Politics and Governance

Pakistani Governance and National Security

Writing for Pakistan's The News International, EWI Board Member Ikram Sehgal considers the state of Pakistan's democracy.

National security can be undermined because of the socio-political environment prevailing. The critical elements are: (1) the state and the political system, representative democracy, basic values, ideology, economy and the decision-making process. Because they impact beyond the boundaries of a single society, socio-political issues require ethical and responsible solutions.

However, if the aim of the rulers is only to make money for themselves and manipulate the system to enhance their own rule, the resultant endemic bad governance endangers the state as well as the safety, comfort and welfare of the people.

Nations seldom abide by moral codes when their national security is threatened. Consider the debate within the US about the legality of drone strikes in the territory of another sovereign nation, well knowing that innocents will be killed along with militants. Such a ‘doctrine of necessity’ glosses over the public conscience about ‘collateral damage’ in a country where normally it would be condemned as morally repugnant.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry very rightly maintains that national security in modern times cannot be confined to aggression or external threat. Conversing with a study group from the National Management Course in Islamabad, he said: “Gone are the days when stability and security of the country was defined in terms of missiles, tanks and armoury as a manifestation of hard power available to the state.”

He went on: “States are now bound to provide its citizens security and protect their civil rights at all costs. Progress of the state is impossible without eliminating anarchy from the system. Failure of administration and implementation structure is visible everywhere, steps against the law and the constitution will push society and the environment towards turmoil and unrest.”

Bemoaning the present state of governance in Pakistan, Justice Chaudhry posed the following questions: “Do we reward merit and hard work? Are the term principles of rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution being strictly enforced? Do the citizens of the country trust the system and think it provides them fair opportunity to realise their driven in a transparent manner?

“Does the present system have the capacity to discourage the corrupt? Do we have a system where civil and property rights are protected and contracts are fully enforced?” He added: “Unfortunately, the answer to the above questions is no, the system is distorted and does not provide a level playing field for the people to achieve in life whatever they are capable of.”

The chief justice’s concerns about threats to national security are very much commensurate with the remedy given in the First Amendment to the 1789 U.S. constitution derived from the 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence (holding true for all democracies everywhere): “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organising its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

The armed forces cannot remain blind to the deliberate mis-governance, but this must not be misconstrued as an exhortation for military intervention. Armies have no business to be in the business of running the country, nor are they capable of that, at least not for an extended period. Power is only handed over under judicial cover in ‘aid to civil power’ when it becomes impossible for civilian rule to function. This extreme stopgap short-time measure resorted to restore civilian authority is to enforce rule of law and avoid anarchy.

How does one balance the equation between avoiding military intervention, while ensuring that the rulers do not use the convenient cover of democracy and the constitution to deliberately criminalise society? Can the armed forces remain oblivious if national security linkages with the social-political environment erode the basic foundations of society? When it is threatened, it becomes not only the moral duty but an obligation for the men in khaki to act in the spirit in which the constitution evolved.

Precedents in Pakistan exist for such recourse under judicial cover, successfully implemented for a short period in Karachi in 2010 when the Rangers, armed with police powers and acting under the direct authority of the Supreme Court, caught many target killers across the political divide. By preventing them from laughing their way out of the police stations within hours due to the inordinate influence of their political handlers, the Rangers brought a modicum of peace and harmony to Karachi for a short period.

After years of heaping insults and hurling dire threats at each other, the PML-N and the PPP are clearly in cahoots as partners manipulating the electoral process to remain in power, as Imran Khan has been claiming for years. Can this country survive five more years of misrule and bad governance?

Without resorting to overthrowing the government, what modus operandi must the army employ to ensure that the system does not dissolve into anarchy? The correct way is to give quiet counsel to the rulers to rectify the wrongs themselves. To his credit, Kayani has done just that for the last five years. Unfortunately, it has been effective only selectively when the rulers felt their hold on power was threatened. This had no effect on the government’s transgressions vis-a-vis nepotism and corruption.

Because these impact on national security, whenever hard evidence comes before the COAS he is duty-bound to refer it to the heads of state and government, verbally at first and, if that does not evoke remedial measures, in writing. Whether the COAS has raised his concerns strongly enough with the rulers one does not know, but the rulers have certainly shown no inclination to correct their blatant wrongdoing.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘redress’ means to “remedy or set right (an undesirable or unfair situation).” A petition for ‘redress of grievances’ is to “make or present a formal request (petition) for such to (an authority) with respect to a particular cause.” Ruling only by the consent of the people, the government has a constitutional obligation to correct such wrongs.

Petitioning for “redress of grievances” means that when the people find either the federal and/or provincial governments exceeding the authority granted to them under the constitution, and not inclined to listen to their grievances affecting their fundamental rights, they have the right to approach the Supreme Court for redress (remedy) of the constitutional wrongdoing. Such a petition of public importance relating to the enforcement of fundamental rights guaranteed under the constitution can be filed virtue of Article 187 (I).

If the government continues to ignore his submissions about bad governance, the COAS has an obligation like any other citizen to bring this before the Supreme Court in the form of a petition. Given the chief justice’s deep concern about the impact of bad governance on national security, why not use the given constitutional ways of seeking "redress of grievances?"

Democracy’s fail-safe line is the legal barrier of the Supreme Court, but when bad governance makes democracy delusional, do we have the moral courage to cross that line to save the country from the predators in control?

Click here to read this piece at The News International.

Ikram Sehgal Discusses Pakistan's Future on CNN

On March 3, EWI board member Ikram Sehgal, chairman of the Pathfinder Group, discussed Pakistan's future in an interview with CNN in Abu Dhabi.

Sehgal expressed cautious optimism on the future of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, maintaining that "as long as Pakistan understands that the U.S. has got its own interests in this area...I think the US-Pakistan relationship is going to get better."

Looking at the coming election, Seghal held that "if there is a free and fair election, then Imran [Khan] definitely has chances of becoming a third large force."

Sehgal will host an event on the topic of Pakistan's political and economic future at the EastWest Instiute's New York City headquarters. Visit the Facebook event to learn more.

2013-03-07

Louise Richardson Considers the Educational Toll of Scottish Independence

In an interview with London's The Times, EWI Board Member Louise Richardson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews, expressed concerns over the potential impact of Scottish independence on higher education.

"If we were cut off from national research councils, it would be catastrophic for this institution," said Richardson. "We would lose our top academics. We would fail to attract serious academics."

In addition to restricting access to research funds, Richardson maintained that independence might result in an increase of political influence in allocating university funds within Scotland.

Click here to read the full report at BBC.

Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba Leads Foreign Aid Effort

EWI board member Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, was featured in The Washington Post in an article on his country's efforts to offer substantial amounts of foreign aid in the United States.

“We spot needs and we try to help,” said Otaiba.

The article focused on major UAE contributions to tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri, which included a $5 million gift to build a neonatal intensive care unit and $1 million towards student laptops. 

The article noted that the donations "mark a small but remarkable shift in global economic power."

Click here to read the article at The Washington Post.

EWI Event at the UN Focuses on Water Partnership and Dialogue

More than 150 people packed the room for “Ways to Integrate Efforts in Furthering Water Dialogue and Cooperation,” a UN side-event hosted by the EastWest Institute,the Permanent Mission of Tajikistan to the UN, UN Water and the Water Friends Group on Friday, February 22, at the UN Headquarters in New York City. This event underlined UNGA resolution 65/154 declaring 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC).

Zafar Adeel, director of the United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, moderated a distinguished panel of experts who helped identify and address global action points for water dialogue and partnerships.

“The time for silo thinking is over,” Ursula Schaeffer-Preuss, chair of the Global Water Partnership, said in her remarks which focused on sustainable approaches. She urged nations to think outside of the traditional ways of tackling water management issues. “This is a global issue that cannot be addressed from one vantage point.”

Olcay Ünver, coordinator of the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme of the UN-Water and director of the UNESCO Programme Office on Global Water Assessment, echoed that sentiment. “Many of the challenges to water security and management come from other sectors and water managers are seldom consulted when dealing with these challenges,” said Ünver.

“Water must become part of the equation,” he continued, stressing that water impacts a huge number of issues in any nation—including public health, jobs, energy, food, sustainability and many women’s issues.

Sanjay Pahuja, senior water resources specialist at the World Bank, stressed the importance of education as key to water cooperation, illustrating his point with an example of Indian farmers, who moderated their own water use after learning pertinent elements of hydrogeology.

“Let the farmers be the scientists,” Pahuja stated, as he elaborated on this bottom-up approach.


Panelists address the crowd at the UN.

He explained further that these farmers did not have much formal education, yet they were able to develop a proficiency that increased their profits and positively impacted their standard of living. “This is how we can alter the course of people’s lives,” Pahuja added.

An additional panelist, Christian Holmes, USAID’s Global Water coordinator, stressed the importance of data exchange as a key catalyst to change. “Bilateral and regional development provide replicable opportunities,” he said.

EWI President John Mroz emphasized that water is key to nation building and that nations must act on it. “We are all aware of this. Now, it’s no longer enough to name the ball, now we have to move the ball down the playing field,” he urged event participants.

The International Year of Water Cooperation is intended to unify all efforts, both undertaken and planned by the UN system, other international and regional organizations, governments, civil society and entrepreneurs, in order to increase people's awareness of freshwater-related problems and ways to resolve them. This follows the 2012 UNGA adopted resolution (A/Res/67/204) on the implementation of the IYWC through convening a series of global high-level events.

EWI Partner E3G Releases Report on Economic and Political Challenges in the MENA Region

With funding from Planet Heritage, EWI has partnered with E3G, a European think tank focused on sustainable development, on a project examining how the Middle East and North Africa's vulnerability to climate vulnerability to climate change and resource scarcity are further complicating the already sizable economic and political challenges facing these countries.

Focusing on studies of Egypt and Tunisia, this project has resulted in this new report, which argues that MENA countries already face disproportionate future challenges from and constraints on growth due to energy and water pressures, vulnerability to volatile international food prices, and climate impacts on critical industries.

Click here to download the E3G report Underpinning the MENA Transition: Delivering Climate, Energy and Resource Security.

According to E3G, climate challenges, population growth, and industrialization will result in a growing scarcity of water. Food prices are also expected to increase dramatically, contributing to economic shocks in the region. Developed countries have a strategic interest in successful democratic transitions but current support pledged to the region does not address the critical economic and resource challenges.

The report suggests that “external support for energy and resource investment should ‘stress test’ the value of long lived infrastructure against future resource and climate change scenarios to ensure their economic value is resilient in the medium term.” It goes on to recommend that donor countries and regional partners work together to focus on four strategic priorities: improving resilience to shocks, economic diversification into resource efficient industries, building resilient infrastructure, and focusing support on a few high-impact stability and development objectives.

EWI was pleased to work with E3G in holding workshops in Berlin, New York, Washington D.C., and Brussels with policymakers and relevant experts from the public and private sector for roundtable discussions on the issue. We are particularly grateful to Planet Heritage for funding the project and to the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C., for hosting the roundtable there.

Launching the Policy Innovation Unit

EastWest Institute President John Mroz announced the appointment of Dr. Greg Austin to lead the Institute’s first Policy Innovation Unit, a new initiative, whose purpose will be to identify and produce a stream of policy papers on new and emerging areas of global risks, threats and challenges, using EWI’s large worldwide network of experts from a diverse number of fields as vital sources. The papers will identify and propose innovative solutions, involving both private and public sector collaboration. Papers already underway have the working titles of “Anticipating Global Economic Shock” and “Strategic Stability in Cyberspace.” Mroz praised Dr. Austin’s five-year track record of accomplishment as EWI Vice President and his unusual ability to advocate successfully in both East and West. The Policy Innovation Unit will also work with existing EWI programs to help them bolster their policy recommendations.

“As the global community is facing unprecedented challenges, we need to begin to marshal expertise in new ways and make sure it has the necessary influence,” said Austin. “EWI is perfectly situated to do that by working with leading figures from around the world on these critical issues.”

EWI Chairman Ross Perot, Jr. welcomed the appointment and the return of Austin to the EWI staff. He noted: “Few experts out there are as practical yet visionary as Greg. His new unit brings a long-needed focus to better using our global network to promote solutions to seemingly intractable problems that threaten peace, stability and the ability of nations to grow their economies and create jobs for their people. We are excited to see the impact that the Policy Innovation Unit will bring.”

Prior to his current position at EWI, Austin served for five years as a vice president of the institute. He is also a senior visiting fellow in the department of War Studies at King’s College London. Prior to joining EWI, Austin served as director of research at the Foreign Policy Center in London (2004-2006) and as a consultant to the UK Cabinet Office and four other government departments (2003-2004). He was the Asia program director, then director of research at the International Crisis Group (2000-2002). He is the author, co-author and editor of several books on China’s strategic policy. He has a doctorate in International Relations and master’s degree in International Law. He is currently writing a book on China’s cyber policies for publication later this year.

Reactions to the Cybersecurity Executive Order

During his annual State of the Union address on February 12, President Obama presented an executive order to protect U.S. critical infrastructure from cyber threats. “Our enemies are also seeking the ability to attack our power grid, our air traffic control system,” he said. “We cannot look back years from now and ask why we did nothing to face real threats to our security and our economy.”

The executive order encourages information sharing between private companies, which currently own and run most critical infrastructure in the U.S., and government agencies. Many companies are loath to share information about cyber breaches, as they believe that this will undermine their standing with customers and competitors. The order also aims to develop voluntary security standards and practices, while at the same time addressing privacy concerns. Many of these provisions were in last year’s failed cybersecurity legislation.

Although many in the private sector have criticized the substance of the executive order, Michael Chertoff, a former director of Homeland Security and EastWest Institute board member, praised the fact that it put the cybersecurity issue front and center on the national agenda. In a discussion with USA Today, Chertoff stated that the order’s requirements “represent a down payment in the protection of our nation's cyber infrastructure.”

Speaking to Computerworld, Gartner Analyst Lawrence Pringree expressed skepticism over the quality of shared intelligence that he asserts would do little to prevent cyber attacks. “It remains to be seen whether the government has useful intelligence that can help bolster commercial sector security,” he said.

Rob Beck, a critical infrastructure cybersecurity consultant with Casaba Security, had similar sentiments. He criticized the voluntary nature of the standards, saying that the order “doesn’t have any teeth; it has no backing,” he told CNN. “This is not going to have any measurable impact on anything.”

In an interview with CSO, Jacob Olcott, principal at Good Harbor Consulting, held that basic “cyber hygiene” measures are more effective than enhanced information-sharing measures. “Classified threat information is not useful for a company that isn’t regularly patching its systems,” he explained.

It is worth noting that, according to a recent Verizon-sponsored study, 97 percent of reported security breaches “were avoidable (at least in hindsight) without difficult or expensive countermeasures.”

The lack of trust between the public and private sector remains a major hurdle, especially as state-sponsored cyber attacks become ubiquitous.

“It is very hard for many of us in the private sector to trust that the feds have significantly better threat information that they are willing to share,” AlienVault CTO Roger Thorton told CSO. “Researchers at hundreds of private organizations like ours are routinely catching attacks and infiltrations backed by states, particularly China and even the U.S. and or its allies.”

China has been accused of producing a high volume of cyber attacks, including recent infiltration into major American newspapers; the Chinese government has yet to issue an official comment on the executive order.

Thorton went on to criticize the American government’s threat reduction capacity; he suggested that the government is more qualified to promote bilateral treaties and international cooperation. “To assert that government’s involvement and training is necessary for private industry to accurately identify, assess and respond to threats is frankly a somewhat arrogant position to take,” he added.

Yet, Dale Peterson, president of Florida-based Digital Bond, a cybersecurity company, told the Christian Science Monitor that Obama’s order was long-overdue. “I had hoped, and have hoped for years, the U.S. government would come out and say the [control systems] that run the critical infrastructure are insecure by design and must be upgraded or replaced ASAP,” he said. “It's hard to believe 11 and a half years after 9/11 that the U.S. government has not even used the bully pulpit to make a difference.”

A great deal of distrust and uncertainty about cyber threats continues to exist in the private sector. In the current climate, the EastWest Institute’s efforts to raise awareness and promote private-public collaboration on cybersecurity issues—including last year’s groundbreaking 3rd Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit in New Delhi—are a crucial part of the broader push for new approaches and solutions.

John Mroz: "The World is Doing Much Better than One Year Ago."

In a recent interview with Slovenia's Delo, EWI president John Mroz discussed a range of issues including cybersecurity, energy resources, and recent international conflicts. The interview was conducted following a panel session Mroz moderated at the 2013 Munich Security Conference on February 2.

Click here to access the original interview text in Slovenian.

Among more than 400 participants of this year’s Munich Security Conference there are 11 heads of states or governments, 43 foreign ministers and 20 defense ministers. Has this high concentration of global decision-makers brought any good?

At a conference such as this one in Munich, which is the biggest security conference in the world, the most important thing is to capture the general sense of how good or bad the current situation is. Last year it was genuinely depressing, people were not enthusiastic – today it’s much better, although they are not naively positive either. The world is doing much better than one year ago.

 

But now we have wars – in Syria, Mali…

There will always be wars, and although what’s going on in Mali is terrible, a collapse of the Eurozone would have been something totally different. People are now much more optimistic and eager to cooperate. It’s true that the UN Security Council can’t take action on Syria, but the real concerns are elsewhere. I led a debate on cybersecurity in which we all agreed that the threats are higher than one year ago. In some areas the situation is worse, but if we take everything into account, the overall environment is much better, especially in Europe.

 

If we stay on Syria and Iran for a moment – how should we observe the Russian foreign minister’s meeting with Syrian opposition leaders?

Lavrov’s meeting with the opposition is a dramatic move, yet what is even more dramatic is that the opposition leader also met with the Iranian foreign minister. It’s exactly why these conferences are important – a lot is going on in the background, leaders meet day and night.

 

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in Munich that international politics can get personal. Do you see any shifts in the U.S. foreign policy as President Obama begins his second term?

Vice President Biden was careful not to announce anything big before President Obama outlines his big foreign policy plans for next four years in his State of the Union address. There are some hints, though – climate change will certainly be one big theme of Obama’s second term.

 

Another important topic at the Munich conference was the new technologies of shale oil and gas extraction. As America ends its reliance on imported fossil fuels, and even becomes a major exporter, how will all this change international relations?

Many countries will be affected – Russia will bear strong consequences. Russia has so far influenced the prices with its long-term contracts, but its global economic position is about to change dramatically. Nobody knows how this is going to look like in the end, but the situation is going to be much, much different.

 

How about China?

Chinese leadership is under intense domestic pressure; there’s widespread corruption, a huge emerging middle class that demands clear air and clean water, millions of people still living in poverty. They are facing very difficult challenges – Chinese leaders have their hands full.

 

At the conference you led a discussion on fighting crime or even war in cyberspace, just as the leading U.S. newspapers accused China for launching cyber attacks as retaliation for their reports on the Chinese prime minister’s family fortune.

Yes, the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal all complained about the attacks. There’s a lot going on on the Internet, but cyber crime is still the greatest challenge. It all starts with individuals – how smart we are with our passwords; how often do we change them, how complex they are;do we use one password multiple times. If we go further to companies, organizations and governments, there’s no cyber warfare, but a lot of industrial espionage going on, not just by Russians and Chinese. Democratic countries are in the game, too: Israelis, French, we Americans. But it all gets back to individuals – your computer gets infected with a virus and, while you go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, for example, the organized criminals take control over your computer; this trend is really dangerous.

 

Your organization, the EastWest Institute, aims to build trust and solve problems in international relations. Are you succeeding?

Building trust is about dealing with other human beings. If you need somebody, you automatically want to trust that person. If it is somebody from a different culture, religion or ethnic group, acquiring trust takes a little bit longer. If there is bad experience involved, then building trust takes even more effort. Trust-building is a long process that doesn’t depend just on a presumption that you are a good person and therefore I want to trust you. Building trust is a two way street, where we have to work together. In cybersecurity we work in this way with the Chinese on spam. Two thirds of all emails are spam, large number carry viruses, so we are delivering global standards to fight spam.

 

What are your other projects?

A lot of them deal with water and food security, on the issue of water in Africa, we worked together with the French G20 presidency. Climate change has dramatic impact on water resources, threatening wars and mass migration of people. We deal with this in Central Asia as well, in the Amu Darya basin, which involves 5 countries, including Afghanistan. Once there were rumors of war, now they work together on better management of river flow, etc. The same process is going on between Egypt and Ethiopia. In very practical terms, we did in the Amu Darya basin what we used to do in the Balkans: we brought together people that can help and we focused on practical issues of deforestation and erosion of river basins. These are small things, but it is how you build trust and change people’s mindsets. It’s a hard work that you can’t do at a conference, but somebody has to do it.

 

Clear air and clean water have impact on clean environment. What about fracking, which wall also talked about? Many Europeans reject the idea, because of strong chemicals involved.

There are arguments for and against. In my country, the U.S., the level of pollution went down to 1982 figures, almost exclusively because we replaced coal with gas. Gas has side effects as well, but nothing compared to coal. Imagine, therefore, if China could replace a third of their coal based power plants with gas. The biggest problem is water, because fracking requires a lot of water mixed with chemicals. In five years, new technologies will emerge that will require smaller amounts of water and no chemicals at all, which will make shale oil and gas extraction environmentally friendly. Shale fossil fuel resources are not found just in America, but China, Ukraine, Poland, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. This is a game-changer.

 

Years ago, you used to work in Western Balkans. What would you say about the border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia?

The EastWest Institute goes where the situation is toughest, where there is an imminent threat of war: there’s nothing like that between Slovenia and Croatia. A lot depends on the political will, but also on the people, that must say: “That’s enough!” Just when I look at the European economy, and then look at the issue of Cyprus, I think: how ridiculous is that! Let’s resolve this and focus of economic growth.

 

For Slovenians, however, the access to international waters is a very important issue.

That is something else, that is part of history and should be addressed. I believe that the people should be more vocal in demanding that these open issues should be resolved. However, it is true that nationalism is growing nowadays. Everywhere – in Japan, Korea, China, as well as in Europe. It’s one of the effects of globalization, people are more nationalistic, which makes the problems, like the border one that you mentioned, harder to resolve.

 

Are you afraid of new currency wars?

No, people might be more nationalistic but they are not mindless to shoot themselves in the foot. I don’t think it will come to that. Many people around the world are aware of everything that Europeans had to undertake. Faced with the crisi, they understood the difficult decisions that had to be made; even in Greece the level of unrest was not that high.

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