Politics and Governance

First, Sehgal addressed the common fear that Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities are vulnerable to terrorists. “I know for a fact that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are safe,” said Sehgal, pointing out that there’s no evidence that the command structure guarding Pakistan’s nuclear assets includes Taliban sympathizers.  Sehgal added that Arab countries say they feel threatened by Iran, but not by Pakistan: “Countries apart from India do not feel threatened.” 

Second, Sehgal sought to refute the notion of Pakistan as an exporter of terror.  Sehgal believes that this misconception is exacerbated by western leader’s pandering remarks to India: “Both Cameron and Merkel clearly were wooing the Indian leaders and public for crass commercial purposes,” said Sehgal.

Sehgal pointed out that many people wrongly associate Pakistan with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, particularly given that no of the high ranking leaders of Al Qaeda are Pakistani. In Waziristan, said Sehgal, for every coalition soldier lost, Pakistan lost 11, including high ranking officers: “There is certainly terror in Pakistan, but it is not state sponsored.” 

Third, Sehgal addressed the misconception of Pakistan as a failed state, underscoring the tendency of Western media to lump the entire nation into an Islamo-fascist entity.   “Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Sehgal. “In this diverse nation of more than 170 million, Pakistan contains the entire spectrum of Islamic practice.” 

Sehgal argued that the Western media enforces false stereotypes of government corruption and cooperation with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.   And, conversely, fuels Pakistani conspiracy theories that the West is out to get them.

In a question-and-answer period following the talk, one participant asked Sehgal to address the fact that Pakistanis overseas have been involved in terrorist attacks.
“Within Pakistan, with educated young people, you won’t find the same virulent anti-western hatred that you find in the United Kingdom,” said Sehgal. “If you go to East London, you will find a lot of venom there.”

Just one more misconception about Pakistan that needed correction.

Click here to read coverage by the World Policy Institute

Click here to read Sehgal's piece in The News.

Afghan women politicians spoke directly about their experiences, from the real personal risks they took running for office to the difficulties of making policy in a society traditionally ruled by men.

“We women are challenged daily in our lives inside and outside the parliament,” said Shinkai Karokhail, a two-term MP. She cited the difficulty of assuring education for girls (female literacy in Afghanistan is under 20%) and women’s own lack of confidence in themselves as leaders after years of disenfranchisement.

Karokhail also pointed out that the pres­ence of Afghan women in Parlia­ment, as­sured in part thanks to a constitution­ally-mandated quota, should not be mis­tak­en for po­lit­ical power. Accord­ing to sev­eral partic­ipants, the prospect of rec­on­cil­iation with the Tal­iban – with the po­lit­ical compro­mises that might entail – could un­der­mine the fu­ture of Afghan women in Parlia­ment and society.

One of the strongest recommendations to emerge from the conference was the idea of creating a standing regional group to connect Afghan women with women from other Muslim countries.

“We’re a little more familiar with the culture and context of what the Afghan women are facing and we have similar backgrounds, so we’d be able to help them enact the kind of changes that we’ve had in our countries towards women’s empowerment,” said Donya Aziz, an MP from Pakistan.

The conference also explored how people in the West—in particular, women parliamentarians--can support women in Afghanistan. Recommendations ranged from helping women build their own capacities as conflict mediators to rebuilding necessary infrastructure.

Margareta Cederfelt, an MP from Sweden, said that she and her counterparts can offer knowledge and help rebuilding civil society, but that perhaps the most immediate help they can offer is an e-mail address. She explained, “It’s hard to be a politician without a network.”

Nasim Zehra, a television journalist from Pakistan, said that there was a consensus for raising the accountability of the Afghan government toward women. She added: “ From our Afghan colleagues, there was the general feeling that it’s about time that there are less words and more action.”

Click here to read New Europe's interviews with conference participants.

The United States and Japan have this past week assembled a naval force that would easily defeat the Chinese navy as it is today. This is the largest joint naval force ever assembled by the two allies. Their forces will be physically concentrated in and around the Sea of Japan, to the west of the country, separating it from Russia and the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. China does not border this sea. For China, the Yellow Sea (sitting between the Korean Peninsula and China), is the more sensitive of the two.

One reason for the joint exercise is to mark the 50th anniversary of the security treaty between the United States and Japan signed in 1960. The military forces have been brought together for an annual exercise called “Keen Sword”. This year’s exercise, unprecedented in scale compared with previous years, was planned well before the most recent attack by North Korea on its southern neighbor on 23 November. The bigger reason why this force is so large however is that North Korea attacked a South Korean navy ship in March, at a time when the North is going through a political transition from the“Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jong-un, now named “Brilliant Comrade”, who is of course grandson to the “Great Leader”, Kim Il-sung

The “Brilliant Comrade”, not even 30 years old, is already a General of the armed forces and Vice-Chairman of the country’s National Military Commission. His 39-year old half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, who was once heir apparent but now lives in Macao, has reportedly told a Japanese journalist that he opposes dynastic succession.

This political transition in the dictatorship in North Korea, with the armed forces of South Korea on high military alert already because of the recent attack, in a region with the highest concentration of conventional and nuclear military forces anywhere in the world, creates both high uncertainty and high risk that there may be a military miscalculation.

Newspapers in some countries are running reports from experts that war is unlikely. But from a military or political intelligence point of view, that is a nonsensical conclusion. If we know so little about the North’s thinking and since its forces are already on high alert, there is clearly no basis for a judgment that “war is unlikely”.  Analysts are interpreting the situation in an indefensible way. They are proceeding from the certainty that “we have seen military provocations in the last three decades by North Korea and they have not led to war” to the conclusion that “a provocation by North Korea can never lead to war”. On this occasion, Vladimir Putin’s assessment is a more reliable one. The situation is “acute and disturbing”.

There is an explicit presumption in much of the commentary, including by Putin, that China has “influence” over North Korea and can restrain it. This is a dangerous assumption. Political influence of one country over another is one of the most mis-understood and over-rated processes in global security affairs, not least in situations of leadership transition and high levels of military mobilization. An assessment of what is likely to happen next must be rooted exclusively in knowledge of the intentions and political dispositions of the “Brilliant Comrade”, the “Dear Leader” and their military forces.

Since so little is known about any of these, then the only prudent response is to stay on military alert until there is an un-mistakable signal of stand-down by North Korea. Since North Korea has only recently revealed the existence of a new nuclear reactor, and it has nuclear weapons, we have to plan for heightened military tensions. The Yellow Sea, very much China’s front yard bordering the Korean peninsula is likely to see heightened military activities in coming months. 

For Sehgal, Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s current president and co-chairman of the ruling party Pakistan’s Peoples Party (PPP), “qualifies as perhaps the craftiest politician of his time.”  Sehgal writes that Zardari, who has a reputation of corruption, has done little to improve the political regime in Pakistan aside from maintaining a vague semblance of democracy and a decent relationship with the U.S.

Sehgal argues that Zardari's predecessor Musharraf was no better, but that he could be the “Comeback Kid," pointing out that Musharraf did make some positive progress during his first two to three years as president.

Mian Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister of Pakistan and head of the conservative political group Pakistan Muslim League (PML), is “unpalatable for the West,” states Sehgal . “Sharif is considered ‘dangerous’ even by our friends.”  Similarly his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, was a successful leader when Mian Sharif was prime minister, but lost his strength when his brother lost power.

With his failure to differentiate between the Taliban and terrorist groups, Imran Khan is unable to “translate his popularity into votes,” writes Sehgal. “Such views are not acceptable to even those who genuinely like him,” explains Sehgal.

With the midterm elections on the horizon, Sehgal assesses that there is little promise of finding Pakistan’s next great leader this time around.

Click here to read Sehgal’s piece in The News

Since assuming the highest US office two years ago, only one issue has warranted rousing President Barack Obama in the middle of the night: North Korea. The first was on 25 May 2009 when he was informed that Pyongyang had just conducted another nuclear test. The second was on 23 November 2010 when he was woken up at 3.55am and told that North Korea had just shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, perhaps the most serious military incident since the end of the Korean war 57 years ago.

The US reaction was predictable: It condemned North Korea’s actions; offered support to the South by dispatching the nuclear-powered and, possibly, nuclear-armed George Washington carrier battle group; and called upon China to reign in the military adventurism of its communist ally. Some US commentators, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security adviser, accused the North Korean regime of “insanity” and lamented that Pyongyang’s “actions are difficult to fathom in rational terms”.

The recent antics of the Kims—who established the world’s first dynastic communist state—can be explained in light of the succession process of Kim Jong-un, the chubby 20-something son of Kim Jong-il, who has been disparagingly referred to as the “cute leader”. The series of provocative acts reportedly carried out by Pyongyang—the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, the preparations for a third nuclear test, the building of a new uranium enrichment plant, and the artillery barrage on the South Korean island—were clearly designed to supplant the cherubic demeanour of the Hermit Kingdom’s youngest anointed heir with one of fiery disposition. The latest exercise in brinkmanship was also aimed at getting concessions from Washington and Seoul.

However, this does not mean there is no justification for North Korea’s paranoia. While the Korean war ended in 1953, it could be rationally argued that in the absence of a formal peace treaty, North Korea still considers itself at war with South Korea and the US. This perspective is manifest in the regular joint exercises, the continued presence of nearly 30,000 US troops and, until recently, nuclear weapons in South Korea. In July, the US and South Korea conducted a naval exercise off the port of Busan to “deter future aggression” by North Korea, which Pyongyang saw as a “provocation aimed to stifle” it. A similar exercise scheduled for October and “meant to send a message to the North Koreans about their behaviour” was cancelled when China loudly protested about the location of the exercise. Even last Tuesday’s barrage coincided with the ongoing US-South Korean Hoguk military exercise and was reportedly provoked by South Korean test-firing from the nearby Baengmyeong Island.

Clearly, the deep hostility is exacerbated by the actions taken by both sides. In this spiral of confrontation, Washington is fast running out of options and may even find itself confronting China. While Obama’s call to China to help curb North Korea is a step in the right direction, Beijing is unlikely to oblige. Chinese observers described the latest escalation as an “accidental occurrence” and the leadership is unable or unwilling to put pressure on North Korea during this crucial period of transition for fear it might lead to the collapse of its ally. In addition, the reported involvement of Chinese companies and agencies in the “ultramodern” North Korean centrifuge plant might also make Beijing reluctant to cooperate too closely with the US. In fact, it is likely to increase tensions between Washington and Beijing. Obama can no longer ignore the North Korean issue and none of the options looks promising. He would do well to work out a cohesive strategy for the next time he is woken up in the middle of the night.

Click here to read Sidhu's article on livemint.com

NATO has a special class of partners, informally called “contact countries” or NATO’s “other partners”, all in the Asia Pacific. They “share similar strategic concerns and key Alliance values”, according to NATO, and include “Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand”.

In the 1980s, we often called Japan the 16th member of NATO. This de facto status hinged on the American commitment to defend Japan in the face of possible war with the Soviet Union, a circumstance that would have almost certainly involved NATO as a whole.

Fast forward to 2010, North Korea has just attacked South Korea for the second time in six months. The United States has a bilateral security treaty with South Korea. Does South Korea’s treaty relationship with the United States engage NATO on a de facto basis as committed to defend South Korea if there is an all-out war?

The UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Turkey sent forces to the Korean War (1950-53) to fight alongside their United States allies. (So did Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ethiopia.) The operation was UN-sanctioned, because the Republic of China on Taiwan, and not the Peoples Republic of China, was sitting in the UN Security Council and the USSR, with veto power, had been boycotting the Security Council at the time the vote was taken. The allies (including Taiwan) went to the General Assembly in a Uniting for Peace Resolution to prevent any Soviet veto of the continuation of the UN mandate.

The world is a very different place now, more than half a century later. The UN Command in Korea may still exist formally, as South Africa was reinstated to membership of it in 2010, just last week, almost coincident with the latest North Korean attack. But the Republic of Korea continues to deepen its relations with NATO. The Foreign Minister addressed the North Atlantic Council in May 2010 after offering in April to send a Provincial Reconstruction Team to Afghanistan to join NATO-led forces there.  South Korea participated in the NATO Summit in Lisbon in November 2010 along with some 19 other partner countries.

The latest North Korean attack coincided with the visit to the South by a NATO parliamentary delegation. NATO has expressed strong concern about the attack.

In the new NATO strategic concept approved at the Summit, Asia is not a subject that gets attention even though the “Gulf” (Persian Gulf?) is.  Yet NATO appears to have made what, as a package, could be interpreted as a new formal, if fairly low-level and evolutionary commitment to Asia (and the world). “We will be open to consultation with any partner country on security issues of common concern. We will give our operational partners a structural role in shaping strategy and decisions on NATO-led missions to which they contribute.”

So what is the NATO role in Asia, and more specifically East Asia? It is hard to escape the conclusion that now, as in the 1980s, NATO remains a major determinant of the balance of military power in East Asia. This does not mean that all European members of NATO would become automatically engaged in fighting in Korea if it escalated to all war. The United States and South Korean forces would easily defeat North Korean conventional forces.

It does mean however, that leaders of NATO Europe with an interest in Korean security must now review where exactly they stand. NATO’s centrality to the latest Korean crisis as a continuing power balancer is mandated by the strong and perfectly legitimate interest of China in what may now unfold.   

Click here to read Greg Austin's piece in New Europe.

Going into the midterms, the Obama administration was confident that it could count on at least a dozen Republican votes in favor of New START.  The key to their ratification strategy was Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, but he issued a surprise announcement on  November 16th that he did not think the treaty should be voted on this year.  Two days later, ten of the incoming Senate Republicans released a letter saying that they wanted a chance to vote on the treaty.  This was a double whammy that could crush the Obama administration’s efforts for a quick, successful vote.

A yes vote from Kyl, it was assumed, would bring along enough Republicans to assure the treaty’s ratification. His new call to delay ratification could well cause other Republicans who may have voted yes to backtrack. Bob Corker, one of the Republicans who initially voted the treaty out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had already said he may not support ratification. If a vote is put off until the new Congress convenes in January, the odds look even worse. For New START, it may well be a case of now or never—and never has some serious negative implications for all aspects of the U.S.-Russia relationship.

The administration is refusing to go down without a fight. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and President Obama himself, all veterans of the Senate, are continuing to lobby hard for ratification. In the Senate, they are working closely with John Kerry and Dick Lugar, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, respectively. And Lugar rebuked his colleagues in the Senate this week, arguing, in essence, that national security is falling victim to political considerations. The picture is further complicated by the fact that the administration may need to work both sides of the aisle because as at least one Democratic Senator, Ben Nelson of Nebraska,  has also called for delaying a ratification vote until the 112th Congress.

Among the key issues wrapped up in the debate over the treaty are U.S. ballistic missile defense plans, the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and the broader U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship.  Some opponents of the treaty have long argued that it constrains U.S. options to deploy a ballistic missile shield. As evidence, they point to its preamble that notes the relationship between offensive and defensive strategic arms.  The Russian government appeared to give them more ammunition when it issued a unilateral statement that that any U.S. missile defense build-up that would “give rise to a threat to the strategic nuclear force potential of the Russian Federation” would justify Russia’s withdrawal from the treaty. To the skeptics, this proved their point.

But neither of these documents is legally binding and thus they do not constrain U.S. options on missile defense.  The critics also largely ignore the fact that the United States also unilaterally reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if it feels its national interest is threatened. It’s worth recalling that it was the United States, not Russia, that  exercised such an option when it unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. U.S. missile defense plans have long been a highly contentious issue in the U.S.-Russian relationship and BMD was one of the main reasons that the negotiations on the New START treaty took so long. And although the Obama administration refused to go along with any concessions that would tie their hands in terms of BMD, the Russian government portrayed the treaty as doing exactly that in order to show progress on one of their key areas of concern. Russian statements that the treaty should constrain U.S. missile defense plans have thus complicated the picture for the administration.

Additional objections to the treaty arise from the suspicions of its opponents that the administration is not truly committed to the modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, which becomes all the more important as the number of weapons decreases. Yet the administration had already committed $80 billion over 10 years to ensure the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons complex—and added another $4.1 billion recently to satisfy Kyl.  Linton Brooks, who was in charge of the National Nuclear Security Administration from 2003 until 2007, proclaimed: “I would’ve killed for this kind of budget.”

A broader objection to the treaty is based on distrust of the entire reset effort with Russia. Many American critics believe their country has given away too much in its efforts to build a stronger relationship with Russia across a range of issues and received nothing in return. The Obama administration’s decision to abandon the Bush administration’s plans for a BMD system based in Poland and the Czech Republic  was seen as particularly symbolic in this regard.

But there have been concessions—and some quite significant—from the Russian side. The reset has been underpinned by mutual concessions. Under Medvedev, Russia cancelled its contract to sell S-300 SAMs to Iran, supported new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, and opened a supply route through Russian territory for the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. These decisions have opened Medvedev up to domestic criticism similar to what Obama has faced—giving away too much for too little in return. If the United States does not ratify New START, Medvedev is likely to be unwilling or unable to deliver on some of the most difficult policy issues—Iran, Afghanistan, arms control.

In any honest appraisal,  the ratification of New START would not only give the United States greater insight into the Russian nuclear arsenal and vice versa, but also  greater stability and transparency. There would be  boots-on-the-ground verification,  which the United States has been forced to live without for nearly a year now. Ratification also would help promote progress on a broad range of issues of strategic interest to the United States—on, as Hillary Clinton recently enumerated, Iran, Afghanistan, nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and counternarcotics. If the treaty is not ratified, cooperation with Russia could well grind to a halt. And both Obama and Medvedev would be seen as failing to deliver on the promise of the reset.  It would be a blow to more than the two leaders’ prestige; it would also undercut U.S.-Russian relations and the prospects for further nuclear reductions anywhere. The stakes are incredibly high.