Britain and the Spectre of Geopolitical Irrelevance

The following article originally appeared as a Transatlantic Take published by the German Marshall Fund on November 10, 2015. 

LONDON—It is difficult to underestimate the impact of a new James Bond movie on the British psyche. The films, released now at three- or four-year intervals, give the fleeting sense that Britain still matters on the world stage. Yet Bond has long reflected something of a geopolitical fantasy; his enduring appeal based in part on his inverse relationship with British power. In 1962 — the year that saw the release of Dr. No, the first movie in the Bond franchise — former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that Great Britain had lost an empire and not yet found a role. Double O Seven’s derring-do in the 1960s and 1970s deflected from Britain’s intelligence embarrassments, including revelations about the Cambridge Five spy ring, which passed Western intelligence onto the Soviet Union. But the fiction became more untenable with time. The idea that a post-Cold War Britain, with its dwindling diplomatic, military, and broadcast budgets, could avert war on the Korean peninsula (as in Die Another Day) or prevent a water crisis in Bolivia (as in Quantum of Solace) was patently absurd.

By contrast, the latest instalment of the film franchise — Spectre — reflects the shrinking scope of British foreign policy, despite its lavish production. The existential crisis facing the realm in Bond’s 26th cinematic outing is essentially home-grown: government surveillance run amok under the baleful watch of an anti-democratic establishment (specifically “C”, a “Whitehall mandarin” who “went to school with the Home Secretary.”) The Five Eyes — the informal name given to Britain’s intelligence sharing arrangement with the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — has inexplicably evolved in Spectre into the Nine Eyes and now includes China and South Africa. The United States exists only peripherally, witness protection apparently being the only thing for which it is needed.

Spectre’s focus on domestic preoccupations, the confusion about the changing international order, and the diminishing value of the U.S. partnership all ring jarringly true. The next few years will see important debates concerning Scotland’s future within the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom’s future within the European Union. Despite its creditable handling of the economy, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has abdicated space in Europe — including on the euro, Ukraine, and refugee crises — but opted to place a premium on short-term commercial engagement with China and India. Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Special Relationship’ with the United States has been seriously undermined; although, Washington has certainly not helped matters by criticizing Britain for joining the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Nor is Cameron’s political opposition helping: the election of Jeremy Corbyn means that the Labour Party is led by a man who is famously sceptical of U.S. global power and, at best, lukewarm about Europe. 

Euroscepticism in Britain has many causes, both ideological and cultural. But it was also traditionally rooted in the pragmatic belief that British power is enhanced by its privileged partnership with the United States. London’s growing distance from both Brussels and Washington has put it at a severe disadvantage, decreasing its international leverage and global bargaining power. Cameron’s hosting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s visit to China’s restive Xinjiang region were roundly criticized, including for overlooking Beijing’s human rights record. This week, Cameron is rolling out the red carpet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose visit carries commercial and political significance for both leaders but lacks strategic substance. The fact is that Germany (with its manufacturing base) and France (with its space, defense, and nuclear industries) are now of greater relevance for India than Britain. That’s a sorry state of affairs for a country that should logically be India’s closest partner in Europe, but is instead perceived primarily as a place for wealthy Indians to invest, buy real estate, and watch cricket. China and India are often said to be in competition in Nepal and Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Africa. It would no longer be inconceivable for Britain to be added to that list.

There are few better agents than James Bond (assuming he is not a Scottish Nationalist) to ensure that Britain is stirred, and not simply shaken, by these disconcerting trends. If he is really to put Britain back on the map, perhaps 007’s next outing could see him swooping into Washington to rescue the Special Relationship. Or he could use every gadget at his disposal to forestall a Brexit. Better yet, perhaps he could pull off the implausible — and do both. - See more at: http://www.gmfus.org/blog/2015/11/10/britain-and-spectre-geopolitical-irrelevance#sthash.CQxFiu1i.dpuf

Modi's Transatlantic Agenda

The following article was published as a Transatlantic Take by the German Marshall Fund on April 16, 2015. 

Diplomatically speaking, it has been a busy first year in power for India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. In addition to hosting the leaders of the United States, China, and Russia, he has embarked upon state visits to India’s major democratic partners — including Japan, the United States, and Australia — and attended multilateral summits in Brazil, Nepal, Australia, and Myanmar.

Over the past week, Modi undertook an unconventional transatlantic tour to France, Germany, and Canada. This constituted his first visit to Europe as prime minister and a common theme was implicit in that all three countries are G7 members, and as such, advanced, industrialized democracies. While Modi has received some criticism at home for his foreign trips, the flurry of diplomatic activity in his first year as prime minister indicates his clear desire to position India as an active international actor. Modi’s multifaceted agenda on his latest set of visits also conformed to what is now a familiar pattern of international engagement. Broadly speaking, his transatlantic tour over the past week served five important purposes.

The first was to seek investment and technological partnerships with the goal of rapidly developing India’s economy. This objective is at the centerpiece of Modi’s domestic agenda and political platform. While poverty levels in India have fallen dramatically since the early 1990s, the country is still home to the largest number of the world’s poor. The opportunity for growth is now immense given India’s political stability, market size, and low wages.

As advanced economies, France, Germany, and Canada are well-placed to be partners in India’s development. For this reason, Modi met privately with French business leaders in infrastructure and defense technology in Paris as well as investors in Toronto. He visited the Airbus facility in Toulouse and the Siemens vocational training center in Berlin. Modi’s participation in the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial fair, also highlights India’s privileged role this year as a partner country. The prime minister used this opportunity to advertise business opportunities in India, which is proving a rare bright spot in a slowing global economy.

The second objective, closely tied to the first, involves outreach to the Indian diaspora, whose investments have helped drive the Indian growth story. Diaspora outreach is particularly relevant for Canada, which is home to over 1.2 million people of Indian origin. In France, Modi’s engagement with the local Indian community was broadcast to French territories, many of which have sizeable ethnic Indian populations.

Third, there is naturally a political and diplomatic dimension, which involves increasing the face-time and improving personal relations with other world leaders. Modi took a boat tour on the Seine with French President François Hollande and had lunch and dinner with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany. He has also long enjoyed a strong rapport with his Canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper, who was among the first world leaders to call Modi following his election victory last year. Additionally, in an implicit acknowledgement of India’s appreciation for democratic traditions, Modi opted to meet privately with leaders from his host countries’ second-largest political parties, including former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Sigmar Gabriel, leader of Germany’s Social Democrats.

The fourth dimension, and the one that has grabbed headlines, involved strategic relations. France, in particular, has historically been a close partner of India in terms of defense, space, and nuclear technologies. The announcement that India would buy 36 Dassault Rafale combat aircraft, with the option of buying more, was especially significant, and the deal promises to keep that platform’s production line running.

Finally, there were aspects to Modi’s visits that were of considerable symbolic significance. In France, Modi visited a memorial at Neuve-Chappelle honoring the Indian soldiers who perished during World War I. Although little-remembered in either Europe or India today, over 60,000 Indians died fighting in Europe, with some units suffering casualty rates of over 100 percent as replacements were decimated. In Hannover, Modi unveiled a public statue of an Indian icon, Mahatma Gandhi. And in Toronto, Modi paid his respects at a memorial for the 1985 bombing of an Indian airliner that was en route from Canada to India. The attack, in which 329 people were killed, was the worst terrorist attack in aviation history until 9/11. Modi’s visit to the Toronto memorial underscored the common threat posed by terrorism to India and the West.

In the age of jet-setting diplomacy, there are diminishing marginal returns to official visits by heads of government. However, the rich agenda on offer during Modi’s tour to Europe and North America offers one example of purposeful messaging and specific deliverables. Modi’s economic agenda was, as usual, at the forefront. But, equally, the political aspects related to India’s common values with the transatlantic community should not be overlooked.

Internet Freedom 2.1

The following report was published by the German Marshall Fund on March 2, 2015. The Executive Summary is copied below, and the full report can be downloaded here.

The Internet has become closely associated with freedom of expression and the global economy. Today, it plays a direct or indirect role in almost every aspect of life. Yet many fear the Internet as we have come to know it is at risk, with restrictions forcing fragmentation along political, corporate, or cultural lines. Despite growing concerns about the future of the Internet, discussion surrounding online freedom remains largely mired in a handful of issues: the necessity and appropriateness of government surveillance in the United States, digital privacy in Europe, and censorship in authoritarian states such as China. However, between them, the United States, Europe, and China account for less than half of the world’s Internet users. For much of the rest of the world, any discussion of Internet freedom falls at the complex intersection of political and social liberties, nation-building, security threats, economic development, and resource constraints.

Asia’s biggest developing democracies — India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Thailand — account for one-quarter of the world’s people, but only about one-tenth of the global online population. The policy decisions these states make going forward will be of considerable importance for the future of the Internet and offer some useful lessons about the limitations and vulnerabilities of the global Internet freedom agenda as it is currently being pursued by the United States and Europe.

Six broad conclusions or principles can be drawn from a survey of these countries’ experiences. 

1.The online world is an outgrowth of the offline world, rather than a distinct phenomenon. Internet policy cannot be considered in a vacuum, or divorced from other relevant aspects of public policy, such as security, economic policy, or governance.

2. Laws, norms, and cultural attitudes related to Internet use vary widely, even among democracies. A one-size-fits-all approach to Internet freedom will not work and may even prove counterproductive.

3.Online freedoms and greater security are not inherently at odds with one another in open societies. Discourse that presents a false choice between security and freedom is harmful for both, as well as for state legitimacy and economic growth.

4.While much discussion of Internet freedom frames the issue as a conflict between governments, corporations, and civil society, each sector is divided on the merits of unfettered Internet freedom.

5.Current legislation pertaining to the Internet in many democratic countries is deeply flawed, even in the context of their own constitutional rights pertaining to freedom of expression. By and large, Internet-related legislation is vague, making implementation arbitrary, and undermining public trust in state institutions.

6. Users are often not adequately informed of the privileges and restrictions associated with Internet use in their native countries. Policies and initiatives designed to advance Internet freedom globally — whether by Western governments, Internet companies, international NGOs, or local Internet activists — have not necessarily been developed with these constraints in mind.

The Internet freedom agenda consequently suffers from a lack of capabilities, skepticism about intentions, misplaced objectives, a dependence on unreliable technological solutions, and charges of double-standards. Governments and Internet activists in Asia’s large democracies can take a few important steps to address some of these shortcomings. First, they can better integrate issues related to Internet freedom with other aspects of policy discourse, including security, intelligence, trade, economics, healthcare, immigration, and the environment. Secondly, they can overcome the apparent trade-off between freedom and security by strengthening the rule of law: empowering independent regulators to oversee government programs and ensuring avenues for recourse to justice for those accused of online infractions. These steps can help improve security while protecting individual rights and privacy. Finally, they can introduce Internet awareness as an element in school curricula, in a manner similar to drug, sex, health, and civic education, along with other measures to better inform the public about the privileges and restrictions of Internet use.

Meanwhile, U.S. and European governments, institutions, and NGOs would be better off adopting a more modest and less eye-catching approach to Internet freedom. If the first step of Internet freedom was recognizing the challenge, and Internet Freedom 2.0 involved putting ideas into practice, what may now be required is a patch to fix glitches in current policy: Internet Freedom 2.1. In addition to assisting developing democracies in their efforts, U.S. and European governments, institutions, and NGOs could help educate legislators, jurists, and journalists from around the world on comparative Internet laws and practices. They could also help “de-Americanize” Internet discourse by highlighting case studies of successful Internet businesses from around the world. And lastly, they could support better research on the relationships between online communications, political and social freedom, and economic development.

A Transatlantic Pakistan Policy

A German Marshall Fund and Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) report, A Transatlantic Pakistan Policy, was published on November 20, 2014. It was co-authored with John Rydqvist, Andrew Small, and Daniel Twining. The summary of recommendations are included below, and the full text can be accessed here.

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Summary of Recommendations

Nuclear Proliferation
• Highlight the dangers posed by Pakistan’s nuclear development — specifically its development of tactical nuclear weapons — through official public statements, and help define clearer incentives for Pakistan to adopt a more stabilizing nuclear posture.
• Insert and elevate the discussion of Pakistan’s nuclear program in bilateral and multilateral dialogues with regional and global partners, particularly China.
• Further strengthen export controls for sensitive and dual-use technologies.

Counterterrorism
• Establish a clearer division of labor between the United States, the European Union, and NATO, including by assigning a concrete role to the European Union.
• Focus more thoroughly in a transatlantic setting on understanding the implications of Pakistan’s continued support for militant proxies in order to advance its national security.
• Engage in a deeper transatlantic dialogue about how Pakistan’s support of militancy, including possibly by carrying out a joint military project that examines the strategic meaning and instrumentality of insurgencies in a new world order.
• Facilitate Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation on counterterrorism, with the objective of better tracking militancy in the region, and improving law enforcement and customs procedures.
• Make a more focused and cohesive effort to support wider police reform.
• Use Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize to further raise public awareness about Pakistan’s complicated web of militant, insurgent, and Islamist entities and what they mean for the country, region, and international community.

Civil-Military Relations and Governance
• Invest narrowly, but systematically, in key areas like energy supply and education, rather than spread Western public investments thinly across such a range of sectors and actors.
• Expand U.S. and European funding for Pakistan’s public education system, but tie this assistance directly to curriculum reform.
• Invest in strengthening the Pakistani parliament’s standing committees, and an expanded program of education and training of the Pakistani judiciary.
• Invest systematically in media training, including through exchanges for members of the Pakistani print and broadcast media, and expand media outreach into Pakistan directly through Western public broadcasters.
• Hold the government accountable for human rights abuses that are within its power to mitigate, including by imposing standards of conditionality on assistance programs

Economic Development
• Support and actively shape the new wave of regional infrastructure initiatives — and new economic entities such as the Chinese-led AIIB — rather than advancing the perception that these are competing with the West’s own efforts.
• Utilize economic influence, bilaterally and multilaterally, to bolster the civilian government’s efforts to advance the more politically difficult aspects of the connectivity agenda, particularly vis-à-vis India.
• Use the withdrawal from Afghanistan as an opportunity to reposition the West’s relationship with Pakistan around realizing its potential as an emerging market.

How Europe Will Benefit from India's Elections

The following article appeared as a GMF Transatlantic Take on May 21, 2014. It was republished by EurActiv on May 21 and Policy Brief in May 2014. 

The center-right Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) margin of victory in India's general elections last week exceeded most expectations. The BJP, led by Narendra Modi, will form the next government, carrying an absolute majority after a decade of Congress Party-led coalition governments. The results were a crushing defeat for Congress, which has ruled for more than 54 of the 67 years since India's independence. For a number of reasons, these elections are likely to have important consequences for the world's largest democracy and for its global position – and, consequently, for the international community. Europe — still recovering from the euro crisis and heading into parliamentary elections of its own — could well be one of the chief beneficiaries.

In an election that overturned many conventions of Indian politics — including appeals across caste lines to urban and youth voters and the innovative use of social media — the BJP's focus on growth and jobs stood in stark contrast to the Congress' emphasis on redistributive welfare schemes. The BJP's business- and growth-oriented platform, supported by its strong electoral mandate, could help revive India's economy, which experienced a sharp drop from 9.9 percent annual growth in 2011 to 4.4 percent in 2013. This might enable the government to create more opportunities for India's massive and young workforce, while accelerating poverty alleviation.

Such a turnaround would have international implications, making India a more attractive trade and economic partner and strengthening the country's resource base, thereby enhancing its international influence. "I believe a strong economy is the driver of an effective foreign policy," Modi said in a speech last October. "We have to put our own house in order so that the world is attracted to us." These and other statements suggest that Modi will look abroad for international partnerships, as he did as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat. Under his watch, Gujarat actively sought investment and signed collaborative partnerships with several countries and multinational companies. In his campaign to become prime minister, Modi promised to fast-track investments in major projects and resurrect investor confidence in the Indian economy, criticizing — among other things — the previous government's decision to retroactively tax Vodafone, a move that had negative ripple effects among major Western-based multinational corporations.

Europe is poised to benefit from this shift, having last year lifted its boycott of Modi, which it imposed after communal riots took place under his watch in Gujarat in 2002. In 2012, Modi met with the British high commissioner, and participated in a lunch with European envoys a few months later. Last year, Modi met individually with several European business leaders, lawmakers, and ambassadors, including those from Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden.

The European Union, as a single entity, is already India's largest trade partner. Two-way trade more than doubled between 2003 and 2013, reaching €72.7 billion. However, that makes India only Europe's tenth-largest trade partner, lagging significantly behind the €428 billion of trade between Europe and China. Negotiations over a EU-India free trade agreement, launched in 2007, are on hold, but could come to fruition under a Modi government.

A faster-growing India could also mean other direct and indirect benefits for Europe. The country's defense modernization, which had slowed under the previous government, is expected to pick up, and European suppliers will certainly be in competition to provide military equipment and expertise. India will also require investment to meet its future infrastructure requirements — estimated to be in the trillions of dollars — and will be seeking mutually beneficial partnerships on renewable energy, agricultural technologies, and vocational education, given its incredible needs in these and other areas. Should India improve its infrastructure, training, and overall ease of doing business, its sheer size and potential would place it among the more attractive investment destinations among developing economies.

For Europe, Modi's election should be seen as an opportunity to significantly advance both economic and security relations. The recent elections certainly hold great symbolic value as an achievement in a developing country that saw 66.4 percent voter turnout, 540 million ballots cast, and ultimately a smooth transition of power. But beyond serving as a validation of democracy, Modi's election represents an opportunity for Europe — and indeed the rest of the world — to negotiate a new bargain with a new India. 

Rebooting Digital Diplomacy

The following essay was originally published in GMF's Brussels Forum Views series in March 2014. An excerpt is included below and the full text can be accessed here. 

Today, over 2.7 billion people around the world have access to the Internet, that global network of networks that influences almost every facet of daily life for many people. But the Internet risks becoming a victim of its own success. Whereas the organic, even anarchic, nature of the Web’s initial development enabled unprecedented new opportunities, it also confronted policymakers with new challenges — both real and perceived. Many national governments — both liberal and illiberal — now struggle to deal with security threats, social turmoil, and illicit activities that are ostensibly enabled or facilitated by online activity. And so they regularly resort to placing selective or indiscriminate restrictions on the public’s ability to access and use the Internet without fear of repercussion.

While restrictions on Internet freedom are often thought of in the context of  authoritarian regimes, they affect the vast majority of new and potential Internet users in developing or emerging democracies. Between them, Europe, the United States, and China account for less than half of global Internet users, a figure that is steadily decreasing as more people in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and democratic Asia come online. It is in these regions that questions surrounding

Japan, India, and Democratic Cooperation in Asia

The following article appeared as a GMF Transatlantic Take on January 24, 2014. An excerpt is included below. The full text can be accessed here. 

There was a time, not that long ago, when the question of whether “Asian values” — whatever they meant — were compatible with democracy was being hotly debated. But times have changed. Today, over 2 billion Asians (roughly half the continent), live in free, democratic polities, more than in the United States and Europe combined. But as the balance of democracy moves from West to East, what does the future hold for global democratic cooperation?

 A useful indicator of things to come may be the growing alignment between India and Japan — Asia’s largest and wealthiest democracies. This weekend, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be welcomed in New Delhi as chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations, marking the next step in an increasingly close strategic partnership. Despite poor relations in the late 1990s, when India conducted several nuclear tests, Tokyo and New Delhi have developed a partnership encompassing more robust economic ties, defense exercises, high-level security and foreign policy dialogues, and regular apex-level meetings. The primary motivator of this fast-developing relationship may be balance of power considerations; both countries have growing concerns about China, a country with which they have active territorial disputes. But just as importantly, both Tokyo and New Delhi have become much less reserved in recent years about adopting the rhetoric of values-based cooperation.

Engaging with Developing Democratic Powers Should Be a Priority

An essay of mine appeared in the Brussels Forum Views 2013 compilation, which can be accessed here. An excerpt is included below.

The pessimism that has marked public discourse in the United States and Europe over the past five years obscures two overwhelmingly positive trends that now characterize the international system.

The first is that liberal democracy can no longer be considered an exclusively Western value. Seventy percent of those living in electoral democracies today reside in the developing world (almost 60 percent in nine large countries: India, Indonesia, Brazil, Bangladesh, Mexico, the Philippines, Turkey, Thailand, and South Africa). Fifty-two states represented at last year’s Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Tehran — an event dismissed by many commentators in the West as a congregation of dictators — had held free and fair elections. Most of these countries adopted democracy of their own accord, not because of its imposition by the West. In fact, democracy has flourished in many of these states despite tacit or active support for authoritarian regimes by the United States and its allies.

The second welcome trend is that developing democracies are delivering. Emerging democratic powers are growing rapidly, creating new markets, improving productivity, and pulling tens of millions of their citizens out of poverty each year. Together, the economies of the nine largest developing democracies have grown an astonishing 330 percent in dollar terms over the past decade, comparing favorably to 174 percent for the eurozone and 147 percent for the United States.

At a time of austerity, it is perhaps natural that the transatlantic allies should want to focus on nation-building at home and pressing global challenges, such as the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and the rise of China. To do this, however, would be short-sighted. The constructive engagement of key emerging democracies not only has the potential to revitalize the U.S. and European economies by expanding market access and helping to preserve an open trading system, it may also be the only way to address the structural threats to Western interests, values, and institutions posed by political outliers.

China and India: New Actors in the Southern Atlantic

A report I co-authored with colleagues was published in December 2012 as "China and India: New Actors in the Southern Atlantic." An excerpt is included below. The full text can be downloaded here.

In late 2006, India’s chief of naval staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, surprised many observers — both at home and abroad — by defining India’s “greater strategic neighborhood” as extending from Venezuela to Russia’s Sakhalin Island. This lofty aspiration appears to have been driven by India’s concerns about maintaining open sea lanes in an effort to secure its energy interests. But it may also have represented one of the first conscious attempts at bringing the Southern Atlantic Basin — the maritime littoral extending from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Tierra del Fuego — into India’s strategic consciousness.

As India’s economy has opened after the end of the Cold War and grown from $320 billion to $1.8 trillion in less than two decades, its global interests have expanded and its international engagements have increased exponentially. India’s priorities have revolved around refashioning its ties with the United States, expanding its economic and commercial links with East and Southeast Asia, and stabilizing its relations with China and Pakistan. Historical legacies, the large Indian diaspora, and pressing economic and strategic interests have also meant that Russia, the Middle East, Europe, and East Africa have featured prominently in India’s international relations. But until relatively recently, Latin America and Western and Southern Africa — the countries comprising the Southern Atlantic — remained lower priorities. For a number of reasons, not least growing economic and trade links, resource imports, cultural connections to the Indian diaspora, and political alignment on multilateral issues, this is likely to change. We can soon expect the Southern Atlantic to feature more prominently on India’s strategic radar.

This paper provides a broad overview of India’s engagements to date with the Southern Atlantic, covering some of the historical and geographic roots of its limited interaction; the gradually intensifying economic and commercial linkages with the region, driven largely by India’s quest for resources; and India’s most important multilateral and bilateral political relationships in the region. It concludes with some possible implications for the United States and Europe, including potential areas for collaboration.

Toward Strategic Cooperation between India, the United States, and Europe

My policy brief on relations between India, the United States, and Europe was published by GMF on October 24, 2012. A summary is below, and the full text can be accessed here.

The fifth India Trilateral Forum identified several areas of convergence between India, the United States, and Europe. These included a shared sense of stability despite continuing political paralysis, guarded optimism about India’s economic future, a commitment to Afghanistan’s development beyond 2014, a desire for stable relations with China despite concerns about its unfair economic practices, the necessity of Myanmar’s gradual democratization and regional economic integration, and the need for stronger international regimes to enable continued access to space and an open Internet.

But the Forum also highlighted important areas of divergence, provoking questions deserving of further discussion. These pertained to the importance of Indian economic reforms for future cooperation, the prospects of deeper trade relations, ways to alter Pakistan’s strategic calculus, the effects of greater economic interdependence with China, and the importance of Bangladesh to India’s integration with Southeast Asia.

What Euro 2012 Tells Us about European Integration

The following article was published as a GMF Transatlantic Take on July 3, 2012.

As European Union leaders gathered last week in Brussels to determine the future of Europe’s political and economic integration, they probably had at least one eye on the concurrent European Football Championship in Poland and Ukraine. But had they been paying closer attention to “The Beautiful Game” a decade earlier, they might have seen the warning signs about the limits of European integration much sooner.

Until the mid-1990s, football — like European society as a whole — was rather parochial. By and large, professional football players played in the same country (and often the same region or city) as their births. The European championships of 1984 saw only 12% of participating squad members playing for clubs outside their home country. That figure increased slightly in subsequent years to 27% in 1988 (of which the majority were Irish footballers playing in England) and 32% in 1992. The European Union in the early years of the post-Cold War era was still evidently a draw: as early as 1992, more than half of the former Soviet national team could be found playing for West European clubs.

But the big change came in 1995, when the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of Jean-Marc Bosman, an obscure Belgian footballer who contested prevailing football transfer rules between professional clubs.  The Bosman ruling created free agency and removed limitations on EU nationals playing for clubs in other member states, deeming such restrictions violations of the free movement of labor within the Union. Professional football quickly became a microcosm of the European Union as a whole. The richest and most prestigious leagues – the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, and the German Bundesliga – began to attract not just the best talent from other EU member states, but also from the wider European neighborhood and beyond.

The effects of the Bosman ruling were startling. Just four years later, in 1999, the London club Chelsea fielded an entirely non-English squad under an Italian manager.  While only 30% of squad members at 1996 European championships played for clubs outside their native countries, at Euro 2000 the figure was 49%. In hindsight, Euro 2000 was not only a high point for football fans – featuring attractive, attacking football by French, Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese teams in their primes – but was also significant for featuring the highest percentage of players ever plying their trade in other European countries.

Europe’s integration stalled just as quickly as it started, in football terms at least. European championships after 2000 have seen the proportion of foreign-based players decline slightly from its peak to 46% in 2004 and 47% in 2008 and 2012. When Spain played Italy in Sunday’s Euro 2012 final in Kiev, only one starting player for each team was employed by a foreign club – both Spain’s David Silva and Italy’s Mario Balotelli suit up for Emirati-owned Manchester City in the English Premier League.

At least two reasons suggest themselves for the retrenchment over the past decade. The first can be considered an aspect of the so-called “Rise of the Rest.” The newfound wealth of Russian, Ukrainian, and Turkish clubs catering to vast markets in those countries has stemmed the movement of talent abroad and made them into magnets for quality players from elsewhere. The likes of Istanbul’s Galatasaray, CSKA Moscow, and Shakhtar Donetsk can now compete financially with all but the very top clubs in the traditional big leagues, and this has translated into success on the field.  Russia’s league today ranks higher than the Netherlands’ for the purposes of qualification into Europe’s elite club competitions, while Ukraine’s top league now rates as more competitive than that of Greece.

The other reasons, one must suppose, are cultural. The rules of the real world need not always apply to professional football, a world of €200,000-per-week wages, luxury cars, and perennial globetrotting. But it may just be that football players, like other members of society, feel more comfortable living and working in countries where they speak the language fluently and are comfortable with the local culture. More than that, fans also wanted more hometown flavor, and national team coaches desired more local talent, adding to the renationalization of football.

It could simply be coincidence that the zenith of European football’s integration – the heyday of Real Madrid’s galacticos and the dominance of the French contingent at London club Arsenal – coincided roughly with the introduction of the euro, the subject of many current questions surrounding Europe’s future. Or, perhaps, the early 2000s did represent the furthest extent of the European project.  Whether or not there is any relation, Europe’s leaders and football aficionados should not be completely discouraged. Labor mobility trends in general appear to be improving again within the European Union, after a slight lull in the mid-2000s. If so, that may auger well both for the future of Europe and for the quality of its football.

Engaging Rising Powers in the Maritime, Space, and Cyber Domains

The following is an excerpt from a GMF policy brief 'What Next for NATO' which was released on May 23, 2012.

Nowhere is NATO more susceptible to caricature as a relic of the 20th century than in its outreach to non-NATO partners in securing the global commons. As the world’s most potent military alliance — despite recent budget cuts, its member states still account for some two-thirds of global military spending — NATO’s willingness to collaborate with rising powers on three particular security challenges of truly global import — space, cyber, and maritime security — has not always been readily apparent.

Defending the commons — a concept very much in line with the values of the Atlantic Charter — is, at its essence, as much an exercise in defense diplomacy as it is about defense preparedness. Coordination and dialogue with the likes of China, India, Brazil, South Africa, or Mexico in the space, cyber, and maritime domains ought to be considered integral. Although NATO has engaged the former Soviet Union, several Middle Eastern and North African countries, and traditional U.S. allies Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand through various partnerships and forums, the absence of systematic engagement with these key emerging powers on globally relevant security challenges is telling.

The cyber component has probably received the greatest attention following the 2007 attacks on Estonia and the establishment in Tallinn of a cyber defense center, although international participation has been found wanting. NATO leaders did, however, make explicit commitments to cyber security cooperation at both the Lisbon and Chicago summits, which included engagements with “relevant partner nations on a case-by-case basis.” The maritime domain also represents one potential success story, with NATO actively participating in anti-piracy operations in the western Indian Ocean. Its decision to extend its operation Ocean Shield off the Horn of Africa until 2014 is certainly a welcome step. But NATO is also operating in an increasingly crowded space featuring United States, European Union, China, India, and Russia. Coordination has occurred out of necessity — which has been useful in slowly and organically advancing habits of cooperation — but efforts against piracy remain piecemeal rather than truly collaborative.

Space, being the least regulated of the three collective security challenges, ought to be the realm with the greatest potential for NATO leadership. Unlike the high seas and cyberspace, space is at present only accessible to a handful of primary and second-tier space powers, many of whom are also NATO members (including the United States, France, Canada, and most members of the European Space Agency). But efforts at monitoring space are led by Russia and U.S. Strategic Command, while codifying the use of space has fallen to the European Union, whose efforts have not been well-received by Asia’s space-faring powers. The wide-range of military and civilian applications of space — which include (but are not limited to) maritime domain awareness, navigation systems, communication networks, and intelligence gathering — also lend themselves to a natural leadership role for NATO.

NATO’s leaders, along with those of its member states, have often expressed contradictory views over the past two decades on the alliance’s priorities. Should NATO be content ensuring the peace and stability of the EuroAtlantic region? Or should it define itself in terms of universal values and shared threats? The global commons lie at the overlap of both worldviews. In fact, these challenges illustrate exactly why threats to the security and well-being of Europe and North America cannot be viewed through a narrow regional lens. Identifying the defense of the global commons as a priority, and engaging key rising powers in attempting to secure them, may consequently be the only way for NATO to remain a credible player in international security in the 21 st century.

Cautionary Tales from the Campaign Trail

The following article originally appeared as a GMF Transatlantic Take on April 11, 2012. 

WASHINGTON—Despite the level of international interest generated by American politics, there is a surprisingly meager tradition of commentary on the subject by outside observers actually read by Americans, flowing from Alexis de Tocqueville to Alistair Cooke. And yet every U.S. presidential election is also a global election. Four years ago, speculation as to whether Barack Obama, John McCain, or Hillary Clinton was preferable as an American leader went far beyond official circles in such capitals as Baghdad, Berlin, Brasilia, and Beijing, to living rooms, schools, and cafés from Mazar-e-Sharif to Marseilles and Montreal to Mumbai.

This year’s election has yet to generate a similar level of attention, because it is far less open or potentially groundbreaking. Still, misconceptions about the electoral process and U.S. political dynamics abound. As Mitt Romney appears set to seal his position as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate after his main rival Rick Santorum suspended his campaign yesterday, it may be worthwhile taking stock of some of the common errors made in popular commentary about U.S. presidential elections.

One of the most striking aspects about the 2012 election cycle so far has been the exaggerated influence attributed to certain groups and individuals. The mid-term elections in the U.S. Congress two years ago witnessed the arrival of the Tea Party, a movement that channeled popular dissatisfaction with tax increases, entitlement reform, and foreign wars to oust or threaten many long-term incumbents. Yet this year, the leading Republican candidates boasted competitively of their high income taxes. Admittedly, the remarkable success of Congressman Ron Paul — once considered a fringe member of his party — can at least partly be ascribed to his role in the Tea Party movement. But the presumed Republican presidential candidate has succeeded without Tea Party support this year.

Similarly, the former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — widely expected to be, if not a candidate herself, then at least a key power broker — has exerted little influence on the outcome of her party’s primaries. Various influential right-wing media commentators have also found themselves marginalized as Republican Party stalwarts have opted to rally behind Romney, a technocratic former governor of Democratic-leaning Massachusetts.

Premature attempts at divining the outcome of November’s election are another common source of errors. Many commentators — both in the United States and abroad — were convinced in mid-2011 that Obama’s chances of re-election were slim. At the time, unemployment figures and oil prices were both high and the president’s popularity rating was at an all-time low. But with the economy showing signs of recovery, and Obama faring well in head-to-head polls against Romney, the narrative has rapidly reversed.

And yet it is uncertain how long such sentiments will last. It is hard not to recall the example of 2008. Many forget now that John McCain had looked primed to win the election in August of that year. But by October — after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the U.S. economic downturn — Obama’s victory seemed all but certain. Republican and Democratic national conventions, which take place in the summer before a presidential election, have also historically shaped popular opinion in meaningful ways. And so the outcome of this year’s election will likely only be decided after August.

A final misconception about U.S. presidential elections by external observers involves exaggerating the role of international affairs in determining the final results. This is entirely understandable. It is natural to impose one’s own prisms and be concerned about how the election affects one’s own interests and fortunes. But the foreign policy dynamics of this election promise to be even less pronounced than in past editions. While Republicans have usually emphasized their strong national security credentials, their efforts this year will in part be blunted by Obama’s handling of several simultaneous wars and his ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. Romney, given his own lack of military experience and limited national security credentials, has also sought to portray himself more as America’s CEO than its Commander-in-Chief.

Of course, the Obama administration’s Iran policy and its support for cuts to the defense budget will come under heavy criticism from the Romney campaign, but such arguments are likely to be superseded by other pressing concerns. American voters will, in essence, be confronted with a choice as to which Harvard alumnus can better manage the U.S. government and economy at a time of spiraling debt, competing priorities, and diverse challenges. All politics are local, as the saying goes — but this election could well be more local than most.

Recalibrating the U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan

The following article appeared as a GMF 'Transatlantic Take' on March 1, 2012, and was reproduced on RealClearWorld as 'A New Strategy for the U.S. in Afghanistan' on March 2, 2012.

The protests in Afghanistan over the burning of copies of the Quran confiscated from detainees at Bagram Airfield have led to more than two dozen deaths, and have severely — perhaps even permanently — undermined the United States’ determined efforts to win hearts and minds in the country. The killing of NATO troops by members of Afghanistan’s security forces, or militants in their uniforms, is a dangerous new trend, and one that severely complicates relations between international security forces and their local hosts. It may now be time to consider new strategies by which to achieve U.S. and Western goals in Afghanistan.

Ever since the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in retaliation for the 9-11 attacks, the Western alliance in Afghanistan had two broad objectives: to defeat al-Qaeda, and to establish a viable non-Taliban alternative government to ensure that neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban resumed their prior positions. These objectives remain the foundation for the United States’ base lines for engagement with its adversaries: renouncing violence, breaking ties to al-Qaeda, and accepting the Afghan constitution.

In recent years, the United States has largely pursued a classical counterinsurgency strategy, similar to that employed in the later stages of the Iraq War. This has involved a focus on population security, capacity building, and the eventual transfer of authority to the local government and security forces. The military and civilian surges, efforts to accelerate the recruitment and training of Afghan security forces, and the reintegration of the Taliban, were all essential elements of this strategy.

But Afghanistan has been beset by at least three major challenges that distinguish it from Iraq. First, the Afghan leadership under President Hamid Karzai has as yet failed to establish itself as an effective and popularly mandated government, and it remains unable to provide adequate governance and security on its own. Moreover, given the endemic corruption, the absence of political reform, and the feeble state of the Afghan security forces, there is little hope for meaningful improvements soon. By contrast, at a similar stage in its conflict in 2007 and 2008, Iraq had held successful national legislative elections, thus ensuring that established political parties represented every sectarian group in its legislature and that the government could exercise its authority over a larger proportion of the population. But without the promise of improved governance, Kabul’s demands for greater development assistance and a long-term security guarantee from the United States are beginning to look like a moral hazard. Karzai’s increasing recklessness may well be based on the conviction that his government is too important for the West to let fail.

Second, an intransigent Pakistan military continues to play the role of spoiler, providing safe havens and other forms of support to various Taliban factions that target Afghan and Western interests in the country, including the particularly aggressive Haqqani Network. Yet the United States’ ability to respond to Pakistani transgressions is limited by the leverage Pakistan exercises as a conduit for essential supplies to Afghanistan, as a provider of occasional intelligence, and as a possessor of nuclear weapons.

Lastly, the United States’ has been ambiguous about its own intentions, as evidenced by a rather arbitrary deadline for concluding combat operations, and public vacillating over its strategic goals in the region. This enables various actors in South Asia to cherry-pick from a variety of official U.S. statements to justify their own agendas or reinforce preconceived notions.

The United States and its allies must now consider whether their strategic objectives — which are no less important today than they were on September 12, 2001 — can be achieved with a lighter military presence, possibly one relegated to bases in Bagram and Jalalabad, and some of Afghanistan’s more stable northern and western provinces. This can only be seriously contemplated if there is certainty that violence will decrease, if relations with local stakeholders improve, and if the Afghan government and security forces behave more responsibly. At the same time, a lighter footprint may help address the challenges presented by inadequate Afghan governance, Pakistan’s leverage and duplicity, and the United States’ own strategic ambiguity by forcing Kabul to become more self-reliant, freeing NATO from its dependence on Pakistan for supplies, and reducing uncertainty about the United States’ long-term strategy. Such a strategy should not be misconstrued as withdrawal or abandonment, which is what the United States’ partners fear and its adversaries hope for. In fact, it will be a means of sustaining and prolonging the West’s presence in the region. At the same time, the only viable way forward in Afghanistan may require taking better advantage of the United States’ inherent strengths in dealing with an asymmetric threat: intelligence gathering, special operations, and drone capabilities.

China’s Leadership Transition and Strategic Implications for Asia

The following post appeared on the GMF Blog on February 14, 2012.

Leadership transitions are inevitably accompanied by uncertainty. Promises made by aspiring leaders – particularly on matters of foreign policy – rarely bear themselves out. In recent American memory, Bill Clinton decried the “butchers of Beijing” as a presidential contender but did his utmost to set U.S.-China relations on an even keel after the Taiwan Straits crisis. Candidate George W. Bush was thought to be primarily domestic-focused – America’s first “CEO president” – but the 9/11 attacks and a cohort of influential advisers ensured that his first term was dominated by foreign affairs. And even Barack Obama, who was seen as inexperienced on foreign policy and passionate only about nuclear disarmament, has found himself taking a very different tack on Iran, Pakistan, and East Asia than even he might have anticipated.

This year’s leadership handover in China is cause for far greater anxiety than any of the above, or for that matter any American or democratic transition. The ascension to the presidency of current Vice President Xi Jinping, who is visiting the United States this week, will mark only the second peaceful leadership transition in communist China’s history. Xi will inherit a China that is economically integrated to an unprecedented degree with the rest of the world – and a key driver of the roiling global economy – while remaining a latent security threat to most of its neighbors. Xi’s politburo colleagues will represent a new generation of leaders, many born after the Chinese Revolution, their upbringings colored by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and their adult lives considerably more cosmopolitan than their predecessors. And Xi will, by many accounts, have less absolute authority than any previous Chinese leader, requiring consensus from his Politburo colleagues on important matters, and remaining mindful of the wishes of many other stakeholders, including the country’s increasingly influential business elites and military leaders.

Among the many challenges Xi will face upon his rise to leader of country, party, and (eventually) military, will be maintaining good relations with India. On the surface, the last year has appeared a particularly rocky one for relations between the two Asian giants. But that impression is informed in large part by a hyper-competitive and ill-informed media south of the contested border, and a nationalistic blogosphere to its north. A number of incidents involving Indian relations with Vietnam and poorly-detailed reports concerning China’s activities in Pakistan have also given the impression of unprecedented assertiveness by one side or the other. But in fact, the last year has also witnessed a surprising willingness by Beijing to acknowledge – if not yet accommodate – India’s rise. This manifested itself in a forward-leaning Chinese position at the 2011 BRICS Summit in Sanya and a renewed willingness to engage India on mechanisms to ensure a stable border after years of deadlock.

It may not amount to bonhomie, but China’s eagerness to maintain stable relations with India at this juncture – apparently driven by Washington’s renewed attention to the Chinese security challenge – suggests a curious dynamic at play in Asia. China is a fulcrum for the region’s security dilemmas, and its leadership appears more willing to engage certain potential adversaries when confronted with more assertive postures by others. This points to two possible courses for dealing with China under Xi Jinping. On the one hand, greater coordination among the powers on China’s periphery might help prolong China’s peaceful rise while gently urging its leadership to undertake necessary internal reforms to make its governance structures more transparent and representative. On the other hand, uncoordinated pressure by Washington, New Delhi, or Tokyo – which is far more likely given that all three, as well as Seoul, Jakarta, and Taipei, value their autonomy in decision-making – could force Beijing to productively engage other democratic states. That may also not spell bad news. If the only way China can overturn American primacy is by becoming more like America (or India), that can only be a good thing.

Europe's Fratricidal Defense Exports

The following article, co-authored with Sarah Raine, appeared as a GMF Transatlantic Take on February 8, 2012.

The announcement last week that India was entering into exclusive negotiations with Dassault for its Rafale fighter jet represents a major coup for the French defense contractor and for Nicolas Sarkozy. The embattled French president was evidently relieved by the prospect of the Rafale’s first ever foreign sale in a deal worth over US$10 billion, telling reporters, “we have been waiting for this day for 30 years.” The announcement is also a blow for the Eurofighter consortium, consisting of the leading aerospace manufacturers in Germany, Britain, Italy, and Spain, whose Typhoon had been the Rafale’s chief competitor. Two other recent decisions have gone against the Eurofighter group, with Switzerland opting instead for Saab’s Gripen and Japan for Lockheed Martin’s F-35. However, Eurofighter had thought itself better positioned in the Indian competition. It believed it was offering the technically superior aircraft and, indeed, the Typhoon had performed better in competitive trials in 2010.

Of course, defense sales are about much more than technical specifications, with considerations related to costs, technological transfers, joint production opportunities, and political relations playing vitally important roles. Indian observers had long discussed the higher up-front costs of the Eurofighter, but calculated over the total life cycle, the relative differences would not have been too significant. Cost is therefore unlikely to have been the sole rationale for the decision. One can only imagine that Dassault’s offers on technology transfers and joint production must have been generous. Yet Cassidian, the EADS subsidiary that led on the Eurofighter bid, had only last year signaled its commitment to India by opening the country’s first foreign-operated defense-oriented engineering center. Politically, the prospect of a sole partner in France should have been outweighed by relations with the four Eurofighter partner nations, although Indian officials may have calculated that a single partner would be easier to hold accountable than a coalition.

Where there was a real difference between the Dassault and Eurofighter bids was in the nature and scale of political support each received. The French government is comfortable with providing support for its arms export industries in ways that Germany—the lead nation on this Eurofighter bid—is not. In Germany, the idea of coordinating one’s defense, finance, and foreign ministries to support a major defense bid through the establishment of a “war room,” as Sarkozy did, is simply unimaginable. If nothing else, such top-down political support makes it easier to bundle incentives. The sale was also a clear priority for the French president, and given the Rafale’s non-existent record of exports and uncertain future, finding a foreign buyer for the aircraft had become a declared world-wide mission for Sarkozy.

These are trying times for Europe’s defense aerospace companies, with European spending on defense falling by about €24 billion in the past three years alone whilst the global marketplace is also becoming increasingly crowded. The sight of Eurofighter and Dassault competing for overseas sales is a further reminder of the complexities surrounding the ongoing attempt to pool and share Europe’s defense-industrial capabilities, efforts that should be finding new momentum in these times of austerity. Europe’s governments and industries know that between the Rafale, Typhoon, and Gripen, they have produced two more variants of fighter aircraft than they actually need. Such legacy programs place a further unnecessary burden on Europe’s shrinking defense budgets and constrain European militaries from effectively configuring their resources to meet evolving requirements. Worse, it is entirely unclear whether any lessons have been learned. The same national imperatives and industrial concerns are now in danger of driving the expensive development of two medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (MALE UAVs), Talarion and Telemos. The development of unmanned capabilities may well be the future for defense aerospace, but few in Europe think that two versions of a MALE UAV are really necessary. Fewer still think that Europe won’t end up with two anyway.

At Bonn, Half of Winning Was Just Showing Up

My article co-authored with Javid Ahmad appeared as a German Marshall Fund 'Transatlantic Take' on December 8, 2011. The full text can be read here.

World and Afghan leaders convened in Bonn earlier this week, a decade after that city hosted the first major conference to chart Afghanistan’s future following the ousting of the Taliban. Key priorities on the Bonn 2011 agenda naturally included the ongoing security transition to Afghan forces, reconciliation with the Taliban and armed insurgent groups, and the continuing international commitment to Afghanistan. Considerable emphasis was also placed on the country’s political and human development — particularly women, health, and corruption — and the durability of the Afghan economy. But while symbolism overshadowed any substantive developments, the summit’s participation provided a good sense of the ever-evolving strategic contours of the Afghan conflict.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai initiated discussions with an impassioned (if obligatory) plea for continued assistance from the international community. Only the week before, he had unveiled the second phase of the Afghan security transition, which would result in Afghan security forces assuming security responsibility for over 50 percent of the country. This had followed a consultative Loya Jirga, where more than 2,000 representatives agreed unanimously to support enduring relations with the international community, including the United States. Both developments marked important steps as Afghanistan prepares itself for a lighter Western military footprint, and were repeatedly referenced at Bonn.

Of greater significance at the summit, however, was the high-level official representation from the transatlantic community, which clearly indicated the West’s continued commitment to Afghanistan at a time when economic and political challenges at home might suggest looking inward, rather than at important challenges farther afield. While leaders generally avoided addressing the specifics of any long-term commitments to Afghanistan — such as a notional U.S. security agreement until 2024 — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did emphasize that “2014 doesn’t mean that the Afghan Security Forces are totally on their own,” a sentiment that was echoed in the joint statement issued at the conference’s conclusion. The United States and its NATO allies also made specific promises to help with Afghanistan’s reconstruction and institutional capacity.

Perhaps just as consequential as the West’s reassurances was Pakistan’s absence. Its boycott was the result of last month’s NATO strike in Mohmand, which resulted in over two dozen of its soldiers being killed. That clash and Pakistan’s response — coming soon after the assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, blamed on Pakistan-based militants — have further eroded the pretense of its being a supportive ally in efforts to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Tuesday’s attack in Kabul on the Shi’a holy day of Ashura, which resulted in over 55 deaths and was claimed by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, also points to a dangerous new strain of sectarian violence spilling over from Pakistan.

Finally, the high-level presence of other regional actors — Iran, India, and China — proved a good indicator of the importance these powers accord to Afghanistan irrespective of the United States’ and NATO’s presence there. Karzai singled out Iran’s position at Bonn as a particularly positive indicator of Tehran’s intentions toward Afghanistan, but Iran’s statement also underscored the difficulty of reconciling its cooperation on Afghanistan with growing U.S. and European concern over its clandestine nuclear development. The delegation from India, which recently signed a strategic partnership with Afghanistan, highlighted the continuing challenge Afghanistan faces from cross-border terrorism. Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister stressed the need to bolster Afghanistan’s sovereignty and autonomy, a careful message that conveniently lends itself to contradictory interpretations: Afghanistan’s independence from U.S. influence and security provisions on one hand, and its ability to counter Pakistani proxies on the other.

The Bonn summit may not have led to any concrete breakthroughs. The conference conclusions were not unexpected, and indicated a shared commitment to upholding the Afghan constitution, political institutions, and human rights; supporting Afghan security (including on counterterrorism and counternarcotics) after 2014; promoting Afghan-led political reconciliation under strict conditions; bolstering economic growth with international assistance; and facilitating regional normalization and integration. While such lofty ambitions may not necessarily result in the eradication of Afghanistan’s daunting challenges, they will help shape the country’s uncertain future. The responsibility for a stable and secure Afghanistan rests ultimately with its people, and the summit was simply a demonstration of continued faith in the country’s future. But, as they say, half of winning is just showing up. And at Bonn, the international community — with one notable exception — did.

Palestine's Premature Bid for UN Membership

The following article originally appeared as a GMF Transatlantic Take on September 22, 2011, and was reproduced on the France 24 web site on September 23, 2011.

WASHINGTON--Despite last-minute maneuvering on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, the tortuous Israel-Palestinian peace process is set to reach another critical juncture on Friday when the Palestinians submit a bid to seek full UN membership. Although polls indicate widespread support in the international community for a two-state solution and the creation of an independent Palestinian state, several recent developments suggest that the timing of the bid — which President Barack Obama has said the United States will block at the Security Council — could scarcely be worse from the standpoint of almost every stakeholder, including the Palestinians themselves.

Perhaps the most important such development concerns the political dispensation within the Palestinian territories. Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip — secured by popular mandate through the ballot box — has undermined the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mamoud Abbas. In fact, the UN bid seems at least partly motivated by Abbas’ attempts to consolidate his domestic constituency. And yet, rather ironically, the Palestinian Authority owes its survival in the West Bank in large part to Israel’s continuing military presence there, which acts as a bulwark against Hamas. Paradoxically, the push for UN recognition that might strengthen Abbas’ position in the short run also threatens this temporary and tenuous alliance of convenience with Israel.

A second and more recent development is the Arab Spring, which has already resulted in the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and political upheaval in Syria and Jordan. Israelis are deeply worried about populist regimes emerging in these states, which might well be inclined to greater hostility toward Israel. Their fears are not entirely unfounded: relations between Israel and Egypt — which for three decades had remained a powerful stabilizing factor in the region — are now on a downward trajectory, especially following the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo two weeks ago. Israel will only be in a position to accept Palestinian independence if it feels secure; the Arab Spring has had the opposite effect.

Third, the United States’ status as an honest broker is in jeopardy, following the Obama administration’s poorly-handled mediation of the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The United States’ initially strong position on a settlement building freeze angered not just Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also painted Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas into a corner. In Abbas’ words, “We both went up the tree. After that, [Obama] came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump.” It’s a far cry from the years when former U.S. President Bill Clinton was seen as an even-handed mediator between then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat; today, both sides feel that Washington has let them down.

The fourth development involves other external actors. The Quartet — consisting of the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia, but represented by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — has proven largely ineffective as a mediating presence. Despite contributing almost half of all aid to the Palestinian Authority, Europe appears divided on what approach to take, making it harder to forge a common transatlantic policy. Meanwhile, Israel’s relations with other key players in its neighborhood — notably Turkey — have nose-dived, meaning the regional political climate is far from conducive to normalization.

An overarching problem, though, is one of priorities. A two-state solution requires a government in the Palestinian territories that is unified, stable, popularly-mandated, and status quo-oriented, but in contrast to the heady optimism of the days preceding the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Authority today checks only the status quo box. Prematurely seeking international legitimacy at the United Nations is sure to prevent progress towards a viable end state, while the disappointment resulting from a blocked UN bid may yet stoke violence.

The handling of the issue by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority has been remarkably clumsy. Neither side appears to have made adequate preparations for a soft landing after the vote. At the same time, various parties on both sides appear to be exaggerating the importance of this largely symbolic gesture for their own purposes. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has warned of unspecified “harsh and grave” consequences, while other Israeli leaders have suggested abandoning the moribund Oslo peace process or annexing parts of the West Bank. Meanwhile, Abbas and many supporters of the Palestinian cause have framed the vote as the ultimate litmus test for the acceptance of Palestinian statehood. The roles, it appears, have reversed. Abbas has climbed down the tree and removed the ladder. And, barring a last-minute face-saving gesture, it is the United States that might have to jump.

Why Principles - and not Players - Should Determine the Nature of the Emerging International Order

My paper, co-authored with Joshua Walker, was published as part of the Brussels Forum Paper Series in March 2011. The full paper can be downloaded here.


Summary: The remarkable global growth story of the past two decades is already beginning to manifest itself geopolitically. The arrival of new global powers presents the West with a dilemma: whether to prioritize players or principles in creating a new international architecture that contributes to the continuity and efficacy of international norms. If the West fails to do either, there is every likelihood that a competing global system may emerge with ruinous consequences for all. Truly empowering new players will require sacrificing privileges, reaffirming principles, consolidating space, and privileging and engaging emerging democracies.

Up an Atom: The Real Reasons to Worry about Pakistan’s Growing Nuclear Weapon Stockpile

The following article originally appeared as a GMF Transatlantic Take on February 23, 2011.

WASHINGTON—As protests in the Middle East and North Africa spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya and Bahrain, another worrisome development in the extended neighborhood has gone relatively unnoticed. Pakistan is now in possession of a nuclear arsenal consisting of 100 to 110 weapons, according to recent reports in two major U.S. newspapers that are based on several independent estimates. This figure represents a doubling of similar estimates conducted four years ago, and means that Pakistan now has a larger nuclear stockpile than Britain.

Although it caused some ripples, this revelation was not exactly a surprise to the nuclear cognoscenti, who have remarked for some time on Pakistan’s expanding nuclear infrastructure. U.S. intelligence analysts expressed their concerns about Pakistan’s buildup as early as 2008, according to documents made available by WikiLeaks. But despite this understanding, expert commentary on Pakistan’s motives remains subject to unfortunate levels of mirror-imaging and outmoded Cold War logic. Specifically, it is still widely believed that Pakistan and its regional competitors will inevitably pursue debilitating arms races, that India and Pakistan are locked in an intractable existential or territorial conflict, that these states are obsessed about the credibility of their nuclear deterrents, and that strategic forces still retain their preeminence as potential delivery mechanisms.

Wrong diagnoses will invariably lead to wrong prescriptions. Many commentators have assumed, for example, that Pakistan’s primary objective is to offset India’s growing latent power and conventional military advantages, even if only as a psychological boost, but the recent acceleration of its weapons production does not correspond to any increase in threat perception. Experts also point to a recent civilian nuclear agreement that Washington brokered with New Delhi as lending India’s nuclear weapons program distinct advantages and furthering a regional nuclear arms race. Yet a race takes two, and India has hardly been rushing to build nuclear weapons. Independent estimates by Western experts of India’s arsenal have actually gone down since India tested its weapons in 1998. Informed, albeit crude, estimates based on its plutonium production capability suggest a current Indian stockpile of around 50 weapons, if not fewer. And given that India’s force posture – based on the size of its stockpile and declared no- first- use policy – is most likely counter- value (i.e. it targets major population centers), a much larger Pakistani arsenal adds little to Pakistan’s sense of security.

If this is not just about India, what could be Pakistan’s motives for rapidly increasing its nuclear stockpile, despite its being in dire economic straits? There are at least two other possibilities that need to be carefully considered. One is that Pakistan, cash-strapped and with a long and well-documented history of nuclear proliferation, is building up the arsenal for the benefit of a partner or client. China and Saudi Arabia have provided diplomatic, financial, and technical support to Pakistan over the years, and it is not unthinkable that Pakistan’s surplus weapons may be placed at their disposal under certain circumstances, particularly Saudi Arabia’s given its lingering concerns about a nuclear Iran.

A second possibility is that Pakistan’s nukes are neither for defense nor for sale, but are instead a potent form of blackmail directed at its primary benefactor: the United States. Washington is petrified of the prospect of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, and has made efforts to assist Pakistan in ensuring the safety and security of its arsenal. But the more weapons there are, the harder it is for the U.S. intelligence community to monitor them, and the greater the fear of their accidental or deliberate loss or misuse. The fact that Pakistan accelerated its weapon production just as its relations with Washington deteriorated may not be entirely coincidental. Like the wiles of a deranged lover, this form of masochistic extortion provides a guarantee for Pakistan against abandonment by Washington.

Whatever its primary motives, Pakistan is unlikely to be dissuaded from its current path of nuclear weapons development. Its willingness to diplomatically isolate itself by single-handedly blocking negotiations toward a fissile material cutoff treaty at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is ample evidence of this. Nevertheless, looking at the problem through the narrow lens of India-Pakistan relations is unhelpful, particularly when it is accompanied by complacency regarding the potential of Pakistani nuclear weapons to compromise Western security interests. Only two weeks ago, a former senior Clinton administration official wrote: “The Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars each year in American aid, has a generally positive relationship with the U.S., and, should this relationship change, Pakistan’s nuclear delivery vehicles would still lack the range necessary to reach American shores.” This betrays both a poor understanding of U.S.-Pakistan relations as well as an outmoded way of thinking about the threat posed by nuclear weapons today. But it is all the more reason for the recent revelations to serve as a wake up call, one that compels Washington and its partners to think more imaginatively about the forces propelling Pakistan’s self-destructive behavior.