Archive for category Foreign Policy
Responding to Kissinger’s Argument
Posted by Scott Erb in Arab Spring, European Union, Foreign Policy, Globalization, ISIS, Political Science, World Affairs on September 1, 2014

Kissinger with current Secretary of State John Kerry – who led a veterans movement against the Vietnam war while Kissinger was Secretary of State
In my last post I talked about Henry Kissinger’s world view, using the example of detente as indicating the strengths and weaknesses of his approach. His focus on power politics to the neglect of emergent issues across the globe helped put us on a path to the myriad of challenges we face. Russian and American policies helped breed corruption, militarism and dictatorship in newly independent states, thwarting accountability and rule of law.
Countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa were the biggest losers of the Cold War – and suddenly they are relevant. So how does Kissinger describe what needs to be done?
First he notes the nature of the changes taking place. The fundamental unit of the international system, the state, is under pressure. He very correctly notes a major weakness in our international institutions. The world economy has become global, but the institutions that govern international affairs remain rooted in the state system. This means we have an institutional structure not suited for 21st Century conditions. Prosperity can only be achieved with globalization, he notes, but globalization feeds into the forces challenging international stability.

For realists like Kissinger, global poverty is a local issue – great powers are focused on stability. But in our era they are linked – poverty increasingly is the driver of instability
And, true to his realist principles, he argues that diplomacy is harder now because great powers cannot consult so easily. In the new multi-polarity there is no equivalent of a Nixon-Brezhnev summit. Meetings that do happen are less frank and more subject to media scrutiny. Realists would prefer the public let the experts handle foreign policy, leaders working in back rooms with media blackouts can achieve much more, Kissinger would claim, than a in a public spectacle.
Kissinger is absolutely right that the state is under immense pressure, yet he can’t let go of a vision that is based on the activities of sovereign states. For a realist the state is the central foundation of the international system. He sees the EU not as an alternative to the state, but a kind of confederation that has not yet achieved the status of statehood.
I think he misses the way in which the information revolution has rendered the European style sovereign state – created by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 – obsolete. Only institutions that cross borders and ultimately erode or perhaps “pool” sovereignty can handle the challenges ahead. After all, it’s hard to argue that the European style state functions well in most of the world. It was a colonial creation based on fake and sometimes absurd borders and has not been able to establish rule of law and accountability in most of the world. The only reason the realist state-fetish hangs on is that no one has figured out what could possibly replace it.

The Peace of Westphalia, ending the 100 years war created the sovereign state – a kind of new thinking that brought peace to Europe after the information revolution caused by the printing press led the old order to disintegrate
Accordingly, he turns to the US role as he discusses the possibility of establishing a new world order. Kissinger’s words:
To play a responsible role in the evolution of a 21st-century world order, the U.S. must be prepared to answer a number of questions for itself: What do we seek to prevent, no matter how it happens, and if necessary alone? What do we seek to achieve, even if not supported by any multilateral effort? What do we seek to achieve, or prevent, only if supported by an alliance? What should we not engage in, even if urged on by a multilateral group or an alliance? What is the nature of the values that we seek to advance? And how much does the application of these values depend on circumstance?
For the U.S., this will require thinking on two seemingly contradictory levels. The celebration of universal principles needs to be paired with recognition of the reality of other regions’ histories, cultures and views of their security. Even as the lessons of challenging decades are examined, the affirmation of America’s exceptional nature must be sustained. History offers no respite to countries that set aside their sense of identity in favor of a seemingly less arduous course. But nor does it assure success for the most elevated convictions in the absence of a comprehensive geopolitical strategy. – Kissinger
This conclusion seems vague. It also is rooted in the notion of states and alliances, and doesn’t creatively think about new ways of political organization. Moreover, the emphasis remains on putting out fires and trying to create stability via power politics. One gets the sense that his genius allows him to see the situation pretty accurately, but his world view pushes him to a solution that is vague, and cannot work. The US trying to create a world order, of working with allies to impose values and stability is bound to fail. The Metternich system discussed in my last post collapsed into 30 years of war and depression. This order could suffer a similar fate.
My current work is based on trying to figure out what kind of new political structures and organization can handle the vast area of technological change and the power of new media. We live in an odd time when the old structures still have life – governments can put down rebels, silence critics, and impose their will. But cracks are evident – no one thought Mubarak or Qaddafi could be brought down, the Arab spring was a shock. The world is in motion.
The EU is a fascinating example of a system that has morphed into a new kind of political organization. The states have given up (or some say pooled) their sovereignty in favor of supranational organization. Yet they are doing so under the concept of subsidiarity – power should be exercised at the lowest level possible – local, regional, state or supranational. Theoretically the state could lose both to the EU institutions and to local and regional governance. Given the power of the new information and technology, local governments can handle problems that used to require national action.

Although some protests call for acceptance, it is easier for demagogues to use fear and hate to rile up the masses
What is needed is new thinking – moving away from ideology, nationalism, parochialism and “them vs us” to a recognition that globalization requires pragmatism, openness to other cultures and ideas, and “us with them,” solving problems. The forces that oppose such new thinking range from nationalists to groups like ISIS, who want to create an Islamic caliphate that contradicts the forces of globalization and change. Defeating them may require military action, but also requires a new vision that can speak to young Arabs and address the problems of poverty, disease, and oppression. These are the problems Kissinger’s world view simply dismisses as secondary to the need for great leaders to craft and maintain an order.
Unfortunately, it’s hard for people in government to give up the idea of state dominance and power. Cooperation is seen as dangerous, and xenophobes are ready to fight against anything that seems to open a state up to new cultures or people. Kissinger’s piece thus stands as an example of the old thinking – something insufficient in dealing with a changing world. Unfortunately the new thinking is still a work in progress – and if it doesn’t emerge and get embraced soon enough the future could get bleaker before it gets better.
Henry Kissinger in the 21st Century
Posted by Scott Erb in Cold War, Foreign Policy, History, Third World, World Affairs on August 31, 2014
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has spoken out about the challenges facing today’s world order. It’s worth reading. He notes that globalization and technology change are driving a break up of the old world order. Kissinger contends that that the global environment is fundamentally different than it was in his heyday, and that efforts to get back the old order are doomed to fail. New political structures and ideas are required. I’ll blog more about his ideas soon, today I want to write about Kissinger’s general world view.
Kissinger earned his Ph.D. studying Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich, who was in that role from 1809-48, also serving as Chancellor from 1821-48. Kissinger’s academic work was rooted in studying the world between 1814 – 1914, when there seemed to be order and stability in Europe – and he took those principles to ones that should work anywhere, taking into account local idiosyncratic conditions.

Metternich presided over the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, creating the European system realists like Kissinger admire
In any system there will be competition for power. That’s because resources are scarce, humans seem driven to compete, and humans are greedy. In the international system, with no real rule of law or enforcement, is an anarchy. In anarchy, brute force is the main principle, it’s survival of the fittest, domination by the strongest.
Luckily states can create stability despite anarchy through diplomacy, maintaining a balance of power, having leaders that recognize war ultimately is not in the best interest of any state, and stopping any “revolutionary” power hoping to alter the status quo. If states can agree to respect each other’s right to exist, agree that war should be a last option, and share some common goals, diplomacy should be able to solve any problem.
It won’t – Kissinger and realists argue that it takes “statesmanship” or the ability of leaders to understand that maintaining the status quo is ultimately in the best interests of everyone, and who can negotiate effectively, and then be willing to strike early and strong against those who would upend the system (like a Hitler). Realists admire how this seemed to work for 100 years, with only a few minor skirmishes intervening.
But there are flaws in Kissinger’s world view. Perhaps the reason there was no major European war for so long is because the Europeans were conquering the planet, imposing their standards across the globe, destroying indigenous cultures and taking whatever resources they could get their grubby hands on. Once the world was almost completely colonized the Europeans quickly turned on each other.

Ending the Vietnam war meant pressuring Hanoi by bombing supply lines in Cambodia. It worked – but it radicalized the country side and led to the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge
Moreover, such a system relied on common shared cultural values. The diplomats and leaders all spoke French had more in common with each other than the average citizens in their home states. In an era of globalization, that’s not likely to be replicated.
Finally the focus on power and order inherently means ignoring those without power. Kissinger’s most brilliant and successful policy was detente (a French word meaning a relaxation in tension), a policy that probably made a peaceful end of the Cold War possible. But in that policy we can see the strengths and weaknesses of his approach.
Kissinger, a brilliant academic was snatched up by Nixon when he became President in 1969. He started out as Nixon’s National Security Advisor and quickly became more powerful than the Secretary of State, William Rogers. He gained Nixon’s trust and crafted policy – and when Rogers left in 1973, Kissinger took on the role of Secretary of State.
He was relatively young, very charming, spoke with a distinct German accent, Jewish, and something of a playboy. He was known to cavort with a number of attractive women – I still remember a Mad Magazine set of song parodies that included “I wonder whose Kissinger now?”
He had a problem: The US was bogged down in a pointless war in Vietnam. The Soviets had achieved nuclear parity and communism was at its peak – the disease and decay that were already slowly destroying its sustainability were hid behind the iron curtain and streams of propaganda.
Kissinger decided the US had to change the Soviet Union to a status quo power the US could deal with. This include high level summits allowing Kissinger, Nixon and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev to meet and “practice statesmanship.” It included triangulation – opening to China. China and the USSR hated each other, so the US getting friendly with one pressured the other. It worked. It led Moscow to pressure Hanoi to end the Vietnam war so the US could extricate itself (“Peace with Honor” was Nixon’s slogan). And suddenly the Cold War didn’t seem quite as scary.
In exchange for recognizing the reality of Communist rule in East Europe, the Soviets allowed more trade, visits, and connections to the West. The agreed that systemic order was more important than the US-Soviet rivalry, and thus could be dealt with. Kissinger left office in January 1977.
But while detente was based on the notion the Soviets could be a status quo power, Kissinger knew there would be rivalries and conflicts. So he also worked out a mostly unwritten agreement that proxy wars in the Third World were allowable, and that neither side would allow a third world conflict to lead to nuclear war. Kissinger would say that yes, those wars could be bad, and sending arms and weapons to African or Asian proxies did mean there would be death and destruction. But given the nature of world affairs, it’s the lesser of two evils. It helps make sure the US and Soviets don’t blow each other up.
Detente’s success – the exchanges brought western ideas more quickly into the East bloc, the Soviets felt smug in their status as a recognized legitimate world power, and as the inevitable economic collapse began, there were enough links with the West to give Gorbachev time to make radical changes that could not be undone. Some people credit Reagan and Gorbachev with the peaceful end of the Cold War, but Nixon and Kissinger set the stage.
The failure? Proxy wars and disregard for the third world. Looking only at power politics rather than the broad array of global problems allowed many former colonies to decay into corrupt, brutal regimes. African states were very young in the sixties – a supportive US might have allowed a transition to viable political and economic systems. Instead the super powers simply used those states as powerless puppets in a geopolitical struggle.
In maintaining proxies, the US supported brutal dictators in world hot spots like the Mideast. This helped assure that dictators would be able to hold power, not allowing real opportunity to their people, and setting up the anger and frustration young Arabs experience today.
The problems today ranging from Ebola to ISIS to terrorism have their roots in that neglect of the third world. Kissinger’s policies were brilliant in dealing with short term geopolitical crises, but failed by creating conditions which would lead to problems that threaten the very nature of world order.
The Iraq Failure was Inevitable
Posted by Scott Erb in Al Qaeda, Arab Spring, Foreign Policy, Iraq, War, World Affairs on June 15, 2014
The blame game is going in full force. Pro-war enthusiasts like John McCain say that they had “won” Iraq but Obama lost it. Others say Bush lost Iraq and there is nothing Obama can do. But trying to blame Obama or Bush is to miss the real point: Iraq proves the limits of US power. The US was never in a position to “win” in Iraq or reshape the Mideast.
The current crisis reflects the dramatic gains of a group known as the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS), which has seized control of most of the major Sunni regions in Iraq and threatens Baghdad. Their goal is to create a Jihadist state out of the old Baathist countries of Syria and Iraq. Their power is one reason the world doesn’t do more to help get rid of Assad in Syria – as bad as Assad is, his government’s survival prevents Syria from falling to extremists. The ISIS has its roots in the US invasion of Iraq.
In 2003, shortly after the invasion began Abu Musab al-Zarqawi begin to recruit Sunni Muslims in Iraq and especially Syria to form what at first was called “al qaeda in Iraq.” His goal was to create an Islamic state patterned after the beliefs of Osama Bin Laden. He felt the US invasion gave his group a chance at success. He could recruit extremists and use the Sunni’s hatred of the Shi’ites and the Americans to create a powerful force.
At first it worked brilliantly. Al qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents were two separate groups who really didn’t like each other but had a common set of enemies – the Shi’ite led government and the Americans. By 2006 Zarqawi achieved his dream of igniting a Sunni-Shi’ite civil war, throwing Iraq into utter chaos. At that time the US public turned against the ill advised war, the Democrats took Congress, and President Bush was forced to dramatically alter policy.

Zarqawi, who founded ISIS as “al qaeda in Iraq” was killed by the US in 2006. Unfortunately this has allowed a more effective leadership to take over.
He did so successfully – so successfully that President Obama continued Bush’s policies designed to get the US out of Iraq. In so doing President Bush completely redefined policy goals. The goals had been ambitious – to spread democracy and create a stable US client state with American bases from which we could assure the Mideast developed in a manner friendly to US interests. Instead, “peace with honor” became the new goal – stabilize Iraq enough so the US could leave. In that, the goal was similar to President Nixon’s in leaving Vietnam. The Vietnam war ended in defeat two years later when the Communists took the South. Could the Iraq war ultimately end with defeat? If so, who’s to blame?
The key to President Bush’s success was to parlay distaste Arab Sunnis had for Zarqawi’s methods – and their recognition that the Shi’ites were defeating them in the 2006 civil war – into a willingness to side with the Americans against Zarqawi’s organization. When Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike, it appeared that the US was on its way to breaking the back of the organization, unifying Iraqi Sunnis against the foreign fighters.

Bush’s choice to invade Iraq was disastrous, but President Bush did an admirable job in completely altering US policy in 2006 to reject the initial goals and embrace a realistic approach
So what went wrong? Part of the success of the ISIS is the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who seized the initiative when Syria fell into civil war and the eastern Syria essentially lost any effective government. In conditions of anarchy, the strongest and most ruthless prevail. Add to that the fact that the Iraqi government has never truly had western Iraq under control, this created the perfect opportunity to create a new organization. With the Americans gone, Sunni distaste for Shi’ite rule grew, and with the Kurds taking much of the northern oil region, Sunni tribes found it in their interest to support ISIS – even if it is unlikely they share the same long term goal.
So what can the US do? Very little. Air strikes might kill some ISIS forces, but they could also inspire more anger against the government and the foreign invaders. Ground troops are out of the question – the US would be drawn into the kind of quagmire that caused such dissent and anger back against President Bush’s war. Focused killing of top ISIS leaders – meh. Zarqawi was killed, but a more able leader took his place. Focused killing also means killing civilians, these things are sanitary. So it might just end up angering the public more and helping ISIS recruit.

Drones effectively take out dangerous terrorists – but the collateral damage often inspires anger against the US and helps groups like the ISIS recruit
The bottom line is that the US lost Iraq as soon as it invaded. The US undertook a mission it could not accomplish – to alter the political and social landscape of a country/culture through military force and external pressure. The US did win the Iraq war – the US won that within three weeks. The US military is very good at winning wars – but it’s not designed for social engineering. The idea that we could create a democratic pro-US Iraq and simply spread democracy to the region was always a fool’s pipe dream.
The fact is that the kind of military power the US has is not all that useful in the 21st Century. We are not going to fight another major war against an advanced country, nuclear weapons would bring massive harm to the planet, including ourselves, and intervening in third world states sucks us into situations that assure failure. We won’t be able to change the cultural realities on the ground, and the public will rebel against the cost in dollars and lives. Moreover, as our economy continues to sputter, such foreign adventures do real harm.
The lesson from Iraq is that our power to unilaterally shape world events if far less than most American leaders realize. Foreign policy wonks from the Cold War area are still addicted to an image of the US as managing world affairs, guaranteeing global stability and being the world leader. That era is over. Gone. Kaputt.
Now we have to work with others in the messy business of diplomacy and compromise, accepting that other parts of the world will change in their own way, at their own pace. The good news is that they are mostly concerned with their own affairs, and if we don’t butt in, we’ll not again be a target. The real al qaeda condemns the ISIS for its brutality – without the US trying to control what happens, the different groups will fight with each other. But that’s the bad news – change is messy and often violent.
But we can’t fix the world, or somehow turn other regions into little emerging western democracies. That’s reality – and the sooner we accept and focus on what we can accomplish, the better it will be for us and the world.
Rwanda as a Case for Non-Intervention?
Posted by Scott Erb in Africa, Foreign Policy, Genocide, History, Rwanda, World Affairs on April 7, 2014

Rwandan President Paul Kagame at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide
Paul Kagame thinks so – or at least he made a case for it Monday as Rwanda marked twenty years since the outbreak of perhaps the most horrific genocide of history.
Within 100 days over 800,000 were killed, nearly three quarters of the ethnic Tutsi population in Rwanda.
Rwanda had been colonized the Belgians who took a minor social distinction – whether someone was Hutu or Tutsi – and turned it into a way to privilege some over others. Hutus and Tutsis had intermarried and got along peacefully for centuries. Now the Belgians claimed the Tutsis were “more evolved” and thus were entrusted with positions of privilege and power. They helped run the colony for the Belgians, and soon looked down at the “lower” Hutus.
It wasn’t just Belgian racism, but also a rather smart way to keep a colony under control. The Tutsis were the minority, and thus had to rely on the Belgians for protection and support. Alas, once democracy and independence came, the Hutu majority quickly grabbed all power and took revenge on the Tutsis for years of mistreatment. This led to protected conflict for over three decades before Hutu extremists decided the final solution would be to simply eliminate all Tutsis from Rwanda.
They did not fear western intervention. After all, a year earlier the US left Somalia after 18 army Rangers were killed when their black-hawk helicopter went done. As their bodies were dragged through the streets Americans were furious that US military personnel were even over there. In any event, Rwanda had a seat on the Security Council at the time, and it could gauge whether or not the UN had the stomach to intervene.
It almost worked. The UN had 3500 troops there to implement the Arusha accords designed to create a power sharing agreement between Hutus and Tutsis, but when the genocide began all but about 400 of those troops were pulled out. The US and UK wanted a complete withdrawal – UN blue helmet forces are not supposed to remain if there is no more peace to keep – but the UN mission commander General Romeo Dallaire refused to leave, since that would mean certain death to over 30,000 people under UN protection.
The story line usually goes like this: Dallaire begged for UN intervention to save Rwanda, the UN refused, and thus his small force with virtually no supplies could only protect a small portion of Tutsis. Salvation came when General Paul Kagame’s RPF – Rwandan Patriotic Front, made up mostly of Tutsis who had fled Rwanda after independence – invaded from Uganda and defeated the Rwandan military – the RPG. This shameful acceptance of the fastest genocide in history – one undertaken with guns and machetes at close range by large groups of Hutus, especially teens – was justified by saying the Rwandan government had no control and the Interhamwe militia was doing the damage. In reality, the military and Interhamwe worked together. France in fact supported and even supplied the Rwandan military during the three month genocide.
But here’s what Kagame said in his speech:
Rwanda was supposed to be a failed state. Watching the news today, it is not hard to imagine how we could have ended up. We could have become a permanent U.N. protectorate, with little hope of ever recovering our nationhood. We could have allowed the country to be physically divided, with groups deemed incompatible assigned to different corners. We could have been engulfed in a never-ending civil war with endless streams of refugees and our children sick and uneducated. But we did not end up like that. What prevented these alternative scenarios was the choices of the people of Rwanda.
It appears that Kagame is saying that if the UN had intervened, it could now be a failed state – that it would have been impossible to create the kind of future Rwandans now consider possible – one where ethnicity no longer is supposed to matter, and the Rwandans are one people.
To be sure, Kagame’s government talks a better game than it walks. Ethnic Tutsis dominate, there are human rights abuses, corruption, and no viable opposition. Some consider Kagame a dictator, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. Yet given the conditions Rwanda found itself in twenty years ago, on going Hutu extremism based in the Congo, and the need to create a foundation for a long term peace, it would be wrong to judge too harshly. After all, too quick a move to total democracy can be a disaster if a country is not ready.
More intriguing is the possibility that while the motives were wrong, UN inaction actually was better for Rwanda. A quick brutal climax to a century of ethnic hostility and violence might be what Rwanda needed to create conditions where they could move beyond the damage done by the European colonizers. Yes 800,000 died, but if the UN had stopped the genocide early, how many would be continually dying in on going ethnic strife?
I don’t know. To me Rwanda has always been a classic case proving that sometimes military intervention is justifiable – that humanity must agree to say “never again” to genocide, and act forcefully to stop it. I still believe that – but Kagame’s remarks get me to wonder if maybe western intervention does more harm than good in places where western colonialism already destroyed existing peaceful political cultures, creating conflicts where none had existed. It’s worth thinking about.
Recent Comments