning. Targeting FARC combatants and suspected supporters, paramilitaries were responsible for the majority of the 1982 massacres perpetrated in Colombia between 1985 and 2012.
Although para-militarism was officially condemned by the Colombian State, no decisive action was taken to dismantle the groups. Enjoying the implicit collaboration of State officials, regional elites and broad sectors of the general public, paramilitary violence was widely overlooked and implicitly tolerated.
Events such as the slaughter of political party Unión Patriótica (UP), recognized in 2014 as a crime against humanity, are precisely why the recent targeting of activists is so unsettling. Resulting from the pluralist efforts of the attempted peace process of the early 1980s, the party was composed of members of the Communist Party and FARC spokespersons. As with today's peace accord, the Colombian State then recognized the historical marginalization and persecution that the left had been subjected to and encouraged its representatives to participate in electoral politics. Drug lords, paramilitary groups, and State Security forces, nonetheless, killed more than 3500 UP affiliates, including two Presidential candidates, eleven mayors, and eight members of Congress in what has been recognized as an act of 'political extermination' by the Colombian State and international courts.
The patterns of paramilitarism remain till the day. BACRIM groups (short for bandas criminales or “criminal gangs”), paramilitary reminiscences from AUC's demobilization in the early 2000s, are suspected to be behind the recent wave of assassinations. The limited information regarding their incentives and operational structures, nonetheless, makes it difficult to fully understand the dynamics fueling the attacks.
Post-agreement Colombia: Challenges Ahead
Colombia's peace deal goes beyond a mere disarmament and demobilization effort. It presents a roadmap for transforming the country's structural inequalities, laying the foundation for building a comprehensive peace.
Considering the country's record of political violence, the agreement creates instruments to guarantee the dismantling of BACRIM groups and the provision of safety guarantees for former FARC combatants, as well as for all individuals and organizations, regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum. Yet, the rate of assassinations reveals how dramatically the agreement is failing to meet expectations. Its still unclear how the mechanisms operate on the ground and how they are responding, if indeed they are, to the wave of killings.
President Juan Manuel Santos and his administration have insisted on toning down the conversation by claiming that these are isolated rather than systematic events. They have failed to take timely and forceful measures to guarantee the safety of activists and have denied the existence of a new generation of para-militarism. There seems to be a smokescreen obscuring the fact that although there might be genuine efforts to end targeted killings, the administration is lacking the political, strategic, and territorial capacity to control the phenomenon.
The state of affairs forces us to take a closer look at what is happening beneath the surface when it comes to the agreement's implementation. Despite advancements in demobilization, disarmament, and transitional justice, Colombia is once again faced with how challenging it is to dismantle ideologies and narratives that have legitimized and perpetuated armed conflict.
The similarity of today's inaction to the "look the other way" syndrome that characterized Colombia's past four decades of political violence is unnerving. It is still unclear if the State will have the capacity to protect FARC combatants once they leave the demobilization camps and participate in electoral politics.
The peace deal sought to bury the era when those with "dangerous" political ideas could not exercise their right to speak freely without being silenced. It has, indeed, introduced tentative steps towards tolerance and depolarization. Yet, it is still uncertain if the hope of having a democracy that is strengthened, rather than threatened, by alternative political views will become a reality anytime soon.
Image "Colombia Fighting for Peace" Courtesy Leon Hernandez ⚡️ / CC BY 2.0
About the Author Laura Cuéllar has been part of the Strategic Projects division at Bogotá's Center of Memory Peace and Reconciliation since late 2016. Prior to this she served as Associate Editor at Harvard University's Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy and as Analyst at the Spanish NGO Ayuda en Acción. Laura holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University's Fletcher School and a B.A in History from Universidad de los Andes. She is passionate about understanding the drivers of armed conflict and paving avenues for their positive transformation. Her interests lie at the intersection of armed conflict, development, international law and human security.
“Making Twitter a safer place is our primary focus.”
This statement appeared in a February 2017 Twitter press release, referring both to protecting freedom of expression as well as protecting against online abuse and harassment.
However, critics have continued to attack Twitter for a perceived failure to flawlessly control what is termed “hate speech.” But the definition of hate speech is complicated, and brings with it a number of legal, philosophical, and logistical concerns.
Twitter and other social media companies like Facebook and YouTube are trying their best to control hate speech on their platforms. They’re signing pledges, making public promises, and refining their community standards. I hope they make progress, and I’m excited to see what the combination of human minds and technology that can instantly recognize patterns, learn trends, and flag content can do to make these spaces safer, particularly for young users.
But we can’t wait for companies to control “hate speech” online. And we shouldn’t.
Populations, and especially children, are spending hours on hours in unregulated online communities, interacting with influencers and engaging in their own hateful behaviors. With the lack of legal clarity on what constitutes hate speech and persistent difficulties in identifying it analytically, the best people to monitor and respond to children’s online behaviors and vulnerabilities are their parents.
However, if companies and governments are going to shift the onus of cyber safety onto parents and community leaders, parents will have to be sufficiently educated to effectively teach, monitor, and protect children.
Global public and private organizations have made some progress in identifying warning behaviors that indicate when users are either susceptible to radicalization by hate speech or using hate speech that might escalate into or incite violence. However, these general standards must be localized and account for an individual community’s concerns. Things like local slang and nicknames for street signs are important tools for detecting an individual’s proclivity towards future aggression or violence, as they are able to contextualize the true meaning behind online content, which often appears in coded language.
However, although global standards are certainly limited, we cannot wait for—or hope that—every offline community will simultaneously prioritize this issue. While national governments cannot and should not fully educate these communities, they can certainly call for community-led responses.
To be clear, I do not suggest that these community responders take the lead on taking legal measures in response to language likely to incite crime or violence. That should be referred to the police.
National laws related to inflammatory speech vary widely, however, and, in many countries, speech that is hateful but not specifically violent is not criminal. In the United States, for example, speech that cannot be proven to incite violence or damages cannot be policed. Moreover, the causation of violence by online speech is difficult to prove; as a result, most online content is governed only by company-produced community rules to which users agree when setting up accounts. These companies, however, have power neither to make nor to enforce laws: suspending or removing users and content is the extent of their authority.
It is these structural inabilities of both governments and corporations to effectively police hate speech or protect users from it that places that responsibility on us as parents and citizens. Luckily, protecting children from harm (or from harming others) is a fairly non-controversial issue around the world.
We cannot wait for the courts, which cannot keep pace with the development of social media and are understandably reluctant to restrict free speech. The goal here is to regulate, control, and somehow rule out speech that is clearly hateful, but not clearly inciting offline harm. This is not simple, and even if we establish these parameters, by the time the courts enact legislation, the online landscape will be unrecognizable, rendering that legislation archaic.
National governments and global organizations will also have a hard time educating local communities (and parents) on cyber safety, and an even harder time ensuring compliance. Parents know that they know best. Still, we need some way to organize these local communities within an international system. There may not be legislation for this type of cooperation, but agreements can always be signed, and norms enacted.
Finally, though the idea of community monitoring is sure to enrage privacy activists, even if the parents are the ones doing the monitoring (as is expected in offline life), it is crucial. Friends and parents are best able to holistically determine if a child is participating in a dangerous online community, or posting content that is actually hateful and not simply youthful indiscretion.
To clarify, I do not presume that it will be easy for parents even to agree with each other on best practices for responding to these situations. Red flags are not always seen—and, even when they are, effective interventions do not always (or easily) follow.
Even with no magic-bullet solutions in sight, I am hopeful that the abundance of courts, technology companies, and researchers looking to solve this issue can help provide some guidance. Jurisprudence can evolve, education and familiarity can improve (especially as more digital natives become parents), and corporate policies and awareness campaigns can be refined.
Responsibility shifts, but for now, everyone has to stop passing the buck on behavior that is not yet illegal, but still requires a response.
Image "Getty Images" Courtesy CommScope / CC BY 2.0
About the Author Nicole Adina Softness is an MPA student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, studying International Security & Cyber Policy and working as a researcher for Columbia’s Initiative on the Future of Cyber Risk. Her current research focuses on the intersection of technology and policy.
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An interview with Comfort Sakoma
The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs sat down with Comfort Sakoma to talk about the Poize Insider Network, entrepreneurship, and challenges thereof in Nigeria.
Fletcher Forum: Let us start by hearing what makes the Poize Insider Network different.
Comfort Sakoma: The Poize Insider Network (PIN) was launched in March 2016 to bridge the gap in entrepreneurial experience and expertise amongst women in Nigeria.
Many women don’t have business role models who have mastered entrepreneurship in their immediate circles. If their fathers were entrepreneurs, chances are that they were shielded from the “stress of business.” If their mothers were entrepreneurs, chances are that the business was run informally without any accounting or inventory systems, customer relations management systems, employee management systems, or technology. Entrepreneurship therefore becomes the thing you stumble upon in times of need or in times of means. In both case, attention to formality is a secondary consideration and so, real growth becomes unachievable. It is in view of this, that among women in Nigeria and across Africa, entrepreneurship as nation building tool, the role of research in innovation, and the urgency of structure for growth are all concepts that are understood but hardly ever invested in.
Many of our fastest growing women-owned businesses manage to earn enough revenue to survive, but due to a lack of foresight, market research, and finances struggle to make it past the startup phase. Others struggle to replicate their success for a lack of understanding about the factors that created an environment conducive for the success they have achieved to date. As such, after a great start, they find themselves stagnating for years. This is why our tagline is “Entrepreneurship Beyond Survival.”
We are focusing all of our activities on augmenting the entrepreneurial know-how of women in Nigeria. Through this approach we are exposing them to new knowledge that helps in elevating their confidence to pursue and create new opportunities. Our program is designed to take the entrepreneur by the hand, reflect on where she came from, where she is, and in many cases, invigorate the passion for where she wants to be. Once that is decided, we work with her to chart a course that gets her closer to the ever progressing finish line.
FF: Do think that there are particularly strong challenges that women entrepreneurs face?
CS: Yes I do. Women entrepreneurs are confronted with many of the challenges that are often discussed in academic circles such as: defying social expectations, limited access to funding, owning their accomplishments, building a support network, balancing business and family life, and coping with the fear of failure. These themes have been the subjects of many conferences, research papers, and initiatives.
However, I once heard a man joke, “Men buy, women shop.” He was speaking literally about the differences in how the different sexes make purchasing decisions but I have recently come to see this as having a double meaning. I think it speaks to differences in the confidence, decisiveness, and in preparedness.
Also, the PIN has identified three additional threats to the advancement of women’s entrepreneurship in Africa. The first is the lack of formal business knowledge and experience by women. In the United States, a middle class teenager will get a part-time job by the time she turns 16 years old. By the time she has graduated from university, she would have worked 7,800 hours or for 6 years. In that time, by doing she has learned about customer service, business writing, presentation skills, technology skills, business planning, employee management and promotions, and business competition. On the other hand, a middle class Nigerian will most likely apply for her first job somewhere after university between the ages of 22 and 24 and she will likely exit the work force soon after she gets married usually before she turns 30. If both women decide to quit working their 9-5 jobs at the age of 25 and proceed to become entrepreneurs, the American entrepreneur will bring with her a wealth of experience (no matter how menial), that the Nigerian entrepreneur cannot offer her startup. To bridge that gap, women entrepreneurs in Nigeria and many other African countries need to know what to do and how to do it, and additionally, they need to have the necessary skills and resources required to do it successfully. That is the gap the PIN is currently trying to fill for women in Nigeria and beyond as we look to expand.
The second threat is the lack of access to local and global markets. The PIN is actively working to create linkages to African and global markets. This is done in order to connect Nigerian products and services to domestic and international buyers and create pathways for business expansion across Africa and the world. Very few women in Nigeria have any idea on how to expand their businesses globally, including to other major African cities. Further, they are not informed on Nigerian and International Trade policy and so they are unable to take advantage of opportunities that may help them increase their income. For example, we surveyed 2,500 women entrepreneurs in Nigeria to ask how many of them had heard of the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) - a United States Trade Act which significantly enhances market access to the U.S. for qualifying Sub-Saharan African countries - and fewer than 30 had heard of it before. Access to local and global markets can provide innovative businesses with learning opportunities and with products and services that support their innovation processes. Improved access to foreign markets may also increase the market size and the performance of innovative companies.
Third is the lack of representation in the media. Nigeria needs more curious storytellers in journalists because it is my view that our media has failed our entrepreneurs. By regurgitating the same people and same stories across various platforms and channels and by being too lazy to do the hard work of uncovering rising stars and talent, our media continues to fail to capture what is glorious about entrepreneurship: that the best businesses solve simple problems, failure is a precursor to victory, and overnight success takes an average of 10 years to achieve.
FF: Do you think that more changes need to happen in policy or are there larger changes in the community needed to get over some of those barriers?
CS: Nigeria has no shortage of policies and programmes specifically aimed at promoting women’s entrepreneurship. Although, I believe more can be done to loosen the restrictions on access to finances for women. Nevertheless, beyond policy, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Nigeria needs to be strengthened if businesses are going to thrive and succeed.
As it stands, on the one hand, Nigeria has an army of globe-trotting millennials who are looking for ways to replicate the product and service offerings they have grown accustomed to in more developed countries, but are struggling to communicate this vision to an employment market that is largely unskilled, under-educated, and unmotivated. This results in a nation of overworked entrepreneurs who spend more time in production than in sales or marketing, and this stalls the growth of their companies.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the future of employment in Africa and we are approaching a time when SMEs will hire more people collectively than government and corporations combined. To this end, I would like to see the emergence of recruitment agencies that prepare recent graduates for working with startups. These firms should be able to help founders create environments that are conducive enough to attract first class graduates from the oil and gas and banking sectors and prepare them to become the CFOs, CMOs, and maybe even the CEOs, of high-growth, high-potential small and medium sized business. The Nigerian Youth Service Corps – a mandatory one-year service for recent university graduates – time during which the federal government subsidizes the cost of labor, should make it easier for SMEs to recruit interns.
FF: What do you think would drive that innovation, especially from within Nigeria or its broader community?
CS: A better understanding of how to interpret data would drive greater innovation for my country. Innovation is born out of observation and that is all data is: a transcription of what is. If a fashion entrepreneur knows that Nigerians are estimated to spend $15 billion annually buying clothes and she looks at her revenue for the last year and sees that she earned $200,000, I imagine she might want to strategize on how to increase her piece of the pie. If a food manufacturer learns that Nigeria’s birth rate is four times higher that the U.S. birthrate, she might consider manufacturing baby food.
Image "Project Nigeria : Day 8 : Mini Tesco" Courtesy shawnleishman / CC BY-NC 2.0
About the Interviewee Comfort Avunze Sakoma is one of Nigeria's most sought after business development and growth strategists and is also among Nigeria’s leading experts on international trades.
She launched the Poize Insider Network (PIN) to boost the competitiveness of the Nigerian economy. Through this network she has provided business development support for more than 300 women-owned businesses, helping them to leverage technology, develop effective brand strategies, pursue global partnerships, and expand their trade capacity. The network has trained 3,100 women business owners in Nigeria since March 2016. She is also the CEO of Poize Capital Global, a market entry firm that helps foreign companies enter the Nigerian market and helps Nigerian companies enter African, U.S., and international markets.
Miss Sakoma is a member of the board of directors of the U.S.-Africa Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. She is a mentor for the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and a partner/mentor for the African Entrepreneurship Award by BMCE Bank of Africa.
She is Canadian-Nigerian and is an alumna of the University of Toronto, where she graduated with a B.A. honours in political science & African studies. She is an alumna of Yale Executive Education, for which she won the Yale Publishing Course Innovative Leader Scholarship.
An interview with Professor Jacqueline Bhabha Earlier this semester Professor Jacqueline Bhabha came to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy to speak to the 2017 LL.M. class about her research on the refugee and migration crisis. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs sat down with Professor Bhabha to learn more about her research and experience working on refugee and migration issues. Professor Bhabha also shared some insights on recent political developments in the United States and Europe, and the impact these developments may have on immigration policy at-large.
Fletcher Forum: What do you think have been the main challenges since the beginning of the high influx of migrants and asylum seekers in Europe? What are the challenges that lie ahead?
Jacqueline Bhabha: I think that one of the main past challenges has been the failure of European solidarity. That has been catastrophic, both for the European Union as an idea, and for the delivery of humanitarian protection. It has been catastrophic to see how limited the engagement with protection has been on the part of some EU Member States, leading others, such as Greece and Italy, to shoulder a disproportionate share of the protection responsibility, that they are ill-equipped to do. The failure to address safe transport and reception mechanisms has also led to disastrous humanitarian consequences as we are seeing. It has undoubtedly contributed to the increasing mortality rates in the Mediterranean. Just in the first four months of 2017 over 100 people a month have drowned. Instead of increasing access to safe routes and facilitating humanitarian protection, EU member states have worked to restrict access, to block the arrival of refugees, and to pressure Turkey into being a de facto buffer zone in return for financial and other incentives.
The EU-Turkey agreement is severely flawed. It has led to a situation in which very large numbers of refugees are trapped in Turkey where living conditions are harsh, including a lot of children not going to school. Turkey now has more refugees than any other country in the world (close to three million), and this comes at a time when the country is sliding into dictatorship at a rapid rate. A problematic and regrettable development of European policies has been to compel increasing numbers of refugees to embark on more dangerous and longer routes to Europe via Libya and Italy, rather than the quicker route through Turkey.
Looking forward, many very substantial political challenges loom large. We are seeing an ongoing failure to provide clear, convincing, and principled leadership on the dual imperatives of accepting refugees and other distress migrants, and making the social and economic accommodations necessary for smooth integration in the short term. This has given xenophobic groups a green light to exploit the refugee situation for electoral purposes, by preying on the fears of domestic populations suffering from economic hardship or insecurity. Europe has a demographic need for young labor, and the number of refugees who have arrived is less than 1% of the European population, so with reasonable social planning, integration of new arrivals is not going to generate long term problems. On the contrary it will be an asset for an ageing continent. FF: When you look at the political developments in Europe, the rise of populism is a clear trend. How do you think events like Brexit, the French elections, and recent inclinations toward nationalism will impact refugee and migrant policies in the EU and within individual European countries? Is migration a threat to the European project?
JB: Clearly, the rise and growing confidence of the political right are very troubling. It is hard to see where alternative leadership is going to come from. There is a vibrant liberal left constituency in Europe too, but it lacks effective leadership at the moment. I do not think anyone can be confident about what is going to happen with the European Union. Clearly, Brexit does set a precedent which could have ripple effects. I think that a lot will depend on how sharp the exit really is. In that context, it is interesting to see the European member states so far sticking to their guns, saying to the UK, “You can't have it both ways.”
On the other hand, some recent trends are encouraging. The far right has mercifully failed to secure power in either the Dutch or the French elections, a sign that the Brexit/Trump victories may not generate the domino effect that some predicted. At the grass roots level too, many progressive initiatives are being built. In a way, city, municipal, and even regional, rather than national, entities are taking the lead toward building a more inclusive society, and I think that is likely to continue. There are many cities which have stronger pro immigrant and pro inclusion policies than their national leaderships, and constituencies within these cities are invested in them. In Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, politicians, thought leaders, as well as ordinary citizens are extremely involved in daily activities of solidarity, bridge building and opportunity generation that are hopeful and generative. So even though politics at the leadership level within the EU has been problematic, there are parallel municipal initiatives that are inspiring, initiatives that are going to be forces for change moving forward. FF: You have been also involved with research regarding access to education within Roma communities in Europe. Do you see any similarities in the treatment of the Roma compared with incoming refugees, in terms of access to education and other social services? JB: At superficial level, yes. These are communities that have been excluded and stigmatized in some countries. But overall, the picture for refugees is generally more positive. Whilst anti-Roma stigma and discrimination have lasted for centuries in Europe and show no signs of abating, refugee communities have generally managed, sometimes with a delay of a generation or two, to construct reasonably rewarding and secure lives for themselves and their communities. The Roma population continues to be marginalized because of a complex combination of residential, segregation, and legal identity challenges. The absence of legal identity documents (birth certificates, proof of citizenship, evidence of residential status) affects the Roma community’s ability to qualify for public housing and services (including schooling), and all the other amenities that flow from these basic social protections.
There are certainly processes of adjustment where asylum seekers are in limbo while their claims to refugee status are being decided. This process often takes years and during this time asylum seekers may be denied basic protections and encounter severe hardships. In some countries asylum seekers have inadequate access to education. But in other situations, there is a process in place that mainstreams asylum seekers into the school system. Some of my colleagues in Amsterdam have conducted a study examining the impact of different domestic education systems on refugee and immigrant integration. They show that countries like Sweden, where there is educational integration from preschool or early childhood, the immigrant and refugee populations do better than countries like Germany or Turkey, where there is no access to care or to any form of education until primary school. In the German context, there is no system which incorporates refugees into society until they are of primary school-age, by which time language and other disadvantages militate against success in the education system. Eventually, as they progress through the education system, the immigrant and refugee children in Germany tend to be directed into a lower, non-academic educational stream. So, there are factors that discriminate against refugees too, but I would say it’s quite different from the Roma segregation which is more endemic. A very small proportion of Roma even get secondary education at all.
FF: What do you think will be the impact of the presidency of Donald Trump on U.S. refugee policies and immigration policy? JB: I think that it is likely to be very negative. There are many areas where the impact is likely to be devastating as we have seen with the executive orders issued in the early months of the administration. A lot of the Trump rhetoric has focused on security and anti-Islamism, and as he puts it, “America first”. Though his attempt to block the entry of migrants from seven (and then six) predominantly Muslim countries has so far been blocked by the lower courts, with a nine-member majority conservative Supreme Court now in place, it is likely that several extremely regressive immigration and refugee policies will be upheld in some shape or form. Migrants from Arab countries are likely to experience significant discrimination both at consular offices abroad and at ports of entry in the US. Refugees, in particular refugees from Syria, are going to be affected by dramatically decreased admissions quotas, and undocumented and other immigrant populations already in the US are also going to face increasing insecurity and harassment as deportation and removal rates increase. Though the Spring 2017 federal budget does not include funding for the Southern wall, this prominent campaign demand may continue to be pursued, even though its efficacy as a migration control instrument is widely discredited. The vast majority of irregular migrants are “overstayers” not people who enter without inspection. FF: What do you think will be the impact of the current political environment in the U.S. and Europe?
JB: I think it's very early days. The situation in the United States and Europe is pretty fluid and it is somewhat foolhardy to predict too much about what lies ahead. Certainly, I think that there is going to be enormous financial pressure on UN bodies as a result of decreased funding. The United States has been the biggest funder of UN activities. The new U.S. Ambassador to the UN is not a believer in the UN at all, so that does not bode well. This may well have an impact on the UN’s ability to deliver on the two Global Compacts announced at the UN Summit in September 2016, the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact on Migration. The former is intended to strengthen the emergency response framework that currently exists for refugees, including by increasing global responsibility sharing for refugee resettlement and for humanitarian aid and intervention for displaced populations. The Migration Compact is intended to strengthen avenues for safe, regular and legal migration in line with the mission set out in Target 10.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Despite the negative approach of the current US administration and of several key UN member states elsewhere, there is however a substantial amount of high quality advocacy and policy work being undertaken to develop useful guidelines, recommendations, and soft law instruments to strengthen the reflection process that is being undertaken. This relates both to the needs for protection of distressed migrant populations falling outside the scope of the Refugee Convention, and the need to promote greater flexibility and scope in promoting legal work related migration opportunities at both skilled and unskilled levels. Civil society activists and policy experts in government and in international bodies are working together to take advantage of this moment of collective attention to refugee and migration issues. So, despite the political challenges we face, I am not entirely pessimistic.
There will be a lot of challenges that come from this political uncertainty, so there may well be a bigger split between civil society and governmental representations in several countries. We might see cities taking the lead with mayors coming forward. I think that is going to be an important counterweight to the national level, not only in the US, but in other countries as well. Also, within the ECOWAS system in West Africa, some regional networks and constructive initiatives to protect forced migrants and strengthen migration management are being developed; the same is true in the Latin American context. Thanks to consistent work linking the Global Compact process with the development drivers focused on the Sustainable Development Goal agenda, there is real progress in strengthening the integration of constituencies that have been relatively separate.
FF: There are many unaccompanied minors coming to Europe and the U.S. from Central America. What are some of the challenges facing children and youth "on the move"? JB: This challenge has been around for a long time and has been consistently neglected. As a result, very large numbers of children on the move have faced, and continue to face, human rights violations – from lack of access to basic protection on arrival, to sexual and labor exploitation, to detention. The determination of the young migrants themselves, together with the growing strength and coordination of the advocacy community, is beginning to change things. The unprecedented attention to child migration since the Central American arrivals of 2014 has forced the pace of reform, a welcome development. Nevertheless, enormous lacunae in protection still remain.
When I first started working on this issue in the 1990s, our primary goal as advocates was to bring together the child rights and immigrant rights communities and to create common ground. We wanted a joint platform so people working on migration had some sense of the child-specific nature of the issues facing child migrants, and to ensure that people working on child protection, child welfare, and children’s rights domestically, had a sense of the key immigration component that many of their most vulnerable clients were confronting. It took a while to get these two very separate constituencies working together. We focused a lot of our protection work on the refugee convention. In the absence of legal options for migrant children the early attempt was to classify all unaccompanied migrant children as asylum seekers, and to argue that they had a legitimate claim for protection under the Refugee Convention. While this was true for many – for example children facing persecution because of their engagement with insurgent movements, children fleeing targeted retaliation because of their family’s political activities, or children fleeing forced genital cutting – it was not true for all migrant children. Many were fleeing abuse, neglect or generalized situations of instability or scarcity.
I think we are looking at a more complex picture now, and there's a lot of really good work in the child migration field being carried out, both by legal advocates and by social workers, teachers, psychologists, health workers amongst others. It's very inspiring to see the range of work across disciplines that has developed in a relatively short space of time. In government, there are many more experts, and a plethora of high quality guidelines (and trainings to disseminate their implications) now exist. In both the US and many European countries, there is growing expertise, and a stronger link than once existed between immigration enforcement officials and immigrant rights and social welfare advocates. In Sweden, a so-called “one stop shop” approach has been developed to great effect, so that all relevant services are gathered in one place for refugee and migrant children and teenagers, and experts go to the child rather than the other way around.
There has been enormous amount of progress, but some of the key deliverables are still a long way away. We still have not won the battle regarding detention or access to legal representation in this country. We are painfully behind on considering a child’s interests and his or her protection needs, before officials probe the child's legal status. Protection before legal classification, which is a basic child rights demand is still a distant chimera. The first question asked is about whether a child is illegal, rather than if they need a place to sleep or if they are being trafficked.
There is also the problem of age determination. How do you classify someone as child? There are many countries that regrettably still employ discredited one dimensional medical tools (e.g. dental, wrist or clavicle X-rays) instead of the multi-pronged approach needed to make a more accurate age assessment. There are also still many countries that default to a policy in which someone is considered an adult until their age is proven, rather than the other way around. These issues need attention, both in the US and in Europe. There is a vibrant advocacy community working on these issues, which is a good thing, and more attention is finally being given to the enormous hazards that child migrants encounter during their journeys, while transiting and at points of reception. But securing an arc of safety and protection is still a long way off.
FF: In light all of these challenges, how can protection mechanisms for children and youth be improved?
JB: I think trying to mainstream the needs of migrant children within the child protection framework is the most critical issue. Migrant children are, first and foremost, children. Where they are unaccompanied or separated from their parents, they are likely to be vulnerable to harm, in need of protection, and at risk of exploitation. Even children migrating with their parents – parents who are often overwhelmed by the trauma of exile, the challenges of relocation, the losses suffered – experience great hardship and have distinct protection needs. All these children are the responsibility of the state they are in, even if they are neither citizens nor residents. Migration departments typically do not have the tools or the expertise to attend to these children’s needs. We see this again and again in the family detention facilities in the Southern US, in the miserable refugee camps in Greece, Jordan and Turkey, and in the dire informal settlements in Lebanon, Kenya, Uganda. Coordination and collaboration between child welfare, education, health, home affairs and migration departments is needed to address these situations adequately. Of course, this entails budgetary support, training, monitoring and other investments that will only be forthcoming if supported by the requisite political will and policy competence. Though this is a demanding agenda, it is less onerous in the medium and long term than the cost of inaction – distressed, desperate and ill-educated young people who have no prospects of productive or regular employment or integration.
Image "Refugees" Courtesy Climattalk .in / CC BY-NC 2.0
About the Interviewee Jacqueline Bhabha is a Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. She is Director of Research at the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She received a first class honors degree and a M.Sc. from Oxford University, and a J.D. from the College of Law in London.
From 1997 to 2001 she directed the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago. Prior to 1997, she was a practicing human rights lawyer in London and at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She has published extensively on issues of transnational child migration, refugee protection, children’s rights and citizenship. She is the editor of Children Without A State (2011), author of Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age (Princeton University Press, 2014), and the editor of Human Rights and Adolescence (UPenn Press, 2014).
She serves on the board of the Scholars at Risk Network, the World Peace Foundation and the Journal of Refugee Studies.
This Wednesday, April 19th, polls will open in the second round of the contested gubernatorial election in Jakarta, Indonesia. Jakarta voters will choose either the incumbent, Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as “Ahok”, or his challenger, former Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture Anies Baswedan. To contextualize this election and its implications for Indonesia, the Fletcher Forum sat down with Seth Soderborg, a political science PhD student at Harvard studying Indonesian politics, to discuss Indonesia's political landscape, the election, and his research on Indonesia’s local administrative state. This is the first part of a two-part interview. Fletcher Forum: What is the current political landscape in Indonesia?
Seth Soderborg: The big themes in Indonesian politics right now are arrests, corruption, and religious extremism. All of these threads are relevant to the gubernatorial candidate [and current governor of Jakarta] Ahok’s image. This week, there was an acid attack on the lead investigator of Indonesia's anti-corruption commission, Novel Baswedan. He had been conducting an investigation into the Speaker of the House as well as other politicians. He is also the cousin of Anies Baswedan [the challenger in the Jakarta gubernatorial race]. Another major story has been that a hardline Islamist who was loosely connected with the 411 and 212 protests was arrested on treason charges. [Editor’s Note: Anti-Ahok protests occurred in Jakarta on 4 November and 2 December, 2016.] The claim by the police, which it's not clear if it is a credible claim, stated they were planning some sort of attack on the Indonesian Parliament (DPR) in Jakarta. This story is interesting in the context of the Jakarta Gubernatorial race as several people affiliated with the protests have at been arrested since December and have all since been released. Observers have noted it’s possible that these individuals, who were brought up on treason charges, could meet the same standard of evidence that is being used in the pending blasphemy or hate speech case against Ahok.
Governor Ahok is well known in Indonesia because he was now-President Jokowi’s Vice Governor [when Jokowi was governor of Jakarta]. This has connected him with the immensely popular Jokowi. The latest polls show President Jokowi at 57% of the voter’s support and his closest competitor, Prabowo, at 23%.
The other thing, in the general context, are that the balance of national legislative power lies with the PDI-P [Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle] and Golkar. Gerindra and the Democratic Party are the next major parties in Indonesia’s Parliament. Gerindra and PDI-P were the parties closest to Ahok when he became governor; the PDI-P is now his most important support. For the gubernatorial election, Jakarta is a PDI-P town. Gerindra is second. Those parties are sufficient to run to Jakarta as long as you can pick off one of the others. Indonesian governors, especially the head of the special district of Jakarta, have a lot of power. Although there is the Jakarta City legislature, a lot can be done by executive fiat, which Ahok has used to carry out his policies over the past two and half years.
In the election, the issue that has gotten the most attention and extra importance in the international and domestic press is the issue of religion and pluralism. Ahok is an unusual figure. He is the highest-ranking ethnically Chinese Indonesian elected official in Indonesia. He is doubly “other” compared with the Indonesian majority as he is both Christian and ethnically Chinese. This means that some view the election as a referendum on Indonesia's religious and ethnic pluralism. That is the main issue in every account of the election in English.
However, there are policies that are also substantively being debated in this election, particularly about social spending. Ahok has expanded Jokowi’s initiatives and created his own to improve access to public services. He has also focused on providing housing, which has been closely connected with flood mitigation projects. These projects have displaced a lot of people and the resettlement of these people has been contentious.
The other big issue has been the North Jakarta land reclamation project. There is a huge planned expansion of the city of Jakarta, and it has been in the works for decades. One interpretation of the project is that it is a giant giveaway to real estate developers, who are very powerful in Jakarta politics. Another is that this project is a necessary aspect of city expansion, and it will help open space for subsidized housing that Ahok wants to build. The two other fights within the reclamation project concern whether the project will actually counteract the flood mitigation plans and if the plan is technically sound. There have also been some corruption claims concerning different parts of that project - as with almost every large-scale project in Indonesia. Despite attempts to connect him with one potential scandal, these claims have not really affected Ahok.
FF: Zooming out a little, there has been a lot of domestic and international press coverage on this election. Why do you think that is the case?
SS: The religious element combined with the idea that this is a referendum make it a captivating story. It fits into this common, long-standing narrative about Indonesia in the international press. Will Indonesia fall? In what way will it fall apart? Will it be regionalism? Will it be the ongoing struggle between secularism and the anti-secularist stream of Islam? Will it be something else? In some ways, it's a version of the story that has been written many times. However, it is also true that this religious story has captivated the country. There are other local elections happening, but the demonstrations in Jakarta were the biggest story in November, December, and January.
Some observers think that this election is just a referendum on Ahok as a person who is Christian and ethnically Chinese. However, if you watch the debates and hear what is being discussed at many of the campaign stops, the conversation focuses on specific policies that Ahok is pursuing. It is true that Ahok has put out this campaign ad saying, “I am diverse” and “We should support pluralism”. Pluralism is really the political strain that Ahok comes from. He used to be a member of Gerindra [Editor’s Note: Gerindra is an Indonesian nationalist party]. He is now “nonpartisan”, similar to many well-known reformist executive politicians in Indonesia. Like many of them, he has tried to distance himself from parties because there is a widespread sense that partisanship is corrupt. If we look at the political tradition that he comes from in Indonesia, Gerindra more broadly is not actually a party of Islamists, but a party of nationalists. Indonesian nationalism is partly about making Indonesia great for the first time, but it is also about ensuring that Indonesia is a secular and pluralist polity. PDI-P is about that. Gerindra is also about that, despite the fact that Prabowo courted the [more partisan/Islamic Fundamentalist] FPI in his presidential election campaign in 2014. There is a really important way that Ahok fits into this permanent cleavage in Indonesian politics. If you want to discuss the pluralism/nationalism versus Islamism debate, you can follow that debate all the way back to 1945 [when Indonesia’s first constitution was written]. Some of the foreign press have called it a rising tide of intolerance, but I don't see that happening here. I think it is the same old story happening in Indonesia - Islamists are and have been a potent political force. The Jakarta gubernatorial election is the second most important election in the country after the Presidential election. Jakarta is the commercial, political, and cultural center of the country. The election decides the daily lives of the elite, of most of the expats, and of the thirty million people who live in greater Jakarta. A quarter of the country's GDP comes from greater Jakarta. It is more important than the West or East Java gubernatorial election, even though 30 million people live in those provinces. The last governor of Jakarta became the President. FF: The 212 and the 411 movements have entered the American press recently because of a Marvel Comic Book where they were included by an Indonesian comic book artist. What are these movements? What exactly do you see them as?
SS: The protestors call these demonstrations “actions” and I think that is a really good word for them. Some have started calling them movements, but they are more one-off demonstrations and focus mostly on making a statement. They are trying to make a statement that Ahok is an illegitimate governor because non-Muslims should not rule over Muslims.
The court case [against Ahok] is an important pretext for this. There are many groups composing these actions, and FPI is the most important group among them. Although they have an office in Jakarta, FPI matters much more in Central Java. Jakartans are not really FPI supporters.
They are a brilliant organization as far as publicity is concerned. They have figured out how do things that will generate interest among certain segments of the population as well as fear among the cosmopolitan Indonesian elite. To the cosmopolitan elite group, the FPI and its ilk are backwards and hateful, making themselves appear larger than they are. Another reason which I suspect explains why they have more appeal than we might think is that the FPI are not terrorists. FPI is not like Jemaah Islamiyah. FPI has been involved in violent mob actions, especially around Yogyakarta, but they have not committed terrorists acts. There is a worldview in which envisioning and advocating for Indonesia as a Muslim state is part of your understanding of Indonesian nationalism, not a terrorist project. The issue about Ahok’s religion and ethnicity is not something new. It started on the first day that he became governor. FPI has been the organization driving the idea that a Christian should not rule over Muslims, and that has been the line of the FPI since the first day of Ahok’s term. The FPI is quite a hateful organization; that has not been the message of Anies’s campaign. He has focused on issues like land reclamation and has distanced himself from the FPI.
FF: The FPI is small group compared with Indonesia’s larger national Islamic organizations such as Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, but it seems that FPI is trying to take on a more prominent role. What do you see as the generational demographic breakdown of these actions?
SS: I’m not sure that any sociologists went down to the 212 action and tried to figure out the age of participants. Their media mastery is not limited to television, but also includes social media. They have a big YouTube channel. There is also a lot of ridicule of them online. They have a big social media presence. It's definitely not the case that only older people express FPI’s views. Lots of religious students are young. Generally, any sort of religious fanatic is likely to be younger than the average age of the general population. People who are involved with violent extremist groups and are involved in religious life are often young. You can't be in both the NU and the FPI. The NU puts as the slogan of its youth wing, “Defenders of pluralism,” which conflicts with the FPI world view. Who does the NU see itself defending pluralism against? The FPI.
When you look at Islamists in Indonesian politics, such as the PKS [an Islamist political party], they are young. The FPI and PKS are not the same thing. There is an important youth story for both groups. It would be unwise to conclude that young people are not interested in the FPI. I think that it would be dangerous to dismiss that possibility.
FF: How do you think the spread of fake news around Indonesia via Facebook has affected the Jakarta election?
SS: I have not followed any stories about that in this election. It mattered in 2014. Since then, “hoax” has become a word in Bahasa Indonesia. I have seen many stories saying claiming something is a hoax. There is an awareness that false stories are being spread and have to be countered.
It's definitely true in big Indonesian elections that the spreading of falsehoods via social media has been a deliberate strategy. The best example of that was the well put-together rumor mill that advanced the claim that Jokowi was a secret Christian. They claimed he had a secret Christian middle name. The story received a lot of traction. Jokowi ended up flying to Mecca the weekend before the election to reaffirm his religion publicly.
The way it was being spread was interesting. Facebook was not quite as popular in 2014. Path was very popular and this story was circulating on Path, via WhatsApp groups, and text message chains. I think that it was circulated on Twitter, but Twitter is mainly used in Jakarta. The message was spread in ways that ensured lots of people would get the messages. I think that we were all more credulous in 2014.
FF: What were your reactions to the first round results?
SS: I have to give some credit to Indonesian television. The debates really focused on social issues and were quite well-executed. The candidates, except for Agus Yudhoyono, did a good job talking about issues. Ahok and Anies did not litigate the demonstrations at the debate. Anies chose to not focus on the issue, and it's not clear that he comes off better by voicing his support for the demonstrations. He does refer to Ahok’s divisiveness. The FPI is a big deal, but it's a liability.
I think that Prabowo [during his candidacy for president in 2014] miscalculated when he embraced FPI, and in doing so confirmed that he was a scary guy. A lot of his campaign was based around claiming he was not a scary guy. I don’t think vocalizing support for FPI is a winning strategy in a Jakarta election. That only works if you are running for provincial assembly in Central Java, where they have enough votes to win a few seats.
FF: As far the first round, you asked, why do I think Agus Yudhoyono won the fewest votes?
SS: Agus is a lightweight. It’s clear the only reason he is able to be at the top of the ticket was because his dad is the former President. He is clearly trading on his good looks and his father's prominence. There is no way he has paid his dues. I think a lot of voters recognize that he is this privileged person. When it came to the debates, he did badly, was inarticulate, and was subsequently ridiculed for things he said. I don't think it is at all clear who his base was. Ahok's base is a little bit easier to figure out because it is more familiar. But who is going to vote for Agus Yudhoyono? Especially when he is running for this important job against two capable politicians. He should not be sharing the stage with them, and it is not surprising that he crashed.
FF: Does have any political future?
SS: He might. Politicians in Indonesia don't seem to go away. Setya Novanto remains the Speaker of the House even though the Freeport Tape scandal was more than a year ago.
But I heard that Agus Yudhoyono’s brother might run in the West Java gubernatorial election. [Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil has confirmed that he is also going to run in that race] or possibly be the President’s running mate in 2019 and then run for President in 2024. It is kind of interesting that there are not so many plausible presidential contenders, but I think that it is because Jokowi is so popular.
FF: How do you see the next round of the election turning out?
SS: It is interesting how close the two candidates are. I think no one can credibly make a strong prediction.
Two polls that have received some attention. One that showed a six point lead for Anies, but that poll came from an unknown polling company. The other was from SMRC. SMRC polls are good, and I have had long talks with them about how they sample. I may be biased my opinion, but they are really careful and they have a great track record. Their survey showed Anies with a 1% lead in a poll with about a 4% margin of error. That is a tie.
The story in Jakarta is that Ahok won the debate. There was a quick poll from Indikator that 67% of people who watched the debate felt that Ahok had won. They are both uptrending. The best way of reading it is that the Agus voters are sliding into one or the other. I think I saw 5% stated as undecided. It makes me wonder if Anies supporters were either not responding or said that they were undecided.
As a result of the FPI business there might be a tendency for people to not to report their support for Anies. This was claimed to be a serious problem in the U.S. election. In the U.S. election, the polls were damn accurate and got the popular vote right. Polls have gotten bad rap, they are actually extremely accurate.
FF: It should be exciting. Will we see the quick-count result this week? SS: Yes, they should be counted by Wednesday night, Jakarta time. It is not hard to do a good quick count as you are estimating the results based off of the real results. The trick in the quick count is that you make sure that you have all polling stations in practice. I think SMRC quick count involved 10,000. You're fine. Talking about 2% of the population of voters. That is a big sample size. In a city like Jakarta with a lot scrutiny and a very well administered election system, it is a lot harder for elections commissioners at the local level to do weird things. That happens in the local legislative elections with party lists as commissioner may move votes around the lists. That sort of thing that would be relevant if you are thinking about other parts of the country, but it will not matter here. Indonesia has a better system for administrating its elections than the U.S. The government's goal in elections is to ensure that everyone votes, which is different than the goal of many local governments in the United States. So far, good bit of news to keep in mind regardless of the results. First, it is going to be a peaceful election. It's not like in 2014 when people were pretty nervous about the elections and the results. Democracy is here and I think a lot of people are invested in Ahok as governor. This is a referendum on him. But I do think that if Anies wins, it does not mean that the FPI won and that religious pluralism is over and religious intolerance is the path to power. Anies is not a candidate of hate. Anies will probably be a decent governor and there are good reasons to vote against Ahok. There are things about Anies that could lead a reasonable person to vote for him. I think the religious angle has obscured this fact that Anies is fine.
This is very different from the 2014 election. Some people treated the 2014 election as a referendum on democracy. There are ways in which it was overblown and ways that it wasn't overblown.
The idea that if Prabowo won the election, Indonesia would immediately revert to the old New Order government was way overblown. There were some covering the election in English who were making that argument. He might have been like an Erdogan eventually, but that process takes a lot of time. You could not have known that in 2014. However, it was true that the position of the Golkar and possibly Gerindra was the idea that local elections should not happen. Golkar and Gerindra led an effort to alter local elections after the elections, and Democratic Party abstained because SBY thought it was clever. A member of parliament from the Golkar party, Fayakhun Andriadi, has argued that Golkar must transform. In his book, he talks about what Golkar stands for, and the interesting thing is that Golkar stands for what the people want with no particular ideology. One particular item that comes in book is the corrosive effect local elections and that those local elections should be curtailed.
That was really the way that the 2014 election was a referendum on decentralized democracy. This election is not that election. It is important, but it is not important in many of the ways that has been portrayed as being important.
FF: Thank you, that is a good way to end our first conversation.
Image credit Margaret Mariani.
Seth Soderborg is a Political Science PhD student at Harvard. His studies focus on Indonesian politics.
More defense spending by NATO members will not make us safer. A new NATO security agenda will.
by Magnus Roar Bech and Alexander Medgett
Asking the European NATO members to pay their dues entrenched the identity crisis of the Alliance. What remains unspoken in the debate of defense spending is that today’s security agenda requires a more multidimensional approach. In other words, the sole requirement of increasing spending reflects the organization’s ill targeted efforts towards responding to today’s contemporary and diverse threats.
While it is true that traditional security threats such as Russian aggression remain a priority for NATO, increasing the defense spending alone will not improve its members’ security.
Today’s threats require a multidimensional approach. NATO needs to adjust its policies to tackle terrorism, cyber attacks and humanitarian challenges. These have emerged as the predominant threats for most member states and cannot be solved with an arbitrary increase in defense spending. Cyber-attacks are increasingly at the epicenter of modern warfare, as we saw from the alleged Russian interference in the domestic politics in the US and the proven interference in Estonia. With limited means to track down and prosecute perpetrators, there is a need for innovative partnerships with IT specialists in retaliating against cyber-crime.
As dangerous as cyber attacks are, the threat of terrorism remains a bigger priority. In the last year, atrocities were committed by terrorists from Canada to Turkey. Initiatives to strengthen grass-root resilience against extremist ideologies and targeted deradicalization schemes are needed to combat the roots of the terrorist threat.
Furthermore, the need for rapid cross-border intelligence sharing and better police cooperation became apparent when the infamous Molenbeek ISIS cell managed to plan and execute attacks in Paris and Brussels despite being known to security services.
NATO’s focus on defense spending could have negative implications as well. Putting pressure on the budgets of European nations could dangerously shift the power-balance between Europe and Russia. Specifically, increasing budgets in Germany to fit NATO’s requirements would see Berlin dedicate more than EUR 60 million to defense - a figure above that of Moscow’s 2015 defense budget. Were Berlin to meet the 2 percent requirement in seven years, Moscow could interpret it as an intimidation tactic. If defense spending of Europe’s NATO members is going to increase at a proportional and measured rate, according to NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, the German case highlights why the outdated 2 percent requirement must be reevaluated.
The cold war reminds us that more arms do not always equal more peace, and the multidimensional security threats we face today expose the need for a security agenda that goes beyond hard power. NATO has long been, and still is, an essential contributor to global security - whether through training forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, disrupting piracy in the Gulf of Aden or providing logistical support following humanitarian disasters. However, there clearly must be limits on its non-military mandate.
In post-conflict areas like Iraq and Afghanistan where ISIS and Al-Qaeda recruiters flourish - peacekeepers, civil-military assistance and DDR programs are imperative to engage and rebuild local communities, reintegrate combatants and stop the spread of terrorist push-factors. Additionally, private/public partnerships with financial institutions, effective information sharing and cooperation between police and judicial authorities are essential to detect terrorist financing, disrupt plots at home, and prosecute perpetrators. It would be naive to think NATO on its own can serve as a major allied force against international terrorism, as postulated by SG Stoltenberg and US Defense Secretary Mattis. The major obstacle is not merely insufficient capabilities but also the lack of effective cooperation.
Ensuring western security against international terrorism as well as other threats is not only a question of increasing NATO capabilities proportionally but also determining how far NATO’s parameters stretch beyond the military and into intelligence and humanitarian support. It is also a question of developing cooperation mechanisms with partners like the United Nations and the European Union, which have proven to be effective at times. To guarantee a secure alliance, it is therefore time for NATO officials to discuss the alliance’s exact role in ensuring security, how to better respond to today’s diverse security threats, and how to cooperate with complementary partners. Reassessing the 2 percent requirement is a first step in the right direction.
Image NATOs hovedkvarter Courtesy Utenriksdepartementet UD/CC BY-ND 2.0
About the Authors Magnus Roar Bech is a freelance writer and security specialist. He holds an MSc Security Studies and a BA European Studies, with focus on counter-terrorism, peace-building and EU foreign policy. His professional work has focused primarily on counter-extremism and counter-terrorism in the UK and Europe, following work with European energy law and international relations. He has been cited by national and international media mainly on security and counter-terrorism.
Alexander Medgett a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Sciences Po Paris. Currently, he is finishing his graduate studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His academic focus is on economics, European governance and international relations. Alexander also co-founded CampusEurope, a pan European media outlet that publishes news and opinions on European affairs.
by Zoltan Feher
Will Trump take Xi Jinping golfing at Mar-a-Lago? This question has come up in my conversations in the past weeks. This might sound like a banal, small detail in international politics, but it actually is important. Let me explain why.
By all counts, the major challenge for the United States now and in the foreseeable future is the rise of China and how that will result in a shift in relative power between the two leading powers. The United States is the preeminent great power today, but as China’s wealth and power will continue to grow, America will find its primacy challenged first in Asia, then globally.
The Obama administration has recognized this trend and decided that the U.S. will have to shift its focus and weight from Europe and the Middle East to Asia. By the consensus of foreign policy analysts, Obama’s “Asia Pivot” was a failure. As historian Niall Ferguson puts it, Obama’s “foreign policy has failed in Asia, where little remains of the much-vaunted pivot.”
So the much-needed rebalance to Asia awaits the Trump administration. What are they going to do? 70 days into this administration’s term, very little is known about their strategy. From what we do know, we can discern that the administration has so far chosen the path of negotiation instead of confrontation with China, and reaffirmed its commitment to U.S. allies in Asia.
During his campaign, Trump characterized China as the main adversary of the United States. He accused China of taking away U.S. jobs and even claimed that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Then, a few days after his election, he appeared to ignore the long-standing cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy towards China, the One China policy, by taking the congratulatory call of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. This angered Beijing, who nonetheless responded with restraint. There were many speculations that this is part of what might be characteristic of the “Trump style” of diplomacy: open with a large bet so as to be able to walk back and, appearing conciliatory, settle on a high level. On the One China policy, that is exactly what Trump did. In his call with Chinese President Xi Jin-ping in January, he walked back and reaffirmed that the U.S. only recognizes one China, the People’s Republic.
Trump then withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multilateral trade deal with Asian countries, which was the economic pillar of the Obama Pivot. This move was consistent with Trump’s line on trade deals, which he characterized as one-sided against American interests and blamed for the loss of U.S.-based jobs. On the other hand, the withdrawal has also had strategic ramifications. With the TPP out, China started courting the same Asian countries into some kind of trade arrangement, and they already have in place the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. America might have just given up an important segment of its Asian leadership portfolio to China.
Both Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have taken major trips to Asia in their first two months in office. In fact, Secretary Mattis went to Asia on his first official visit and reassured the U.S.’s major regional allies, Japan an South Korea, of America’s unrelenting commitment to their security and to peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific. On Tillerson’s trip to Asia three weeks ago, he skipped a dinner with South Korean officials because “he was too tired.” During his meeting with Chinese leader Xi, the Secretary of State adopted the language of his hosts on “a new type of great power relations.” In the Chinese terminology, this phrase means that the U.S. accepts China as an equal partner and as the other superpower. The U.S. terminology does not use this phrase. Tillerson was parroting the Chinese and that was a huge mistake. On the other hand, he was tough on the issue of North Korea, saying “all options were on the table,” including the use of military force against Pyongyang. I predict North Korea to become the first major international test of the Trump administration.
Trump has gotten the relationship with Japan right. He has met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe twice already – first in New York a week after the elections, then in February in official talks in Washington. Trump afterwards invited Abe to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Despite Trump’s campaign statements that Japan was not sharing enough of the burden for its own defense, the two leaders established great rapport. In a turn-around from his campaign rhetoric, the U.S. President even ended up thanking the Japanese people for hosting the U.S. troops at their joint press conference. U.S.-Japanese relations, which are part of the backbone of U.S. Asia policy, remain friendly and close.
What the first 70 days of the Trump administration show is that Trump understands the importance of Asia and the challenge of China’s rise. He has so far chosen negotiation over confrontation with Beijing, but has also given up an important tool of American leadership in Asia. Relations with U.S. allies in Asia remain stable. The U.S. is going to keep all options on the table with regard to North Korea, which has the potential of becoming the administration’s first crisis. Their first test will be in Asia.
Tomorrow, President Trump will welcome President Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The tone and outcome of their meeting and the personal rapport they establish may determine the future of U.S. strategy towards China and in Asia in general. Let’s see how they get along and whether they golf together.
Image Chinese and American Flags Courtesy futureatlas.com/CC BY 2.0
About the Author Zoltan Feher is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at The Fletcher School and a Provost Fellow at Tufts University. Previously, he worked as a diplomat for Hungary between 2002 and 2014, most recently serving as Hungary’s Chargé d’Affaires in Turkey. In 2015-2016, he was a Mason Fellow and a teaching assistant to Professor Joseph Nye at the Harvard Kennedy School. His dissertation focuses on U.S. grand strategy.
by Jennifer Brody
What technology has the potential to mitigate poverty, increase government transparency, and secure financial transactions? Blockchain.
If you are familiar with blockchain, it is likely because you have heard of Bitcoin. Yet, few people know that this innovative, relatively new technology has promising implications far beyond cryptocurrency. A growing number of startups seek to harness the revolutionary power of blockchain to improve public services.
Essentially, blockchain is a long chain of pieces of information (or “blocks”) that are linked together and recorded in a widely distributed database. Hacking one block would require not only the key for that particular block, but also the keys for the adjoining blocks. In other words, infiltrating a blockchain would require the unique key for every single block of the chain. That is next to impossible to achieve, as there are millions of blocks in one chain. Thus, the longer a blockchain, the more secure it becomes.
Blockchain is also highly secure because multiple parties, commonly referred to as “miners,” verify the data stored on the distributed ledger. In this way, the system is highly decentralized and likely more transparent than existing financial systems or registries. It is the 21st-century peer-to-peer network that open source enthusiasts celebrate. However, not all blockchains are public. Some are fully private with more stringent access permissions, while others are semi-private. Generally speaking, traditional financial institutions utilize fully private blockchains, while organizations or companies with a civic mission tend to gravitate towards open source blockchains.
One such public blockchain startup called BanQu uses the technology to create an economic identity for the unbanked. The social enterprise aims to combat extreme poverty by connecting to the global economy those without access to capital. Chemonics, a US Agency for International Development contractor, recently partnered with BanQu to launch the Blockchain for Development Solutions Lab.
In the same vein, blockchain can also bring unregistered property into the formal economy. Last year Hernando de Soto’s Institute for Liberty and Democracy combined forces with the Bitfury Group to begin a land titling pilot project in the Republic of Georgia.
Blockchain also has application in the voting space. In an age of heightened alarm over electoral fraud, blockchain is especially promising in this field. This is because each vote becomes immutable after it is recorded on the blockchain, unlike penetrable electronic voting systems currently in use. A few blockchain voting startups have emerged in recent years, such as Voatz, where I direct policy and communications.
Despite the benefits, some government officials remain hesitant to support blockchain technology for a number of reasons: namely, its decentralized structure and technological complexity, coupled with policymakers’ tendency toward risk aversion.
Blockchain entails devolving authority from a centralized hierarchy to a decentralized, flat structure. Understandably so, this prospect alarms government officials. After all, in the ideal democracy, we trust our elected officials to properly manage public goods and services–everything from land titling to election administration. As such, a government’s willingness to cede authority undermines the very reason why we elect officials to run government in the first place. If we operate under the assumption that government officials cannot be trusted, then why buy into representative democracy? This is a difficult question to answer. Yet, I, for one, am of the belief that the more citizen watchdogs we have, the more democratic the system becomes. More concretely, in the case of blockchain-based voting, validating peers–or “miners”–must jointly agree on the veracity of a vote in order for it to be recorded on the blockchain. This means that the election administration is not the only entity validating the vote.
Another common stumbling block that entrepreneurs face in trying to market blockchain solutions to governments is difficulty communicating complex technical concepts both clearly and concisely. In my time working for Voatz, I have struggled with articulating how blockchain provides a secure voting solution while maintaining my audience’s interest and, perhaps most importantly, their confidence. This challenge is nothing new or unique to blockchain. Programs like the MIT International Policy Lab, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Blockchain Trust Accelerator Initiative work to translate advanced technology solutions into succinct governance applications by bridging the divide between science and public policy. MIT International Policy Lab Program Manager Daniel Pomeroy told me that one of the greatest impediments in translating scientific solutions into policy goals is that scientists are comfortable reporting with uncertainty, while policymakers tend to speak in absolutes.
This uncertainty particularly comes through when addressing blockchain security.
Scientifically speaking, we cannot report with absolute certainty that a blockchain cannot be hacked. Indeed, if hundreds of thousands of the most brilliant computer scientists in the world joined forces to dedicate their entire lives–and the lives of their successors–to hacking a blockchain, and they convinced all of the third-party “miners” to cooperate, it is technically possible to infiltrate. (For all intents and purposes, this scenario is not realistic. It is like saying that technically it is possible for everyone in the world to hop on their right foot at the same second while drinking lemonade out of an orange-and-white striped straw. It is within the realm of possibility, but the probability is negligible.) However, considering governments’ natural aversion to risk, blockchain vendors must carefully choose their words when explaining how blockchain is highly secure, yet technically not bulletproof. When I deliver this meticulously crafted narrative, I often feel like I am performing an explosive ballet on top of precariously assembled eggshells. To be sure, complexity does not translate well into the realm of the viral soundbite, through which many lawmakers must communicate their stances on policy issues. Fortunately for professionals in my position, government officials become less skeptical upon learning that Wall Street and leading financial institutions have largely adopted the technology.
A few months ago, I met with Democracy International’s Innovation Director Michael Baldassaro to discuss the promise of blockchain-based voting. His feedback both inspired and disheartened me. Baldassaro told me that the emergence and potential widespread application of blockchain technology reminds him of when the Internet was first created: it was revolutionary, yet very few people understood the technology and, as a result, very few believed in its promise to change the world.
While it may well be an uphill battle, I am confident that in the coming years we will see more blockchain product adoption among governments worldwide. It may take decades, or even centuries, for blockchain’s full potential to come to fruition, but for now I am excited to plant the seed.
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Voatz.
Image "Creative Commons: Stock Image of Chain" Courtesy MVegas / CC0 License
About the Author Jennifer Brody directs policy and strategic communications for civic tech startup Voatz, a blockchain-based mobile voting platform. Jennifer graduated in August 2016 from The Fletcher School with a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy. Her studies culminated in a multimedia project on the net-native "Central American Spring." Prior to Fletcher, Jennifer was a staffer on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Herb Kohl [D-WI] and worked in the Office of Senator Joe Manchin [D-WV]. While in the Senate, she served as a technology and foreign policy adviser. Jennifer received her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While NASA is still the largest space program in the world, governments -- like China and India -- are developing their space programs at a rapid pace, not to mention private space initiatives such as SpaceX. Collaboration has been vital to this development, and will continue to be as new players emerge and more and more satellites crowd the orbit around Earth. During the European Conference at Harvard, cosponsored by The Fletcher School, The Forum recently sat down with Donato Giorgi of the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the French space agency, to discuss the present and future of international relations in the final frontier.
Fletcher Forum: Why should the average foreign affairs reader of our journal be interested in space? What is the diplomacy and international relations aspect of it?
Donato Giorgi: Space is international by definition. You cannot imagine space activities as local interactions that imply no interactions with other countries. Once you launch a satellite, its orbit will take it over most of every single other country and probably travel over your head. The space activity of a country can become the business of some other country. For instance, you can use satellites to verify compliance to specific international treaties like, for example, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM).
FF: In a nutshell, what do you do?
DG: I manage the team in charge of the European and international relations of CNES. Part of my team deals with the European countries and their Agencies (like DLR in Germany, ASI in Italy and UKSA in the United Kingdom), the European Space Agency and the European Union. The other part deals with the rest of the world, other countries and their space agencies and the multilateral international entities, like the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. Basically, with my team, we manage all the relations between my agency and the rest of the space world outside France.
Also, space science is international by definition. Whatever team of space scientists you meet; you always find an international team. And these are just two examples.
FF: What do you see as the future of space?
DG: There is both competition and collaboration. Collaboration is essential. Whenever you want to build something that you cannot afford on your own, and/or you want to strengthen relations with your partners, you open yourself up for cooperation. The International Space Station, the largest international program in space so far, was built by the US with its international partners. Later on, it became a tool to show that the world changed and we could work with former USSR. This clearly shows how cooperation is one of the essentials of space, providing mutual benefits.
FF: Who are the space competitors now?
DG: No doubt that China, in a few years, will have nothing for anyone else to envy. India is no longer an “emerging” power. Europe traditionally is one of the major contributors to space activity, Russia and Japan and, of course the US. These are the established space powers. But more and more countries develop their space activities, eager to grasp the benefits that space can provide in terms of economic growth, strategic autonomy, pride and inspiration of the young generation. They are partners and, at the same time, actual or potential competitors on the international arena, notably on the satellites or launch services market.
FF: Would you say the French are one of the more collaborative nations in terms of space?
DG: Well, that’s a big statement, but it’s true, we are very active. We cooperate with all the space powers and develop our relations with most of the countries eager to invest in space. We believe that it's very important to talk to others, because space international cooperation is necessary and provides a real added value to space programs on several aspects, like science, technology and diplomacy too. In fact, space, for its strategic nature, can be a supporting tool for the international action of governments.
It seems like the space policies of Europe mirror their international relations in other ways. Whereas NASA acts unilaterally, it doesn’t need as much collaboration as much as Europe or up and coming space powers. How are European and other space priorities unique from NASA's space priorities?
In Europe, we build our priorities based on a win-win approach. Every country has specific interests. ESA has 22 member states, the EU has 28 member states, when you have to define a priority, it takes time.
FF: So priorities shift more slowly than in the U.S.?
DG: In general, yes. And the good thing in Europe is that whenever you make a decision on a program, the program will be completed. For example, a though decision like the reorientation of the Constellation program in the U.S. would be very difficult to make in Europe. Decision making is based on consensus, and once you make consensus, you rarely go back.
FF: What is the state of U.S.-E.U. space collaboration? What are the challenges going forward?
DG: The relation between the US and the European countries, notably between France and the US, is the most traditional, oldest relationship. And these relations are still very strong. Of course, we‘re in a wait and see mode: whenever you change presidents in the US, the administrator of NASA changes, and the goals of NASA and space exploration can change accordingly.
FF: Trump has made it clear that he is pro-space. What is your response to that?
DG: I am very glad to hear that and I hope he will support space. We will continue to wait and see and keep on strengthening our cooperation with the US and continue to express friendship to the U.S. We are curious about the priorities of the new administration. However, looking at his platform from a few months ago, there was no detailed mention of space. NASA is our first international partner so it will be really important for the space activities of Europe and France.
FF: What about France’s own domestic political situation? If Le Pen wins the election, what does that mean for the French space program?
DG: Space is traditionally a priority for both left and right in France, given the specific perception of space as a tool for sovereignty. So, I’m quite optimistic about the future. But, of course, eventually, the decisions on the future of the French space activities stay with the government and we will implement them.
Image "NPP Delta II Launch" Courtesy NASA/Bill Ingalls / CC BY-SA 2.0
About the Interviewee Donato Giorgi is the Head of European and International Relations at Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the French space agency. Donato and his team’s activities span from the coordination of the French delegation to the European Space Agency to the relations with the European national space agencies, the European Commission, the UN and a wide range of space agencies in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.