Global Brief #11

In the throes of crisis, the future may not be apparent

EDITORS’ BRIEF

Human genius, folly, tipping points, and where the dust will settle

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COVER ILLUSTRATION: HARRY CAMPBELL

morass in order to distill where the biggest dangers lie and where governments and the private sector ought to invest their resources. Frédéric Charillon of Paris’ Institut de recherches stratégiques de l’École militaire examines the strategic future of France, demonstrating that it will remain a global power – although not a superpower – in the decades to come. Finally, Leonid Kosals of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics warns of imminent systemic crisis in Russia, and weighs the prospects of escaping that country’s historical swings between chaos and dictatorship.

In Tête à Tête, GB speaks with Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Asia-leading Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, about the content of Asia’s rise and the imperatives for intelligent reaction from ‘the rest.’ GB interviews Martin Wolf of the Financial Times about the highly variegated character of the fallout from the economic crisis, and what is yet to be done to get to a ‘new normal.’ In Query, Arabinda Acharya of Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and Antara Desai of India’s Manipal University, accentuate Kabul’s responsibility for the fate of post-2014 Afghanistan.Yoram Schweitzer of the University of Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies assesses the future of suicide bombings as an increasingly popular and effective tool in a variety of early-century conflicts. In Nez à Nez, former Australian deputy secretary of defence Hugh White and David Skilling of the Landfall Strategy Group debate whether Australia and New Zealand are prepared for a more powerful Asian continent. In The Definition, we ask Alan Middleton of the Schulich School of Business, Tommy Koh, Singapore’s Ambassador-At-Large, and Pierre Pettigrew, Executive Adviser at Deloitte, to describe today’s differences between businesses in Asia and the West. In Strategic Futures, Mark Stabile of the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance, Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council flag the most important question to be answered by the next President of the US. In Situ reports come to us from Georgiy Voloshin in Astana, where Kazakhstan continues to play a complex, ‘multi-vector’ game; and from Amna Guellali in Tunis, where Tunisia’s revolution hangs precariously in the balance. GB visits Quito to eavesdrop on the Cabinet Room of Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. Douglas Glover gives us a lesson in history repeating in Epigram.

Enjoy your Brief. | GB

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he consequences of the global crisis – whether one describes it as economic, financial, monetary, fiscal, moral or strategic – have been momentous. From the collapse of global banking systems to deep recessions and near-depressions in most of the world’s advanced economies, to the existential brinkmanship of the Eurozone, the crisis has laid bare the momentum (and fault lines) of China’s rise, the upper limits of the West’s capacity for strategic extroversion (including in Syria), and the total absence of manifest destiny for transitional states in the Middle East, Africa and the former Soviet space.

In the physical world, each action begets an equal and opposite reaction. In the politico-strategic world, each action begets one or more over-, under- or proportional reactions, the competence of which is variable. What has been historically apposite is less the individual reactions than the accumulation over time of dozens of major and minor reactions from a mixity of players, resulting in tendencies that create momentum for a new order and a new conventional wisdom. The ‘fog of crisis’ and the steps issuing in this new reality are what exercise us in this Fall 2012 issue of GB – the first issue of GB’s fourth year. For while the coming future is not at present describable, we will, as a rule, get there. What is more interesting is that we are already preparing the groundwork.

Sujit Choudhry of New York University’s School of Law jump-starts this number in the One Pager, arguing that there is an urgent need to reconcile the ‘democracy’ and ‘stability’ schools of constitutional transformation in order that the in-demand field of constitution-building not founder under the weight of conceptual confusion. Geoff Mulgan of the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts leads off our Features section by proposing that we are already in the midst of transforming many of the systems that govern humanity – from energy to health care, to transport, food and government – even if we may not yet realize it. GB’s Managing Editor Sam Sasan Shoamanesh then makes the case for the creation of a region-wide security framework for the Middle East – the last remaining region of the world without such a framework – in order to stave off imminent war and stabilize the region for this new century. Wesley Wark of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs takes on the growth of so-called ‘cyberaggression’ – cyber-war, cyber-terrorism, cyber-crime and cyber-espionage – cutting through definitional

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & PUBLISHER Irvin Studin

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D E PA R T M E N T S

MANAGING EDITOR Sam Sasan Shoamanesh ART DIRECTOR Louis Fishauf ASSOCIATE EDITOR Michael Barutciski

EDITORS’ BRIEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

ASSISTANT EDITOR Marie Lavoie JUNIOR EDITORS Roxanne Hamel,

ONE PAGER

Iulia Hanganu, Salim Idrissi, Milos Jankovic, Avalon Jennings, Stephanie Kot, Jolie Lemmon, Jaclyn Volkhammer ASSISTANT PUBLISHER Ernest Chong WEB MANAGER Aladin Alaily VIDEOGRAPHER Duncan Appleton WEB DESIGN Dolce Publishing PRINTING RJM Print Group

Sujit Choudhry | The art of constitutional transformation . . . . . . 5

ADVISORY COUNCIL

IN SITU

Georgiy Voloshin | Le grand jeu «multi-vectoriel» des Kazakhs . . . 6 Amna Guellali | La transition démocratique en Tunisie?. . . . . . . 18 TÊTE À TÊTE

Kenneth McRoberts (Chair), André Beaulieu, Tim Coates, David Dewitt, Paul Evans, Drew Fagan, Dan Fata, Margaret MacMillan, Maria Panezi, Tom Quiggin

Kishore Mahbubani | Navigating Asia’s tricky inflection points . . . 8

Mailing Address Global Brief Magazine Glendon Hall, Room 301 Glendon Campus, York University 2275 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M4N 3M6, Canada Tel: 416-736-2100 ext. 88253 Fax: 416-487-6786

Arabinda Acharya & Antara Desai | Afghanistan post-2014? . . . . . . . . . 26

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Martin Wolf | The consequences of the crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 QUERY Yoram Schweitzer | Whither suicide bombings?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 IN THE CABINET ROOM Dusan Petricic | Quito, Assange and Wikidiplomacy. . . . . . . . . . . . 39 NEZ À NEZ Hugh White vs. David Skilling Oz & New Zealand are not prepared for Asian pre-eminence. . . . . . 56 THE DEFINITION “The difference between Asian and Western business…”. . . . . . 60 STRATEGIC FUTURES “The most important question for the next US president will be…” . . . 62 EPIGRAM

Douglas Glover | On history repeating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

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Glendon School of Public and International Affairs The Glendon School is Canada’s first bilingual (English and French) graduate school of public and international affairs.

It combines a comprehensive bilingualism with a focus on both public and international affairs. Adopting a global perspective, the School explores the relationship between public institutions and their larger environment. Its purpose is to advance research on public and international affairs; provide a high-quality bilingual master’s programme; and offer innovative professional development programming.

L’École de Glendon est la première école bilingue d’affaires publiques et internationales au Canada. Établissement d’études supérieures unique en son genre, l’École est axée sur le bilinguisme anglais-français et spécialisée à la fois dans les affaires publiques et les affaires internationales. On y explore, dans une perspective mondiale, les relations entre les institutions publiques et le contexte général dans lequel elles fonctionnent. Le mandat principal de l’École consiste à faire progresser la recherche sur des questions d’affaires publiques et internationales, à offrir un programme de maîtrise bilingue de grande qualité ainsi qu’un programme de développement professionnel novateur.

www.glendon.yorku.ca/gspia

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F E AT U RES

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SYSTEMS FAILURE, SUCCESS AND REBIRTH How the current global crisis may trigger a transformation of the world’s systems BY GEOFF MULGAN

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A NEW SECURITY ORDER FOR THE MIDDLE EAST The only region in the world without a security framework must set about the task of creating one BY SAM SASAN SHOAMANESH

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CYBER-AGGRESSION AND ITS DISCONTENTS Cyber-war, cyber-terrorism, cyber-crime and cyber-espionage are all serious. Not all are urgent BY WESLEY WARK

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QUEL AVENIR STRATÉGIQUE POUR LA FRANCE? Isolée dans son vœu d’Europe puissance, Paris demeurera pour autant «puissance globale» PAR FRÉDÉRIC CHARILLON

RUSSIA: BETWEEN CHAOS & DICTATORSHIP Russian history swings from systemic disorder and high ‘anomie’ to dictatorship. Can this cycle be broken? BY LEONID KOSALS

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Transforming the Art of Constitutional Transformation

ONE PAGER

The Arab Spring has laid bare important contradictions in best practices in constitution-making in transitional states

BY SUJIT CHOUDHRY

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stability is that the major political interests have their core interests reflected in the constitutional settlement.

The goal is to ensure that they have more to gain from living under a common constitutional order than by settling their disagreements in the streets. A successful constitutional process is one that is dominated by the most powerful political interests. Moreover, the result of that process should be a power-sharing arrangement that leaves no major interest without some public power. Stability trumps legitimacy.

The international community often promotes these two constitutional agendas side by side.

This produces policy incoherence and impedes international efforts to promote democratization. For instance, the first of the two constitutional agendas promotes inclusive constitutional processes, whereas the second offers a privileged role for those who wield power – especially if they are armed. The first favours early elections, whereas the second counsels that elections be deferred while trust is built among contending political forces. Finally, the first demands that constitutional drafting occur without preconditions or restraints, whereas the second provides guarantees to those who may lose power and rarely wield it again.

What is needed is the development of an integrated framework for international support of constitutional transitions. Instead of two competing agendas at war with each other, each should be seen as appropriate to different stages of the constitutional process. When trust is low, and the potential for political violence high, democratic processes should be delayed in favour of those that are centred on the current distribution of power. However, we also need to ensure that we can unwind power-sharing arrangements in favour of democratically elected regimes. The shift to democratic politics has to give those who could potentially lose power a stake in the system by providing them with the means to protect their fundamental interests. Electoral system design (e.g. proportional representation), legislative structure (e.g. bicameralism), legislative-executive relations (e.g. parliamentary government) and decision-rules (e.g. vetoes, super-majority requirements) are all designed to underwrite a shift to democratic politics.

In the rush toward democracy, it is tempting to gloss over these distinctions and contradictions. Constitutional lawyers are often accused of getting lost in the small technicalities, and of not seeing the bigger picture. But the details matter greatly to the success of constitutional transitions – and, to be sure, to the prospects of success for the Arab Spring. | GB

Sujit Choudhry is Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law, where he is the Faculty Director of the Center for Constitutional Transitions.

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onstitutional transformation is at the heart of the Arab Spring. To establish new democracies necessarily entails creating a new constitutional order. What requires urgent attention is the international community’s role in supporting these constitutional transitions.

International support for constitutional change suffers from the absence of a coherent, integrated agenda. Even worse, there are often agendas working at direct cross-purposes. International engagement is, as a result, often ineffective or counterproductive. The stakes could not be higher. Without good constitutions in place, the prospects for successful democratic transitions are grim indeed.

Constitutional transitions pervade modern political life. Since 1978, 185 new constitutions have been drafted and adopted around the world. New constitutions are central elements of regime change and democratization. Constitutional transitions are now globalized phenomena, drawing freely on ideas and people from around the world. Foreign constitutional systems serve as examples of models to be emulated, lessons to be learned, and dangers to be avoided. The international community deploys foreign constitutional expertise to support constitutional transitions.The Arab Spring is the latest chapter in this larger story. There is a very significant international effort underway to support constitutional transitions across the region.

Unfortunately, there are at present two competing agendas at work in current international efforts. One agenda views constitutional transitions as moments of mass democratic engagement that must occur in a process that is itself democratic at every stage. On this logic, a constitutional assembly should be chosen at the earliest possible opportunity in order to draft a new, post-authoritarian constitution. The assembly should invite broad public participation to set its agenda.

The debating and drafting of the constitutional text should take place in public, with ample opportunity for input by civil society. Finally, the entire constitution must be subject to democratic ratification in a popular referendum. This agenda is silent on the most divisive constitutional issues in transitional contexts. For example, on the choice of parliament versus president, or unitary versus federal state, proponents of this agenda have nothing to say. As long as a constitution has a democratic pedigree, it is legitimate.

A competing agenda sees constitutions as elite bargains.The most important ingredient for constitutional

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Le grand jeu «multi-vectoriel» des Kazakhs

IN SITU

Alors que les États-Unis et leurs alliés quittent l’Afghanistan, une nouvelle ère pourrait s’ouvrir pour la Chine dans la Grande Asie centrale GEORGIY VOLOSHIN depuis Astana

D Georgiy Voloshin est analyste auprès du Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program à l’Université

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John Hopkins.

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ans son discours du 22 juin 2011, le président américain Barack Obama a finalement annoncé le début du départ massif des forces armées des États-Unis déployées en Afghanistan suite aux attaques terroristes du 11 septembre 2001. Après la mort d’Oussama Ben Laden, la Maison Blanche s’est enfin ralliée à la cause de ceux qui s’opposaient à la guerre afghane tant pour ses coûts humains et matériels que pour son impact sur l’image de l’Amérique dans le monde musulman. Au moment où Obama faisait connaître sa décision – prise malgré les réticences manifestes du Pentagone et de certains «faucons» au sein de sa propre administration – le bilan de la guerre contre les Talibans en Afghanistan se peignait déjà en couleurs sombres: au moins 1 500 soldats tués et plus de 12 000 personnes blessées, alors que le coût du déploiement se chiffrait à environ deux milliards de dollars par semaine. Avec une autre guerre inachevée, celle-ci en Irak, les Américains avaient déjà perdu, avant le discours d’Obama, plus de 6 000 soldats et officiers engagés sur les deux fronts et auraient dépensé un billion de dollars.

La décision de retirer les troupes d’Afghanistan n’aura pas été facile pour les Américains et leurs partenaires régionaux. En dépit de certains progrès obtenus dans la lutte contre le terrorisme et l’extrémisme, la situation en Afghanistan même demeure préoccupante (voir l’article Query d’Arabinda Acharya et d’Antara Desai à la page 26): les Talibans continuent leurs raids contre les forces de la coalition, alors que le Pakistan semble sombrer de plus en plus dans l’instabilité politique. Le départ de l’OTAN prévu pour la fin de 2014 est considéré aujourd’hui par les pays voisins de l’Afghanistan, dont les républiques post-soviétiques situées en Asie centrale, comme un facteur géopolitique potentiellement déstabilisateur pour toute cette vaste région s’étendant du Caucase à l’ouest jusqu’en Chine à l’est, sans oublier le Moyen-Orient et l’Iran (voir l’article Feature de Sam Sasan Shoamanesh à la page 20). Le Kazakhstan reste l’un des acteurs régionaux les plus préoccupés par l’évolution de la situation sécuritaire de ses voisins et partenaires stratégiques, vu son rôle particulier dans le système des relations internationales de ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui la Grande Asie centrale.

Depuis les années 1990, le Kazakhstan s’est im-

posé comme le pays le plus stable du point de vue politique et le plus prometteur sur le plan économique parmi les cinq États nouvellement indépendants d’Asie centrale post-soviétique. Doté d’énormes réserves de ressources naturelles, dont principalement le pétrole, le gaz et l’uranium, le Kazakhstan a su établir des relations de coopération avec ses deux voisins influents, la Russie et la Chine, ainsi qu’avec le monde occidental, y compris avec les États-Unis. Alors que l’économie kazakhe, stimulée par la production énergétique, produisait des miracles en faisant valoir sa croissance spectaculaire (quoique ralentie lors de la crise russe de 1998), les autres républiques centre-asiatiques, dont l’Ouzbékistan, le Kirghizistan et le Tadjikistan, pâtissaient dans la stagnation chronique. Elles ont également dû affronter le défi de l’extrémisme local, le Tadjikistan ayant même connu une guerre civile (1992 à 1997) particulièrement sanglante et sans conclusion satisfaisante. Au même moment où le Kirghizistan essayait de réconcilier ses différentes ethnies, notamment les Kirghiz et les Ouzbeks, le gouvernement de Tachkent mettait au point des stratégies antiterroristes, après avoir été secoué par des attentats en 1999 et 2004.

La stabilité intérieure du Kazakhstan, due en partie à la politique dite multi-vectorielle inaugurée par son président Noursoultan Nazarbaïev depuis l’indépendance, a permis d’attirer des investissements considérables et de faire du territoire kazakh un «laboratoire» social et économique. Ces transformations profondes et soutenues lui ont valu la réputation de leader régional, au grand dam de l’Ouzbékistan qui prétendait également à ce statut, en raison de sa plus forte population (presque 30 millions d’habitants en 2012 contre 17,5 millions au Kazakhstan). Pourtant, l’année 2011 fut celle d’une rude mise à l’épreuve pour le «miracle kazakh»: les premières explosions ont retenti dans plusieurs villes en mai, en juin et puis en novembre. Elles furent toutes préparées par des forces extrémistes agissant de la même façon que dans d’autres républiques d’Asie centrale dans les années 1990 et 2000.

Ces événements tragiques ont clairement montré que, contrairement à l’idée reçue, le Kazakhstan n’était pas à l’abri du terrorisme, d’autant plus que les responsables des attaques contre les forces de l’ordre ont revendiqué leur appartenance à des

PHOTOGRAPHIE: LA PRESS CANADIENNE / AP / BORIS BUZIN

enues plus tendues: l’Ouzbékistan a annoncé fin juin 2012 la suspension de sa participation à l’Organisation du Traité sur la sécurité collective (créée en 2002 à l’initiative de Moscou), et le Tadjikistan continue d’exercer de la pression sur la Russie au sujet de sa base militaire (en cas de désaccord persistant, les Russes pourraient quitter le Tadjikistan dès 2014 ou peu après, affaiblissant ainsi encore plus la sécurité régionale).

Alors que les États-Unis risquent de perdre leur base logistique au Kirghizistan depuis laquelle ils ont réussi à assurer le ravitaillement de leurs troupes sur le théâtre de guerre afghan (le gouvernement kirghiz insiste sur sa fermeture en 2014), les pays européens sont submergés par des problèmes budgétaires et n’ont d’ailleurs pas de mécanismes institutionnels pour établir une présence militaire conjointe en Asie centrale. Dans ce contexte, la Chine semble devenir le dernier recours du Kazakhstan dans ses tentatives de préserver la stabilité politique et économique face aux défis grandissants du terrorisme et de l’extrémisme.

La Chine a toujours été intéressée par la stabilité et la sécurité de ses voisins centre-asiatiques, puisque son propre territoire n’est pas libre de mouvances extrémistes (la province occidentale de Xinjiang est largement peuplée de musulmans turcophones, dont certains participent à des organisations séparatistes visant à affaiblir le pouvoir des Chinois ethniques). L’Asie centrale, et le Kazakhstan en particulier, représentent également pour la Chine une source importante d’approvisionnement en matières premières, Pékin étant déjà devenu le plus grand client énergétique du Kazakhstan et de l’Ouzbékistan. Une éventuelle rupture des fournitures de pétrole et de gaz depuis l’Ouest est considérée par Pékin comme une vraie menace à la stabilité de ses propres régions occidentales dont les industries utilisent exclusivement les hydrocarbures importés d’Asie centrale. À travers l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai fondée par la Russie, la Chine et leurs partenaires centreasiatiques en 2001, Pékin pourrait promouvoir avec encore plus de dynamisme son influence bénigne apparentée au soft power. Néanmoins, il n’est pas exclu que le Kazakhstan soit tenté par une coopération plus étroite avec la Chine dans le domaine militaire. Alors que la Russie connaît des problèmes de crédibilité dans sa lutte contre le terrorisme régional, la Chine pourrait bien supplanter son partenaire russe en Asie centrale. | GB

Des ouvriers kazakhs travaillent dans le chantier de la Compagnie pétrolière nationale de Chine, qui est située dans les environs d’Aktyubinsk au Kazakhstan.

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groupes extrémistes basés plus au sud, notamment en Afghanistan (il s’agissait dans la plupart des cas de l’organisation Jund al-Khilafah).

Avant même que de telles attaques ne se produisent dans un pays relativement paisible et tranquille comme le Kazakhstan, le président Nazarbaïev avait identifié l’Afghanistan comme source potentielle d’instabilité en Asie centrale. Lors de la présidence kazakhe à l’Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE) en 2010, Nazarbaïev a proposé d’élaborer une nouvelle stratégie pour l’Afghanistan qui aurait pour nouveauté la volonté explicite de négocier avec les Talibans en faveur de la paix afghane. Depuis 2006, le Kazakhstan a déjà fourni une aide financière non négligeable à Kaboul. Néanmoins, la stabilisation de l’Afghanistan est et restera l’objectif partagé de plusieurs pays, car aucun d’entre eux ne pourrait l’atteindre seul.

Sans attendre le départ définitif de l’Afghanistan de la part des Américains et de leurs alliés, le Kazakhstan cherche à nouer des partenariats politiques et militaires plus étroits avec les États les plus intéressés par la paix à Kaboul.

La Russie demeure toujours le plus grand acteur militaire en Asie centrale, ses bases étant actuellement déployées au Kirghizistan et au Tadjikistan. Depuis des années, Moscou assume les fonctions de garante de la sécurité tadjike à la frontière avec l’Afghanistan. Alors que les relations bilatérales entre le Kazakhstan et la Russie sont toujours particulièrement fortes, les événements récents, tant en Russie qu’en Asie centrale, laissent à penser que Moscou aurait du mal à maintenir sa position de leadership sur la scène centre-asiatique (voir l’article Feature de Leonid Kosals à la page 48).

Les protestations du début de 2012 contre le retour de Vladimir Poutine à la présidence et l’incertitude prégnante sur les marchés énergétiques mettent le Kremlin dans une position précaire: d’un côté, les dirigeants russes sont contraints de s’occuper davantage de la situation nationale, de l’autre, il existe des doutes sur la capacité de la Russie à assurer la même rente pétrolière et gazière qui a permis la stabilité politique et la prospérité économique lors des deux premiers mandats de Poutine (2000 à 2008).

La Russie est également absorbée par sa dispute irrésolue avec Washington concernant le projet de bouclier antimissile en Europe de l’Est, sans oublier l’actualité internationale impliquant les Russes (notamment la crise syrienne). Enfin, les relations entre Moscou et les capitales régionales sont dev-

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TÊTE À TÊTE

Navigating Asia’s Tricky Inflection Points GB explores the rising continent’s transformations, contradictions, risks and opportunities with one of Asia-Pacific’s most charismatic strategists Conversation with KISHORE MAHBUBANI

Kishore Mahbubani

GB: Are we seeing a convergence or a divergence of interests and values between the West and Asia?

is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

His new book is The Great Convergence: Asia, the West and the Logic of One World.

KM: There is a convergence of interests and, to some extent, also a convergence of perspectives on the state of the world as a whole. In terms of the convergence of interests, we might offer a very simple image: until the current era, people living in separate countries – or on separate boats, as it were – needed rules and global order to make sure that the countries or boats did not collide. Today, the seven billion people in the world no longer live on separate boats. Rather, they live in separate cabins on the same boat, but with no captain or crew to care for the boat as a whole. So the convergence of interests lies clearly in the seven billion people realizing that they are on the very same boat, and that they have to work together in order to survive and prosper. You want proof? Just look at the current financial crisis (see the Tête à Tête interview with Martin Wolf at p.

30). In the past, when Greece fell, the world did not care. Today, when Greece is on the brink, the whole global economy gets extremely nervous. So we are all deeply interconnected – we are on the same boat.

If you look at global warming or climate change or pandemics, no one country can solve these issues, as they are all borderless.

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GB: Is this more a convergence of circumstances than a real convergence of interests?

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KM: It is a convergence of interests. As we saw at the G20 meeting in London in April 2009, all of the leaders realized that, unless they all chipped in together, the global boat would collapse and founder. That is a very clear convergence of interests. Of course, as one digs deeper, one sees that while most countries do believe this, sovereign national interests still come first. Over three and a half centuries have passed, and countries are still operating on the European Westphalian model of sovereignty. We need to change the thinking of leaders and states.

GB: But some parts of the world seem to have concluded that they either do not wish to be part of a global project, or simply see the endgame of the global project in different terms. Would you agree?

KM: More and more people in the world today are actually embracing globalization. The great paradox is that the one society that has preached the virtues of globalization the most – the US – is now the least prepared to deal with the consequences of globalization. America’s population is among the least educated populations in the world in terms of how the world has changed and transformed itself. On the other hand, China has opened up quite significantly, signed treaties, and is prepared to engage in a global order.

GB: So you are more impressed by up-and-coming generations of Chinese leaders than American leaders?

KM: Obama is himself a very impressive figure, but his hands are tied by a political situation at home that makes it impossible for him to do anything (see Strategic Futures at p. 62). On climate change, for instance, he went to Copenhagen empty-handed. He could not make any kind of concessions to increase the price of greenhouse gas emissions, because that would have been political suicide for him back in the US. So individual American leaders may be impressive, but the political circumstances in America make it impossible for the US to make the necessary compromises for success. Overall, the environmental record of the US is definitely better than that of China – let us be clear about that. However, from a long-term perspective, the Chinese government realizes that climate change and the environment in general are major challenges for the country.

China is therefore actually working more seriously toward a long-term plan to deal with reductions in its increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Beijing is investing heavily in solar technology, in wind turbines, and so on. So the Chinese deeds actually speak louder than the American deeds.

GB: Asia is clearly far from a monolith. What is your mental map of Asia?

KM: Geographically, Asia extends from Israel to Japan.

GB: In that case, East Asia would seem to be doing far better than West Asia. What are the ties

The last 200 years of Western domination of world history have been a major historical aberration.

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PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF KISHORE MAHBUBANI

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that bind East Asia and West Asia?

KM: The best thing that the Arabs can do is to change their mental maps. When I speak in the Arab world, I say that if one wishes to see a city of the past, then go to Paris, because the Arabs love Paris – they love to go to Europe. And Europe, frankly, represents the past. Asia represents the future. And the Arabs cannot accept that. I do not know why.

Arab governments should send young Arabs to study in Asian universities – to see how well young Asians are doing, and to try to compete with them and do as well as them. Unfortunately, if you look at the perceptions of today’s Americans toward, say, Indians, and that of the Arabs toward Indians, it is a case of exact opposites. The Arabs only see the Indian migrant workers who come to work for a few dollars a day in Dubai. For them, the Indians are a group that is below them. But when Americans in 2012 look at Indians – the highest per-capita income group in America, having recently overtaken even the Jewish community – they see Indians as super-smart, supercapable and highly successful.

In this sense, the Arabs do not realize how much Asia has progressed over the last 20 to 30 years. They have to educate themselves really massively.

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GB: Is Russia in Asia?

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KM: I actually do not understand Russia. It seems to me that every time that the Russians come to a fork in the road, they take the wrong path. At the beginning of the last century, when the tsar fell, they were the first to experiment with communism. The communists consulted Karl Marx’s works and asked, “Can we go straight from feudalism to communism?”

Marx would have admonished, “You cannot, because you have to first become capitalist.” But the Russians did not listen to Marx, and they tried going straight from feudalism to communism – unsuccessfully. It was a 70-year experiment that failed.

As for the Chinese, after 30 years, they corrected themselves. They made and have continued to make very quick, pragmatic adjustments. What the Russians should have realized is that, before trying to fix a political system, the first thing to do is to change the economy. After communism failed, the Russians again got this ordering wrong: they went from communism to democracy overnight, and the economy imploded. Their GDP became smaller than that of Belgium. Russian infant mortality rates went up. Life expectancy went down (see the Feature article by Leonid Kosals at p. 48). So once again, the Russians chose the wrong path. And the

Russians became very bitter toward the West. Now it is this bitterness that keeps Putin in power. I can understand this Russian anger toward the West.

Consider this: even though Russia became a member of the G8, while China did not, it was nevertheless China that joined the WTO before Russia. This is just remarkable: joining the WTO is far more important than joining the G8. That Russia did not understand this sequencing is puzzling.

The Russians must in some ways learn more from China, if they can. Beijing, which in the 1970s was so far behind Moscow, is today well ahead.

GB: What would you recommend if you were to brief Vladimir Putin?

KM: If one looks at the statistics coming out of the Institute for International Education (IIE) in New York, China now sends over 150,000 students per annum to American universities. India sends over 100,000. And then I think that there are other Asian states, like Korea, Taiwan and so on that are doing the same. Russia is way down there. Russia should begin by sending 100,000 young Russians each year to study in American universities. That will expose them to a different mindset, and make them aware and open up. That way Russia can open up and compete with the rest of the world. Number two, Russia should move away from its present heavy reliance on oil and gas and commodities, and try to develop the kind of modern economy that the Soviet Union in many ways had for a good number of years. In addition, Russia should become a champion for a more open world. The Russians should not allow their anger toward the West to dominate Russia’s interests. Moscow can play a wonderful balancing game between China and Europe and America. It is in an ideal geopolitical position to do so. But to play that balancing game, it has to develop good relations with everyone.

GB: What are the key fault lines in Asia in the coming years and decades?

KM: There are many, many fault lines in Asia. Start with the Korean peninsula; then move to the Taiwan Straits; and, of course, the South China Sea. One can see fault lines among Southeast Asian states; between India and Pakistan; and in West Asia – in the Arab world, Iran and Israel (see the Feature article

by Sam Sasan Shoamanesh at p. 20). All of these fault lines have been around and will continue to be around for a long time. The only question is: how will Asia manage them? In the past, there would have been a propensity toward war. As you know, Asia saw four of the biggest military conflicts of the post-WW2 period: the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Sino-Vietnamese war and also the Iran-Iraq war.

But today, the guns are silent. This silence speaks very powerfully. No Asian country wants to get involved in any kind of major war today. That is partly because war is itself a sunset industry. Steven Pinker writes about this in The Better Angels of Our Nature (see the Tête à Tête interview with Steven Pinker in GB’s Fall 2011 issue).

GB: How do you see Asia managing its relationships with major powers on other continents – especially the US and Russia?

KM: The most difficult relationship is always the one between the world’s number one power and the world’s number one emerging power. The world’s number one power today is the US. The world’s number one emerging power is China. We have to watch that relationship carefully. Clearly, there should be rising tension between these two. What is remarkable is that the level of tension is at present not rising. In fact, the Chinese have in many ways wisely created a very high degree of interdependence between the two countries, such that China relies on America to buy its exports, and America relies on China to buy its US treasury bills.

Of course, this does not at all mean that there will be no trouble and no competition between China and the US. In the South China Sea, the US is quite happy to see China having problems with its neighbours. But there is no danger of a war breaking out in the immediate future between the US and China. There is no danger of a breakdown in relations. There will just be friction from time to time. For now, the frictions are manageable.

GB: Surely it is impossible to foresee a centurylong Chinese rise or resurgence without some sort of conflict?

GB: What are the key internal challenges for China over the next 10 or 15 years?

KM: The first one is political, because China is going to have the world’s largest middle class very soon – if it does not already have it. And managing an established middle class is much harder than managing people who are rising from poverty and moving toward the middle class. The second challenge, of course, is to deal with inequality and corruption in the country. As corruption continues to grow in China, and as the gap between the wealthy and the non-wealthy becomes greater and greater, there will certainly be increased pressures on Beijing for corrective action. The third great challenge is probably the environment. On some days, in some Chinese cities, one can look out of one’s hotel room window and not see the building next door. No one wants to live with that kind of air quality. The problem needs to be addressed urgently. So the Chinese have incredible internal challenges to worry about.

GB: What will be the endgame in the current South China Sea impasse?

KM: No one can predict the endgame. The endgame that the Chinese fancy is to delay resolving the South China Sea dispute for as long as possible, because time is on China’s side. So the Chinese want to wait and wait, and when they become more and more powerful, and there are no other great powers in the region, they will be in a better position to negotiate the outcome. From the other countries’ point of view, they would prefer to try to use international law to resolve the impasse.

Nothing is going to happen in the immediate future, because China is so focussed on its domestic transition this fall. As such, no Chinese leader is in a position to make any kind of concessions. When a new leadership emerges, and if the new Chinese president feels strong enough, then I think that the Chinese will revert to their traditional method of finding very pragmatic solutions. They will say, “Let’s try not to resolve who’s right and who’s wrong. Let’s just agree that you allow me to fish here, I’ll allow you to explore for oil, and we’ll carry on.”

To read the rest of the interview with Kishore

If America – a country with zero historical baggage – takes some 200 years to achieve full democracy, then for China, which has some 3,000 years’ worth of historical baggage, democracy in 100 years would be nothing short of a miracle.

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KM: The rise of China will not go in a straight line; it will certainly be up and down. But the trajectory will be upward. There will be challenges, to be sure. In fact, one reason for which the Chinese government is trying to carefully stay away from international adventurism is that it knows that it has a lot to do at home. China will become the world’s biggest economy in purchasing power parity terms in 2016 – only a little over three years from now. Still, China’s leaders realize that their entire legitimacy comes from being able to deliver economic development at home. That is what they are going to focus on.

Remember, the number one test for China is how it transforms its political system. The Chinese Communist Party cannot run China forever. At some point, it too has to become democratic. That will happen.

I would add that that US, which preached the idea of the equality of all people in 1776, took 89 years to abolish slavery – which is the exact opposite of

said equality. It took 144 years to give women the right to vote. It took 189 years to give blacks the effective right to vote. If America – a country with zero historical baggage – takes some 200 years to achieve full democracy, then for China, which has some 3,000 years’ worth of historical baggage, democracy in 100 years would be nothing short of a miracle.

Mahbubani, visit: www.globalbrief.ca

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Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, former head of the UK government’s strategy unit, and

How the current global crisis may trigger a transformation of the world’s systems

former head of the

BY GEOFF MULGAN

Prime Minister’s policy unit. His upcoming book is The Locust and the Bee.

SYSTEMS SUCCESS, FAILURE & REBIRTH

G LO B A L B R I E F • FA L L 2 0 1 2

hen the world slumped into depression

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in 1929, it took a long time for the right diagnosis to be made, let alone the right prescription for recovery. Only after the passage of another 15 years and a devastating world war were the right moves made to prepare for prosperity across most of the developed world. (Only a handful of countries, including New Zealand and Sweden, and to a lesser extent the US, got there faster.) Sixty years before the Great Depression, the slump was equally protracted.

The Long Depression, which began in 1873 and ran until the end of the 1870s, prompted radical shifts in public policy, including state-led industrialization and the birth of the modern welfare state. Similar leaps forward – in science, industrial production and government organization – were forced by the great wars of the last century. In all cases, the depth of the crisis prompted a step-change in what we would today call ‘collective intelligence’ – that is, the ability of systems to generate knowledge and coordinate complex activities. In each case, too, politics changed, finding new ways to bring more of the public into governance, whether in national politics or in the workplace. Bref, the disruptions and dislocations caused by economic crises and military conflict opened up space for radically new ideas that would have been resisted for much longer in more stable times.

Of course, in the throes of crisis, most of the people at the top could only see the chaos, not the order that was coming. New ideas were not strong enough to displace old ones. Nearly half a decade into the current crisis, this pattern is being repeated. From close up, all that is visible are leaders struggling to restore what they had before, in an endless circuit of summits, task forces and emergency stimulus packages. For them, this is at best a barren crisis, where the most that can be hoped for is a return to the status quo ante. Indeed, most interpret their mandate as involving recovery and the restoration of growth, but not radical transformation.

ILLUSTRATION: HARRY CAMPBELL

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Seen in the long view, however, there are signs that we are on the cusp of another jump forward in collective intelligence. A financial system that had lost sight of its role as a servant of the real economy is not the only system in need of drastic change (see the Tête à Tête conversation with Martin Wolf at p. 30).

The systems that provide us with energy, health, social care, transport, food and knowledge are also being remade in ways as radical as those of 70 years ago. (The word ‘system’ is often overused: we use it here to refer to the complex, interconnected arrangements of multiple institutions, roles, technologies and flows that now provide us with many of the essentials of daily life.) Each of these systems is, at present, visibly broken: energy systems designed to produce and distribute energy, but not to use it well; a food system that generates worsening obesity; a health system dominated by hospitals ill-suited to populations suffering from long-term conditions, including mental illness; social care systems wholly unprepared for rapid ageing; and, among others, economic systems that still suffer profound imbalances of unused resources and unmet needs. In each case, these systems that now look broken are as much victims of success as anything else. As so often, success repeated itself until it finally became failure, which is why those at the heart of each of these systems are often the last to understand how they need to change.

How should we understand the present crisis and its longer-term aftermath? Many of the causes of the crisis were distinct: the subprime problems, the deep imbalances, the inflated risks and rewards of finance. Still, in many ways, these causes echo those of previous economic crises, which began with overreach, as greed fuelled price bubbles – in land, housing or stocks – and in some instances outright fraud. Each time, overreach culminated in a crash (1873, 1929 and 2008) and a juddering series of financial crises, which in turn spilled over into broader economic stagnation. Economic crisis would lead to fiscal crisis, as rising demands on government coincided with shrinking revenues.

Only then, after everything else – usually including protectionism – had been tried, did populations and governments turn to genuinely new solutions in order to reconstitute their institutions in ways that allowed for a return to growth.

On this logic, we are still in the early stages of the crisis. To be sure, the debates in most of the West are strikingly unimaginative – a battle between traditional austerity and traditional stimulus. The most creative ideas – from peer-to-peer finance and collaborative consumption to web activism and urban agriculture – seem to be distant from the decision-makers, and largely ignored in the mainstream media.

How will we work our way out? Three big shifts

may well define the coming few years: shifts in how we handle predation; shifts in how we organize creativity; and, finally, changes to the very systems on which our lives depend.

The first key shift requires us to rein in the predatory side of capitalism, and to put right the distortions that led to vastly inflated rewards for finance, bubbles in property, sharply widening inequality and chronic waste. We know that predation is endemic to human societies, and that much of human history consists of attempts to protect us from predators – including those who claim to be working in our interests. All progress in global affairs has involved raising the costs of predation – for rising imperial powers, for rogue states, or even for states with a predilection for bombing their own citizens. And a good deal of progress in economic affairs has involved restraining the predation that is common in market economies, from monopolists overcharging, to traders colluding and lobbyists seeking special privileges, to employers exploiting employees. Indeed, whole sectors can at times become predators: finance in the 2000s, for instance, sucked value out of the rest of the economy on a phenomenal scale, exploiting asymmetries of information and favourable regulations that gave financial institutions rewards for risk, while protecting them from the costs.

Some of this predation is highly visible. We naturally resent predators, and are well-attuned to spotting predation, which is why greedy bankers and corrupt politicians elicit such contempt. When not very smart investors become immensely rich, the public can sense that something is not quite right.

Some 80 years ago, the very visible predation of what Roosevelt called “economic royalists” coloured contemporary American politics. Yet in today’s complex, interconnected economies, predation is often invisible, hidden in complex financial tools that are scarcely understood even by the firms selling them, with no contact or line of sight between predator and prey.

C

omplex systems allow for new connections between different types of predation. For example, financial predation worsens ecological predation by demanding larger, shorterterm returns that incentivize the running down of natural assets. (Progress toward better accounting measures, regulations and taxes that properly reflect natural capital or ecological services in market prices has been painfully slow.) Financial predation also creates a tiny class of super-rich people with tendencies to exceptional waste in consumption, from the billionaire owners of a dozen homes – most of which are scarcely used – to the moderately wealthy buyers

of clothes that are worn only once.

Capitalism was born out of puritanical distaste for the waste and profligacy of monarchy and feudalism.

But it has now more than matched the system that it displaced. As a result, all solutions to the present crisis must rein in this destructive predation: returning finance to a service industry; reflecting the costs of externalities in market prices; and discouraging the more wasteful forms of consumption – not least by shifting taxation away from labour and toward land and property.

I

History suggests that, in each crisis, a tipping point is reached, at which point the costs and inefficiencies of inherited systems become inescapable, and new ideas take advantage of the bankruptcy of the old.

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f predation is the dark, zero-sum side of the modern, interconnected economy, where gains for some mean losses for others, then the flip side is the positive-sum world of networks and creative ideas, where gains for some spill over for others. Each mobile phone user, for instance, creates new value for existing ones.

Each new piece of knowledge increases the wealth of everyone who might use it. Technologies like the computer have given great wealth to, say, Bill Gates and Michael Dell, but even more to everyone else. Luckily, we live in an era in which this sort of positive value is exploding. Many nations worldwide are driving up investment in R&D: at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, we estimate a four- to five-fold global rise in R&D investment by 2050 – largely thanks to Brazil, India and China (see the Tête à Tête interview with Kishore Mahbubani at p. 8) – alongside a proliferation of new tools for open innovation, crowd-sourcing and collective intelligence that will mobilize millions of minds to solve problems.

Many of the tools of late 20th century innovation policy have faltered. These failed policies included overemphasis on a linear flow of intellectual property out of universities, cookie-cutter science parks, and public subsidies for venture capital. But the bigger picture is one in which innovation policy is becoming more central, more sophisticated and better funded.

From school systems to everyday life, we are seeing intense specialization by technologists working in large teams on new materials and genomics, fastmoving creative industries like fashion and music, and new tools for mobilizing mass creativity.

The third area of change will come in how we organize the systems on which everyday life depends. Past great crises prompted dramatic shifts in how systems are organized – including the spread of telegraph, rail and electricity, as well as pension systems and unemployment insurance. The Great Depression paved the way for the mass adoption of cars and consumer goods, as well as welfare states, the UN and macroeconomic management.

Now, once again, many of the basic systems that surround us and sustain life look antiquated and ill-suited to the times. We have already noted the problems of health systems dominated by ever more

expensive hospitals that cure rather than promote prevention and healthy living. Huge investments in pharmaceuticals and medical procedures have brought diminishing returns, and are not matched by investments in behavioural change or environmental improvement – despite the evidence that these are likely to do more to cut mortality. Pensions and social care systems have barely begun to adapt to older populations suffering from diabetes or cardiac disease – ailments that require patients to play a much larger role in managing their own health. Our energy systems pump out energy, but do little to economize or reduce: smart meters, grids and renewables are all still marginal, and most of the industry is incentivized by volumes sold, rather than by how much these volumes contribute to warmth or mobility. Transport systems are dominated by cars with technologies not so different from a century ago. Even today’s systems of democracy, still largely stuck in the 19th century world of parliaments, parties and occasional elections, look outmoded, insufficiently flexible and responsive for the times, and poor at generating legitimacy for difficult decisions. And yet, as before, jumps forward in how we organize the big systems of daily life usually involve innovations in political life, enabling more and more people to take part in public debate and decision-making.

In the short-run, systems change will appear exceedingly difficult against a backdrop of slow growth and fiscal squeeze. However, history suggests that, in each crisis, a tipping point will be reached – a point at which the costs and inefficiencies of inherited systems become inescapable, and new ideas take advantage of the bankruptcy of the old. Finance is a good case in point. While huge efforts have gone into reviving the existing financial system – from quantitative easing to emergency loans and bailouts – some of the brightest younger shapers of the field are imagining what might come next, including far greater standardization of financial languages and risk assessment (by analogy with the ways in which standardized barcodes transformed trade in goods, and standardization of URLs and IP addresses made the Internet possible). There is also growing interest in how new tools like crowd-funding or peer-to-peer finance might render the costly bureaucracies of big banks obsolete. For now, of course, the new is too weak to replace the old. Still, it may be a matter of when, and not whether, this happens.

Or take food. The world’s food system has become remarkably efficient at production. Nevertheless, with forecasts that obesity will soon account for a majority of the population in some Western countries – with disastrous consequences for health – success has, once again, repeated itself until it has become failure. Radically new ways of thinking about consumption and production are therefore taking shape in everything from the industry of health-enhanced

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All progress in global affairs has involved raising the costs of predation – for rising imperial powers, for rogue states, or even for states with a predilection for bombing their own citizens.

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foods to urban agriculture and organics. Of course, the new is still too weak to displace the old. But the pace of change seems to have accelerated through the current crisis, and the more far-sighted thinkers within the food industry now realize that many of their erstwhile assumptions about global food will soon become outmoded.

There is a common element to all of these examples of potential systems change – to wit, the deepening and growth of the digital world that mirrors the everyday economy. The visible side of the digital economy can be seen in iPads and smartphones, YouTube, Google and Facebook. However, the invisible side of this economy may be even more important, as transactions data, analytics and ‘big data’ of all kinds become larger in value, and more influential in reshaping the day-to-day practice of businesses and other organizations. Healthcare is already being transformed by far more feedback, including everything from real-time feedback on blood pressure to data on mortality rates and qualitative reports of patient experience. This is changing the lives of clinicians: UK heart surgeons, for instance, have had their survival rates published for several years now, with dramatic effects on performance. This may have even more impact on patients who benefit not just from devices to monitor their conditions, but also from linking up with other patients with similar conditions. In short, government is being transformed and shaken up by transparency around data. Everyday life is becoming more quantified, more reflexive and more self-aware.

Once again, we may see a step-change in the mobilization of collective intelligence.

Another sign of the coming change is the rising visibility of social innovation, which links together the desire to constrain predatory behaviour, the interest in social creativity, and the need to transform systems. In the last quarter of the 20th century, innovation meant ‘stuff’ – that is, hardware and technology. Governments consequently competed to bump up their spending on R&D, with a few like Israel and Finland going well above three percent of GDP. Having said this, in all of the most important systems, it has become apparent that technological innovation alone is not enough. Technical fixes for climate change are simply not sufficiently powerful unless matched by behavioural change. Likewise in the health sector, smart drugs and treatments are often both too costly and insufficiently effective to tackle the big health challenges like dementia, obesity or diabetes – challenges that now account for the majority of health spending in developed countries. In time, we will undoubtedly see extraordinary new treatments resulting from the interaction of genomics, bioengineering, neuroscience and the other life sciences. In the meantime, however, new models of innovation are taking shape, linking behaviour and psychology, social change, as well

as technology and economics. The embryos of new institutions are taking shape across the world – centres for social innovation, labs, incubators and funds that will, in the next few decades, become as visible as the scientific laboratories at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of this is being led from the South – particularly from India and Brazil, where radical traditions of innovation in civil society are coming together with the rapid diffusion of new technologies, unencumbered by the vested interests that often block change in the North. A good example of this is the way in which East Africa has pioneered new uses of the mobile phone for banking and healthcare, developing more efficient methods for distributing money and information that would surely be blocked by regulators in the North.

If social innovation is bringing with it far more multipolar global patterns – that is, with many more places becoming sources of influential ideas – then what of the bigger picture of how the long crisis will play out in geopolitics? Past crises often left the tectonic plates irreversibly shifted. WW1 destroyed the big empires. The Great Depression ultimately consolidated the US’s economic dominance. At first glance, the current crisis should consolidate the shift in power to China and India, revive Africa, and strengthen major roles for Russia and Brazil.

(See the Feature article by Leonid Kosals on Russian anomie at p. 48.) But linear forecasts may mislead.

Past forecasts of the supremacy of the USSR and the transformation of Japan into a superpower are warnings of how apparently obvious linear trends may prove misleading. Europe is in a funk of declinism at the moment, and may well be consigned to a much more marginal role by mid-century. Of course, extreme declinism has in the past crystallized at the very moment when the trends were about to bend: consider France in the 1940s (see the Feature article

by Frédéric Charillon at p. 42), the UK in the 1970s or the US in the late 1980s, each of which convinced itself that it was in irreversible decline, when in fact it was on the brink of decades of unprecedented growth and prosperity.

Moreover, it remains unclear which types of society will deal with a new era of systems change most effectively. We might expect fast-growing developing countries that can jump to entirely new systems to benefit most from new opportunities – perhaps using fuel cell-based smart grids, pension models that reward much later retirement, or healthcare based on co-production and more structured partnerships between clinicians and patients. But the old countries have adapted before. And they may yet surprise and turn out to have untapped reserves of adaptable intelligence. That is the fascinating thing about crises: they throw the pieces up in the air. No one can be quite sure where they will land. | GB

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Où en est la transition démocratique en Tunisie ?

IN SITU

La lenteur et les anciens dogmes risquent de saper l’élan de la révolution PAR AMNA GUELLALI depuis Tunis

D Amna Guellali est chercheuse à Human

G LO B A L B R I E F • FA L L 2 0 1 2

Rights Watch.

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epuis un an et demi, la Tunisie n’a cessé de vivre les soubresauts d’une transition démocratique amorcée au lendemain de la fuite de Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, le 14 janvier 2011. Dans un contexte social explosif, une économie en berne et une conjoncture sécuritaire précaire, la classe politique tunisienne avance en tâtonnant. Le portrait que l’on puisse dresser de la situation actuelle en Tunisie est en demi-teinte, avec des progrès dans certains domaines, des immobilismes dans d’autres, et les prémices d’un recul sur un certain nombre de questions essentielles pour la démocratie naissante. Les polémiques qui entourent l’adoption de la nouvelle Constitution, le retard de la mise en place de réformes décisives dans le domaine de la justice, des médias et des élections, ainsi que les menaces qui pèsent sur les libertés individuelles ont peu à peu entaché ou mitigé les avancées réalisées durant les premiers mois de la transition.

Le processus d’élaboration de la nouvelle Constitution de la Tunisie a été émaillé de nombreuses polémiques reflétant la polarisation de la société tunisienne entre les tenants d’une référence islamique et les partis laïcs qui militent pour la séparation du religieux et du politique. Alors que certaines protections fondamentales telles que l’interdiction de la torture et son imprescriptibilité, la liberté d’association, le droit à un procès équitable, et certains droits sociaux et économiques ont fait l’objet d’un consensus, les droits et libertés qui ont un rapport avec la religion ont formé la pierre d’achoppement du processus constitutionnel.

Les crises se sont ainsi succédées au sein des commissions constitutionnelles de l’Assemblée nationale constituante (ANC) en charge de préparer chacune un projet de texte relatif à un chapitre de la Constitution. Ces textes seront débattus en plénière puis votés article par article à la majorité absolue des élus, puis à la majorité des deux tiers pour le projet entier de Constitution. Dans la Commission 1, les membres du groupe parlementaire Ennahda ont avancé en mars dernier l’idée de l’inscription de la charia en tant qu’une des sources législatives principales dans le préambule. Ennahda a reculé suite au tollé provoqué dans la société tunisienne, mais la question des limites religieuses aux droits et libertés n’est pas enterrée pour autant.

C’est ensuite dans la Commission 2 que

l’affrontement se poursuit sur les limites aux libertés publiques et individuelles. En mai dernier, la discussion sur la liberté de conscience a abouti à la victoire du camp conservateur par l’adoption à la majorité de neuf voix contre huit d’un article qui énonce la garantie par l’État de la liberté de religion et de culte, tout en prévoyant la criminalisation de l’atteinte au sacré, notion vague qui laisse une grande marge d’interprétation aux autorités et qui pourrait vider la liberté d’expression de son sens. En juillet, la tendance est inversée lors du vote sur l’article 26 qui concerne la liberté d’expression, où le camp laïc réussit à inscrire des limites très étroites à la liberté d’expression en proposant que celle-ci ne soit restreinte que par la loi qui protège la liberté d’autrui (y compris sa santé et sa sécurité), qui protège contre la diffamation, et qui interdit d’exercer un contrôle anticipatif sur ces libertés.

La nécessité de trouver un équilibre entre deux tendances antagonistes aboutit souvent à l’adoption d’un texte hétérogène. C’est alors que le projet de préambule fait cohabiter plusieurs référents culturels et politiques, tels que «les constantes de l’islam et ses objectifs, caractérisés par l’ouverture et la modération», ainsi que «les nobles valeurs humanistes».

Le caractère hybride de ces références et leur formulation très floue minimise les sources juridiques plus solides et concrètes.

Les avancées démocratiques de la première phase de la transition ont peu à peu été sapées par la lenteur des réformes qui auraient dû consolider la démocratie naissante. Durant les premiers mois suivant la chute de Ben Ali, les autorités de transition se sont attelées à concevoir le cadre juridique nécessaire aux futures élections. De nouvelles lois sur les partis politiques et les associations, sur la presse et les médias audiovisuels, ainsi que la loi électorale pour les élections de l’ANC voient le jour. Elles tranchent avec les lois liberticides mises en place par le régime de Ben Ali en créant les conditions d’un vrai pluralisme politique renforcé par la mise en place d’institutions indépendantes. Au lendemain des élections, cependant, beaucoup restait encore à faire. L’ANC devait s’atteler au plus tôt à l’adoption de nouvelles lois sur la justice, à la mise en place d’une nouvelle instance indépendante et permanente pour les élections et une haute autorité indépendante pour l’audiovisuel. Malheureusement, le bilan dans tous ces domaines critiques semble plutôt

négatif. Des lenteurs, des incohérences et des obstructions politiques ont ralenti ou même saboté l’avancée des réformes.

Par exemple, le système judiciaire n’a toujours pas été doté d’un cadre adéquat pour assurer son indépendance. Sous Ben Ali, le Conseil supérieur de la magistrature (CSM), qui contrôlait tous les aspects de la carrière et de la vie professionnelle des magistrats, servait de vecteur au pouvoir exécutif, qui assurait directement ou indirectement la nomination de 13 de ses 19 membres. En décembre 2011, l’ANC décide sa suspension et prévoit d’adopter une nouvelle autorité provisoire et indépendante en charge de la magistrature. En juillet 2012, un projet de loi sur l’instance provisoire de la magistrature est discuté en plénière à l’ANC: il représente une avancée importante par rapport à l’ancien CSM, mais les discussions aboutissent à une impasse, les élus butant dès les premiers débats sur la question de l’étendue et des modalités pour assurer l’indépendance de la nouvelle autorité. Le projet est suspendu étant donné l’impossibilité d’atteindre les 109 voix nécessaires pour adopter le premier article de la loi. Cette situation mène à un vide juridique et institutionnel favorable à un plus grand interventionnisme de la part du pouvoir exécutif dans les affaires judicaires.

En conséquence, le ministre de la Justice a ainsi procédé directement et de manière unilatérale à la nomination, l’avancement et la révocation des juges depuis la suspension effective du CSM en décembre 2011.

D

PHOTOGRAPHIE: LA PRESS CANADIENNE / AP / HASSENE DRIDI

En août 2012, pendant la grève générale dans la ville de Sidi Bouzid, berceau de la révolution tunisienne de l’année dernière, un Tunisien passe par un graffiti qui proclame: «Pour ceux qui veulent être libres».

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ans le domaine des médias, le même constat s’impose. Le décret-loi 116, promulgué par le gouvernement de transition en juillet 2011, prévoyait la création d’une instance indépendante de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle, qui devait bénéficier du soutien d’une grande partie de la classe politique et de la société civile et qui répondait aux critères internationaux sur l’indépendance des médias. Mais la mise en œuvre de la loi est bloquée par des dissensions politiques, tandis que la coalition au pouvoir intervient directement dans la nomination des directeurs généraux des médias publics, créant ainsi les conditions d’un contrôle de l’exécutif sur les médias.

Alors que les mois qui ont suivi la révolution tunisienne ont été porteurs d’espoirs et d’avancées importantes pour les droits humains, on a l’impression depuis quelque temps que la chape de plomb retombe

sur les libertés publiques et individuelles. De nombreux procès d’opinion ont eu lieu ces derniers mois, relançant une forme de censure que l’on croyait terminée avec la fuite de Ben Ali. La condamnation de Nabil Karoui à 2 400 dinars d’amende pour la diffusion du film «Persepolis», la sentence de sept ans et demi de prison contre deux athées pour leur écrits ironiques sur le prophète Mahomet, les violents incidents qui ont eu lieu lors d’une exposition artistique qui contenait selon certains des œuvres blasphématoires, les anathèmes prononcés régulièrement contre des artistes, des intellectuels ou des hommes politiques par des extrémistes religieux représentent des exemples inquiétants. Ce qui est encore plus déroutant est le laxisme général de l’État et son manque de volonté ou son incapacité à endiguer ces affrontements à la liberté.

Les acquis de la transition, tels que la reconquête de l’espace publique par les citoyens, une liberté de la presse et d’expression encore florissante, un pluralisme politique sans commune mesure avec le passé, apparaissent comme fragiles et tributaires de réformes en profondeur qui tardent à être mises en place. Les prochains mois seront décisifs pour savoir si la Tunisie basculera à nouveau dans l’autoritarisme d’un parti-État qui étouffera les libertés au nom de la religion ou si la classe politique dans son ensemble, ainsi que la société civile, réussiront à dépasser les clivages et à instaurer des institutions démocratiques durables qui servent à respecter et à protéger l’autorité de la loi et les droits fondamentaux. | GB

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Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Tehran, Iran, August 2012.

benefit of regional peace and security in this century.

In order to correct the regional order and place it on track toward greater stability, Middle Eastern states must imagine a shared, more prosperous future, and work collectively to establish a long-overdue regional security architecture – recalling that the Middle East today remains the only region in the world without a regional security and cooperation

A NEW SECURITY ORDER FOR THE MIDDLE EAST Sam Sasan Shoamanesh is Managing Editor of Global Brief.

The views expressed herein are those of the

G LO B A L B R I E F • FA L L 2 0 1 2

author alone.

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he Middle East is once again the theatre for one of the world’s major crises – this time in Syria. Sophists and spin doctors are, to be sure, reducing the complexity that is Syria to a good versus evil moral play. This convenient packaging obscures an inconvenient, more fundamental truth – to wit, that it is the existing regional order that is largely responsible for the perpetual insecurity and the endless recurrence of conflict in the Middle East.

Confusion about this diagnosis leads to blindness about an obvious remedy – that is, that this outdated order, a colonial concoction of the last century, must be overhauled, indigenously, for the

framework. Of course, the question is begged: how is it that a hyper-volatile region like the Middle East does not yet have a regional mechanism for managing and defusing conflict?

To date, with rare exceptions, any meaningful discussion concerning the creation of a security framework in the Middle East has focussed exclusively on the sub-region of the Persian Gulf.

More recently, due to the intensifying opposition to Iran’s nuclear programme and rising tensions among Persian Gulf littoral states, a number of American analysts have called for a NATO-style collective defence security regime for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in sole partnership with the US, in order to address regional threats.

Recent US efforts to create a missile defence system for the GCC, as well as increases in US arms sales to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are PHOTOGRAPH: THE CANADIAN PRESS / AP / AMR NABIL

The only region in the world without a security framework must at long last set about the task of creating one BY SAM SASAN SHOAMANESH

region, the greater the security preoccupations and countermeasures of a number of key regional countries, and the greater the divisions among states in the region.

Israel, due to its manifest security concerns, has over the years compiled an estimated 200 nuclear weapons (larger figures have been cited). Israel’s military strategy is to deter would-be aggressors and act ad libitum to eliminate any perceived threat to its national security on the strength of its clear – nuclear – military advantage in the region. While

Above: Rebel fighters

Iran and Israel once profited from close diplomatic relations, today they are regional rivals. Iran, partly in response to Israel’s military strength, as well as to US presence (encirclement) in the region, has been intensely upgrading its asymmetric warfare and overall military capabilities. And although there is no evidence that Tehran has to date made the political decision to build an atomic weapon, it is suspected of at least developing a virtual nuclear capability as part of its own national defence strategy.

The net result of this dynamic regional game is what John Herz describes as a “vicious circle of power competition and armament races, leading eventually to war.” Peter Jones, a Canadian analyst and regular GB writer, who was intimately involved in the Arms Control and Regional Security Working Group (ACRS) process in the 1990s, and who has led a comprehensive Track II diplomatic ef-

The flight deck of the

PHOTOGRAPHS: THE CANADIAN PRESS / AP / TOP: ANONYMOUS / ABOVE RIGHT: HASSAN AMMAR

in Damascus, Syria, April 2012.

Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Strait of Hormuz, February 2012.

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manifestations of this same strategic logic in action.

These external grand designs are, however, based on a number of false assumptions that doom them to failure. First, they rely on the conventional wisdom that a limited, sub-regional security structure – one that, for reasons of expediency and/ or ideology, excludes a number of regional states – that partners with outside powers can alone be a force for regional stability. Senior GCC officials have themselves on numerous occasions publicly declared that Persian Gulf and GCC security cannot be achieved by excluding other regional players and littoral states like Iraq and Iran.

In a 2006 speech delivered at the annual Manama Dialogue, organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, stated: “In the Gulf, no sustainable long-term regional security arrangement can be envisioned without Iraq and Iran acting as two of its pillars.”

Iranian and Iraqi officials have similarly argued that Persian Gulf security is best advanced through cooperation and coordination among the littoral states.

Second, such proposals mistakenly presume that the US is a neutral player, with no peculiar stakes in the region. This presumption is obviously at best naïve and at worst oblivious to the history of US involvement in the region to date. Few serious analysts would dispute that Washington has vital interests in the Middle East, and in the Persian Gulf region in particular – including securing the free flow of a cheap supply of oil for US domestic energy needs – and that it is willing to defend these interests with armed force and/or covert operations. Indeed, the last three decades of American involvement in the Middle East show that the more the US bolsters and arms the GCC, and the more it increases its own military presence in the

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fort on regional security in the Middle East, says the following: “[The Middle East] is probably one of the regions of the world where a kind of classical security dilemma is in full swing. Countries still feel that their existence as countries is not entirely secure.”

One manifestation of this general and particular insecurity among countries in the Middle East is notorious: in 2010, military spending in the Middle East was estimated at US $111 billion, representing a 2.5 percent increase from the preceding year, and 35 percent when compared with the start of the decade. The region has the highest total military expenditures in the developing world. Of the top 10 countries in the world, ranked according to defence budget size as a percentage of GDP, seven are Middle Eastern and North African countries, spending billions of dollars annually on the military – funds that, of course, would otherwise be free for allocation to projects that improve the general welfare and governance of the citizenries of the still highly underdeveloped countries of the region.

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The external grand design school of Middle East security neglects a basic verity: if a security architecture is to have any chance of succeeding, it must not only be region-wide and inclusive, but also indigenously conceived, by and for the region.

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Third, the external grand design school of Middle East security neglects a basic verity: if a security architecture is to have any chance of succeeding in the Middle East, it must have buy-in first and foremost from the region’s political elites. In other words, it must not only be region-wide and inclusive, but also indigenously conceived, by and for the region.

There is, to be sure, an important role to be played by extra-regional actors. But given the differing and often contradictory alliances and ad hoc partnerships of the region’s states and important external actors – European states, the US, Russia and China, not to mention international institutions – the most workable formula is one that is divined, driven and dominated by the region’s states themselves.

Of course, outside involvement in the development of a regional architecture will likely be impossible to avoid altogether in virtue of the said major role that oil continues to play in the economies of major outside states. The largest percentage of the world’s proven oil reserves (some 56 percent) is found in the Middle East region. Some 20 percent

of the oil traded worldwide transits the Strait of Hormuz.

A number of Middle Eastern states also have bilateral military agreements with countries like the US (i.e. Israel and the Persian Gulf Arab states), meaning that the eventual regional security regime will have to manage and reconcile (or renegotiate) the various external commitments and positions of future member states.

Moreover, external involvement can offer certain default security guarantees that some Middle Eastern states will surely demand. It can provide financial assistance, as well as technical expertise on a variety of policy matters. But again, such external involvement must be secondary and subordinate to the leading role of the Middle Eastern states themselves.

The Middle East – discussions of the etymology of the term aside – is most helpfully defined as the 22 members of the League of Arab States, plus Israel, Iran and Turkey. The traditional boundaries of the Middle East – typically understood to include the sub-regions of the Maghreb, the Levant and the Persian Gulf – are where one finds the nucleus of the security dilemma in the region, and where the focus of establishing a comprehensive regional security ought to be. Targeting the Arab states and the three aforementioned largely non-Arab countries is an obviously ambitious project, requiring significant political courage, diplomatic engineering, ingenuity and finesse. Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are additional potential candidates for membership due to their geographical proximity to the region, as well as the ongoing instability within Afghanistan, and between India and Pakistan – instability with non-negligible spillover into the Middle East proper. (See the Tête à Tête conversation with Kishore Mahbubani at p. 8, as well as the Query article by Arabinda Acharya and Antara Desai at p. 26.) These three countries could well participate in the preliminary phases of development of the security scheme as observers.

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n the post-WW2 international order, the founders of the UN system wanted to ensure that the UN Security Council (UNSC) acted as the de jure custodian of collective security in the international arena, pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN Charter. However, since its first meeting in 1946, the UNSC has come under repeated criticism for its failure to execute its mandate in an effective, consistent and impartial manner. In the absence of UNSC reform, criticisms about the ‘selectivity’ of UNSC action and constraints on meaningful Council action are likely to persist.

Indeed, the failure of the UNSC to adequately and consistently address security threats and conflicts has resulted in a global trend toward regional and

sub-regional self-help security arrangements. The Council has proven itself similarly – if not conspicuously – incapable of executing its mandate vis-à-vis the Middle East. This incapacity has only contributed to the persistent security gap in the region.

The UN Charter does not preclude the possibility of indigenous security frameworks operating at the regional level. Chapter VIII of the UN Charter foresees and encourages the existence of such regional frameworks provided that “their activities are consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.” Moreover, under Article 51 of the UN Charter, a regional organization is empowered to use force in self-defence (or collective defence of one of its members) without UNSC authorization.

(The exercise of this right will be curtailed if and when the UNSC subsequently acts.)

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he would-be founders of a regional security structure in the Middle East would have to give due consideration to harmonizing the mandate of the regional security framework with the UN system and the UN Charter, while ensuring that the framework has enough teeth to thwart aggression and react to security threats against its members.

The security framework must adopt founding principles in order to bind the parties to a collective security vision. Fortunately, there are plenty of precedents to review in creating a custom-made set of guiding principles and norms for the region.

In addition to the principles of the UN Charter (i.e. prohibition against the use of force, non-interference in the sovereign affairs of member states), the Decalogue in the Helsinki Final Act (1975) or the Ten Principles of Bandung, the various past and even extant Track II efforts focussing on security in the Middle East have all generated useful material that should be consulted. The Track II diplomatic efforts led by Cherif Bassiouni in the late 1990s for a sub-regional security framework involving Egypt, Jordan and Israel can be particularly helpful in this regard.

Two considerations are apposite in respect of the form that a regional security framework ought to take – that is, as between collective defence and cooperative security. First, both collective defence and cooperative security structures can co-exist in the Middle East, just as they have in other regions of the world (consider Europe, where NATO and the OSCE work in concert on the Old Continent).

Second, in view of some of the current inter-state tensions in the region, a cooperative security regime may be the more realistic first step in creating a region-wide security framework. Once established and mature, the region’s collective security culture

and norms could eventually create the conditions for the start of formal collective security discussions and negotiations (as a second step, as it were).

In a cooperative security model, in lieu of seeing each other as threats, states would view the existing regional security dilemma as the core problem that needs to be tackled in order to reduce violence and conflict in the Middle East. Regional states would work collectively in order to create mechanisms that encourage and incentivize regional security through increased intra-regional transactions – from the negotiation of various arms control agreements, to joint collaboration and policy-making to combat terrorism, to increased trade and cultural exchange.

Increasing the intensity of intra-regional traffic in commerce, people and ideas, as in Europe, would increase interdependence among states, and trust – or at least familiarity – among the region’s populations. The creation of a permanent regional forum for Middle Eastern states to regularly convene and discuss regional security concerns would also be a constructive step toward improving the region’s security dilemma. Such a forum would seem to be low-hanging fruit, and yet is absent in the region today: it would generate a host of benefits, from relationship- and trust-building among regional leaders, to serving as a venue for brainstorming and policy generation, to defusing regional tensions and dispelling misperceptions through dialogue, to mediating conflicts as they arise.

The proposed security architecture may even have a positive impact on facilitating a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a regime for regional security, the framework could be engineered to provide comprehensive and lasting security to Israel (with external guarantees, as discussed above). This may in turn encourage reciprocity through Israeli concessions that help in the creation of a viable state for the Palestinians. An important caveat in this regard: while the two discussions – the first on the overall regional architecture, and the second on the Israeli-Palestinian impasse – may be merged for purposes of progress on the Palestinian dossier, rigid insistence on movement on the Palestine question as a precondition for the realization of the security framework would likely derail the entire project. This should be avoided. Lack of progress on negotiations concerning the two-state solution should not prevent the project as a whole from advancing with other states, sans Israel. In other words, if necessary, Israel can be re-engaged when circumstances permit.

A regional security scheme could have a direct role in helping to create a WMD-free zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East. The idea of a WMDFZ for the Middle East has been a topic of discussion for some time. The concept was first championed by Iran and

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Egypt in 1974. Recent declarations by senior Iranian – Ali Akbar Salehi – and Egyptian – Nabil Elaraby – officials suggest an unbroken commitment to this idea. In the coming months, a much-anticipated UN-sponsored multilateral conference is to be hosted in Finland to discuss the idea of establishing a WMDFZ in the region – timing that may work well in light of the growing international tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Of course, experience tells us that a WMDFZ cannot exist without a robust and structured regional security scheme that provides for monitoring and, more importantly, enforcement mechanisms. At the same time, as long as Israel’s nuclear arsenal remains intact and differences over Iran’s nuclear programme are unresolved, nuclear proliferation in the region is a real possibility.

A region-wide security framework may also help to defuse tensions over the Iranian nuclear

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One manifestation of this general and particular insecurity among countries in the Middle East is notorious: in 2010, military spending in the Middle East was estimated at US $111 billion, representing a 2.5 percent increase from the preceding year, and 35 percent when compared with the start of the decade.

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programme, averting a potentially catastrophic war. If Iran has nuclear ambitions beyond mere civilian use – something still contested among analysts – the presumptive rationale for pursuing this strategic logic would be to enhance its national security. Iran is an isolated country in the region with significant security concerns: porous borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan; regional threats; and the said US military presence in the region.

The 1980-1988 war with Iraq remains etched in the psyche of the Iranian people. Even defeats suffered in wars with Russia as far back as the 1800s – defeats that cost the country large parts of its former territory – have shaped the Iranian psyche, the country’s security perceptions and indeed its overall strategic culture. As such, any regional formula that recognizes Iran’s legitimate national security concerns, and is further capable of providing it with security guarantees, will have a constructive impact on diplomatic efforts aimed at arriving at a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear programme (see Strategic Futures at p. 62). But again,

negotiating the nuclear disarmament of Israel or asking Iran to stop its nuclear programme is not at all realistic in the absence of a broader regional security discussion and general bargain that issues in a credible region-wide framework.

To be sure, the significant regional and international anxieties created by Iran’s nuclear programme, and the growing shadow of a regional war over this programme, could assist in a mental paradigm shift among a number of regional players; that is, the prospect of a major war may well provide the requisite pressure that allows for regional players, with the support of external actors, to commit to serious diplomatic engagement on a more comprehensive approach to regional security.

Should negotiations on a regional security framework wait until countries in the region become more democratic? Could the proposed regional security framework help to steer the region toward a more democratic order, or would it merely prolong the shelf-life of authoritarian regimes? And would the legitimacy of the proposed regional security framework suffer if negotiated by an oppressive regime that is later replaced by a popular uprising?

First, non-democratic governments are evidently capable of making peace, and there is little evidence to suggest that a security agreement brokered by an authoritarian government would necessarily be rescinded by a later democratic government (see the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in the Mohamed Morsi era). Second, a regional security framework for the Middle East and its potential for creating enduring peace could well support serious, indigenous political reform in the region (without the taint of foreign meddling). Historically, there has been a correlation between regional insecurity and repressive policies within regional states. A more secure regional environment could therefore arguably pave the way for more open political discourse at the domestic level. In practice, what regional security systems have shown themselves capable of doing – depending on how a system is designed, and what guiding principles are adopted – is to empower populations to demand – with everincreasing intensity – respect for civil liberties. We famously saw this happen in Eastern Europe as a result of the Helsinki process.

Leadership is the obvious conditio sine qua non for initiating and successfully establishing such a regional framework. And yet, notwithstanding the demands of the times, the requisite leadership is largely absent from the region today. At this juncture, Turkey, as a traditional Middle Eastern power with relative regional sway and respect, is in many ways the region’s ‘indispensable nation.’ It is true, as some analysts argue, that Ankara’s handling of the Syrian crisis has somewhat diminished the

Turkish government’s general popularity at home and in the region, in particular vis-à-vis Iran. The Gaza flotilla incident in 2010 also cooled Turkish-Israeli relations.

However, Turkey continues to be the only country in the region that is able to cajole the Iranians and the Arabs (as well as the Israelis) to sit at the negotiating table. (The Pakistani military also looks to Turkey, en passant, as a model, and would arguably be open to Turkish diplomatic forays were the framework to eventually expand to the South Asian states.) Early signals suggest that Turkey would not only be supportive of the idea of creating a regional security framework in the region, but would also likely be willing to lead the effort to jump-start the initiative.

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AR S E Y 2 E E R G E D 2

Earn an MA in Political Science at the University of Windsor and a Master of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Dearborn G LO B A L B R I E F • FA L L 2 0 1 2

eadership from every regional country is, of course, neither realistic nor required. But leadership from a handful of key countries may be sufficient for purposes of initial progress. Partnership by Turkey with at least a couple of other influential states in the region, ideally Arab states – say, Qatar or an increasingly bold Egypt – would be important for increasing the chances of convening a first diplomatic summit in order to explore a regional security architecture. Iran, as a historically significant regional player and a key player in the region’s geopolitics and security landscape, would also have to be involved from the beginning if the exercise is to have meaning.

As intimated, not all regional states need to participate in the first diplomatic summit or be involved in the overall project ab initio. What is important is that the undertaking commence with a cocktail of core and smaller regional states – a critical mass that should be ever-expanding – in order to send a transparent message to the effect that the project is not targeting or seeking to exclude any particular state, and that its raison d’être is to create greater security for all states in the Middle East. There is great symbolic value in this message alone. States can join the ‘conversation’ when they are ready to do so.

The traditional concept of security in international relations theory, at least in the realist school, posits that the only way to ensure one’s security is to increase one’s power at the expense of other states. This conventional wisdom is practiced with perfection in today’s Middle East. The general insecurity in the region is the result of this logic. New ways of thinking about state and regional security must be tried in this new century. An inclusive regional security framework in the Middle East, while not necessarily eliminating inter-state competition altogether, has real potential to bring greater stability to the region. Preliminary indications obtained from some of the region’s most senior diplomats and policy-makers suggest that there is broad agreement on the need for such a framework, and that the timing may just be right. | GB

e c n e i c S y l c a i l c i o t i P l o P ublic TRIES + P 2 COUN S

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Afghanistan’s Post-2014 Futures?

QUERY

The ‘great game’ is moot. Success (or failure) depends on Kabul and the Afghans

BY ARABINDA ACHARYA & ANTARA DESAI

Afghan President Hamid Karzai poses with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, second left, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, at the Donors’ Conference on Afghan G LO B A L B R I E F • FA L L 2 0 1 2

civilian assistance,

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Tokyo, July 2012.

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xplaining the current situation in Afghanistan or assessing the country’s future trajectory has actually never been as challenging as for many other places in the world. For analysts, practitioners and Afghans themselves, there often is but one paradigm and one narrative – the ‘great game.’ Ask any average Afghan, and he or she will most likely say that all of the ills of the country over the centuries have been due to the ‘great game’ involving outside powers – big and small alike. Of course, the persistence of this analytical paradigm relieves Afghans – particularly Afghanistan’s leaders – of any deep sense of responsibility for the misfortunes and instability of their country.

As the US, the UK, Canada and their partners in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) begin to pull out their troops, the Afghan theatre is slowly but surely inching toward a messy and murky endgame. With the emergence – actual and anticipated – of multiple new strategic players to contest the post-2014 Afghan space, phrases like

the ‘return’ or ‘re-enactment’ of the ‘great game’ have begun to dominate the analytical discourse.

To be sure, the interests of a number of countries are and will continue to be at play in Afghanistan after 2014. Such countries or groups of countries fall under one of three categories: stakeholders, free-riders and spoilers. Still, it is far more likely that the post-ISAF Afghan ‘game’ will ultimately depend largely on the particular domestic political, social and economic conditions created by the Afghans themselves, rather than on factors rooted in brute geopolitical competition.

A transition to Afghan responsibility does not necessarily mean a complete abandonment of the country by the international community in general, and by the US and its ISAF allies in particular. At the July 2012 donors’ conference in Tokyo, more than 70 countries pledged their support to Afghanistan.

In May 2012, the Chicago Summit Declaration on Afghanistan mandated a US $4.1 billion fund to sustain the Afghan security forces beyond 2014.

PHOTOGRAPH: THE CANADIAN PRESS / AP / SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI

become a safe-haven for the ETIM, which could use Afghan soil for training and attacks in China. Reports suggest that China could be negotiating with the Taliban – through Pakistan – in order to extract assurances that it will not give any sanctuary or support to the East Turkestan militants in the event that it springs a comeback. (See the In Situ article by Georgiy Voloshin at p. 6.)

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ussia, too, is in the race to bolster its geopolitical position. It hopes to earn returns on its various investments in economic ventures in Afghanistan (see the Feature article by Leonid Kosals at p. 48). Publicly, Moscow claims that its main concern is to counter the Afghan narcotics trail, and to sever militant links with its restive Chechen region. Having said this, it is little amused by the American-backed new Silk Road project, which competes with the Moscow-favoured CASA 1000. It is also uncomfortable with the growing bonhomie between the US and certain Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, and with the prospect of Washington retaining some forces in Afghanistan until at least 2024. Indeed, Moscow is capitalizing on the declining US-Pakistan relationship by strengthening its own ties with Islamabad, finding common interest with Pakistan and China in reducing Western influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is looking to resume its pre-9/11 strategic role – that is, to once again be a decisive force in the security and governance of Afghanistan. It should be seen principally as a spoiler, given Islamabad’s tensions with Washington and the support of the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment for the Taliban and other groups hostile to Afghanistan’s interests. It is Pakistan’s support – via the provision of sanctuary and resources – that has kept the Taliban going, despite the blows dealt by ISAF operations and American drone strikes. Though Pakistan is not likely to directly endorse and support the Taliban in an outright bid to retake Kabul by force, its covert sponsorship will likely allow the Taliban to significantly undermine the peace, security and development of Afghanistan through indiscriminate violence, including suicide attacks and the targeted killings of high-profile figures and political leaders (see the Query article by Yoram Schweitzer at p. 26).

There are a number of reasons for which the post-2014 Afghan ‘game’ will be different from the past. Afghanistan is today in a significantly better position than it was at the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989. It is promised massive aid, which will underwrite its security and development projects. It has tremendous potential for foreign investment – particularly in its mining and energy sectors, as well as in infrastructure. It can also presumably hope – if not expect – that key stakeholder countries will keep the divisive forces at bay. Pure or raw geopolitical

Arabinda Acharya is Research Fellow and Head of Strategic Projects at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Antara Desai is a student of Geopolitics and International Relations at Manipal University, India.

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At the same time, the May 2012 Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the US reflects the American commitment to assist Afghanistan in its social and economic development after the military disengagement. The US will have the right to use Afghan security facilities until 2014, after which its role would be to train the Afghan army and security forces.

In practice, therefore, American personnel and forces will remain in Afghanistan until at least 2024. Some of the other partners in ISAF, like the UK, Canada and Australia, will also remain engaged, albeit in non-military missions. Though India did not commit any troops, its contribution – especially in building much-needed infrastructure and providing training for good governance – will keep it engaged as a stakeholder in Afghanistan’s stability and growth.

A number of initiatives involving regional and international partners also hold significant prospects for Afghanistan. These include the new Silk Road to connect Afghanistan and neighbouring countries in order to boost cross-border trade; the CASA 1000 (Central Asia-South Asia Regional Electricity Market, or CASAREM), aimed at establishing electricity transmission and trading infrastructure between Central Asia and South Asia; the TAPI (TurkmenistanAfghanistan-Pakistan-India) or Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline; and new rail and road networks for improved domestic and regional connectivity. Apart from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), through which regional countries have invested to ensure a stable and secure Afghanistan, initiatives like the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program, the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Heart of Asia and, among others, the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA) have collectively contributed to the development of the country.

At the same time, Afghanistan’s new-found mineral and energy resources and its manifest regional connectivity for commerce and transit have drawn in free-riders interested in extracting economic rents without substantially committing to the country’s security and stability. China has, in this sense, made major investments in the country in mining, telephony and energy, reaping what some say are the benefits of a war fought and paid for by others.

Beijing has refrained from any military involvement in Afghanistan, and has refused to contribute to the fund mandated to sustain the Afghan security forces beyond 2014. While China would like to have its investments protected, its biggest worry comes from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which has been fighting for the separation of China’s Xinjiang province. Though the group is currently based in Pakistan, Beijing fears that, should the Taliban come to power, Afghanistan may once again

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Building linkages with Chinese academic institutions Conducting research on Canada-China relations, especially in the investment and energy sectors Fostering scholarship and joint research on China’s global role

rivalries in-theatre should therefore be less influential in Afghanistan’s future.

Much, therefore, depends on Kabul’s own performance after the ISAF troop withdrawal. The Karzai government, already overwhelmed by legitimacy and trust deficits, does not at present appear to be up to the task of stabilizing or even holding the country together. When US President Obama first announced the troop pullout, there was widespread scepticism – even within the US – about the timing, size and pace of the drawdown. Some saw the troop withdrawals as aggressive, and as potentially jeopardizing hard-won gains. Others deemed them appropriate precisely because they would create a sense of urgency for the Afghanistan government to get its act together. Still, many serious analysts consider the so-called ‘transition to Afghan responsibility’ to be irresponsible – especially when the country is still, for all practical intents and purposes, in a wholesale mess in terms of security and governance.

Even though President Karzai continues to urge the international community to trust Afghanistan’s forces to secure the country’s future, the key question remains whether the country is itself ready to bear the burdens of transition. If the Afghan government manages to strengthen and professionalize its security forces, and purge them of militant infiltrations, then it may ultimately be able to fend off the Taliban and retain control of some important parts of the country.

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china@ualberta.ca

till, despite the billions that it has received in aid, Kabul’s capacity to deliver competent administration and credible development in far-flung areas remains weak. Inefficient and corrupt governing structures – including the judicial system – have enabled the Taliban to emerge as an alternative power structure in parts of the country. In the near-term, of course, it would be difficult for the Taliban to take and hold Kabul, given the combined strength and firepower of the Afghan security forces, bolstered by the Americans. But Kabul must ensure that it holds these forces together, particularly in view of the concern that they could splinter along ethnic lines, which would increase the risk of the country reverting to past patterns of warlordism – possibly leading to civil war.

The pledge of US $16 billion to Afghanistan at Tokyo was very specific in stating that the “International Community’s ability to sustain support for Afghanistan depends upon the Afghan Government delivering on its commitments [...].” These commitments include, among others, a pluralistic political system, a stable democracy based on the rule of law, an effective and independent judiciary, and, more generally, transparency and accountability in governance, as well as the rooting out of corruption. On its current record, the capacity of the Afghan government to meet these conditions should rightly be questioned. And medium-term failure by Kabul to deliver good government – a twist on what John Lewis Gaddis once famously called the “tyranny of the weak” – would most certainly test the patience of its multiple outside backers. | GB

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TÊTE À TÊTE

The Consequences of the Crisis GB speaks with the world’s leading financial columnist about what happened, where we are, and what may await Conversation with MARTIN WOLF

Martin Wolf is Associate Editor

GB: What is different about the current economic crisis vis-à-vis past crises?

and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times.

His most recent publications are Why Globalization Works and Fixing

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Global Finance.

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MW: I have to admit that I do not know what happened in all past crises – there have been so many. Let us start with what I think is not different. It is perfectly clear that ever since financial capitalism emerged – arguably, at some point in the 17th century – there has been a repeating tendency toward some combination of credit expansion, financial speculation and asset price bubbles.

The combination of these three things has been seen hundreds of times over the course of the history of financial capitalism.

In that sense, there is nothing new about today’s crisis.

However, among crises, this one is exceptional in a number of respects. First of all, it is exceptional in the significance and number of economies that have been affected. The crisis has affected a number of extremely large economies, and above all the hegemonic economy of the US, and therefore the hegemonic financial system – again, that of the US – in a profound way. The last time that so many important economies were affected was in the 1930s.

Second, the expansion in leverage that occurred in many economies prior to the crisis was exceptional in its scale and breadth. This expansion in leverage was also exceptional because of the extent to which it affected households. This seems to be the first major crisis that has predominantly been a household debt crisis.

Third, it is exceptional because of the nature of the modern financial system – that is to say, the

high degree of international integration. This is to a significant degree a market- and securities-based financial system, rather than a classic banking-style financial system. It has very complicated chains of interconnection between institutions. As a result, the toxic paper got into the entire global financial PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF MARTIN WOLF

system. When it became obvious that there was a very real question about the value of the financial paper that had been created during the previous bubble phase, the confidence in counterparties collapsed, and the financial system largely ceased to function as a system.

That really was quite new. In the past, it has normally been relatively easy to know which institu-

crisis occurred in quite a wide range of countries.

And so in that sense, too, this was really a highly global crisis.

The combination of these four factors made this a more devastating financial crisis than the world had ever seen. However, it is important to add one other contextual element here. The asset price bubble and subsequent crisis coincided with the creation of the euro – an important experiment that shares many of the characteristics of the 1930s gold standard. That has added a great measure of inflexibility to the system as it tries to manage the crisis – a crisis that, again, is exceptional in its extent. The 1930s were clearly blighted by attempts to maintain gold parities when they were no longer economically viable. That problem is immensely greater in the context of the Eurozone.

GB: What is the endgame of this crisis?

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tions are vulnerable, and private agents have been reasonably confident in dealing with quite a wide range of counterparties. In this case, the financial interconnections among private parties essentially collapsed – because of the very nature of the system.

Finally, the housing bubble of this particular

MW: Up to now, despite the severity of the financial crisis and the pressure for deleveraging, we have avoided a global depression. In late 2008 and early 2009, the world economy began a path that coincided very closely with what happened in the early 1930s. But this collapse was prevented and reversed by the other respect in which the crisis proved exceptional – the scale and intensity of the policy response. We have never had a policy response on the scale that we observed in late 2008 and early 2009 – that is, in terms of the support given to the financial sector, the monetary policy adopted, and the fiscal positions taken or at least the fiscal deficits accepted, and the deliberate stimulus imparted. I would argue that all of this was, in the aggregate, sufficient to prevent a depression, and to generate a very, very modest recovery.

In terms of the endgame, the question is: will we have a relapse? Will the weak recovery become a strong recovery? Or will we simply continue with

The crisis has demolished the intellectual edifice of respectable academic and policy thinking about all macroeconomic policy and financial sector policy prior to the crisis.

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The asset price bubble and subsequent crisis coincided with the creation of the euro – an important experiment that shares many of the characteristics of the 1930s gold standard.

That has added a great measure of inflexibility to the system as it tries to manage the crisis.

this very feeble recovery – what I sometimes refer to as a ‘Global Japan’? At this stage, the only answer that we can give is that we do not know. We could have another depression – probably triggered by a meltdown of the Eurozone and a catastrophic debt crisis inside the US. These are the most likely triggers, and are certainly perfectly possible. We could have a vigorous recovery that would probably follow from a credible resolution of the Eurozone crisis. I do not regard that as very likely. A recovery might also follow a very clear indication that the US economy is beginning to expand strongly. I do not expect that either, whoever the president may be (see Strategic Futures at p. 62). So that is the second possibility. The first is more likely than the second, but neither is very likely.

The third possibility is, as mentioned, what I call the ‘Global Japan,’ which is simply a long-term and painful deleveraging process, which is offset neither by strong fiscal expansion (something near impossible now, politically if not economically) nor by monetary policy (the only monetary policy that would now be effective would be exceedingly extreme – helicopter money, as it were). Most probably, therefore, we are looking at a long period – possibly as much as a decade – of weak growth in the developed world, with all of the attendant risks, political and economic, associated with that type of future.

It is not clear whether we can speak of a real endgame. It may just be a new state – what my friend Mohamed El-Erian calls the “new normal,” which is just dismal. In this “new normal,” we all become a bit like Japan – ageing, slow-growing societies, with weak final demand, corporations that accumulate cash, and governments that run horrifying deficits – but with no satisfactory driver of demand. That seems to me quite a plausible view of the future of advanced countries.

I should say that I have been arguing that this was the likely future since 2004 – simply by pointing out that the only way in which the US could grow, given its extraordinarily large structural external deficit, is through household debt accumulation.

That remains the case to this day. If the US does not grow strongly, then I do not see what else could drive the developed world in any plausible way. Final demand is certainly not going to explode in Europe.

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GB: Is there a new equilibrium in policy thinking in respect of managing such crises?

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MW: There seem to be two major conclusions coming from this crisis. First, the crisis has demolished the intellectual edifice of respectable academic and policy thinking about all macroeconomic policy and financial sector policy prior to the crisis. In essence, the crisis demonstrated that the pre-crisis orthodoxy – both ‘new Keynesian’

and ‘new classical’ views – on how the economy worked was wrong. There is no way to get around that simple and brutal fact. That means that it will be very difficult to reconstruct policy in the long-run without having a re-established core wisdom that makes sense of these events. In this sense, we are like engineers whose bridges have just fallen down: we cannot go ahead and build the same bridges without finding out why they fell down in the first place.

At the moment, the discipline of economics has become very narrow. The discipline is inevitably going to have to rethink what good policy is. That has to be based on some idea of how the economy actually works – not how economists imagine that it works, in their theories. The most likely response from economists will be to pretend that the crisis never happened, and to persist with the dominant model – because the model is elegant and beautiful, and is in all of the textbooks. Besides, it is what economists know. But pretending that the crisis never happened is very difficult, as the malaise that it will bequeath will be deeper and last much longer than most optimists would allow.

In addition to the problem for economics – and, ultimately, as Keynes said, policy-makers operate in the shadow of economic thinking – we have two specific policy problems that have been created by the crisis. The first is: how do we minimize the duration and extent of the malaise and vulnerability?

What set of policies, domestically and globally, do we need for that purpose? There is no agreement on this, and that is because of the intellectual problem at the heart of the economics discipline.

There is no agreement on what is the right macro policy – that is, on the right monetary policy, the right fiscal policy, and the right policy on dealing with debt overhangs.

The second policy challenge depends in part on how we rethink economics, as well as on geopolitics, which is reconstructing the world’s monetary and financial order. For the long-term, this inevitably involves reaching satisfactory agreement with rising powers like China on how such a system should operate (see the Tête à Tête interview with Kishore Mahbubani at p. 8, and the Nez à Nez debate between Hugh White and David Skilling at p. 56), because I think that one of the factors generating the crisis was a fundamentally dysfunctional relationship between the exchange rate and reserve accumulation policies of rising powers like China. In other words, in addition to everything else that has happened in this crisis, the crisis occurred at a time of transition in global economic power – a transition in which the relative weight of the developed countries in the world has been declining very rapidly. This rapid decline in relative weight has problematic parallels with the

1920s and 1930s, which saw the rapid rise of the US. In the end, then, we have to fix economics. We have to work out a way of getting out of the crisis, and getting back to reasonable growth and reasonable employment levels. Otherwise, I think that our politics are going to become impossible. And we have to fix the global economic system. This is a long-term process of reconstruction that is as profound as that which faced the world in the 1940s and 1950s after the Great Depression and WW2 (see the Feature article by Geoff Mulgan at p. 12). This is the task that lies before us.

GB: You say that there is a parallel between rising Asian power today and rising American power in the 1920s and 1930s – that is, in terms of the crises in both periods. However, in both cases – today and in the 1920s to 1930s – the crisis originated in the US, but with America’s economic power rising in the first case, and diminishing in the second. Is the parallel really apposite?

GB: Do you foresee differences in the endgame to this crisis as between the North American, European and Asian theatres?

MW: If I know anything today, it is how little I know about the future. But I can talk about some of the stresses. As I have said, I think that the US has the potential for a weak recovery. Over the next several years, the scenario would be as follows: there will be some recovery in the housing market; people will begin to borrow a little more; the savings rate will fall a little more; corporations will start to invest; the government deficit will shrink very, very slowly; monetary policy will remain supportive. There will be some species of ‘muddling-through’ recovery – that is, something in keeping with what we have seen over the last two or three years. I cannot foresee – given the external deficit situation and the implausibility of an export-led growth model of any scale for the US – much more than that. The level of debt – both private and public – in the US economy remains exceedingly high. Another debt-led boom is therefore highly unlikely. Limping growth, however, seems plausible. If the US could get itself into a situation of running a fairly substantial external surplus, then the situation would be very different. Still, I cannot see who would run the counterpart deficits. The US is too big to pursue the export-led growth model.

Europe, for its part, is in a really terrible mess.

The core problem in Europe is that it has no strong internal source of aggregate demand at all. Its most competitive – that is, its least financially stressed – economy is Germany. But Germany has chronically deficient aggregate demand.

For the rest of the interview with Martin Wolf,

We could have a vigorous recovery that would follow from a resolution of the Eurozone crisis. I do not regard that as very likely.

A recovery might also follow a very clear indication that the US economy is beginning to expand strongly.

I do not expect that either.

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MW: I was not really emphasizing the precise origin of the crisis. What I was trying to say is that, to some degree, a crisis of this type is a crisis of the economic system. In the case of the 1920s to 1930s, from the macro policy point of view, the fundamental problem was the chronic surpluses of the US, the dependence of the rest of the world on the continuing flow of credit from the US, the collapse in that flow of credit as a result of the crisis, the consequent banking collapse, and then the economic collapses in Europe that triggered the collapse of the Creditanstalt bank in Austria, Germany’s economic collapse, the collapse of the gold standard, and all of the rest of it. In some fundamental respects, it was a crisis of an interlocking system, in which the rising power was unaware of its responsibility to the overall system.

In the present day, China is the dominant creditor country. The world’s largest debtor – the US – also happens to be the world’s issuer of the reserve currency that everybody else wants. This helped to trigger a series of imbalances that helped to destabilize the financial system, and that in turn helped to trigger the meltdown. So the players involved are playing different parts. But the mise en scène is, in some sense, the same. We see changes in relative economic power that have changed the way in which the system works. People do not deal with that very well. They do not fully understand what it means. The result is a crisis that becomes very difficult to handle.

The one good thing about our crisis is that the country at the epicentre of the crisis – the country that imported all of the capital that could not be used properly, or was not used properly – is, as mentioned, the issuer of the reserve currency. This

means that it has tremendous degrees of policy freedom. If this had not been the case, we would now certainly be in another Great Depression. The fact that the US has this degree of freedom, which Germany or Austria or France did not have under the gold standard, has meant that the US has been able to respond to the crisis as a debtor country.

This, of course, is not a normal situation. Still, I cannot believe that, some 20 or 30 years from now, the Chinese and other countries will tolerate a global monetary system in which the world money is created by a country that has proved itself so irresponsible, and that is such an enormous debtor.

What is unclear is what the alternative would be, and how it would work. Before we figure all of this out, of course, I believe that we are quite likely to see further shocks and crises – even if their precise nature is difficult to predict.

visit the GB website at: www.globalbrief.ca

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ILLUSTRATION: COLIN JOHNSON

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All of the ‘four horsemen’ of cyber-aggression – cyber-war, cyber-terrorism, cyber-crime and cyber-espionage – are serious. Not all are urgent.

BY WESLEY WARK

CYBER-AGGRESSION AND ITS DISCONTENTS Wesley Wark is Professor at the Munk School of

HE AGE OF CYBER WARFARE IS UPON US.

University of Toronto, and also Visiting Research Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.

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So say the soothsayers. Their voices are many, varied and urgent. They range from presidents and security chiefs, to principals of private sector security firms. US President Obama, writing in the Wall Street Journal on July 19th, 2012, called the cyber-threat “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face.” Also in July 2012, Keith Alexander, the Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), labelled cyber-espionage the cause of the “greatest transfer of wealth in history,” citing data on cyber-attacks against US companies that have siphoned off vast quantities of intellectual property and industrial information.

General Alexander also mused about the militarization of cyber-attacks, which he regards as an inevitable development that poses challenges greater than those that Cold War nuclear deterrence strategies were designed to meet.

Jonathan Evans, the Director General of the British Security Service (MI5), has also lent his voice to the chorus, noting that cyber-security rivalled terrorism as a key security challenge facing the UK. According to him, “the extent of what is going on is astonishing – with industrial scale processes involving many thousands of people lying behind both state-sponsored cyberespionage and organized cyber-crime.”

A multiplicity of studies from private sector IT security firms documents the firms’ own struggles with cyber-attacks. Recently, for example, a Dell security unit reported on a year-long study of the cyber-espionage threat, calling its findings “disturbing.” The Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit found more than 200 unique “families” of custom malware used in cyber-espionage campaigns, and more than 1,100 Internet domain names registered and used by cyber-espionage actors for hosting malware or for spearphishing. The industry acronym for this activity is telling: APT, or Advanced Persistent Threat.

Of course, our demonstrated instinct is to rush collectively to the trenches and the cyber-shelters, beef up resources, promulgate cyber-security strategies, harden systems, pump vast amounts of hard currency into the effort to stem the threat, and finger alleged perpetrators in an escalating war of words. The NSA has estimated that, in 2011 alone, one trillion dollars was spent globally on dealing with cyber-espionage and cyber-crime. And in a sign of where all of this might be heading, a report prepared for the US Congress by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, issued in October 2011, openly named China as the world’s most active and persistent perpetrator of economic spying against the US. However, before we decide that the sky is falling, and that we have seen the enemy, some clarity ought to be brought to the definitional morass in which the debate on what we may call ‘cyber-aggression’ finds itself. In other words, in order to understand the nature and scale of the threat – present and future – we first need to be a lot plainer about what it is that we are talking about.

Cyber-aggression can take various shapes – each determined by the actors involved, the methodologies used, the intended target and the anticipated outcome. Four types of cyber-aggression

Global Affairs,

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The potential to cause vital damage to selected aspects of the economic or militaryindustrial capabilities of a foreign adversary, as demonstrated by firstgeneration efforts like the Stuxnet and Flame viruses targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure, is out of scale with all past capacities for sabotage.

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– the four ‘cyber horsemen,’ as it were – grab our attention: cyber-warfare, cyber-terrorism, cyber-espionage and cyber-crime. Though they are often depicted, Durer-like, as riding in a tight pack, it is important to distinguish between these in order to decide on priorities, and to outline appropriate policy options.

Apocalyptic language and, worse still, linguistic drift from discussions of one type of cyber-aggression to another are unhelpful in the extreme.

Of the four cyber horsemen, two constitute, at best, future threats: cyber-war and cyber-terrorism.

Both are hyped, but they are both over-the-horizon dangers. Cyber-war means the deliberate use by state or non-state entities of cyber instruments as a military weapon in order to advance a campaign of military aggression against another actor in the international system. Proponents of the cyber-war threat might argue that it has already arrived, and point to cyber-attacks that coincided with Russian aggression against Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008. Still, even these examples, for which we lack compelling evidence, do not quite meet the definition.

There is good reason to think that cyber-war might remain a futuristic threat. We have Clausewitz’s famous dictum – war as the continuation of politics by other means – to thank for this. Short of all-out war designed to cripple and destroy an adversary at all costs, it is hard to see cyber-warfare as securing any lasting political or grand strategic objective. It also remains hard to see cyber-warfare as likely to succeed in completely crippling the electronic nervous system of a target.

Even if we grant cyber-warfare a possible status as the nuclear weapon of the future – capable of doing existential damage – this begs the question of whether, like nuclear weapons systems, it will eventually become an unusable instrument of war – too destructive in its unleashing to match any war-related goal, and subject to a strong deterrence calculation along the lines of the Cold War logic of mutually assured destruction.

If all-out cyber-warfare looks unlikely, it is less hard to see a role for ‘limited’ cyber-warfare. And yet even this presumes state-on-state conflict, and raises inevitable concerns about climbing undesirable escalatory ladders once the cyber weapon is deployed.

For now, we should consider cyber-warfare not as a current threat, but as a form of military R&D that has run ahead of the laws of war and floats free of military doctrine. As military R&D, it is relatively harmless, but it needs to be brought back to Earth in terms of efforts to figure out how it fits into the laws of war, and how it advances military doctrine – especially with regard to political/strategic objectives. Some hard thinking also needs to be done on costs and the relative advantage of pushing cash into cyber-warfare capabilities, as opposed to other military instruments.

Like cyber-war, cyber-terrorism is very much on the

national security agenda, as well as on the minds of the global community of ‘securicrats.’ And like cyberwar, it is a future threat – if a threat at all. The question of what we mean by cyber-terrorism is pertinent, as the definitional envelope is sometimes stretched to cover the ways in which terrorist organizations use the Internet and electronic communications in order to build up their capacity and image through propaganda, recruitment, fundraising, cell formation and even virtual training. This use of the cyber realm is distinguishable from its deployment as a weapon of direct attack to damage the capacities of an enemy, and to create ‘terror.’ Cyber-terrorism should be used only to refer to the use of cyber-weapons for terrorist strikes, not capacity building. For now, there has been surprisingly little indication of any such offensive activity. This may reflect a lack of terrorist capacity, knowledge of the enemy, or will, or some combination of all of these. It may just be that the cyber-attack ill suits the intended psychological shock effects of terrorism. It may be that a cyber-attack is harder than it looks for non-state actors. Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that cyber-terrorism will become a reality in the future – not least because terrorist groups are not hindered by some of the constraining calculations that should deter state actors from any massive, doctrinal use of the cyber weapon. But capacities to deal with any future cyber-terrorist attacks will arrive as a by-product of efforts targeted at more clear and present dangers.

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nlike cyber-war and cyberterrorism, cyber-espionage and cyber-crime are just such clear and present dangers.

They are easily conflated as threats. Cyber-crime is driven by the profit motive, largely targets the private sector – to wit, intellectual property, commercial secrets and useful private data – and, as best as we can tell, is rarely a state enterprise. There is no denying the damage that it can do. The first question is: who is the sheriff? Is it the state, in an expanded version of its ‘night watchman’ role? Or is it really the private sector itself, with its huge stake in securing proprietary information, and its obligations to protect the privacy of customers with whom it interacts? Many commentators would like to see the state strap on its star and gun belt in order to clean up the town.

But there may well be more wisdom in seeing efforts at preventing cyber-crime left predominantly in the hands of the private sector, with a modicum of state regulation of standards of protection in critical sectors (banking, health care, critical infrastructure) and some partnership arrangements between state intelligence, security and law enforcement agen-

cies in order to assist the private sector in keeping up with the latest global trends in technology and cyber-attacks. Not only should the private sector bear the brunt of protecting its own data and its networked proliferation, but the private sector may actually be better than the state at doing the job. At the very least, the private sector needs to understand that if it is currently not good at data protection, then it had better get up to speed fast, because there will be no other real sheriff in town.

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f cyber-crime prevention, under this model, seems to leave the state at the margins, then there remain two distinct and important functions that states can play. One is to maintain in their intelligence systems a collection and analytical capacity in order to give themselves strategic-level knowledge of trends in cybercrime, and to keep tabs on the development of any worrying ‘cyber-crime’ states – that is, states that might be contributing to the advent of cybercrime either through lax internal controls, poor law enforcement, or deliberate collaboration with criminal elements. The other role for states is to work with the international community in order to monitor trends in cyber-crime, help create norms, and explore the prospects for the development of an international law on the worst forms of cyber-crime.

What of cyber-espionage? Here the role of the state is different, and indeed much larger. Cyberespionage involves both the realms of state offensive and defensive action. On the defensive end – or cyber-counter-espionage – the state is confronted with the age-old problem of protecting secrets in the face of a new version of the espionage threat.

This version posits a virtual and often very stealthy agent nosing its way into sensitive data, and capable of siphoning off vast quantities of material – well beyond the dreams of Minox-toting agents from the Cold War era. But if the cyber version of the threat is new and potent, it remains the case that the traditional security requirements are still operable. In other words, there remains a need for adequate security vetting of personnel with access to sensitive data, for robust measures to protect physical and virtual data from unauthorized access and usage, for a culture of security consciousness, and for proactive capabilities to anticipate threats and to detect and follow intrusions – if possible, to trace them to their point of origin. This may be a tall order in a world of cyber-communications and ‘big data’ storage, but there is something reassuring about the fact that cyber-counter-espionage is merely a variant on past practices, for which many national intelligence and law enforcement systems have plenty of stored experience.

If cyber-counter-espionage is a variant of the past, then the same can surely be said of the offensive use

of cyber-espionage against foreign targets. Cyber ‘Int’ (CYBERINT) has entered the pantheon of other, longestablished intelligence collection methodologies, taking its place alongside HUMINT (human intelligence), SIGINT (signals intelligence), IMINT (imagery intelligence) and OSINT (open source intelligence).

CYBERINT bears closest resemblance to SIGINT, and for many intelligence systems, established SIGINT agencies will find themselves extending their work into the cyber-espionage field with an attendant shift in operational focus from identifying and penetrating communications networks, to identifying and penetrating key command-and-control computer arrays, key computer work stations hosting valuable data, and critical data storage sites. Cyber-espionage, for all the hype, is really just an extension and adaptation of an intelligence methodology that has been around since WW1.

The key difference between traditional SIGINT operations and the new world of CYBERINT is that there now exists the prospect – and maybe the reality – of the outsourcing of cyber-espionage to private sector actors and patriotic hacker groups.

This might have been a feature of the conduct of the aforementioned cyber-operations by Russia in 2007 and 2008, and seems to be part of the modus operandi of Chinese cyber-espionage, where we appear to see the emergence of a Chinese military-cyber complex involving a murky partnership between the Chinese military, the Chinese academic sector and organized private groups. If true in either or both the Russian and Chinese cases, then this manifestly extends the reach of cyber-espionage, adds to the potency of states that have the capacity to construct such public-private ‘complexes,’ and deepens the problem of attributing cyber-espionage attacks to their source. Still, it does not fundamentally affect cyber-counter-espionage.

As noted, one of the principal characteristics of successful cyber-espionage operations is the ability to acquire – potentially invisibly – quantities of sensitive data on an unprecedented scale – what Jonathan Evans, the MI5 director, referred to as “industrial-scale” processes. Of course, the siphoning off of ‘big data’ also requires an ability to sort, search, filter and make sense of vast data pools. Search engines will be of some assistance, but the question that ‘industrial scale’ cyber-espionage raises is whether the state or other actors involved will have the capacity to sort wheat from chaff, or find the needle not in an information haystack, but in an information mountain.

Cyber-espionage therefore brings to the fore a key challenge for intelligence systems – noted long ago by the late Roberta Wohlstetter in her pioneering study of the Pearl Harbor intelligence failure: the need to identify true signals against the background noise of false, misleading and irrelevant information.

If CYBERINT is but a new tool in an old intelligence

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If Russia and China currently stand at the pinnacle of the league table of global cyberspies, what about the league table for cybercovert operations?

Here the US and Israel appear to lead, driven by technological capacity, experience with covert operations, and indeed need.

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tool box – rather than a revolutionary espionage instrument – there nevertheless remains a way in which cyber-aggression has fundamentally changed the global espionage equation. This has less to do with intelligence acquisition, and more with the use of cyber-intrusion tools by spy agencies in an action mode – what during the Cold War was called ‘covert operations.’ In the past, covert operations run by intelligence services were designed to disrupt and ultimately overturn the political regimes of vulnerable states deemed to be unfriendly or adversarial in a global contest for influence. Consider Iran, Guatemala, Cuba and Chile – to name only some of the US-inspired operations. (The Soviets had their share, as well.) Cyber-covert operations may share some of the characteristics of conventional Cold War efforts, including relative cheapness, quickness, bloodlessness and the all-important element of leadership plausible deniability. Yet the capacities of cyber-covert operations truly outstrip those of the past. The potential to cause vital damage to selected aspects of the economic or military-industrial capabilities of a foreign adversary, as demonstrated by first-generation efforts like the Stuxnet and Flame viruses targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure, is out of scale with all past capacities for sabotage – while still retaining the veil of plausible deniability, and allowing for escalatory ceilings short of all-out war.

If the age of cyber-covert operations is now upon us – and it likely is – then we need to start devoting a lot more thought to the limits on its use, its impacts (recalling that nearly all Cold War era covert operations ended in long-term failure), its proliferation, as well as on playing defence. It would be one more terrible irony of history if, while recognizing the arrival of the new age of cyber-covert ops, we failed to appreciate the still relevant lessons of the Cold War past. The three main faults of the historical use of covert operations were its reliance on distorted assessments of the dangers posed by internal developments in foreign states, an exaggerated sense of the prospects for plausible deniability (the veil was always torn off relatively quickly), and a lack of care about long-term outcomes.

To this list we should add the absence of any moral compass in the deployment of covert operations. It would behoove the global community to recognize and try to avoid these mistakes.

Hanging over all current debates on cyberaggression and the threats posed by our four cyber horsemen is the assumption that the offense has, and will always have, the upper hand over the defence. To borrow from history, and in particular from the history of SIGINT operations, the more likely scenario is one of a constant cycle of change from offensive to defensive superiority, and then back again. Where any actor ends up in the cycle will depend on technological innovation and capacity. But it would be wrong to assume

that the race has already been won.

For the present, the offence does seem to have the decided upper hand, and the defence has been slow to mobilize. We can also spot the current leaders in the world of cyber-espionage: Russia and China are on top. Both are frequently identified perpetrators – even if we know relatively little about their systems of cyber-spying. That Russia and China should, at present, top the list of cyber-superpowers is far from surprising. Both possess the technological knowhow to engage in cyber-aggression. Both possess authoritarian political systems that remove some of the constraints on the untrammelled use of the cyber weapon. Perhaps most interestingly, both are adapting their traditional intelligence gathering techniques to the cyber age. Their traditional reliance on mass espionage activities using human agents to collect as much information as possible is easily transferable to the age of the cyber-spy. At the same time, what we know of their espionage history suggests that neither state was very capable of utilizing the information that their spy agencies collected. It is not far-fetched to presume that a historical inability on the part of authoritarian regimes to use intelligence well has also been transferred into the cyber-age.

If Russia and China currently stand at the pinnacle of the league table of global cyber-spies, what about the league table for cyber-covert operations? Here the US and Israel appear to lead, driven by a combination of technological capacity, experience with covert operations, and indeed need – with particular focus on covert cyber-efforts to slow down the progress of the Iran nuclear programme.

Whither cyber-aggression in the next decade or two? Criminologists can place their bets on organized crime groups and their propensity for cyber-crime.The world’s leading militaries will do their R&D on cyber-war.

Terrorist groups might start to explore cyber-terrorism.

When it comes to cyber-espionage and cyber-covert operations, some of the building blocks for long-term success will include: long-term investments by the state in proportional, risk-based defence; a strong private sector capable of defending itself; superior education and knowledge-building sectors; pre-existing and strong intelligence systems and cultures; and maybe even democratic political structures.

The history of modern intelligence tells us that, broadly, democratic polities are much better placed to use intelligence well as compared to authoritarian polities. The same will probably hold true for the cyber-age. Democracies will also have a much greater stake in the idea of keeping the global Internet alive, healthy and open. While this creates opportunities for adversarial cyber-spies and covert operators, it also creates the knowledge base and incentives for democratic societies to ultimately emerge as cyber age winners – better at defence, and selectively better at offence. | GB

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Whither Suicide Bombings?

QUERY

Yoram Schweitzer is Director of the Terrorism and Low-Intensity Warfare Project at the Institute for National Security Studies, University

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of Tel Aviv.

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The exponential growth in suicide attacks since 2001 shows that they have increasingly become a practical tool in a large variety of intra-national conflicts BY YORAM SCHWEITZER

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he first week of August 2012, like those that came before it, was a routine and fairly active week for several of the terrorist organizations involved in carrying out suicide attacks around the world. In the southern Yemeni city of Jaar, a suicide bomber linked to Al Qaeda in the Hijaz blew himself up in the middle of a gathering of mourners, killing 45 people – members of the tribes that support the Yemeni military in its struggle against Al Qaeda in the Hijaz and its partners. Some 4,300 kilometres away, in Damaturu, Nigeria, a suicide bomber linked to Boko Haram killed two civilians and six soldiers when he drove a car packed with explosives into a military barricade as part of the organization’s struggle against the Christian majority that rules that country. And in Mogadishu, Somalia, two suicide bombers linked to Al Shabab blew themselves up at the entrance to a government conference on the approval of a new national constitution – a constitution that includes the expansion of civil rights that contravene the laws of Sharia. (See the One Pager by Sujit Choudhry on constitutional transitions at p. 5.)

Modern suicide attacks became part of global terrorism in the early 1980s through the Shiite Hezbollah organization, which began using these methodically in Lebanon and later internationally. Suicide attacks spread to other countries, including Sri Lanka, Israel, Turkey, Kuwait and Croatia, among many others.

Between 1983 and 2001, approximately 195 suicide attacks were executed in over 21 countries. At first, it was commonly accepted that suicide attacks allowed the organizations that carried them to destabilize the inherent ‘inequality’ in the asymmetrical struggle against opponents who possessed clearly superior strength. The authors of suicide attacks even went so far as to shoot videotapes of their missions, in which they presented these as acts of last recourse, perpetrated by warriors who were desperate but utterly committed to their goals. As such, suicide terrorism was lent a degree of legitimacy in the idiom of the ‘freedom fighters’ who typically fight against a conquering, technologically superior military.

The 9/11 attacks in the US were a watershed in suicide attacks – not just because they were a ‘premiere performance’ by a small number of participants who inflicted an unprecedented degree of human, physical, economic and psychological damage, but because they ushered in a rash of suicide attacks of conspicuously different magnitude from those

that had come before. These post-9/11 attacks destabilized the notion that suicide attacks are a clear and distinct product of the struggle of local fighters against conquering armies. Instead, they pointed to suicide attacks as a readily available and practical tool in internal struggles that take place against a backdrop of political, religious and sectarian factors among groups with differing interests.

Since 9/11, there has been exponential growth in the number of suicide attacks and their geographic dispersion around the world. Suicide attacks have spread to 26 new countries, and are now known to have been used in 47 countries in total. By the summer of 2012, counting from the beginning of modern suicide attacks in 1983, there had been over 3,000 suicide attacks worldwide. (This number does not include the hundreds of suicide attacks that were foiled.) In other words, after 2001, there were 15 times more attacks than in the prior two decades.

A significant portion of the proliferation of suicide attacks during the last decade has taken place in three states: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the first two states, the US, at the head of an international coalition, carried out a military offensive against the ruling regimes, only to leave in situ a significant military presence of foreign forces. (See the Query article by Arabinda Acharya and Antara Desai at p. 26). However, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, most of the attacks were not aimed at foreign forces. In Iraq, approximately 1,450 suicide attacks have been carried out since 2003, with the peak period being the years 2005 to 2007. Of these attacks, only some 14 percent were carried out against foreign forces, over 40 percent were carried out against targets from the national and local military, police and security forces, and the remainder targeted civilians as a result of the conflict taking place between the Sunni minority and the Shiite majority. Despite the fact that most of the foreign forces have now left the country, Iraq continues to suffer from several dozen suicide attacks each year. In Afghanistan, the last decade has seen some 650 suicide attacks. Of these, only about 19 percent were carried out against foreign forces and foreign missions, while approximately 70 percent were carried out by the Taliban and its partners against government and military targets, as well as against targets from the Karzai administration and various tribal leaders. The smallest quantum of attacks – some five percent – was carried out against the background of ethnic-religious strife.

Pakistan stands third in the scope of suicide attacks carried out within its borders, despite the fact that it is not under occupation, and that there are no foreign forces on its soil. (A small contingent of CIA agents involved with the US drone programme, which targets Al Qaeda and the Taliban, are inside Pakistani territory.)

Between 2001 and 2011, and especially since 2006, there has been an intensification of suicide attacks: roughly 350 attacks have been carried out to date. Some 70 percent of these were aimed at government and security forces, some 22 percent were carried out against a particular religious or ethnic group, and only 7.5 percent were aimed against foreign representatives operating in the nation. The attacks were carried out by groups like the Pakistani Taliban (along with Al Qaeda), the Haqqani network, Lashkar-eJhangvi and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

All of these groups maintain ties with Al Qaeda.

Recent years have also seen an increase in suicide attacks in African nations like Somalia and Nigeria, as well as in Middle Eastern nations like Yemen and now Syria. In Somalia, 42 suicide attacks have been carried out since 2006 – the vast majority of these attributable to Al Shabab. Some 45 percent of these attacks were carried out against foreign targets, including journalists, African ministers and forces of the African Union.

About 35 percent of the attacks targeted local government. The rest targeted senior government officials and other establishment and military targets, as well as civilians.

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terrorist organizations active today – for several reasons. First, there are enough volunteers of both genders from around the world who are willing to join the ranks of these organizations and sacrifice themselves, in this way, for various causes and in the name of myriad worldviews. Second, this modus operandi has proven its efficacy in inflicting significant costs and pain on the adversaries of terrorist organizations. Third, suicide terrorism is a propaganda tool that gives the organizations that use it an image of might – thereby facilitating the psychological warfare against enemies, present and future. These factors have caused the use of suicide attacks to expand from a unique activity that was once thought to be exclusive to struggles against foreign occupying forces, to a part of intra-national conflict, including conflicts with various political, religious, sectarian and ethnic characteristics.

Countries suffering from the spread of this phenomenon to their territory, with the help of a credible international effort, must stanch it decisively while it is still budding – not just because of the physical and spiritual damage caused by suicide bombings, but also because of serious concerns regarding escalation and the possible evolution of attacks that use unconventional materials. | GB

Afghans offer prayers over the covered coffins of suicide attack victims during a burial ceremony in Khost, Afghanistan, June 2012. Nearly two dozen people were killed, including three US soldiers, at a checkpoint in a crowded market.

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n Nigeria, which became a theatre for suicide terrorism only in the second half of 2011, some 21 suicide attacks have been carried out to date.

Approximately 48 percent of these attacks targeted police and security personnel and assets, and a third targeted civilians – including in churches, as part of the religious campaign that Boko Haram is conducting to impose Sharia law. In Yemen, 35 suicide attacks have been carried out in recent years – mostly by Al Qaeda in the Hijaz and its affiliates. Some 47 percent of these were directed against military and security targets, and 30 percent against foreign targets. Roughly 20 percent took place in the context of inter-tribal rivalry. In Syria, 13 suicide attacks were carried out over the past nine months by opponents of the regime – some of whom identified with Global Jihad, which invested itself

in the country in order to help topple the Alawite regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

It can scarcely be expected that the use of suicide attacks will disappear in the near future. The forward trends in these attacks depend largely on the degree to which Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will become more peaceful and stable. It is also quite clear that suicide attacks have become an integral part of the arsenal of weapons at the disposal of more and more

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Isolée dans son vœu d’Europe puissance, Paris demeurera pour autant «puissance globale» PAR FRÉDÉRIC CHARILLON

QUEL AVENIR STRATÉGIQUE POUR LA FRANCE? Frédéric Charillon est professeur des Universités en science politique et directeur de l’Institut de recherches stratégiques de l’École militaire (Paris). Il est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages dont La politique étrangère de la France – De la fin de la guerre froide

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aux révolutions arabes.

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l’heure où l’on s’interroge sur la marge de manœuvre des puissances dites «moyennes», entre l’horizon inatteignable de «l’hyperpuissance» américaine et l’essor des grands «émergents», la question de l’avenir stratégique d’un pays comme la France se pose nécessairement. Ni «grande puissance» au sens où les États-Unis et l’URSS l’incarnaient du temps de la bipolarité, ni simple puissance régionale, la France récuse souvent cette appellation de puissance moyenne pour préférer celle de «puissance globale», capable de jouer un rôle international au-delà de son seul environnement géographique immédiat. Son rôle militaire en Afrique (on l’a encore vu en 2011 lors des interventions en Côte d’Ivoire et en Libye), son influence diplomatique dans plusieurs processus politiques (de la crise géorgienne de 2008 au dossier libanais en passant par la réforme de la finance internationale), l’ont récemment rappelé. De façon plus structurelle, la présence de ses soldats à l’étranger est forte: environ 7 000 militaires engagés en opération au printemps 2012 (l’Afghanistan, le Liban et le Tchad constituant les principales opérations), auxquels il faut ajouter environ 8 300 militaires pour les «forces de souveraineté», répartis sur trois zones d’outre mer (Caraïbe, Pacifique, Océan Indien), et 3 650 militaires pour les «forces pré-positionnées», répartis entre le Gabon, le Djibouti et les Émirats arabes unis. Si on y ajoute un rang de puissance économique, son siège permanent au Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies et son statut de puissance nucléaire, le dynamisme de la francophonie dans le monde et le rôle qu’elle y joue, on obtient une série d’éléments qui permettent de prétendre à ce statut. Pour autant, l’évolution des rapports de forces et des budgets imposent la réflexion.

Plutôt que de reprendre le contenu de la politique étrangère de la France ou de ses capacités de défense, on insistera sur trois questions qui doivent intervenir en amont de ces bilans. La France compte-t-elle toujours en tant qu’acteur international? Est-elle devenue, aux yeux des observateurs étrangers, un acteur «normal», au processus décisionnel conventionnel? Enfin, appliquons au cas français la célèbre question méthodologique

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Plus que d’autres pays peut-être, la France illustre la difficulté qu’il y a dans le monde actuel à transformer des outils d’influence classiques en atouts stratégiques modernes et proactifs.

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que les politologues américains James Rosenau et Mary Durfee posaient systématiquement à leurs étudiants: «Of what is it an instance?» De quoi la France est-elle le nom, sur le plan des problématiques stratégiques?

La France compte-t-elle toujours en tant qu’acteur international? La réponse est oui, pour les raisons déjà évoquées plus haut. Mais à quelle échelle, et à quel titre? Au titre de nation indépendante, elle demeure une référence en termes de savoir-faire (diplomatique comme militaire), une influence (notamment dans les enceintes multilatérales).

Mais sa taille, sa démographie, restent loin de celles des États les plus imposants (les États-Unis et la Chine aujourd’hui, demain sans doute l’Inde, le Brésil et d’autres). Parmi les «ressources» que la science politique attribue à une politique étrangère, la France en détient un certain nombre et celle de la réputation ou de l’image n’est pas en reste. En tant que membre moteur de l’Union européenne, elle appartient à un pôle attractif et capable d’actions communes importantes, mais aussi à un ensemble qui peine encore à s’affirmer comme acteur stratégique sur la scène internationale. Le fossé croissant entre d’une part le crédo français d’une politique étrangère et de défense européenne digne de ce nom, et d’autre part la faible volonté politique des Européens à consacrer les moyens nécessaires à cette ambition, apparaît comme un obstacle réel qui ne peut plus être passé sous silence: Paris apparaît isolée dans son vœu d’Europe puissance. En tant que membre de l’alliance atlantique, où sa place est redevenue plus centrale depuis 2009, la France constitue, avec la Grande-Bretagne, l’un des rares acteurs otaniens avec une capacité de projection reconnue, en dépit des réductions de format des armées déjà entreprises ou programmées. Mais sa dépendance vis-à-vis du Grand allié américain pourrait devenir croissante sur les plans logistique et industriel. L’épisode libyen de 2011 (opération Harmattan) a ainsi montré à la fois le professionnalisme des pilotes français, le volontarisme des décideurs politiques parisiens, mais également la difficulté pour les deux plus grandes armées européennes à venir à bout militairement ensemble d’un adversaire de troisième rang, avec un soutien américain qui s’est révélé plus que précieux.

La France «compte» dans le paysage stratégique, sans pour autant avoir les moyens de l’overstretching, comme le rappellera probablement le Livre Blanc sur la défense et la sécurité, commandé par le nouveau président élu il y a quelques mois. En tant qu’État individuel, elle compte comme force, mais doit désormais compter ses forces. Dans l’Union européenne, elle compte comme moteur à condition de n’être pas seule à donner une orientation stratégique à un véhicule qui n’est plus certain de vouloir encore avancer sur ce terrain. En tant que

puissance militaire de premier plan dans l’OTAN enfin, elle compte comme pilier qui souhaite être entendu, à la double condition que le leader de l’alliance lui donne une voix, et qu’elle ait elle-même des moyens suffisants à apporter. Une réflexion plus précise est en cours sur ce point en France, qui fera l’objet d’un rapport rédigé par l’ancien ministre (1997-2002) des Affaires étrangères Hubert Védrine (qui est aussi bloggueur chez GB).

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oujours marquée par la rhétorique très particulière qu’avait voulu lui conférer le général de Gaulle (1958-1969), la posture extérieure française a longtemps intrigué ses partenaires et alliés. «Reluctant ally» obsédé par son indépendance nationale et par sa grandeur aux yeux des Anglo-Saxons, la France s’est-elle normalisée au fil des dernières évolutions, notamment lors de la «rupture» annoncée en 2007 par Nicolas Sarkozy dans le domaine de la politique étrangère, ou avec son retour dans les instances intégrées de l’OTAN? La réponse est non, pour plusieurs raisons et en dépit d’inflexions notables. La première raison tient à un processus décisionnel resté très présidentialisé, qualifié jadis de «monarchie nucléaire» et plus couramment de «domaine réservé», qui continue de dépendre étroitement des orientations voire du style insufflés par le chef de l’État. Deux exemples entre autres illustrent ce point: la première est l’attitude de Jacques Chirac décidant de s’opposer à la guerre américaine en Irak en mars 2003 (alors qu’il semblait s’orienter vers une autre voie en janvier précédant), la seconde est l’opération lancée en Libye par Nicolas Sarkozy en 2011, au cours de laquelle des acteurs totalement extérieurs au processus institutionnel (comme l’écrivain Bernard Henry Lévy) ont pu donner l’impression de compter davantage que les ministres compétents.

La deuxième raison qui plaide pour la perception d’une exception stratégique française réside dans le maintien par la France de focalisations géopolitiques spécifiques, comme autant de «champs» réservés (Afrique occidentale, Afrique du Nord, Liban) pouvant primer, le cas échéant, sur une stratégie plus globale. On se souvient, en 2002, du soutien français au Maroc contre l’Espagne dans la crise de l’îlot du Persil, à l’encontre des règles de solidarité européennes. Ou du statut particulier de l’Afrique dans la conduite de la politique étrangère française, longtemps traitée par le «ministère de la Coopération» (jusqu’aux années 1997-1998), hors des Affaires étrangères, et suivie par un conseiller Afrique à l’Elysée. On connaît également le débat qui, à tort ou à raison, attribue à Paris une difficulté à prendre ses distances avec des régimes connus,

s’avère plus rigide. Les moyens de l’État à l’étranger doivent intégrer cette donne dans leur dispositif.

Deuxième défi: l’avenir de la dissuasion nucléaire.

Composante majeure et véritable «assurance vie» de la défense française, le rôle central de cette dissuasion est réaffirmé régulièrement dans les documents de doctrine. Nier l’avantage que cet atout confère à la France sur la scène internationale relèverait là encore – au mieux – de l’aveuglement. Pour autant, figer la réflexion sur l’évolution de la dissuasion serait coupable. On le sait, la possession de l’arme nucléaire ne permet pas tout, et ne prémunit pas contre tous les types de menaces. Adaptée à la défense d’un territoire sanctuarisé, permettant de placer un adversaire bien identifié et territorialisé devant la perspective d’un coût stratégique exorbitant en cas de riposte à une agression potentielle de sa part, la dissuasion correspond à des scénarios de confrontation classiques (qui existent encore), et suppose toujours que la détention d’armes nucléaires est faite pour ne pas avoir à les employer, dans un face à face du fort au fort, ou du petit au gros (c’était le «pouvoir égalisateur de l’atome», cher aux stratèges français face à l’URSS). Face à une menace plus diffuse, à l’asymétrie, à la cyber-confrontation (voir l’article Feature de Wesley Wark à la page 34), ou au terrorisme bien sûr (voir l’article Query de Yoram Schweitzer à la page 40), la dissuasion nucléaire n’opère pas en tant que telle. Jacques Chirac avait suscité le débat sur ce point, lors d’un discours tenu le 19 janvier 2006, en laissant entendre que la dissuasion pourrait s’appliquer contre des États soutenant le terrorisme, sans pour autant préciser les modalités d’un tel emploi. La France, comme la Grande-Bretagne, fait partie des rares puissances «non grandes puissances», démocratiques, occidentales, à qui les responsabilités internationales imposent d’inventer la doctrine de dissuasion.

Enfin, si la France gaullienne a longtemps misé sur une politique indépendante pour marquer sa différence, compensant la «puissance» (déclinante en termes relatifs) par la «grandeur» (maintenue), cette politique, qui mêle ambition du verbe et particularisme de l’analyse, ne permet plus seule d’assurer systématiquement un leadership. Fondée sur le caractère exceptionnel du couple francoallemand en Europe, elle doit maintenant compter avec une Union à 27 membres. Jouant à la fois sur sa posture unique dans l’OTAN et sur le trio franco-

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depuis le Gabon jusqu’à la Tunisie en passant par le Liban. L’ensemble de ces éléments – préoccupation française pour son indépendance nationale, présidentialisation du processus décisionnel, liens exceptionnels avec un certain nombre de partenaires souvent issus de l’ancien empire colonial – constitue, aux yeux des partenaires européens et atlantiques de la France, à la fois une énigme et une source d’incertitude difficile à gérer. À ce titre, il demeure bien une exception française, à laquelle plusieurs chefs d’État et nombre de candidats à la présidence ont déclaré vouloir mettre fin, sans que l’on sache jusqu’où une telle évolution était possible ou souhaitable. Car cette approche a une fonction, qui consiste à préserver la spécificité d’une pratique française sur la scène internationale, à l’heure où la plupart des États membres de l’Union européenne, ou des autres alliés des États-Unis, renoncent progressivement à une telle singularité.

«Of what is France an instance?» Plus que d’autres pays peut-être, la France illustre la difficulté qu’il y a dans le monde actuel à transformer des outils d’influence classiques en atouts stratégiques modernes et proactifs. Elle illustre en particulier trois défis nouveaux auxquels la plupart des puissances doivent s’adapter: premièrement, la présence ne garantit plus l’influence, ensuite la dissuasion nucléaire n’offre plus toutes les sécurités, enfin la singularité n’assure plus systématiquement le leadership.

Sur la présence d’abord. La France entretient un réseau diplomatique important (le deuxième du monde avec quelque 160 ambassades, 17 représentations permanentes, 97 consulats généraux et consulats et 154 services de coopération et d’action culturelle), qui lui permet d’assurer un ancrage planétaire récepteur aussi bien que fournisseur d’information. Combinée avec la présence militaire et le poids économique déjà mentionnés plus haut, et avec un audiovisuel public important (France 24, RFI…), cette présence n’est pas négligeable. La France compte parmi les rares acteurs capables d’un tel maillage. Pour autant, les interrogations sur la pérennité de ce dispositif et sur son redéploiement possible sont légitimes. Cette politique de présence garantit-elle toujours une influence stratégique majeure? La France a-t-elle besoin de 160 ambassades dans le monde, y compris à Sainte Lucie et à Trinité-et-Tobago? D’autres formes de défense des intérêts sont-elles possibles? Les avantages du dispositif actuel sont nombreux, mais optimisables. Le dispositif militaire français permanent en Afrique, dans un autre registre, s’est ainsi concentré dans les dernières années sur le Gabon et le Djibouti, du fait d’une baisse des moyens, mais aussi pour prendre acte de la nouvelle donne africaine (voir l’article In Situ d’Amna Guellali à la page 18). L’influence, on le sait, passe par des vecteurs moins institutionnels comme les think tanks, là où le dispositif d’État

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À PARAÎTRE EN SEPTEMBRE CHAIRE RAOUL-DANDURAND L’Observatoire sur le Moyen-Orient et l’Afrique du Nord de la Chaire Raoul-Dandurand en études stratégiques présente :

G.I contre Jihad Le match nul

PIERRE-ALAIN CLÉMENT La confrontation entre George W. Bush et Oussama ben Laden s’est terminée sur un prévisible match nul. L’auteur expose les raisons de cet échec mutuel en démontrant que les stratégies des deux combattants ne pouvaient qu’exacerber les tensions.

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Éditions des Presses de l’Université du Québec, collection Enjeux contemporains www.puq.ca

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britannico-américain qu’elle aurait aimé constituer en directoire, la France est revenue dans la structure intégrée de commandement de l’Alliance, et admet ainsi qu’elle peut en attendre un certain nombre de gains, même si cela l’amène à retrouver un jeu collectif dont les règles (la domination américaine en fait partie) sont connues.

Ayant longtemps cultivé une relation atypique en Afrique et dans le monde arabe (la «Françafrique» ou la «politique arabe» tant décriées et caricaturées), Paris fait aujourd’hui le constat que la donne dans ces régions a changé suffisamment pour imposer une approche nouvelle et plus collective (voir l’article Feature de Sam Sasan Shoamanesh à la page 20).

Au final, la France doit donc réinventer sa posture stratégique en ce début du 21e siècle. Rien d’original à cela, dans la mesure où les autres grandes puissances occidentales sont également confrontées aux mêmes dilemmes. Mais dans le cas français, cette réinvention pose simultanément la question de l’avenir des puissances européennes, de l’Europe elle-même sur l’échiquier mondial, des modalités de l’influence, de la dissuasion, et de la possibilité aujourd’hui, de développer encore des stratégies nationales. Car au-delà du seul cas français, il apparaît que l’hypothèse, autrefois classique, selon laquelle chaque État aurait sa stratégie, sa politique étrangère et sa doctrine d’action extérieure, n’est plus valide. Dans le contexte européen notamment, combien reste-t-il de visions nationales des affaires extérieures, des relations internationales? On entendra ici la notion de vision nationale comme la capacité d’un État à concevoir, formuler et mettre en œuvre une approche originale par lui-même et au service des intérêts nationaux qu’il s’est définis. Comme sa capacité, surtout, à produire en interne une grille de lecture, une analyse des grands enjeux internationaux en fonction de sa propre identité, et non en réduisant ces enjeux à la question de savoir s’il convient de s’aligner sur le leader d’une alliance ou pas.

Un certain nombre de crises internationales récentes ont montré qu’en Europe, peu d’États membres de l’Union étaient en mesure de développer une interprétation de la scène mondiale qui leur soit propre. Pour la majorité d’entre eux, le choix se réduit à trois alternatives: soutenir sans réserve l’allié américain, proposer une analyse différente de lui (avec le coût politique que cela peut comporter), ou se contenter d’un silence prudent. On retrouverait presque ici le célèbre triptyque d’Albert Hirschman «Exit-Voice-Loyalty», appliqué cette fois à la politique étrangère. L’administration Bush, dans les années 2000 et notamment dans la crise irakienne, avait même simplifié encore cette alternative en la ramenant à deux possibilités seulement: être «avec» les États-Unis, ou «contre» eux. Être capable de proposer une vision constructive du monde, originale et en adéquation avec les moyens disponibles, sans s’aligner sur les États-Unis ni rompre avec eux, constitue aujourd’hui l’un des défis majeurs pour un pays comme la France, dont la vocation n’est d’être ni la Grande-Bretagne (pour l’option «loyalty»), ni l’Allemagne (pour l’option «exit»), ni le Venezuela d’Hugo Chavez… | GB

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Russian history swings consistently from systemic disorder and high national ‘anomie’ to dictatorship and violence by the state against its people. Can this cycle be broken?

BY LEONID KOSALS

RUSSIA’S UNIQUE PATH

BETWEEN CHAOS & DICTATORSHIP Leonid Kosals is Visiting Professor at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, and Professor in the Higher School of Economics

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in Moscow.

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omplaining about a lack of order has been Russia’s favourite national sport since time immemorial. The Russian poet Alexei Tolstoy – a relative of the novelist Leo Tolstoy – wrote a famous poem about how Russians have, throughout their history, invited foreign leaders to invest the land with stability, only for the project to end in tears and the Russian people to be forced once again to live without clear moral and legal regulation. Today, the talk in the streets all over Russia is that even Vladimir Putin could never succeed in creating true order in Russia, and that the country will continue to suffer from its traditional political and strategic uncertainty for the foreseeable future.

One of the principal social consequences of Russia’s persistent instability is what sociologists call ‘anomie’ – a concept coined in the late 19th century by Émile Durkheim, referring to the ethical normlessness that pervades a society when people have no moral structures to inform their daily behaviour, or no compass by which to distinguish right from wrong. As W. Morrison writes in the Dictionary of Criminology, “This lack of normative regulation leaves individuals without adequate ethical guidance as to their conduct and undercuts social integration.” In the ‘anomic’ society, people behave by their own rules, as determined by specific situations and personal attitudes. They do not take into account constraints like laws and moral codes. As such, anomic contexts give rise to many of the social ills that are so notorious in dysfunctional societies around the world, including crime, suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, vandalism, mass violence and other anti-social behaviour.

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ILLUSTRATION: JULIE MURPHY

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he societies of the former Soviet bloc had huge variations in their development trajectories during the period of general normlessness that emerged after the fall of the USSR. Naturally, there were stories of both success and failure in fighting against anomie. Some post-Soviet countries, like Poland or the Baltic states, were more successful than others in establishing a stable social order. However, major post-Soviet states like Russia or Ukraine have to date still not been successful in standing up stable economic and political institutions. These countries are certainly well below their erstwhile anomic peaks – witnessed in the 1990s – but are, instead, on a quite long, bumpy road to diminished global anomie among their populations.

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In the ‘anomic’ society, people behave by their own rules, as determined by specific situations and personal attitudes. They do not take into account constraints like laws and moral codes.

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In truth, anomie may have both positive and negative impacts on the development of societies in transformation. It may provide a window of opportunity for the radical change of a bad trajectory in social development, for the restructuring of social systems and, to be sure, for great leaps forward in individual flourishing – that is, anomic people may quickly vault from bottom to top in social status, wealth and power, develop an extraordinary career, and self-express in the absence of conventional social restrictions and pressures. Bref, in a period of great uncertainty, anomie may be propitious for the most ambitious and ruthless in a society suffering from outdated norms and regulations.

Meanwhile, though there are clearly success stories among self-made people who have profited from post-Soviet societies’ global anomie, the number of homicides and suicides doubled during the 19901995 initial stage of post-Soviet transformation in Russia. Profound social dislocation – including large numbers of abandoned and homeless children, a rapid rise in cases of neurosis and depression, and

rampant criminality – became a daily reality for a country that was ill-prepared for such a shock after decades of socialist paternalism and a state ideology of egalitarianism. Of course, the anomie created by this shock was exacerbated by the attempt to move rapidly to both a market economy and at least the formal trappings of a democratic political system. This was in marked contrast to the Chinese experience, where the Middle Kingdom managed to preserve its old socialist order even in the context of the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping.

This meant that China, unlike many countries in the former Soviet space, was able to preserve most of its social capital and cohesion over the course of its transition to a market system.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the USSR succumbed to systemic crisis just after Brezhnev’s funeral. This crisis worsened dramatically over the course of that decade. The crisis had four indicators: elite disintegration – that is, conflict between various elite groups and the failure to promote a leader who was able to respond to the challenges of the times; a severe trust deficit, wherein people were highly disappointed by the socioeconomic system of the day and its capacity to solve the country’s many problems; severe economic crisis; and, finally, military-strategic crisis resulting from the Soviet failure in the Afghan war of 1979-1989.

(See the Query article by Arabinda Acharya and Antara Desai on the possible futures of post-2014 Afghanistan at p. 26.)

All of this occurred in the context of a patent absence of vision by the Soviet leadership about how to meet the challenges of both the elites and the general public. Mikhail Gorbachev started a policy of liberalization of the economy, politics and social life. Though part of the population benefitted from the slow emergence of non-state businesses and some independent political activity, much of the freedom of the period was in point of fact facilitated by the very decay of the Soviet system. And, of course, the systemic crisis soon led to the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.

Acute anomie captured common people and elite groups alike. After the liberalization of prices in 1991, a period of laissez-faire ensued. Amid mass official privatization of state assets, hidden business groups emerged. Private entities wrested control of political power, property and violent resources previously possessed or monopolized by the Soviet state. While the new Russian state continued to control considerable resources, many assets became the objects of fierce competition among

so-called ‘clans’ in search of profit.

What explains the genesis of these informal coalitions (clans) of business people affiliated with state officials and sometimes criminal groups – coalitions glued together by a system of intimate relationships during a period of accelerated liberalization? In other words, what explains the ‘clan capitalism’ of the post-Soviet system? The principal cause of the clan system, in which the marge de manœuvre of business people was restricted mainly by informal or implicit regulations, was the extremely hostile, anarchical socioeconomic setting in which the clans formed. There were no norms and traditions of democracy and market in Russia when liberalization began. Business freshmen therefore found themselves in an impossible predicament: on the ground, they were victims of explosively increasing criminality (causing them to rapidly self-organize for protection purposes); and at the official level, they were met with an ‘administrative racket’ comprising the unconventional activities of some officials, their groups and their departments – that is, bureaucrats seeking administrative rents in uncertain situations and transactions at the very moment when the norms of government-private sector relations were still highly embryonic.

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The principal cause of the clan system, in which the marge de manœuvre of business people was restricted mainly by implicit regulations, was the extremely hostile, anarchical socioeconomic setting in which the clans formed. that the last three prime ministers under Boris Yeltsin were from the former KGB: Vladimir Putin’s major competitor was another silovik – Vladimir Rushailo, former Russian minister of the interior.

By the middle of the 1990s, ‘clan democracy’ had emerged. It included multiple centres of power and initiative. No group monopolized political power.

Major political decisions – including the elections of the president, regional leaders, and local and federal parliamentarians – were made informally through hidden, subterranean compromises struck among powerful, competing clans. The top formal political leadership was forced to follow certain implied restrictions, and to seek the support or sponsorship of the powerful clans, which in turn carefully monitored adherence to the said ‘compromise’ decisions. And while this system departed

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he number of killings in Russia increased from some 16,000 in 1991 to 32,000 by the mid-1990s, and the number of contract assassinations increased from 102 to 560 over this same period.

Affiliation with an informal business coalition provided better security than independent entrepreneurship, which was unprotected by a state that was quite evidently exercised by other problems. Within these business coalitions, there were very high levels of trust – a key currency in the initial stages of postSoviet transformation, given the general absence of formal, developed economic institutions.

These coalitions and informal business communities – including business people, state officials, law enforcement, and sometimes pure criminals – pushed independent entrepreneurs, who were outside of the informal networks, out of the most profitable markets (raw materials, oil and gas, importexport operations, banking and financial services) and into less profitable and more risky businesses.

And for the lay citizen, it was clear that the only

remaining reliable or trustworthy unit in Russian society was the family – in extremis, old friends.

In the first part of the 1990s, the most powerful clans emerged within the extraction industries because of stagnation in domestic demand and the leading role of exports. These economic clans had huge financial resources and enjoyed control over many of the top positions in the executive and legislative branches of government at both the federal and local levels. So-called ‘siloviki’ – clans in the armed forces, police, prosecutors’ offices, marshals’ offices, former KGB – had fewer resources and were excluded from the important official posts. Meanwhile, the most ambitious and mobile among the siloviki – siloviki-businessmen, as it were – formed in the private sector. This group also had future political goals. Acting as a big, coordinated network – a super-clan – they achieved success in the market and accumulated very significant economic capital, which allowed them to compete for the top political posts by the end of 1990s – just as the country entered political crisis around the succession to Boris Yeltsin.

It was no accident, therefore,

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markedly from the standards and norms of parliamentary democracy in developed countries, it provided for a degree of feedback from the politically active part of the public to the authorities.

Of course, this was, as a rule, a system of bad governance because of the inclusion of many officials in powerful administrative, business, and even criminal clans. As such, when bureaucrats were incompetent or crooked, it was very difficult and sometimes dangerous to fire them in virtue of looming potential conflict with the powerful clans. Unfit and criminally-minded officials therefore often held high posts with relative impunity.

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uring the second half of the 1990s, most of the economic and political space in Russia had been distributed between the major clans, and the period of laissez-faire had come to an end. Those Russians who worked in small and medium-sized businesses had learned their initial lessons from the market economy – to wit, how to create companies, deal with a banking system, compete in the market, and so on. The rules of the game stabilized, more or less: for example, it was no longer possible to get credit without collateral. Moreover, it was impossible to enter a given market without informal permission from local authorities; in other words, institutionalization of the shadow economy continued. There was regular participation by law enforcement in economic and political competition: business people could buy ‘a little power,’ while bureaucrats and the police could earn rents in the market. The siloviki, for their part, provided security services to business people. However, in cases of excessive use of violence by law enforcement, business people were now certain that bureaucrats could protect them.

Putin changed the ‘power balance’ in favour of the bureaucrats and the siloviki at the beginning of the 2000s. The clan system became centralized and bureaucratized. Prices to buy ‘a little power’ were increased, while the quantum of top groups of officials and law enforcers decreased.

These groups gained at the market more actively, all the while dramatically curtailing the influence of top business people. Putin’s clan became a monopoly that distributed the most valuable economic and political (posts) assets.

The takeover of top posts (Gazprom, Russian railways, etc.) or private/semi-private assets (Yukos, Media-Most, Russneft, etc.) led to the creation of a new set of oligarchs.

These oligarchs – Chemezov, Miller, Timchenko, Yakunin, Rotenberg, the Kovalchuk brothers and a few others – had a double affiliation: they were members of the top clan, as well as leaders of the major Russian companies that controlled the largest part of the assets in the country.

Russia’s new order of clan networks dictated the country’s new political and commercial settings. National anomie decreased somewhat. But business activity and opportunities for independent business diminished markedly – also because of contemporaneously high prices for oil and gas.

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In spite of actual economic growth, there was institutional stagnation, while an obviously inefficient system (protected clans having little incentive to continuously compete and improve) was accompanied by imitation reforms in the economy, the legal and law enforcement systems, in politics, science, education, and other areas of Russian life.

By 2010, there were signs that Russia had once again fallen into systemic crisis. An accumulation of local crises suggested a critical mass of unsolved problems. Among these crises were the various protests against electoral fraud at the end of 2011; the riots by the nationalists in Manezhnaya Square in Moscow, accompanied by clashes throughout the city because of the killing of a football fan; mass killing in the village of Kushchevskaya, with obvious collapse of the local and regional authorities – all massively involved in organized crime. National media coverage of all of these crises was heavy. And while none of the crises was in itself considered critical for the survival of the current Russian regime, each one had a harmful impact on global trust in the ability of Russian federal authorities to address key challenges, and laid bare the corruption and inefficiency of the Russian system as a whole.

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he Russian system may now be approaching its bifurcation point – that is, the point at which systemic crisis commences and new windows of opportunity for radical socioeconomic change emerge. The Putin regime is unstable over the medium-term. It is therefore crucially important for democratically-minded Russians to prepare political networks and elaborate a programme of urgent political actions for the coming crisis in order to avoid any radical nationalist or siloviki coup – a possible outcome of the crisis, and one that has many historical antecedents. The highest priority must be the reform of Russia’s political system. The major obstacle to such reform is the absence of credible parties and serious multi-party competition – all decimated during the 1990s. Professional political party agendas and the advancement of policy alternatives in the domains of politics, education, law enforcement, social and economic policy are important means of realigning national values and overcoming national anomie. Demonopolization of the economy and the creation of ideologically neutral state organs must be key objectives. The benchmarks for these reforms should be found in the success stories of Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states and several other former socialist countries in Europe.

It is not inconceivable that a new small liberal party consisting mainly of political freshmen and women – all disconnected from the authorities and Russia’s extant political parties – should emerge from the most recent wave of national protests. If two or three such new parties emerge, all the better. But the game of real Russian reform is necessarily a long one, and the fruits of the labours of such a young, progressive political class will likely not be seen for years to come. | GB

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NEZ À NEZ When Surrounded by Four Billion Asians Australia and New Zealand are not prepared for Asian pre-eminence HUGH WHITE vs DAVID SKILLING PROPOSITION:

Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University, a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute, and a former Australian deputy secretary of defence.

His new book is The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power.

David Skilling is founding Director of Landfall Strategy Group in Singapore, and former Chief Executive of the public policy think-tank The New

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Zealand Institute.

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Hugh White (for): The return of Asia to its traditional position at the centre of the world economy is arguably the biggest shift in the global distribution of power – and in the global order at large – in over 200 years. It is certainly the biggest shift in the international environment of Australia and New Zealand since these distinctive settler nations were established by British settlement in the South Pacific over two centuries ago. That process of British settlement was itself a reflection of British strategic and economic power as it approached its apogee. The founding of these two societies was a product of the power that Britain acquired through the Industrial Revolution. It was the increase in per-capita productivity in Britain that produced the wealth that allowed Britain to take, hold, develop and populate these islands at such a distance from the North Sea. Of course, it is no coincidence that this was precisely the time at which Asia’s giants lost their traditional place as the world’s largest economies to the relatively small countries of the North Atlantic.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about what economic historians call The Great Divergence – the gap that emerged 200 years ago between the developed economies of the West and the underdeveloped rest of the world – is that it lasted as long as it has (see the Tête à Tête interview with Kishore Mahbubani at p. 8). As Britain’s power started to falter a century ago, America emerged as a new Western primary power in the Asia-Pacific region.

This has been fundamental to the worldviews of both Australia and New Zealand. As they emerged to become independent nations, both have approached Asia with an assumption of Western global economic pre-eminence, as well as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ maritime strategic primacy in the Western Pacific. Today, as much as at any time since 1788 (when the New South Wales penal colony was established by the British), Australia and New Zealand assume that they can rely on Western power in Asia to keep them safe from their Asian neighbours, and to make Asia a safe place in which to do business.

Now we are seeing the end of this era. The question for Australia and New Zealand is: how do we

adapt? The first essential step is to acknowledge and understand the fact that this big change is happening. Australia, at least, has yet to take this step. One might expect us to be very conscious of the implications of Asia’s rise, because it has been so important to the Australian economy. Instead, we have developed a split view of our future. Economically, Australians assume that Asia – and especially China – will keep on growing and buying more and more of our minerals. At the same time, we assume that America will forever remain the dominant power in Asia, and therefore the ultimate guarantor of our security. But these cannot both be true at once. The economic growth that drives China’s demand for Australian resources is also driving a fundamental shift in the relative power of the US and China in Asia. Most Australian politicians have yet to even explain to the Australian public that this is happening – let alone start to explore what we should do about it. Instead, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott both assure Australians that the US will continue to play the same role in keeping Asia stable and secure that is has played for the past 70 years. For Australians – and, I suspect, New Zealanders – nurtured on the assumption of perpetual Western primacy, the message is just too unwelcome to be delivered. So, as Asia returns to its traditional global pre-eminence, the West’s outposts on Asia’s periphery are patently unprepared.

David Skilling (against): The rebalancing away from Western economic and political dominance is indeed a tectonic shift. It is worth noting, however, that even with continued Asian growth, this does not lead to Asian pre-eminence anytime soon – that is, the per-capita income league tables will remain dominated by the West for some time, even if global GDP shares move.

But the world order is undoubtedly changing, and countries do need to prepare themselves. This is particularly so because this power transition involves countries with markedly different perspectives and interests. It is quixotic to expect these new powers to simply sign up to be responsible stakeholders in

the existing system. Change is inevitable.

At a minimum, this shift in the world order will be an uncomfortable process for Australia and New Zealand – both of which were established as Western outposts, and remain in the Western orbit.

To be sure, the process will also be challenging and uncomfortable for many other countries – large and small, inside and outside Asia, Western-aligned and not. As such, I would suggest that a more useful framing of this exchange is to ask whether Australia and New Zealand are ready for a transition to Asian pre-eminence in a relative sense.

On this framing, my sense is that Australia and

ILLUSTRATION: LOUIS FISHAUF

tralia and New Zealand perhaps make it easier to accommodate new power realities. New Zealand – and Australia, to a lesser extent – appreciate that we are often (strategic) price-takers and have to adapt to emerging realities. Yes, we contribute to the regional debates – the establishment of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) are examples of innovation from Australia and New Zealand, respectively. But we do not expect the world to accommodate our interests.

By contrast, other leading countries – notably the US – face domestic political difficulties in adapting to a much more dominant Asian role in global economic and political affairs. Australia and New Zealand can approach relationships with Asia without the spectre of declinism.

Bref: Australia and New Zealand seem as well prepared for Asian pre-eminence as any other country. Perhaps that is too low a bar, but it is a start. It may well be, as you suggest, that political leaders in Australia and New Zealand have not fully communicated the implications of these structural changes.

But there is an intuitive awareness that things are

The world order is undoubtedly changing, and countries do need to prepare themselves.

This is particularly so because this power transition involves countries with markedly different perspectives and interests.

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New Zealand are more ready than many other countries. There are three types of arguments that can be advanced in this regard. First, history: The experience of Australia and New Zealand with respect to the decline of the British Empire after WW2, and the British withdrawal to the other side of the Suez, provided a salutary lesson on the impermanent nature of security guarantees. Similarly, the entry of the UK – at the time, New Zealand’s most important market – into the European Community was a searing moment in terms of economic security. These experiences taught Australia and New Zealand that they should not rely excessively on any one party forever. There is today an understanding that maintaining a portfolio of economic and security relationships is important – learning that may be relevant to the current transition.

Second, geography: Australia’s proximity to Southeast Asia (and New Zealand’s, to a slightly lesser extent) has helped to acclimatize us to Asia. Proximity to Asia – together with strong growth in our economic relationships with Asia, and significant Asian immigration – helps us to appreciate the extent and nature of the changes currently underway.

In other words, the understanding that a growing part of our future is with our Asian neighbours focusses the mind in a way that is less true for more distant parts of the world. Geography also makes it more likely that we think about Asia as more than just East Asia – that is, that we really reflect on other parts of Asia that will also be important (such as those countries on the Indian Ocean).

Third, there is politics: The domestic politics of Aus-

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changing, and that it is not possible for the status quo to hold. Certainly, we need to do much better.

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Perhaps the most remarkable thing about what economic historians call The Great Divergence, – the gap between the developed economies of the West and the rest of the world – is that it lasted as long as it has.

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HW: Australia and New Zealand, as you say, have gone through big changes in our international setting before, and managed them pretty well. However, there are a few things this time that are different, and that will make the coming transformations harder to manage.

First, there are no more new ‘Anglo-Saxon’ allies to which we may turn. When Britain’s power ebbed, Australia and New Zealand could and did turn to the US. This was not a simple or painless process, but we did find a country as powerful as Britain – and much like us in history, culture and values – to take its place as our guardian in Asia.

This time, there will be no more great and powerful friends from the North Atlantic world to which we may turn. While I agree that the US will remain an immensely powerful and important country in Asia for many decades yet, it will not be able to play the same kind of role that it has to date, and that Britain did before it, because its power relative to the Asian giants will simply not be as great.

Second, our own power relative to that of our neighbours is declining rapidly. Only 25 years ago, Australia had the second largest economy in Asia after Japan. We were richer than India and China, and our GDP was not far from the combined GDP of all of ASEAN’s countries. Today, the story is very different. In 2010, Indonesia overtook Australia in GDP. This is a profound shift in itself. Australia has always assumed that it would forever remain the richest and strongest country in its immediate neighbourhood. Although much remains uncertain about Indonesia’s trajectory, there is a real chance that 25 years from now, Indonesia’s economy could be in the order of three or four times larger than that of Australia. Of course, per-capita GDP would still be well below Australia’s, but in the calculus of national power, it is national – not individual – wealth that counts.

The case of Indonesia shows how little we are doing – at least in Australia – to respond to the new power realities. Australia’s bilateral relationship with Indonesia remains focussed on third-order, short-term issues like people-smuggling and live cattle exports. We are doing nothing to build the kind of relationship that we will need with Indonesia if and when it becomes a great power in its own right. Indeed, the most high-profile feature of Australia’s bilateral relationship with Indonesia is a large and fast-growing aid programme. With this aid, we seem to be trying harder and harder to perpetuate a vision of our relationship with our giant neighbour in which we are wealthy and strong, and they are poor and weak. To me, this looks like we are in denial about what is really happening, and

about our changing place in the neighbourhood.

Third, I fear that – again, at least in Australia – our political leadership today is not as strong as it was when we faced big changes in the past. Back in the late 19th century, as British power began to ebb, a remarkable group of Australian statesmen led by Alfred Deakin identified the issues, debated the options, and took radical and effective action.

They did all of this by reaching out to the Australian public and leading the development of opinion. The same quality of leadership appeared from people like Percy Spender after WW2, as we came to terms with decolonization in Asia. Today, Australia’s political leaders are, almost without exception, unwilling or unable to show that kind of leadership. Rather than trying to shape events, they seem content to wait in order to respond to them.

DS: It is certainly the case that the transformational rebalancing toward Asia will be more consequential for Australia and New Zealand than was the case with the previous power transition that took place within the Anglo-Saxon family. This change is made more uncomfortable by the declining economic importance of the Antipodes. Australia and New Zealand are no longer the rich kids on the block, and our voice may seem quieter as a result.

Much more needs to be done to position us for this very different, and less comfortable, world.

We need to understand the disruptively changing strategic environment and its implications for our national interests. And we need to define a response.

The status quo is not enough.

That said, the current global strategic rebalancing is not a binary shift. Although Asia – or more precisely, some parts of Asia – have been growing at astounding rates, we should not over-interpret this.

The language used to frame this debate – Asian preeminence – seems premature. By virtue of its large population, China will likely become the world’s largest economy, in nominal terms, in the next couple of decades. But Asia is more than China. Countries like India have struggled to meet their potential, and many Asian countries are struggling to sustain the growth rates that will propel them out of the middle income trap. Population growth will help some – although not China or Japan – but the growth rates observed over the past decades will probably not be sustained. This will surely affect the ability of Asian countries to project power and influence.

Rather than Asian pre-eminence, there will be multiple global nodes of economic and political power. HSBC estimates that only four of the largest 15 economies in 2050 by GDP will be Asian, with the remainder coming from Europe and the Americas.

And it is the current group of advanced economies that will dominate the per-capita income rankings.

The rise of Asian powers will give a very differ-

ent feel to the Asian/Western Pacific region. China, Indonesia and others will be increasingly influential – and perhaps dominant – in the region. This is our immediate neighbourhood, and Australia and New Zealand need to respond. Still, we should not overrespond. Important high-income markets and nodes of innovation will still be found in the traditional locations of North America and Europe – as well as in Asia and other emerging markets.

This suggests that an approach of balancing and diversification may be appropriate – an approach in which Australia and New Zealand deliberately position themselves for the new regional realities, while continuing to invest in existing economic and political relations. Rotating our focus toward Asia only to a point may be the best course.

This is not intended to be a cop-out. Hard choices and trade-offs need to be made, and the new world will be confronting and challenging – in security, political and economic terms. But Australia and New Zealand’s history, geography, politics and economic structures may position us well to engage intensively with Asia as well as with markets in North America and Europe. The skill is to be comfortable with new approaches and powers, and to remain engaged with traditional markets and partners.

Indeed, our hybrid Asian and European status may be well-suited to the emerging environment. New Zealand has a free trade agreement with China, and has been rapidly expanding its Asian relationships.

Australia has benefitted from voracious demand from China for hard commodities. And yet we retain strong relationships with North America and Europe.

This balanced exposure to Asia and other global powers is envied by other parts of the world. The challenge for policy-makers in Australia and New Zealand will be flexibility, balance and clear-headedness about the pursuit of our respective national interests. Given the similarities of the exposures of Australia and New Zealand, this might even involve us doing more in the region together.

To read the rest of this debate, visit the GB website

Even with continued Asian growth, this does not lead to Asian pre-eminence anytime soon – that is, the per-capita income league tables will remain dominated by the West for some time, even if global GDP shares move.

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HW: There will indeed be many more centres of power in the world than just China, or even Asia. China may well become, for a few decades, the world’s largest economy and strongest state, but it will not ‘rule the world.’ It will face several other very strong states – or quasi-states – that will limit the way in which it can use its power, and indeed provide important opportunities for Australia and New Zealand to ‘hedge our bets.’ In this sense, Europe, America and South America all come to mind. New Zealand actually has a better record here than Australia in looking beyond Asia.

For many reasons – geographic, economic and demographic, as well as temperamental – New Zealand has always been less fixated on Asia than Australia, and more inclined to give weight

to opportunities further afield, such as in Europe.

Of course, New Zealand’s economy has been less dominated than Australia’s by massive resource trade with Northeast Asia. As long as that trade remains the only apparent foundation for Australia’s future prosperity – and no one seems to know of any alternatives – then Australia has little choice but to continue to place its economic bets where they lie today. If India starts to build infrastructure and develop manufacturing on the scale of China today – clearly possible, though not a certainty – then it may start to rival China as a market for Australian mineral exports. Having said this, it is hard to imagine any non-Asian market for minerals emerging that would be large enough to displace Australia’s overwhelming economic alignment with Asia. New Zealand, on the other hand, probably has more options to diversify its trade to markets like Europe.

Even if a measure of economic bet-hedging is possible, in the sphere of politics and strategy, Australia and New Zealand will find it hard to evade their Asian destiny – if only because the strategic and political influence of non-Asian powers in our region seems set on a long-term decline. Perhaps one of the strangest consequences of the economic Great Convergence of our age is the way in which the world, as it becomes more and more integrated economically, is becoming more and more regionalized strategically and politically. Whereas for centuries North Atlantic powers have been able to project decisive strategic power anywhere in the world, we are now entering an era in which no country will be able to project strategically decisive power into other regions. The US ability to project power into Asia will wane, but China will equally remain unable to project power into the Western Hemisphere or the North Atlantic. In Asia, therefore, we will see an increasingly self-contained strategic system, dominated by regional great powers like China and India, in which other players will have little influence. For Australia and New Zealand, that means friends from afar will be of little utility.

All of this will signify a very different international order from the one to which we are accustomed.

Over the past century, and especially in the decades since the end of the Cold War, we have come to expect an increasingly globalized, Western, liberal world order in which Australia and New Zealand would feel very much at home. But as power shifts to Asia, that will change. We will still see – we hope – a world order, but it will be less globalized, probably less liberal, and certainly less Western than we have been expecting. And the scope to hedge our bets will be that much narrower.

at: www.globalbrief.ca

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THE DEFINITION What are the main differences today between Asian and Western business?

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Despite the differences

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between US, Canadian and European business values, objectives and practices, and despite European publicly traded companies having pursued more of a stakeholder than an American-style shareholder orientation, one can certainly see similarities between this collective ‘West’ and Asia in respect of board governance, management principles, accounting and financial procedures, as well as marketing, operations and human resource strategies. Both Asia and the West have a healthy suspicion of the conglomerate/multi-industry model of business organization, a respect for the theory and practice of good management, a growing awareness of the importance of branding and marketing, and a focus on short-term efficiency and results – sometimes at the expense of longer-term effectiveness.

Of course, as with Western business, one cannot legitimately talk about ‘Asian business’ as a uniformity. There are huge differences between Japanese beliefs and models of business – with their focus on large, networked private sector organizations stressing organic growth, lower and short-term financial return expectations – and other ‘Asian’ styles. The contrasts with Chinese styles are particularly stark. Chinese private sector businesses are mostly family-owned rather than publicly traded, and Chinese state-owned enterprises are most often bureaucratic models that Max Weber would have recognized from his work in 19th century Europe.

While these state organizations are undergoing massive changes as they move out beyond China's borders, they are still lacking in the flexibility and agility so needed in free market competition, as well as in some of the risk management and marketing skills so pronounced in the West.

A further contrast within Asia lies with Indian businesses, which, despite obstructive government bureaucracies, have shown themselves to be entrepreneurial not only in small- and medium-sized enterprises, but also in large organizations like the Aditya Birla Group, Infosys, Tata, Wipro and so on.

Indian styles of management have levered much from the West, all the while remaining uniquely Indian and entrepreneurial – for one thing, making extensive use of branding and marketing. While they still have much to learn in respect of employee

engagement and financial management, these Indian organizations are increasingly impressive competitors on the world stage.

We do not have the space to discuss the success of the Korean chaebols, or Singaporean and Hong Kong family entrepreneurship, or the rise of the Indonesian networked businesses. But the point is that there is no single ‘Asian’ model.

Alan Middleton is Executive Director of the Executive Education Centre, and Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business, York University, in Toronto.

Asian businesses are expanding and globalizing. Western businesses seem to be hesitant and defensive. I would like to say to the leaders of business in the West that they should speak up for globalization and free trade, and not give in to the protectionists and any rising tide of economic nationalism. An open and borderless world benefits everyone in the East as well as in the West.

Tommy Koh is Singapore’s Ambassador-At-Large, Rector of Tembusu College, and Chairman of the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore.

Asia and the West

have become mirror images of one another, betraying a global imbalance that must be redressed if the global economy is to get going once again. Asia has growth, the West stagnates. Asia has become largely dependent on Western consumption. The West, in turn, is largely dependent on Asian savings. This model of development and growth is no longer sustainable.

Asians have to deprive the West of their savings and start consuming domestically. Asia’s emerging middle class wants this and deserves it. The West, for its part, has to consume less and save more.

All of this is beginning to occur – that is, a new pattern is emerging. But governments must bravely adopt policies that will deepen and accelerate this global rebalancing.

Pierre Pettigrew is Executive Adviser, International, Deloitte, and former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Many Asian economic practices are today still very much a reflection of family values deeply rooted in Asian society, with honour being one of

Balaji Chandramohan is Editor, Asia, for World Security Network, and Correspondent for World News Forecast,

While Chinese state organizations are undergoing massive changes as they move out beyond Chinese borders, they are still lacking in the flexibility and agility so needed in free market competition, as well as in some of the risk management and marketing skills so pronounced in the West.

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the abiding objectives of such practices. Western economic practices seem to be more pragmatic.

If in the Western world the success of a business depends on factors like capital, meritocracy and hard work, Asian business success in many cases still hangs on lineage, capital, political connections and, lastly, meritocracy.

In Western business practices, innovation and improvisation are given priority. In classical Asian business practices, loyalty to existing social structures stubbornly remains the rule of thumb for survival.

based in New Delhi, India and Wellington, New Zealand.

ILLUSTRATION: JEFF JACKSON

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STRATEGIC FUTURES “The most important question to be answered by the next US President will be…

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Dealing with growing inequality and a shrinking middle class, providing health insurance and a boost to the still suffering economy – must all be balanced with the need to control the federal deficit and debt.

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…how to balance US fiscal policy over the next decade. The current tax base simply cannot support even the basic safety net that US citizens have come to expect without drastic and either unrealistic or unspecified cuts to current federal spending. The parties are far apart on how to raise revenues or scale back spending. Details on both sides are few and far between.

The issues underlying these decisions – sustaining Medicare and Social Security, dealing with growing inequality and a shrinking middle class, providing and enhancing health insurance for those who need it, and providing a necessary boost to the still suffering economy – must all be balanced with the need to control the federal deficit and debt. Striking this balance is not simply a campaign issue, but a serious domestic agenda for the decade to come.”

Mark Stabile is founding Director of the School of Public Policy and Governance and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

He is currently a visiting professor at Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics.

...whether to launch another war in the Middle East in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Despite crippling sanctions, industrial sabotage, cyber-attacks and other forms of covert action, Iran continues to move closer to a virtual weapons status. Tehran may yet be persuaded to accept limits on its uranium enrichment programme, but compromise under pressure is not the Iranian way. Extrapolating, by mid-2013, Iran will have enough low-enriched uranium (LEU), if further enriched, for perhaps six weapons. About one bomb’s worth of LEU will be in the form of 19.75 percent enriched product, on the verge of being weapon’s usable, and more centrifuges will be producing at this level in the deeply buried facility at Fordow.

Actual production of nuclear weapons can be deterred. Iran’s leaders have to anticipate that any decision to cross the line from capability to production would be detected, and that crossing an American red line of no Iranian nuclear weapons

would spark US military action. The issue will be how close Iran can get to that red line before it is too close for American comfort. As of late summer 2012, Iran was still several months away from being able to make a successful dash for nuclear weapons. Producing missile-deliverable weapons would take longer. IAEA inspectors visit Iran’s declared enrichment facilities on average twice a month, so they would be tipped off if Iran tried to use those plants for weapons grade uranium. As Iran’s stockpile of enrichment uranium increases, however, the timelines shorten. If Iran is able finally to graduate to centrifuges with significantly greater efficiency than the Pakistani first-generation models on which it continues to rely, the timelines will recede even faster.

If the Iranians did try to make a dash for weapons, they probably would do so at an undeclared facility. They would have to anticipate premature exposure by Western intelligence, as has been the pattern to date. But given Iran’s declared policy of not following IAEA rules about early notification of nuclear facilities, the regime may calculate that exposure of yet another secret facility could be explained away.

Yet such calculations are rife for misjudgement.

Iran will not know how close to weaponization is too close for its adversaries. At some point in the next four years, the US President could be confronted with an intelligence judgement to the effect that, because Iran’s uranium stockpile is too large, its technology too advanced, and the places for hiding too many, a dash for the bomb could not be detected in time. In effect, the red line will have become too blurred to serve as an effective tripwire.

Israel, which has a smaller comfort zone, is likely to reach such a judgement before Washington. Israel will not want to act alone, but seems determined to act anyway. The next President thus may face an early decision about whether to join an Israeli attack, despite the huge drawbacks – including that it may not set back the timelines more than two to three years.”

Mark Fitzpatrick is Director of the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, and author of The Iranian Nuclear Crisis – Avoiding Worst-Case Outcomes.

…whether America will choose war or peace with Iran. As Obama and Romney trade barbs over Iran, their rhetoric evades the realities shaping American interests. Iran is critical to solutions for seven US national security challenges: non-proliferation, energy security, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, counter-terrorism, and Israeli-Palestinian peace. America’s status quo relationship with Iran exacerbates these challenges. If the US attacks Iran, all bets are off. As James Jeffrey – a former

is that most conflicts – even war – end via negotiations; and everything before negotiations – including war – is for leverage. Efforts to delay this inevitable choice have only added pressure to escalate to the worst possible outcome.

If the next US President wants peace, he must recalibrate US policy to consider seriously the political, economic and security incentives sought

by Iran – incentives that any diplomatic solution would have to address. This does not imply that concessions must be made on each of these fronts.

Only robust diplomacy can determine whether it is in America’s interest to address Iranian concerns.

But if America does not lead a process of sustained negotiations, then diplomacy will be deemed onesided, and will fail without having being executed in good faith.

Naturally, it takes two to tango. No policy can guarantee success, and it remains unclear whether Iran will reciprocate American overtures. But if peace is the metric of success, then diplomacy provides a better guarantee than war. With that in mind, the next US President can best avoid mistakes like the Iraq war by learning from limits of American military prowess – and placing the same level of confidence in the power of American diplomacy.”

Reza Marashi is Director of Research at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). He served in the Office of Iranian Affairs at the US Department of State during the transition from the Bush to Obama administration.

For answers from Frédérick Gagnon and

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Bush administration Deputy National Security Advisor – recently remarked: “If you want to be serious about regime change [in Iran], I give you Iraq 2003. Have a nice day.”

The fact that Iran continues to be a national security challenge demonstrates an uncomfortable reality for a generation of American policy-makers: over three decades of pressure-based policies have failed to produce any positive outcome. Nevertheless, domestic political realities require presidential candidates to talk tough on Iran. Obama and Romney are no exceptions to this rule, but the differences between them are important.

The Obama campaign has warned against loose talk of war, emphasized that it remains a last resort, and chastised those pushing a war agenda for failing to describe the costs of war. The Romney campaign has taken a different tack. Most Republican foreign policy advisers – many of whom supported the Iraq war while serving in the Bush administration – have concluded that war with Iran is essential.

Of course, a president is often only as smart as the advisers with whom he surrounds himself. For that reason, Republican support for war should not be dismissed as campaign rhetoric.

Political parties in the US do not dictate the range of options available to an American president.

Obama and Romney face the same reality: the tools of statecraft are simple – war or diplomacy.

Anything else – whether it is called containment, regime change or dual track – is simply a tactic that delays the inevitable choice between these two options. The inconvenient truth of statecraft

The Obama campaign has warned against loose talk of war, while most Republican foreign policy advisers – many of whom supported the Iraq war while serving in the Bush administration – have concluded that war with Iran is essential.

Catherine Bertini, visit: www.globalbrief.ca

PHOTOGRAPHS: OBAMA: ELIZABETH CROMWELL / ROMNEY: JAUMEBG / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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EPIGRAM

On History Repeating How human history is invented, written, encountered and, in the end, irresistible BY DOUGLAS GLOVER

F Douglas Glover is a Governor-General’s Award-winning novelist and short story writer. His most recent book is a collection of essays, Attack of

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the Copula Spiders.

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or hundreds of thousands of years of human history, we had no history. We call that part ‘pre-history’ – thus cagily rendering the deep past as a semantic extension of, well, history. It is often suggested that the study of history is useful preparation for the future. Edmund Burke said: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” But Nietzsche, in his essay “On the Use and Abuse of History,” tells us that the weight of history saps the will; that is, in order to get on with life, we are better off forgetting history.

Philosophies of history are never in short supply, from Carlyle’s Great Man theory to Marx’s dialectical materialism, to Spengler’s rollercoaster rise and fall of civilizations, to Vico’s spirals, the endlessly repeating cycles of the Mayan calendar, or the elegant gyres of W. B. Yeats.

History is something, yes, but the shape is fuzzy.

We seem to be moving forward, but perhaps only because we don’t seem to be able to turn back. Are we progressing up or down? Or were the ancients right – that is, that we are trapped in Ixion’s Wheel, suffering endlessly the Eternal Return of whatever? Is there an end to history, as Francis Fukuyama announced prematurely in 1989? Will it end with Rapture and the Day of Judgement, or the metaphysical extinction of the Hindu, or the universal hegemony of modern liberalism (see Fukuyama), nuclear obliteration (see Nevil Shute’s On the Beach for one fictional end of history), or ecological dwindling?

Individual humans don’t have history, but they live in it – rather like standing in an invisible river (see Heraclitus). But sometimes that river suddenly roars and bites you: the dead of Hiroshima, the victims of Dachau, and the inhabitants of mass graves in Bosnia and Cambodia can all testify to unfortunate encounters with history. Much of history, it seems, is a litany of such unfortunate encounters.

Humans retain memories, and thus can observe change. Observing change is how we perceive time – in writing our observations down, we create history. Writing and history seem oddly linked. Before writing, we had myths, fables and creation stories.

But to create history humans needed the capacity to store more data than the individual brain could manage – hence, writing, paper, books and, yes, even magazines. The invention of writing is one of those slingshot events – a sudden spasm of new activity, organization, human possibility.

Much of human life on Earth has been the his-

torical equivalent of a nap on a sunny summer afternoon in a hammock with a jar of something nice and the flies buzzing. We enjoyed hundreds of thousands of years of noodling around in Africa before someone invented the stone hand axe. Was it the stone hand axe that propelled us on our sudden diaspora (really, according to archaeologists, it was sudden, and surprisingly quick for people on foot)?

Have hand axe, will travel. In a cave near Pretoria, someone said, “Hey, let’s go to Australia next week. Pack your hand axe.”

Hand axe, hegira, then a few thousand years of ‘zzzing’ in the hammock again, painting pictures in caves, before someone invented agriculture, the wheel and, almost at the same moment, writing, double-entry accounting, and history.

One can feel the current of history accelerating, the busyness of life accumulating a momentum that presses against the individual (trying to nap in the hammock). Civilizations start their vertiginous rise and fall. The rowdy backwoods captains of Macedonia invent the phalanx, and within years they have conquered the world. Only to fall away like the tide.

Rome rose and fell. We managed a bit of a nap through the Dark Ages during the long reorganization of Europe and the Black Death (meanwhile, Islam is racing ahead – the river metaphor seems always apposite, with its currents, rapids, eddies, whirlpools, rocks and hidden hazards). Then came the Industrial Revolution. We’re still experiencing the recoil of that slingshot event – aside from Japan, the Industrial Revolution only reached Asia after WW2, and the Middle East and Africa hardly at all.

Sometimes the vectors of history converge on a single unpredictable moment, after which everything changes: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, the Arab Spring.

Common sense and our own experience of time – the slow time of a summer day, and the frenetic upheavals of epochal events or technological advance – inform us that history possesses a mysterious rhythm over which we have at best the kind of control enjoyed by passengers on a runaway train (as long as they don’t try to get off or change direction, they are marginally okay). But common sense is sometimes a terrible judge (think: the Flat Earth theory). And history has this annoying opacity: at best, it becomes marginally intelligible only long after the fact. The current may be against us, and the accelerating thrum of history may just be the rumble of the bulldozers as they push the dirt over our graves. | GB