Politics and Governance

Poland-U.S. relations have been "particularly rocky" under the Obama administration, he added, explaining that Poles want to hear that the U.S. will "finally recognize that Poland is now a mature democracy, that Poles can travel freely to the United States, and that they can be economic and political and military partners."

“They were discontented always with what government they had; such being their intellectual pride; but few of them honestly, thought out a working alternative, and fewer still agreed upon one.” Thus noted T. E. Lawrence in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which recounts his exploits as part of the Arab uprising against the Turks during the First World War. “They” are the Syrians, and Lawrence provides a vivid description of the land and its people, which he and a Hashemite-led Arab army were about to wrestle from Ottoman control.

Today, the discontent described by Lawrence remains, this time among the rebel groups opposed to the ruling Assad regime. For example, the Free Syrian Army recently condemned a meeting held in Cairo between the Syrian National Council and representatives from France, Tunisia and Turkey; they claimed the delegates were “rejecting the idea of a foreign military intervention to save the people . . . and ignoring the question of buffer zones protected by the international community, humanitarian corridors, an air embargo and the arming of rebel fighters." With growing international pressure for military intervention in Syria, T. E. Lawrence’s analysis of a fractured nation—although written by an outsider and almost a hundred years old—may caution us to think carefully when arguing for Western involvement in the region.

Prior to the establishment of the modern state of Syria under a French protectorate following the First World War, the term Syria denoted the entire Levant, including Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon. However, Lawrence in his work especially singled out the Syrian cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo when describing the political issues of Syria. He also focused on the Yarmuk Valley, running along today’s Syrian-Jordan border; Hauran, a volcanic plateau and people in today’s Southwestern Syria; and Daraa, also located in Southwestern Syria, which he saw as “the critical centre of Syria in all ages.”

Lawrence thought that in order to succeed in Syria, he had to have the Sunni majority on his side. He therefore cautioned that the “only independent factor with acceptable groundwork and fighting adherents was a Sunni prince, like Feisal, pretending to revive the glories of Ommayad or Ayubid.” Yet he also knew that any new form of government might be seen by some parts of society as imposed by a foreign power: “An Arab government in Syria, though buttressed on Arabic prejudices, would be as much ‘imposed’ as the Turkish Government, or a foreign protectorate, or the historic Caliphate. Syria remained a vividly coloured racial and religious mosaic.” He was deeply pessimistic about the outcome of any uprising in the country: “Time seemed to have proclaimed the impossibility of autonomous union for such a land. . . . It was also by habit a country of tireless agitation and incessant revolt.”

Lawrence acknowledged the potential for a general insurrection against the Turkish government in Damascus but again cautioned that it not be foreign led:

Syria, ripe for spasmodic local revolt, might be seethed up into insurrection, if a new factor, offering to realize that centripetal nationalism of the Beyrout Cyclopaedists, arose to restrain, the jarring sects and classes. Novel, the factor must be, to avoid raising a jealousy of itself: not foreign, since the conceit of Syria forbade.

In the light of the current uprising, T. E. Lawrence’s words seem almost prescient, although they were written more than ninety years ago. In a sense, the incumbent Alawi- and Shia-dominated government under Bashar al-Assad has reproduced the ancient foreign Ottoman administration, with the top tiers of government dominated by a Shia minority that constitutes less than 20 percent of Syria’s total population. Lawrence described the Alawi as “clannish in feeling and politics.” Thus, the current revolt would not be a surprise to him.

But due to the suppressive nature of the Alawi-dominated Assad regime, the internal strife so feared by Lawrence has been stifled ever since the Corrective Revolution of 1970 (with the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood uprising of February 1982). Yet inserting additional foreign elements into this complex and volatile kaleidoscope of tribal and religious factions may prove disastrous for all involved. The major lesson Lawrence drew from the history of foreign interventions in Syria, starting from the Ottomans to the British and French, is that they have been marked by disappointment. The defeats have come not so much in military struggles—both the British and French prevailed in that sphere—but in the failure of political settlements and the transition to peace once the fighting ceased. Or as T. E. Lawrence alliterated, “Any wide attempt after unity would make a patched and parceled thing.”

Click here to read this piece at The National Interest.

With ever increasing sanctions against Iran, escalating violence in Syria and the continuing political struggles in Egypt, a new dynamic has been added to the long-standing policy challenges in the Middle East.

“The Middle East is a place where the weak minorities are wiped out… Peace is viable so long as no one is stronger than us,” said Ephraim Sneh, Chair of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue at Netyanya College, Israel.

He spoke at a one day workshop in New York on Wednesday, hosted by Freidrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York and the EastWest Institute, which brought together speakers from Turkey, Iran, Israel and Egypt, as well as Russia, the United States and Europe.

“Small nations can rely only on themselves and we will never deposit our future in the hands of anyone,” said Sneh. “Israel will not abandon its military balance.”

The mounting international pressure on Iran was also a key topic of discussion, with many concerns raised for the efficacy of the imposed sanctions. “The [Iranian] population is suffering tremendously from the sanctions that have been imposed,” said Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council.”

Click here to read the rest of this piece at Inter Press Service.

“The dynamic of change is the people themselves, which is what makes this exciting and unpredictable at the same time,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center and fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “This is a process that is long overdue.”

Others saw both opportunities and perils in the new situation. Egyptian Foreign Ministry official Tamim Khallaf described the changes as part of a larger process of de-militarization of Arab governments, and he hailed the first free presidential elections in his country. Turkish economist Gökhan Bacik called the Arab Spring “a great economic opportunity for Turkey.”

But others warned of the dangers of populism when the early euphoria turns to disappointment as economic problems persist, and expressed concerns about new divisions, particularly within Islamic movements. “We are witnessing centrifugal forces at work that are pulling at the old religious and tribal divides,” said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

While some panelists disagreed on whether to call the upheavals in the region a revolution or an awakening, there was consensus that, whatever label is used, the magnitude of the changes cannot be denied. “This is not something seasonal or brief,” said Dan Arbell, Minister of Political Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “I see this as a tectonic shift.”

Predictably, there were sharp disagreements on Iran’s nuclear program. Ambassadior Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who served as Iran’s spokesman during its nuclear negotiations with the European Union from 2003 to 2005, declared: “Iran is prepared to accept a deal based on maximum transparency measures.” But according to Israeli diplomat Arbell, “The window for the diplomatic option is closing.”

Panelists also discussed the Syrian crisis, the internal disagreements in Israel about that country’s future, the impact of the regional upheavals on women and minorities, and the prospects for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

For more information on speakers and panel sessions, click here to download the agenda.

MP3s of panel sessions:

Panel I: Unfinished Transformations in the Middle East and their Effect on the Regional Security Dynamic (1:43:38)

Panel II: The Two-Level Game: How are Current Domestic Politics Affecting Foreign Policy Decision-making? (1:37:34)

Panel III: Chances for Rapprochement: What Role for Multilateral Initiatives? (1:28:18)

Portions of the livestream recording are available for viewing here via EWI's Ustream channel:

Click here for more coverage of the event by the Inter Press Service.

Click here to comment and rate this video on EWI's Youtube channel.

Panelists included Ali Akbar Javanfekr, managing director of the Islami Republic News Agency, Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service, and Jānis Kārkliņš, Assistant Director General for Communication and Information of UNESCO. 

From June 16 to 19, 2012, senior retired flag officers of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force met with Chinese retired senior generals of the People’s Liberation Army to discuss pressing issues in the U.S.-China military-to-military relationship.  This fourth iteration of the bilateral talks between retired senior officers, known as the Sanya Initiative, spanned two days of private dialogue at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, and two days of meetings with senior elected officials and policy experts in Washington, D.C. 

The six principal Chinese delegates, in order of seniority, were:

• Gen. Li Qianyuan, former Commander of PLA Lanzhou Military Region
• Gen. Zhu Qi, former Commander of PLA Beijing Military Region
• Adm. Hu Yanlin, former Political Commissar of PLA Navy
• Gen. Zheng Shenxia, former President of the Academy of Military Sciences
• Lt. Gen. Wang Liangwang, former Deputy Commander of PLA Air Force
• Lt. Gen. Zhao Xijun, former Deputy Commander of the PLA Second Artillery Force

The six principal U.S. delegates, in alphabetical order, were:

• Gen. James Cartwright, Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Gen. Kevin Chilton, Former Commander of U.S. Strategic Command
• Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, Former Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
• Adm. William Fallon, Former Commander of U.S. Central Command
• Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Adm. William Owens, Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

For the first time in the Sanya Initiative’s four-year history, the EastWest Institute (EWI) was involved in the coordination of this meeting, in cooperation with the Chinese Association for International Friendly Contact.  EWI’s President and CEO John Edwin Mroz, Vice President for the Strategic Trust-Building Initiative and Track 2 Diplomacy David J. Firestein, Chief of Staff James Creighton, and China Program Senior Associate Piin-Fen Kok also participated in the discussions. 

The Annapolis talks covered a range of topics of military and political importance to the United States and China.  Delegates held sessions on the U.S. rebalancing, or “pivot,” to Asia, North Korea, the South China Sea, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, America’s Air-Sea Battle Concept, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and managing the U.S.-China military-to-military relationship.  While there was consensus on some issues and disagreement on others, both sides agreed that cultivating communication and mutual understanding between the militaries of the United States and China is essential for fostering the cooperation between the two nations necessary to address the world’s most difficult issues.

“We are two strategic nations, and we must act in strategic ways because of influences we have around the globe and because of the leadership that we demonstrate around the globe for all other nations,” Gen. Cartwright noted in his remarks in Annapolis. “[But] it’s very important for all of us at this table to realize that if the United States fails as a nation or if China fails as a nation, we both fail.”

 Gen. Li Qianyuan, the Chinese delegation leader, expressed a similar sentiment. 

“The U.S. and China have a shared desire to strengthen coordination and cooperation on most major issues and to develop a new type of state-to-state relationship to the benefit of both of our peoples and the peoples of the world. Coming together through the Sanya Initiative, we will surely help to deepen mutual understanding, build mutual trust, reduce misunderstanding, and promote the great cause of friendship between our two countries.”

The second half of the Sanya Initiative meeting took place in Washington, D.C., where the U.S. and Chinese delegates held discussions with Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), respectively Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Arms Services Committee, and Representatives Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Rick Larsen (D-WA), Co-Chairmen of the House U.S.-China Working Group.  The delegates visited the Pentagon to meet with Mark W. Lippert, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, and Lieutenant General Terry Wolff, Director, Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Staff, J5.  At the State Department, the delegates spoke with Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.  The delegates were also invited to dinner by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and former Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt.  Prior to traveling to Annapolis and Washington, the Chinese delegation held meetings with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chairman of the Starr Foundation Maurice Greenberg, and the CEO of NYSE Euronext Duncan Niederauer in New York.

The Sanya Initiative meeting was made possible with the generous support of the Starr Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the China-United States Exchange Foundation.

Disparate forces are inevitably colliding this week as world leaders meet in Rio de Janeiro to take part in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20. The goal of the conference is to bring together participants from around the globe to discuss how to improve worldwide coordination of policies that foster sustainable development and alleviate poverty.

One of the ideological battles taking place in Brazil, and around the world, is how to reconcile the immediate demand for energy with the longer term needs for sustainability. Two of the most visible opponents in this conflict are Greenpeace and Shell Oil.

At the Earth Summit in Rio, Greenpeace unveiled a campaign for a UN resolution that would curb Arctic oil exploration. What has recently raised the ire of Greenpeace is Shell’s plan to commence petroleum exploration in the Arctic region as the thawing ice cap opens up previously inaccessible areas.

Shell, for its part, says that the Arctic may hold the equivalent of 400 billion barrels of oil and that exploration of the area is vital to securing petroleum resources needed to meet rising global energy demands.

The Rio Earth Summit has been convened in hopes of finding sustainable solutions to problems like this. The relationship between economic and environmental interests is also a major focus area of the EastWest Institute. EWI’s economic security initiative is dedicated to securing a better global future through private-public partnerships that develop consensus and cooperation on issues ranging from protecting the digital economy to devising new strategies to deal with water, food and energy scarcity. Recent and upcoming efforts include the Affordable World Security Conference in March, 2012, and the 9th Annual Worldwide Security Conference to be held November, 2012 in Brussels.

The Rio+20 conference follows in the footsteps of 1992 Earth Summit, which also met in Brazil. Like the current conference, the air was  to rethink the current path of economic growth in light of future dilemmas facing the environment and social development. Among the issues that were discussed: Increased desertification, threats to the oceans, deterioration of infrastructure and limited access to fuel, food and water.

In tandem with Rio+20, a group of mayors from 58 of the world’s megacities also met in Rio de Janeiro to tackle climate change. This gathering, dubbed Rio+C40, presented innovative methods to deal with fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, sources of alternative energy, landfill and infrastructure maintenance and more efficient transportation programs.

Coinciding with these two meetings was another gathering to the north: the G20 Leaders Summit. The leaders the world’s most developed economies met in Los Cabos, Mexico to discuss the international financial system. They focused on the global economy, specifically Europe’s current crisis. While the G20 and the global financial system captured far more immediate public attention, the Rio Earth Summit raised issues that are critical to long-term sustainability.

For its part, EWI is intent on continuing to spur new efforts to reconcile current needs, growth and sustainability. We do not feel that these goals are contradictory. As Shell points out, there is growing demand for energy. But, as Greenpeace noted, there is also an urgent need for new climate initiatives. Beyond the Rio+20 summit, all of the key players will need to work towards overcoming their current differences to promote economic development that is both sustainable and productive.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta's recent visit to India brings to the fore again the question of the depth India should impart to India-US defence ties. Panetta has been explicit about US interest in deepening them.

The itinerary that took him to the US Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii, Singapore, Cam Ranh Bay and Hanoi in Vietnam, New Delhi and Kabul illustrates the new US defence priorities in Asia, a counter "string of pearls" strategy of sorts that includes India.

Strategy

This new defence strategy, Panetta acknowledged, consists of "rebalancing" towards the Asia-Pacific region, with an expansion of US military partnerships and presence in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia. The US will shift the bulk of its naval fleet including as many as six aircraft carriers to the Pacific Ocean by 2020.

Panetta said candidly in Delhi that defence cooperation with India is a lynchpin in this US strategy. General Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has underlined subsequently India's enormously important geostrategic location on the sea lanes of communication from the Mid-east to the Pacific. The Pentagon says it sees India as a net provider of security from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan and beyond.

In Delhi Panetta spoke publicly of India-US defence relationship becoming more strategic, practical and collaborative through regular defence policy exchanges, military exercises covering all functional areas of naval warfare, prospects for advanced R&D, sharing of new technologies and joint production of defence equipment, besides defence sales and intelligence sharing.

Noting that India will soon have the world's second largest fleet with an expanded reach and ability to rapidly deploy, Panetta visualises a peaceful Indian Ocean region supported by growing Indian capabilities with America making military deployments in the region including rotating marines in Australia and Littoral Combat Ships through Singapore.

These statements and plans make clear that the US pivot towards Asia envisages a buttressing Indian role in it. This pivot aims at re-asserting the American role in the Asia-Pacific region with a view to balancing and countering the rising power of China, as circumstances demand.

US overtures put India in a delicate and difficult situation. The US is changing its geopolitical calculus towards India. Panetta equated US difficulties in dealing with Pakistan with those India faced, disregarding Pakistani sensitivities about western leaders criticising it from Indian soil. He welcomed a more active political and economic Indian role in Afghanistan, including training of the Afghan security forces.

India cannot easily spurn defence advances by the world's foremost military power in a changing global context. India has its own concerns about China's adversarial policies. It cannot unreservedly grasp the US hand either, as it is independently engaging China and has convergence of interests with it on issues of global governance where India has differences with the West.

We have to factor in our response our relations with Russia, our principal defence partner, the growing strategic understanding between Russia and China, and our dialogue with both countries in the Russia-India-China (RIC) format and that of BRICS. Any perception that just as Russia is moving closer to China because of US/NATO pressure we are moving closer to the US would be politically undesirable.

This calls for a very sophisticated handling of the strategic advantage of strengthening defence ties with the US and the strategic disadvantage of being dragooned into US interventionist policies across the globe. The challenge is how to separate Indian interests from those of the US while deepening the strategic partnership between the two countries.

China

Understanding the dynamics of the USChina relationship is extremely important. This relationship is multi-dimensional, with twin tracks of cooperation and competition. Economically and financially cooperation predominates, despite periodic US complaints about China's trade and exchange rate policies; politically and strategically competition is dominant, even if elements in the US, recognising the inevitability of China's rise, talk of joint US-China management of global affairs.

US-China economic interdependence may raise doubts among US allies about the constraints this imposes on US political choices in dealing with China-provoked regional tensions, but the allies also gain freedom to expand economic ties with China as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have done. All sides thus see shared gains in expanding trade exchanges.

Response

On the political and strategic front, the situation is more complex. The US has an established military presence in the region, with several alliance relationships. The US may tolerate losing economic power to China in relative terms as part of win-win arrangements, but not political power as there are no win-win arrangements there and no shared gains for US allies in security terms.

The US pivot towards Asia seems therefore a defensive move, to prevent China from materially changing the political and strategic status quo in the region in its favour in the way the economic one has shifted to China's advantage.

Panetta noted in Delhi that as the US and India deepen their defence partnership, both will also seek to strengthen their relations with China. He welcomed the rise of a strong and prosperous China that "respects and enforces the international norms that have governed this region for six decades"- a phrase encapsulating the core aim of the Asia pivot.

The US-India-China trilateral dialogue proposed by the US State Department is a subtle way to attenuate Indian concerns about the US incorporating India into its check-China strategy more than it would want. It would, by balancing the RIC dialogue, dilute its unique importance.

A pragmatic Indian response to US defence overtures is required- cautious and measured, but not negative.