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a2ec0df46dac81576eac9b972f883ae2	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-digital-services-trade-and-data-governance-how-should-the-united-states-respond/	China’s digital services trade and data governance: How should the United States respond?	China’s digital services trade and data governance: How should the United States respond? China is the world’s second largest digital economy, second only to the United States, and leads the world in the value of many digital applications, including e-commerce and mobile payments. This extensive online activity by Chinese netizens also provides huge amounts of data that can be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. China’s dominance in 5G infrastructure will further support China’s digital economy and early 5G rollout in China could give Chinese entrepreneurs a head-start developing new digital applications. China’s digital economy and the importance of data and digital services is also intertwined with its manufacturing activity and the centrality of China in global value chains (GVC), providing enormous scope to export digital services as inputs in manufactured products. Yet, China remains largely closed to foreign competition, with restrictions on digital services imports, a heavily restricted and regulated internet that requires data to be localized, and limited access to online information. These limits to foreign competition stand in contrast to China’s outward focused efforts to shape the international environment and the development of norms and rules affecting data governance consistent with its domestic approach. This includes in international standard-setting bodies, through its support for broadband connectivity and smart cities as part of its Digital Silk Road (DSR) and broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). These Chinese efforts abroad and restrictions domestically are harmful to U.S. interests. The United States has been leading efforts supporting an open internet, particularly through its development of digital trade commitments and support for similar efforts in the G20 and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). However, more is needed to effectively counter China’s efforts globally including as part of its DSR, or risk an internet bifurcated between the United States and China, with security and economic consequences for the United States and its allies. China’s digital economy is large and growing. Based on an OECD taxonomy, Figure 1 shows that China’s digital economy was around 6% of gross domestic product in 2018, compared to around 7% in the United States, 8% in Japan, and 10% in Korea. Figure 1: China’s digital economy1 However, in absolute terms China has the world’s second largest digital economy, second only to the United States. Moreover, China has particular digital strengths. For example, China accounts for 40% of global e-commerce transactions, larger than the value of France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States combined.2 The transaction value of China’s mobile payments in 2016 were $790 billion, 11 times that of the United States, the next largest market. When it comes to AI, China overall trails the United States but leads in specific applications such as facial recognition.3 This range of digital activity drives extensive online activity that generates enormous quantities of data that can be used to train AI algorithms. Much of what drives China’s digital economy — the data and key digital technologies — are digital services. In fact, the digital economy is largely about digital services, and includes cloud computing, AI, blockchain, and data analytics to derive better business insights, manage supply chains, and enable digital payment, as well as the online delivery of professional services, retail, education, and healthcare. Understanding the scope of China’s digital services exports needs to account for the role of digital services as important inputs into manufacturing exports. In some areas of manufacturing such as automobiles, the digital services component (including software, sensors, and AI) provides much of the value add and is where competition is most fierce. In fact, McKinsey estimates that by 2030 up to 30% of automotive manufacturer’s revenues will come from services offering.4 China’s growth in using digital services in manufacturing is part of a broader push by China into advanced manufacturing, which includes leading the world in its use of robots, where China holds one-third of global stock, over twice that of the United States.5 Chinese companies are also dominant in the supply of 5G hardware, which will also affect growth in data driven services. By one measure, Huawei owns the largest share of standard essential patents on 5G.6 5G will bring high speed connectivity to the edge of the network, reducing latency and increasing speed.7 This will enable the internet-of-things (IoT) and edge computing, and support a range of new applications, content, and businesses such as augmented reality and autonomous delivery systems. Cisco estimates that the number of devices connected to the internet will be 30 billion by 2023, half of these being machine-to-machine connections, including connected factories, home devices, and cars.8 5G will also impact the development of global value chains and the role of digital services as 5G and associated technologies expand the capacity of business to collect data from things in real time, analyze the data, and develop business solutions along supply chains.9 5G will affect Chinese growth in digital services. In part as China rapidly installs 5G domestically, Chinese entrepreneurs will have a head-start over their Western competitors developing new data-driven business models that 5G will enable with opportunities to get to market first. And where network effects create winner-take-all outcomes, potentially new and dominant tech companies. China is also expanding its digital services exports and data governance more generally through its role as a central hub in GVCs and the BRI. China is a central player when it comes to information and communication technology (ICT) goods exports as part of global supply chains. For instance, China accounts for 32% of global ICT goods exports (11% in value added terms — reflecting China’s position in GVC), and around 6% of ICT services exports. However, these figures understate the importance of China’s digital services exports as it fails to account for services as value added inputs into manufacturing and export — often in the context of GVC.10 This growth of services in manufacturing GVC has contributed to services exports growing faster than good exports.11 The World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that services account for 30% of the value of China manufactured exports in 2015, which is a 19% growth in services value added since 2005.12 The trends toward using services and data in GVC point to the broader servicification of manufacturing, another development that China is driving and is well positioned to take advantage of.13 China is also expanding its digital services and approach to data governance through the development of a Digital Silk Road (DSR), which aims to expand internet infrastructure, promote e-commerce, and develop common internet technology standards amongst participating countries.14 China’s March 2015 white paper made digital connectivity a top priority. As of 2019, China had invested over $80 billion in digital DSR projects, including fiber optic cables. China is also building data centers, which Beijing has called a “fundamental strategic resource.”15 These developments are integrated with other BRI initiatives, including smart cities, ports, and space systems.16 Each of these developments creates new opportunities for China to expand access to data and integrate DSR countries into a broader digital ecosystem centered around China.17 China’s regime for governing digital services and data is based around a relatively closed domestic market for digital services alongside restrictions on cross-border data flows, including access to information. This closed market helps underpin Chinese support for national champions. Including by preventing access by Chinese citizens to their U.S. competitors. The extent of Chinese control over data and access to information led former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to foresee the single global internet bifurcating into a U.S. and China led internet.18 This could also include different standards and frequencies for 5G. Indeed, both the United States and China have identified leadership in 5G standards as a key element to securing their version of 5G.19 The risk for the United States of a bifurcated internet is further heightened by China’s efforts to shape the international environment to support its vision of data governance and digital services exports. China maintains a relatively restricted market for digital services. The OECD digital services trade index in Figure 2 shows barriers affecting trade in digitally enabled services categorized into five policy areas: infrastructure and connectivity, electronic transactions, payment systems, intellectual property rights, and other barriers. The higher the score, the greater the restrictions. As can be seen, amongst the countries listed, China is most restrictive when it comes to digital service across all metrics. China is also most restrictive when it comes to telecommunications services.20 Figure 2: China’s digital services trade regulation are the most restrictive21 These restrictions are parred with domestic policy aimed at dominating emerging technologies. This includes industrial policies such as the National Medium and Long-Term Science and Technology Development Plan Outline (2006-2020) which calls for China to become an innovation-oriented society by the year 2020 and a world leader in science and technology by 2050, based on developing capabilities for indigenous innovation. The “Made in China 2025” initiative launched in 2015 — a 10-year plan for China to achieve 70 percent self-sufficiency in strategic technologies such as advance information technology, robotics, aircraft, new energy vehicles, new material, and biotechnology. Similar industrial policies are also being implemented at the sub-central government level.22 China also employs the most extensive restriction on access to and use of data, including data localization requirements and restrictions on movement of data across borders, further restricting opportunities for digital services trade. Figure 3 below shows the number of data flow restrictions and compares that with other economies within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). China’s most restrictive cross-border data flow regulations are around security, internet access, and control and financial flows and services. Such data flow restrictions include China requiring banks and insurers to localize data and China’s data localization requirements under its cybersecurity law. In addition to restricting data flows which affects access for digital services, these regulations could be used to require access to companies source codes and intellectual property under the guide of national security, which could be used by Chinese companies to compete against U.S. and other companies.23 Figure 3: China has the largest number and most data flow restrictions in APEC24 China is affecting the market for digital services and the uptake globally of Chinese data governance practices by influencing international norms and rules and by creating facts on the ground, such as by leveraging the DSI and access to China’s internal market. A key area where China is working to develop rules and norms that will affect growth for China’s digital services trade is by shaping international standards to suit Chinese companies and technologies.25 Chinese companies and officials engage across standards setting organizations and forum, including 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) which is responsible for 5G standards and in the International Telecommunications Unions (ITU), where China is working to develop standards that suit its technological ambitions, such as in areas of facial recognition26 and IoT.27 This includes placing Chinese officials in senior positions in the ITU and supporting participation of Chinese engineers in technical working groups.28 Chinese specific standards are also being normalized through the DSR as investments in connectivity, smart cities, and data centers which come with Chinese standards.29 The United States has already responded in part. It is developing new digital trade rules in free trade agreements (FTAs) supporting the free flow of data and further services trade liberalization. The United States is also pushing for data flow commitments in the WTO e-commerce negotiations.30 In the G20, the United States has worked with leaders on statements on data flows and digital trade, yet these G20 outcomes have been limited by G20 members China, India, and Russia.31 The United States continues to work on developing international standards. As noted, however, the strategic engagement by China with international standards bodies, including the resources China brings to bear, suggests the United States needs to revisit its approach to standard setting, including allocating increased resources and political capital to ensure that international standards are technically optimal and support open and competitive markets. U.S. efforts to address Huawei’s engagement in 5G are well documented. Tom Wheeler has suggested another way of addressing Huawei’s proprietary edge in 5G equipment is to support open standards for 5G.32 The United States is also working with allies on broader data governance issues around specific technologies, such as through the Global partnership on AI and developing OECD principles on AI. These efforts strengthen normative expectations that markets remain open and competitive. However, more is needed from the United States. Any approach to addressing the challenges China presents on digital services trade and data governance will require a coordinated approach with allies as well as more attention domestically to the regulatory issues that drive data flow restrictions.33 On the international front, the United States should work with like-minded countries on a comprehensive approach to data governance that could also draw in market access issues around data flows and access to digital services. This could involve some combination of more robust common international standards and development of interoperability mechanisms that support data flows and achieving domestic regulatory objectives such as privacy and cybersecurity.34 In parallel, the United States needs more comprehensive domestic regulation on various data and tech issues, particularly federal privacy regulation. This is needed to address concerns amongst allies, especially the EU with respect to online privacy. Progress here could lead to better alignment and ambition amongst U.S. allies on other U.S. data governance priorities. More broadly, the traditional reliance of the United States on industry self-regulation has left the U.S. government with an absence of robust regulatory models around data governance that can serve as a guide to other countries looking to understand how to shore up trust in online activity while also benefiting from the economic and trade opportunities of cross-border data flows. The lack of any such U.S. regulatory models has provided space for China’s approach to gain traction, puling these countries closer into the digital sphere that China is carving out for itself, including all the concomitant emphasis on data restrictions and data localization that act as barriers to trade in digital services.
6b087faaf9172326321ece40eab01e0f	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/city-centered-investing-in-metropolitan-areas-to-build-the-next-economy/	City Centered: Investing in Metropolitan Areas to Build the Next Economy	City Centered: Investing in Metropolitan Areas to Build the Next Economy With our recovery sluggish and our politics in rancorous free fall, the U.S. is on a desperate search to create jobs in the near term and retool the economy for the long haul. As Dorothy found in The Wizard of Oz, the answers surprisingly lie no farther away than home, or more precisely, the top 100 cities and their environs — the major metros — where most Americans live, work and play. If we unleash the energies in our metros, we can compete with anyone. Our 100 largest metropolitan areas constitute a new economic geography, seamlessly integrating cities and suburbs, exurbs and rural towns. Together, they house almost two-thirds of our population, generate 74% of our gross domestic product (GDP) and disproportionately concentrate the assets that drive economic success: patents, advanced research and venture capital, college graduates and Ph.D.s, and air, rail and sea hubs. Watch Bruce Katz’s Video Commentary » This intense concentration is the magic elixir of modern economies. It explains why Silicon Valley and Boston lead the world in technological innovation, why San Diego and Indianapolis are global players in life sciences and why Wichita, Kans., and Portland, Ore., specialize in advanced manufacturing and exports. This dynamic holds not only for the U.S. but also around the globe. The rise of Brazil, India and China is a direct product of their rapid urbanization and the growth of supersize metro economies like São Paulo, Mumbai and Shanghai. We mythologize the benefits of small-town America, but it’s the major metros that make the country thrive. Why? When cities collect networks of entrepreneurial firms, smart people, universities and other supporting institutions in close proximity, incredible things happen. People engage. Specializations converge. Ideas collide and flourish. New inventions and processes emerge in research labs and on factory floors. New products and companies follow. As Henry Cisneros, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, likes to say, “Cities are places where two plus two equals five.” The U.S. needs its metro powerhouses as it makes a painful transition from an economy fueled by debt, speculation and excess consumption to one in which we grow in productive, sustainable and inclusive ways. A chorus of business leaders, including Bill Gates, Andy Grove and Jeff Immelt, as well as leading economists, has called for a new American economy. It’s an economy driven by exports, to take advantage of rising global demand. It’s powered by low carbon, to lead the clean-energy revolution. It’s fueled by innovation, to spur growth through ideas. And it’s rich with opportunity, to reverse the troubling, decades-long rise in income inequality. By making smart investments and managing for growth as opposed to maintenance, our major cities and metro areas can lead this transformation. The San Diego region shows how. In 1985 an energetic nonprofit called Connect sprang up to link the scientists and inventors at top research institutions — including the University of California at San Diego, the Salk Institute and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute — with investors, advisers and support services so their new ideas could become new products and companies. The inventive brew that Connect fermented has made San Diego home to a cluster of life-sciences and technology companies such as Qualcomm, Biogen Idec, Life Technologies and Gen-Probe. New York City has had its eye on San Diego’s success and announced its own undertaking in February. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders says, “When we emerged out of the period when the defense industry left San Diego, Connect was there. They helped to create eight clusters of technology that have been employment drivers in San Diego, and we’ve been able to build on that ever since.” In terms of jobs, the region’s technology sector has fared better in this recession than its broader economy. Yet the U.S. has been slow to recognize and build on the power of its metropolitan economic engines. A powerful segment of our popular culture and political leadership still paints us into the corner of quaint small towns rather than embracing a network of dominant metro economies. A closer look shows that prosperous small towns are most often suburbs of major cities, and metros generate the majority of GDP in 47 of the 50 states, including such “rural” states as Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Arkansas. For decades, however, the federal government has treated cities like disaster zones, pursuing urban policies devoted to subsidized housing and tax incentives to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods rather than creating policies that, for example, support powerful and promising industry clusters. There has been major improvement under the Obama Administration, but old habits die hard, and legacy interventions still get more support than new approaches. If the federal government is outmoded in its approach, states are often openly hostile to their major cities. Greater Chicago contains 67% of the residents of Illinois and generates 78% of the state’s economic output. But Illinois has pursued transportation and infrastructure policies that divert tax revenue from Chicago to subsidize inefficient investments in the rest of the state. By contrast, our competitors understand that prosperity in this century will come via the distinct assets and attributes of their metro engines. Germany, China and Brazil are investing in wholesale change through advanced research, renewable energy, modern ports, high-speed rail and urban transit in Munich, Shanghai and São Paulo — the metros that drive their economies. We must do the same. Here’s how: First, we should stop refueling the old economy’s bad habits. Why, for example, provide huge tax subsidies for consuming more and more expensive housing? Incredibly, the amount of revenue the government forgoes because of the mortgage-interest deduction is projected to grow from $79 billion in the 2009 fiscal year to $150 billion in 2015. What if we capped these write-offs at the current level and directed half the recaptured revenue to reducing the federal deficit and the other half — roughly $25 billion a year — to efforts that grow exports? Second, we should start investing to help American businesses innovate and have access to a world-class infrastructure that connects them with global markets. For example, the federal government can invest in new-energy-discovery institutes to develop breakthrough technologies that will be in demand in a low-carbon world, like solar power that’s cheaper to generate and deliver than fossil fuels. Washington should also create a national-infrastructure bank to help finance projects that are too complex to be paid for in conventional ways and too important to defer. Think port infrastructure in global-trade gateways like Los Angeles or freight corridors in and around Chicago. Finally, let’s challenge every metro area to meet and exceed the national goal of doubling exports. Instead of subsidizing businesses to move across municipal lines — a complete waste of taxpayer dollars — cities and suburbs need to team up with businesses to devise export initiatives that build on their metro’s distinctive position in the market. We can’t as a nation double exports unless our metros and their businesses (both large and small) do. America’s cities are its centers for talent, capital and innovation. They are our hubs for trade, commerce and migration. With market-based incentives and the proper business climate, they can be unparalleled engines for the next spurt of American growth and prosperity. If our political leaders can put aside rancor, habit and outdated ideas about what kind of nation we are and should be, we can find success not over the rainbow but in our very own metros.
6a57bce82e5f778ace77656df3840a97	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/clintons-strong-defense-legacy/	Clinton’s Strong Defense Legacy	Clinton’s Strong Defense Legacy The notion that President Bill Clinton was a poor steward of the armed forces has become so commonly accepted that it is now often taken for granted—among moderates and independents as well as Republicans such as George W. Bush, who made the charge in the ﬁrst place. The Clinton administration, so the thinking goes, presided over an excessive downsizing of the U.S. military, seriously weakening the magniﬁcent ﬁghting machine built by Ronald Reagan and honed by George H.W. Bush. It frittered away American power and left the country an object of derision to its enemies, tempting them to misbehave. This assessment, however, is wrong. The Clinton administration’s use of force (or lack thereof ) may be controversial, but the Clinton Pentagon oversaw the most successful defense drawdown in U.S. history—cutting military personnel by 15 percent more than the previous administration had planned while retaining a high state of readiness and a strong global deterrence posture. It enacted a prescient modernization program. And the military it helped produce achieved impressive successes in Bosnia and Kosovo and, more signiﬁcant, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although these victories were primarily due to the remarkable dedication and skill of U.S. troops, credit is also owed to Clinton’s defense policy. The Clinton defense team did not, however, do a good job of managing military morale, taking too long to ﬁgure out how to distribute a demanding workload fairly and sustainably across a smaller force. As a consequence, U.S. troops became overworked and demoralized, and many left the military or considered doing so. Although many of these problems were largely repaired by the end of the decade, they undoubtedly detract from Clinton’s military achievements. But they do not justify the overwhelmingly negative assessment of his defense record.
8c56deea1a57bf6ed93e903c21708db8	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/contemporary-immigrant-gateways-in-historical-perspective/	Contemporary Immigrant Gateways in Historical Perspective	Contemporary Immigrant Gateways in Historical Perspective This article focuses on settlement trends of immigrants during the periods that bookend the twentieth century, both eras of mass migration. It compares settlement patterns in both periods, describing old and new gateways, the growth of the immigrant population, and geographic concentration and dispersion. Historically, immigrants have been highly concentrated in a few places. Between 1930 and 1990, more than half of all immigrants lived in just five metropolitan areas. Since then, the share of these few destinations has declined, as immigrants have made their way to new metro areas, particularly in the South and West. During the same period, immigrants began to choose the suburbs over cities, following the decentralization of jobs and the movement of opportunities to suburban areas. There are now more immigrants in U.S. suburban areas than cities. Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the summer 2013 edition of Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences published by MIT Press.
dcd00da6035c6c9855018d23d2dd5e2f	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/corporate-warriors-the-rise-and-ramifications-of-the-privatized-military-industry/	Corporate Warriors: The Rise and Ramifications of the Privatized Military Industry	Corporate Warriors: The Rise and Ramifications of the Privatized Military Industry A failing government trying to prevent the imminent capture of its capital, a regional power planning for war, a ragtag militia looking to reverse its battlefield losses, a peacekeeping force seeking deployment support, a weak ally attempting to escape its patron’s dictates, a multinational corporation hoping to end constant rebel attacks against its facilities, a drug cartel pursuing high-technology military capabilities, a humanitarian aid group requiring protection within conflict zones, and the world’s sole remaining superpower searching for ways to limit its military costs and risks. When thinking in conventional terms, security studies experts would be hard-pressed to find anything that these actors may have in common. They differ in size, relative power, location in the international system, level of wealth, number and type of adversaries, organizational makeup, ideology, legitimacy, objectives, and so on. There is, however, one unifying link: When faced with such diverse security needs, they all sought external military support. Most important is where that support came from: not from a state or even an international organization but rather the global marketplace. It is located here that a unique business form has arisen that I term the “privatized military firm” (PMF). PMFs are profit-driven organizations that trade in professional services intricately linked to warfare. They are corporate bodies that specialize in the provision of military skills—including tactical combat operations, strategic planning, intelligence gathering and analysis, operational support, troop training, and military technical assistance. With the rise of the privatized military industry, actors in the global system can access capabilities that extend across the entire spectrum of military activity—from a team of commandos to a wing of fighter jets—simply by becoming a business client. PMFs represent the newest addition to the modern battlefield, and their role in contemporary warfare is becoming increasingly significant. Not since the eighteenth century has there been such reliance on private soldiers to accomplish tasks directly affecting the tactical and strategic success of engagement. With the continued growth and increasing activity of the privatized military industry, the start of the twenty-first century is witnessing the gradual breakdown of the Weberian monopoly over the forms of violence. PMFs may well portend the new business face of war. This is not to say, however, that the state itself is disappearing. The story is far more complex than that. The power of PMFs has been utilized as much in support of state interests as against them. As Kevin O’Brien writes, “By privatizing security and the use of violence, removing it from the domain of the state and giving it to private interest, the state in these instances is both being strengthened and disassembled.” With the growth of the privatized military industry, the state’s role in the security sphere has become deprivileged, just as it has in other international arenas such as trade and finance.
cfbcff25c0411eae04991943b0630f89	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/covid-19-has-given-the-2020-npt-review-conference-a-reprieve-lets-take-advantage-of-it/	COVID-19 has given the 2020 NPT Review Conference a reprieve. Let’s take advantage of it.	COVID-19 has given the 2020 NPT Review Conference a reprieve. Let’s take advantage of it. Given the sharp differences among parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), especially on the pace of nuclear disarmament, it was widely assumed that the 2020 NPT Review Conference — originally scheduled to begin on April 27 in New York — would be highly contentious, would fail to achieve a consensus outcome, and might even result in erosion of support for the treaty. Now that the coronavirus has forced its postponement, there is an opportunity — if the time between now and the re-scheduled gathering of NPT parties is used effectively — to prepare for a more successful conference that could contribute significantly to strengthening the NPT regime. The initial announcement of the postponement stated that, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference would be held at “a later date, as soon as circumstances permit, but no later than April 2021.” Subsequently, when no better dates could be found on the very crowded U.N. calendar than January 4 to 29, 2021, the conference president-designate decided to place a tentative hold on those dates, pending resolution of the pandemic, and NPT parties subsequently agreed to proceed on that basis. The new date is noteworthy because, if it holds, the U.S. presidential inauguration will fall during the conference, opening the possibility that one administration would be in office at the beginning and its successor would be in office at the end. But NPT parties should not defer preparations while awaiting the outcome of the U.S. elections. Instead, they can and should use the additional preparation time to work toward a more productive and successful conference than would have otherwise been possible. Pessimistic outlook for 2020 Review Conference. NPT Review Conferences have been held at five-year intervals since the treaty’s entry into force in 1970. At each review conference, parties have sought to produce a comprehensive final document, approved by consensus, that reviews the implementation of the treaty and sets forth recommendations for follow-on actions to strengthen it. While such a consensus outcome has not always been achieved, it has been viewed as the litmus test of a successful conference and an indication of a healthy NPT regime. With the 2020 Review Conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the NPT’s entry into force, producing a successful outcome has taken on considerable symbolic importance. Expectations for the 2020 conference were low from the get-go. The key fault line running through the NPT’s membership has been the belief by many non-nuclear weapon states, especially within the group of non-aligned states, that the NPT nuclear weapon states have not done enough to meet their obligation under the treaty to pursue nuclear disarmament. This has been a divisive issue at all previous review conferences. But the difficulty of finding common ground on disarmament matters has increased for the 2020 conference, mainly because of the deteriorating international security environment. Recent years have witnessed a sharp decline in U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations; the unraveling of the international arms control regime with the termination of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty and uncertainty about the future of the New START treaty; the possibility of new, destabilizing nuclear arms competitions; and consequently little near-term prospect of further nuclear arms reductions. However, disarmament is not the only issue that could stand in the way of a consensus conference outcome. Implementation of the 1995 resolution on establishing a Middle East zone free of all weapons of mass destruction — an issue that prevented consensus at the 2015 Review Conference — could again pose an obstacle. Addressing the Iran nuclear issue, with the future of the 2015 nuclear agreement very much in doubt, could also be very contentious. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, with its non-nuclear weapon state signatories sharply divided from its opponents (consisting largely of the NPT nuclear powers and non-nuclear states protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella), will also be hotly debated. And a range of more technical issues, such as whether the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol should be the universal safeguards standard for NPT members, could also be the focus of divergent conference positions. Surveying some of the issues that could produce discord at the 2020 Review Conference, Tariq Rauf, a former senior IAEA official and close observer of NPT Review Conferences, wrote in March, before the postponement was announced, that “the die is cast for this year’s review conference to degenerate into a Hobbesian fray, perhaps even leading some countries to threaten rhetorically to withdraw from the treaty.” Despite a widely held gloomy outlook, there have been some glimmers of hope that the 2020 Review Conference would not end in failure. Notwithstanding some strong disagreements among the parties on the implementation of the treaty, there is a deep reservoir of support for the NPT itself and a reluctance to place it in jeopardy, especially on its 50th anniversary. In addition, many advocates of more rapid progress on disarmament may recognize that the current international environment is not conducive to such progress and may scale back their demands and settle for more modest results in order to avoid putting strain on the NPT. Moreover, the Trump administration has been hopeful that its initiative on Creating the Environment for Nuclear Disarmament, which brings nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states together to consider how to promote an environment more favorable to disarmament, has been gaining traction internationally and could facilitate a less confrontational conference. Still, even if a train wreck at the originally scheduled conference could have been avoided, the best that was expected was an outcome that minimized harm to the NPT, rather than a result that significantly advanced the treaty’s goals. Hopefully, the reprieve provided by the postponement has created an opportunity to work toward such a positive result at the re-scheduled conference. Impact of the U.S. election. The November 2020 presidential election in the United States is a factor in NPT parties’ thinking about what may be achievable at the re-scheduled conference. This was especially the case after the initial announcement that the postponed conference would take place as soon as possible but no later than April 2021, which meant that it could be held either before or significantly after the American election. A thinly veiled hope of many countries in the wake of that initial announcement was that it would take place after an election in which a Democrat (namely, Joe Biden) would win and adopt positions closer to their preferences than those of the Trump administration, especially on disarmament-related matters as well as on such regional proliferation issues as the Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration had a different scenario in mind. It hoped the postponed conference would take place before the election (perhaps in October 2020), when it would be guaranteed to be in office and to represent the United States at the conference. It would thus have the opportunity to set forth its own approach to NPT issues and put its own stamp on the NPT review process, regardless of the eventual winner of the November election. The revised dates — January 4 to 29 — alter the situation. These dates are still only tentative and could conceivably change. But the January period, if it holds, raises a possibility unprecedented for NPT Review Conferences — that one U.S. administration would be in office at the beginning of the conference and its successor would be in office at the end. Of course, this would not occur if President Trump is re-elected in November. In that case, NPT parties’ expectations would be shaped by the knowledge that the Trump administration would be in charge of U.S. policy throughout the conference and beyond. But if Biden is elected and takes office on the mandated inauguration day of January 20, the presidential transition would occur just before the final week of the conference, always the most decisive period in any review conference. Given this theoretical scenario, a number of NPT parties, might entertain hopes that a Biden administration would come to the rescue in the concluding phase of the conference and deliver what they consider to be a positive outcome. Don’t defer preparations. But it would be unwise for NPT parties to pin their hopes on a Biden victory in November and therefore put off engaging in serious substantive preparations until the elections results are in. For one thing, Trump has a reasonable chance of being re-elected. Current polls indicate that the presidential race is likely to be close. Moreover, even if Biden wins the November election, it is unclear what his embryonic administration would be willing to do to alter the course of the conference in its concluding days. NPT parties would be wrong to assume that the clock could simply be turned back to the optimistic days of the 2010 conference and the early years of the Obama presidency. The international environment for disarmament has changed for the worse since then. A Biden administration would clearly be much more supportive of arms control than the current administration. But it is unlikely, especially in its earliest days, to champion some recommendations that strong supporters of disarmament would like it to support (such as seeking deeper nuclear reductions in the near term, giving high priority to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the U.S. Senate, reducing alert levels for nuclear forces, or pledging not to use nuclear weapons first). It may also be unrealistic to expect a Biden administration to adopt specific substantive positions on sensitive issues in the waning days of the conference. Although the president-elect’s transition team would have done a lot of thinking and planning about NPT-related issues leading up to and following the election, no administration political-level appointees (other than perhaps a few cabinet secretaries) will be confirmed by the Senate and in place in the days immediately following the inauguration, and the formal interagency reviews that help set the key policies of a new administration will not even have begun. Moreover, from a political standpoint, the newly installed administration may be reluctant to adopt bold new positions that could subject it to criticism for supposedly showing weakness on national security in its opening days. The Biden team undoubtedly would want to demonstrate to NPT parties in the concluding phase of the conference that it will be charting a different course than its predecessor. But it may only be ready to signal that different course in general terms (such as by expressing support for revitalizing the arms control process and making further progress toward a world without nuclear weapons). An exception would be New START, where a decision to extend the treaty would be needed before its February 5 expiration (if the Trump administration had not already acted to extend it). It is possible to imagine coordination between the incoming and outgoing teams on how to handle the NPT Review Conference. There are many conference issues, including measures to strengthen nonproliferation controls or promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, on which the Trump and Biden teams could agree. The U.S. delegation (which by the concluding phase of the conference could conceivably include Trump appointees, Biden appointees not requiring Senate confirmation, and career officials) could be instructed to pursue those common positions. But in areas where the administrations disagree, including some disarmament-related matters, the American delegation might adopt the approach of urging other delegations not to press for conference findings or recommendations on those difficult issues, appealing to those delegations on the grounds that it is simply too early to expect the new administration to take a stand. Another reason for NPT parties not to count heavily on the results of the November election is that the United States, whoever is president, bears only limited responsibility for a successful review conference. Russia (with its Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty violation and resistance to further nuclear reductions), China (with its reluctance to accept limits on its growing nuclear arsenal or engage in serious strategic stability talks), North Korea (with its defiance of the international community), Iran (with its destabilizing regional posture), and certain non-nuclear weapon states (with their uncompromising approach to key review conference issues) all deserve their fair share of blame for the current state of affairs and should accept their share of responsibility for getting on a more promising path. All NPT parties need to do their part in promoting an outcome that strengthens the nonproliferation regime. So, for a variety of reasons, it is not a good idea for NPT parties to hold off on preparations in the hope that a newly installed Democratic administration will be able and willing to support the kind of conference outcome they favor. Instead, the parties should use the roughly eight months reprieve provided by the postponement to prepare the way for a more productive conference than would have been possible if the 2020 Review Conference had proceeded on schedule. That means starting now to work closely with the Trump administration and other key governments to find common ground on key issues. Obstacles to early substantive progress. There are two significant obstacles to using the available time effectively. First, it is hard to predict when countries will be sufficiently recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic to permit in-person diplomatic engagements that could facilitate conference preparations. Until it is safe for diplomats to congregate, preparatory work will need to be conducted virtually. And as long as the virus is the overriding preoccupation of national governments, limited bandwidth will remain for lower priorities. Second, progress in finding common ground on difficult issues will depend on overcoming the traditional reluctance of most NPT parties to adjust their national positions and pursue compromise solutions before the conference gets underway. This is why Review Conference Preparatory Committees, which meet years in advance of review conferences, have had such a difficult time achieving their goal of reaching consensus recommendations to be sent to the review conferences for their consideration. NPT parties will need to do their best to overcome these obstacles. While Zoom meetings have their drawbacks and are not a fully satisfactory substitute for in-person consultations, governments are getting accustomed to virtual diplomacy, and there is much that can be done remotely, bilaterally as well as multilaterally, until conditions permit a return to normal practices. The tendency to put off painful compromises until the negotiating endgame may be more difficult to overcome. But this is an unusual year, with the pandemic creating extreme hardships for practically all countries and strains within the NPT membership raising questions about the future of the treaty. On the NPT’s 50th anniversary — and with the devastating global impact of the coronavirus driving home the importance of international cooperation to address common challenges — parties may be more motivated than at previous review conferences to reach early agreement on hard issues for the sake of promoting a successful outcome. The role of the Review Conference bureau. Supported by the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs and the IAEA, the Review Conference “bureau” — consisting of conference president-designate Gustavo Zlauvinen of Argentina and the Malaysian, Polish, and Dutch designated chairs of the conference’s three main committees — can play a critical role in giving impetus to preparations at a time when the international community’s attention is understandably directed elsewhere. Zlauvinen, his country’s highly skillful and experienced former deputy foreign minister, and his bureau colleagues know that, as officers of the conference, they are expected to remain neutral on key issues and not try to steer the conference in particular substantive directions. But especially in this difficult period, they can help keep governments focused, bring them up to speed on the issues they will need to address and the choices they will have to make, facilitate their engagement with one another, and urge them to work together to make early progress finding mutually agreeable solutions on critical issues and crafting formulations for a review conference outcome document. Before the coronavirus hit and closed down in-person meetings, various governments and organizations organized a number of workshops, often on a regional basis, to discuss review conference issues in general or to focus on particular “pillars” of the NPT (disarmament, nonproliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy). Similar gatherings of NPT parties should now be pursued on an intensified basis, initially virtually but eventually in person as conditions permit. Such events could involve different groups of participants, focus on different subjects, and have different purposes. Regarding participation, meetings could be held on a regional basis or bring together key players on particular issues from various regions. Experts from non-governmental organizations might also be invited when appropriate. Subjects could vary from a wide-ranging discussion of review conference issues, to a narrower discussion of individual pillars, to an even more focused discussion of specific issues (such as nuclear risk reduction measures, the future of nuclear arms control, the IAEA Peaceful Uses Initiative, the IAEA Additional Protocol, or the 1995 Middle East zone resolution). The purpose of the meetings might be educational or consciousness-raising, or they might be intended to acquaint participants with arguments surrounding issues on which differences exist. Setting in motion an ambitious program of meetings will be challenging in present circumstances. Ambassador Zlauvinen and his team will need to be proactive in formulating and scheduling such a program and in gaining sufficient buy-in for it among the most influential NPT parties. Together with the separate bilateral and small-group consultations that Zlauvinen and the bureau will be pursuing to move the process forward, these multilateral gatherings could play an important role in building momentum toward a productive conference. Seeking progress on key issues. While the bureau can play a valuable convening, facilitating, and catalyzing role in the period before the conference, most of the heavy lifting in moving toward substantive agreement on the most salient issues will be the responsibility of NPT governments. On many issues, consensus will be readily achievable. But outcomes on a smaller number of more controversial issues will determine whether the conference succeeds in supporting and strengthening the NPT and the broader nonproliferation regime. Key NPT parties should use the time available to resolve or at least make substantial headway on those issues. New START. Agreement by the United States and Russia to extend New START for five years would give a huge boost to review conference prospects. The Trump administration has so far resisted extension, arguing that simply extending the bilateral treaty would not address some significant Russian capabilities (including non-strategic nuclear weapons and a few novel strategic systems) or cover China’s growing nuclear programs. It has instead proposed including China in a new trilateral arms control agreement. But citing the huge disparity between its own nuclear capabilities and those of the United States and Russia, Beijing has firmly rejected such a trilateral agreement. Washington and Moscow should agree to a five-year extension of New START and link that extension to the commencement of bilateral strategic talks that would consider how New START or a follow-on agreement could address systems not yet covered that are of concern to either side or both of them (including non-strategic nuclear weapons, long-range conventional strike missiles, and hypersonic systems). Those bilateral talks would also consider how additional nuclear-armed states, especially China, could be brought into the international arms control framework. Creating an environment for nuclear disarmament. With or without New START extension, it would be useful in advance of the conference to make progress on the U.S. initiative on Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament. While a significant number of NPT parties initially approached the initiative with skepticism about the Trump administration’s motives — and some still do — the initiative has gained buy-in as a forum that can bring nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states together for a detailed and systematic consideration of how to improve prospects for nuclear disarmament. Constructive discussions in its three subgroups, whether carried out virtually or in person, could improve the atmosphere for addressing disarmament matters at the Review Conference. Nuclear risk reduction. Many NPT parties recognize that, in today’s increasingly troubled strategic environment — with the outlook for further nuclear reductions bleak, at least in the near term — a very high priority, perhaps top priority, should be given to reducing the risk of nuclear war, which many observers believe has significantly increased in recent years. Confidence-building and transparency measures can minimize the likelihood of misperceptions, accidents, and miscalculations that could lead to conventional armed conflict and escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. While such measures are most appropriately pursued in particular regional contexts (for example the NATO-Russia border, the Korean Peninsula, the western Pacific, or South Asia), the conference can give these measures its strong support and call on governmental or non-governmental experts to prepare a study of past and current nuclear risk reduction arrangements that could help promote and inform future regional and global initiatives. U.S.-China strategic stability dialogue. A major gap in international arms control and nuclear risk reduction efforts is the absence of a serious strategic dialogue between the United States and China, two protagonists whose growing strategic competition is a serious potential source of instability in East Asia. Washington and Beijing should pursue a high-level bilateral strategic dialogue aimed at gaining a better understanding of each other’s strategic intentions and capabilities, avoiding worst-case planning and a destabilizing arms competition, and exploring risk reduction measures that could reduce the likelihood of dangerous miscalculations and armed conflict. The United States has long sought such a dialogue, but China has resisted it. In advance of the Review Conference, the two countries should agree to begin such talks, a development that would certainly be welcomed as an important contribution to reducing nuclear dangers. Role of the P5. The five NPT nuclear weapon states, dubbed the P5 because they are the five countries with permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council, have usually worked together cooperatively at previous review conferences, both to promote successful conference outcomes and to defend their records on nuclear disarmament against criticism from non-nuclear weapon states. Although the souring of relations within the group has made P5 solidarity more difficult to achieve, the five need to work together cooperatively in the “P5 Process” (a consultative mechanism begun in 2009) to demonstrate they are taking seriously their collective commitment to reducing nuclear threats and pursuing disarmament. They will report to the Review Conference on progress they have made in several areas, including a dialogue on nuclear doctrines and a glossary of key nuclear terms. In the area of doctrine, the group considered, but could not reach consensus on, a collective endorsement of the Reagan-Gorbachev statement that a nuclear war could not be won and should never be fought. Instead, they have been working on a new statement that would address the role of nuclear weapons. The P5 should use the time between now and the conference to produce a statement acknowledging and affirming their responsibility to work toward a world in which nuclear weapons play a smaller and smaller role and are eventually eliminated. Although each of the five holds its own national position on the role and use of nuclear weapons (China‘s no-first-use policy is the most restrictive), such a P5 statement would seek to outline positions that they share, drawing perhaps on the following elements: Strengthening barriers to proliferation. At past review conferences, proposals for additional nonproliferation measures have encountered resistance, especially by certain non-nuclear weapon states, on the grounds that such measures are not justified in the absence of further steps by NPT nuclear weapon states, mainly the United States and Russia, to meet their obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament. While deep disappointment with the current impasse on disarmament is understandable, it is unwise to hold critical nonproliferation steps hostage to further progress in disarmament. Not only does such a strategy consistently fail to promote advances in disarmament (which depend on international and domestic factors unrelated to such pressure tactics); it risks easing the path to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional states — a development that would adversely affect the interests of both non-nuclear weapon states and nuclear weapon states. NPT parties should take advantage of the additional time provided by the postponement to make a major push for two critical nonproliferation measures: making the IAEA Additional Protocol the universal standard for NPT monitoring arrangements and preventing abuse of the NPT’s withdrawal provision. Despite repeated statements by the IAEA that the Additional Protocol is a critical tool for verifying compliance with the NPT by non-nuclear weapon states, a number of NPT parties with nuclear facilities or significant nuclear plans, including Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, have so far been unwilling to adhere to it. (Iran provisionally abides by it, but its commitment to adhere formally depends on whether it will continue to be bound by the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.) Technically based arguments against Additional Protocol adherence, particularly that it would place undue burdens on civil nuclear energy programs (or in the case of Brazil, on its naval propulsion program), have been convincingly refuted. But political arguments persist, especially that non-nuclear states should not be required to take on additional commitments until the nuclear weapons states fulfill their disarmament commitments and also, by some Arab governments, that Israel’s neighbors should not be asked to accept additional measures while Israel remains outside the NPT. Overcoming these political objections will require diplomatic efforts at the highest levels of government. NPT parties should also find a remedy for one of the treaty’s major shortcomings: if a party exercises its right to withdraw, IAEA safeguards on its nuclear facilities and materials automatically lapse, leaving it legally entitled to use the facilities and materials it acquired under the treaty in a nuclear weapons program. North Korea didn’t even wait for withdrawal before pursuing nuclear weapons; it violated the treaty years before formally withdrawing from it. Although there is broad support among NPT parties for certain principles (such as that states cannot escape responsibility for NPT violations by withdrawing), specific proposals advanced at previous review conferences have not been adopted. Among the ideas proposed for addressing the withdrawal problem was a requirement for Security Council consideration of a state’s declared reasons for withdrawal; a requirement for a withdrawing state to accept intrusive IAEA inspections to determine whether it is already in non-compliance; and a requirement for states to accept “fallback safeguards” on critical facilities that would kick in if NPT safeguards lapsed due to withdrawal. Several states opposed such ideas, arguing that they would abridge the sovereign right of non-nuclear states to leave the treaty. With some parties now hinting at withdrawal and possibly considering a run for nuclear weapons, the need for concrete action on the withdrawal question is greater than ever. Preparations for the Review Conference in coming months should include workshops on both Additional Protocol adherence and NPT withdrawal. Such workshops could involve governments that have taken an active interest in those issues. Peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Peaceful uses has traditionally been the least contentious of the NPT’s three pillars, and that will again be the case at the upcoming Review Conference. In preparation for the conference, regional seminars devoted primarily to peaceful uses were held in Nigeria and South Africa. Additional seminars were planned for Latin America and Southeast Asia, but did not take place. The United States and other parties hope that the regional seminars and further consultations in coming months can provide the basis for an impressive package of new commitments on peaceful uses. A significant focus of these efforts will be to augment the IAEA Peaceful Uses Initiative, which was launched in 2010 as a vehicle for raising extra-budgetary contributions to complement the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation Fund. It has raised over $100 million to fund a wide range of nuclear activities, especially in the developing world, in such areas as water and the environment, food and agriculture, human and animal health, and nuclear safety and nuclear power. Addressing the ban treaty and the Middle East zone. Two divisive issues with the potential to block a conference consensus are the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (often referred to as the “ban treaty”) and the proposal for a Middle East zone free of all weapons of mass destruction. Both issues are now being handled outside the NPT review process, and this may decrease the likelihood of their having a disruptive effect on the conference. Following a 2016 U.N. General Assembly resolution, a U.N. conference open to all member states completed negotiation of the ban treaty in 2017. Efforts by proponents are currently focused on gaining ratification by 50 states, the requirement for bringing it into force. Similarly, in accordance with a 2018 U.N. General Assembly resolution (rather than a Review Conference decision, which would have required a consensus), an international conference on the zone proposal was held in November 2019 under U.N. auspices (not the auspices of the three NPT depositary governments) and will continue to be held annually, despite the strong objections of the United States, Israel, and others. The two issues remain extremely contentious. Ban treaty proponents would presumably like to see a favorable reference to the treaty, including the judgment that it reinforces the NPT, a point that is strongly disputed by opponents. Opponents might want the conference either to be critical of the ban treaty or simply to remain silent on it. On the Middle East issue, Arab governments, with Egypt likely taking the lead and with the support of Iran, may seek review conference endorsement of the U.N. General Assembly-mandated conferences, while the United States will continue to oppose a process that gives Israel little incentive to participate. Parties should seek to resolve both of these issues by pursuing brief factual or non-controversial references to them in the outcome document. On the ban treaty, the conference could simply note that the treaty has been concluded and indicate how many states have already ratified it. On the zone, it could reaffirm the 1995 Review Conference resolution calling for the zone (which should not be controversial) and take note of the international conferences that were held on the issue in 2019 and 2020. Getting these potential obstacles out of the way before the conference begins could create a more favorable climate for tackling other difficult issues when the conference gets underway. Approach to North Korea and Iran. The two “country issues” that most affect the future of the global nonproliferation regime — North Korea and Iran — need to be addressed, even though any real substantive work on the issues will take place separately. The outlook on both has become increasingly unpromising and could deteriorate further by the time of the conference. On North Korea, summit diplomacy has reached a dead end. Kim Jong Un says he is no longer interested in negotiations with the United States and is no longer bound by his moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. He has accelerated testing of short-range missiles and rockets and continued production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. But so far, he has avoided major provocations, such as nuclear or ICBM tests, probably to avoid alienating China and Russia or triggering a strong U.S. response. There is very little prospect of resuming negotiations before either the U.S. presidential elections or the Review Conference (if it is held in January). The Iran situation is equally bleak. In response to the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and its adoption of a maximum pressure campaign, Iran has begun to rebuild its enrichment program in violation of the deal’s nuclear restrictions and has engaged in military provocations, either directly or through its proxies, against the United States and its regional partners. It has remained bound by the deal’s extensive monitoring provisions but has not cooperated with an IAEA investigation of possible violations of its safeguards obligations. The risk of armed conflict in the region has substantially increased. The agreement is hanging by a thread and could be gone altogether by the time of the conference. Even without the COVID-19 crisis, constructive diplomacy on North Korea or Iran in 2020 would have been exceedingly unlikely. The pandemic has made it virtually impossible. Given evolving developments on North Korea and Iran, it will difficult to reach conclusions in advance on how the issues will be addressed in a review conference outcome document. That will probably have to await the conference itself and will depend on the situations prevailing at that time. In light of serious differences among NPT parties on both issues, common ground probably will only be attainable on brief, general recommendations. For example, on the North Korea issue (where consensus may be somewhat easier to reach because North Korea, as a non-party, will not attend the conference), the Review Conference might call for the resumption of negotiations, urge all countries to practice restraint and avoid provocations, and support the goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula (a goal shared by all NPT parties despite widespread doubts that it can be achieved). Iran will be trickier because its representatives will be present and able to block a consensus, because of the sharp divide between the Trump administration and most other parties on the value of the 2015 nuclear deal, and because, if a U.S. presidential transition occurs during the conference, the incoming and outgoing administrations may clash on how to address the issue. Still, as with the North Korea case, a general recommendation may be possible — for example, simply calling on all interested parties to engage in negotiations on the nuclear issue and other issues of concern and, in the meantime, to exercise restraint and reduce tensions in the region. Considering different kinds of outcomes. The postponement of the 2020 Review Conference provides an opportunity to consider various departures from traditional conference practices that could help promote its success. Gift baskets. The outcome sought by all previous review conferences has been a comprehensive final document, approved by consensus, that reviewed the past operation of the NPT and set forth recommendations for advancing its goals in the future. But even when the parties were able to achieve such a consensus final document, their recommendations did not necessarily lead to concrete actions. Putting those recommendations into practice depended on follow-on decisions and actions by national governments and specialized bodies like the U.N. Security Council, the IAEA Board of Governors, and the Conference on Disarmament. Sometimes conference recommendations eventually led to concrete results, but sometimes they did not. One way for the upcoming conference to demonstrate tangible results right away is to borrow an innovative feature from the 2010–2016 Nuclear Security Summit process. Delegations were encouraged to come to the summit meetings with “gift baskets”: voluntary commitments by individual countries or groups of countries to take specific steps to strengthen their own nuclear security systems and demonstrate their support for the international nuclear security regime. NPT parties should be encouraged to bring similar gift baskets to the Review Conference. These voluntary undertakings would supplement, not replace, the effort to produce a comprehensive final document containing recommendations for future action. Because of the postponement, there is now enough time for national governments to do the internal reviews needed to decide what kind of commitments, if any, they are prepared to make. Gift baskets could take many forms: a U.S.-Russian joint statement on extending New START; a statement by a nuclear weapons state that it is accelerating its dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons; a pledge to adhere to the Additional Protocol; an assurance by a group of nuclear weapons states (perhaps the P5) that they will continue their unilateral moratoria on nuclear testing for at least five more years; a monetary or in-kind contribution to the IAEA Peaceful Uses Initiative; a commitment to accept fallback safeguards on a country’s enrichment or reprocessing facilities; or a decision to join various nuclear safety or security conventions. Taken together, the gift baskets could make an impressive, concrete contribution to the nonproliferation regime and bolster the success of the Review Conference. Plan B. Another departure from past review conferences would be to relax the requirement that all of the findings and recommendations in the final document be approved by consensus. Because of this all-or-nothing approach, several previous review conferences did not produce a final document and were seen as “failed” conferences. Many constructive ideas offered at these supposedly failed conferences had gained approval in the main committees, but could not be recorded in a final document because disagreements on a small number of issues blocked their adoption. NPT parties should seek a consensus final document, just as at previous review conferences. But in the event that such an outcome is not achievable, the parties should be prepared to fall back to Plan B: a positive conference outcome that includes both consensus and non-consensus elements in a final document. There are any number of possible Plan B outcomes, in terms of format and substance that could demonstrate a successful Review Conference. Conference leaders — the conference president and his bureau and key delegations — should not get locked into a single approach. Instead, they should be flexible and creative in putting together a package of elements, not all of them supported by consensus, that could be incorporated into a final document and capable of gaining the support of the parties. Such a document could begin with a brief, high-level political declaration reaffirming strong support for the NPT and pledging to fulfill its obligations and ensure that its goals are fully realized. The document would give prominence to conference findings and recommendations that could achieve a consensus, but it would also acknowledge areas of disagreement as well as positions and recommendations that fall short of gaining consensus. (For a fuller discussion of Plan B, see “The 2020 NPT Review Conference: Prepare for Plan B.”) Making good use of the reprieve. Many NPT governments and non-governmental observers believe that if the 2020 Review Conference had been held on schedule at the end of April 2020, a harmonious outcome would have been unlikely and that a contentious result could have eroded confidence in the future of the NPT. The postponement of the conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic provides a reprieve that can permit additional preparations. Of course, additional time to prepare does not guarantee a more positive outcome. The Review Conference is likely to be difficult no matter when it is held. The polarization among NPT parties that has hampered the NPT regime for decades has gotten worse in recent years, exacerbated by the deteriorating international security environment, the increasingly adversarial bilateral relations between key major powers, and the resulting sharp decline in prospects for disarmament. But the reprieve at least provides the opportunity to try to do better than what appeared possible before the postponement. Unfortunately, it is an opportunity significantly inhibited by the practical constraints on diplomatic engagement imposed by the coronavirus. It will require considerable ingenuity and energy on the part of the conference president and his bureau, supported by U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs and the IAEA, to ensure that NPT governments stay actively focused on conference preparations during the challenging months ahead, to help structure preparatory work effectively, and not least to assist the parties in finding practical and innovative ways to interact with one another at a time when traditional in-person engagement is not possible. And most important, key NPT parties, working with the bureau and each other, will need to take advantage of the additional time to try, as early as possible, to resolve key issues that will determine whether a positive conference outcome can be achieved. In the end, the most important determinant of success will be a recognition by parties to the NPT that, despite their differences, they have a strong common interest in preserving and strengthening a treaty that for 50 years has promoted international peace and security and that provides the indispensable international framework for pursuing disarmament, nonproliferation, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy long into the future.
c483095580e8d3cb20b43768c63df5e2	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/debt-is-cheating-our-childrens-future/	Debt is Cheating Our Children’s Future	Debt is Cheating Our Children’s Future Now that we have all gone through the painful process of paying income taxes, let’s stop and think what tax-paying – and the federal fiscal environment – may be like 25 years from now. If we think we have it bad, our children and grandchildren face potential tax and financial burdens that will be crippling if nothing is done to reduce our nation’s growing debt. A recent AARP Bulletin, belying the stereotype of the greedy senior, put two naked toddlers on its cover and superimposed on their backs the grim headline “$156,000 in debt.” That’s the amount that every American child already owes, on behalf of his or her country, if you add our $8.3 trillion national debt, plus unfunded commitments to Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs. That’s nearly three times the average household’s net worth and about four times the average American’s annual income. And it’s all because of our fiscal profligacy – or should we say immorality? We’re the grown-ups who should be taking care of America for future generations. Instead, we’re bequeathing a fiscal mess of biblical proportions. This is not just an abstraction or a problem that will go away with faster economic growth, cutting government “waste,” or as one focus-group participant recently suggested, requiring the Bush daughters to spend less on designer shoes. To put it in more personal terms, rising deficits will slow economic growth and reduce the average family’s income by $1,800 by 2014, drive up interest rates (costing the average American an additional $2,000 per year in mortgage interest), and force average taxes to rise by $7,000 by 2030 if we keep our current promises to the elderly. Moreover, deficits have other perverse effects. As our debt grows, we will soon pay one-quarter of our taxes on interest on that debt – with that money going to our creditors, half of whom are Chinese, Japanese, Saudis and other foreigners. That, of course, is if they don’t dump our T-bills and send our financial markets tumbling. The second perverse effect: The more we spend on entitlements and debt service, the less there is to spend on investments in the future. When people talk of cutting nondefense “discretionary spending” – i.e., everything that government does other than support the big entitlement programs and defense – they’re talking about less than one-fifth of the federal budget. Yet, it is these investments – not just in scientific research, transportation and other infrastructure or environmental protection, but also in children themselves – that are increasingly shortchanged. The 77 million 0-to-18-year-old Americans are our future. If we don’t invest in their education, health and general well-being, we might as well say that we don’t care about their future or the future of the United States. Without the best education, health and other opportunities – which our society is more than wealthy enough to provide – America may well fall behind in global competitiveness. Secondly, by piling up 12-figure deficits, we constrain our children’s and grandchildren’s freedom. If most public spending when they are adults is devoured by entitlements and debt service, they will be unable to make the political choices promised by a democracy on what they want to spend their tax dollars. And if their incomes fall, and their taxes and interest payments rise, that will financially constrain their historic American freedom to the “pursuit of happiness.” Is this what we want? No one in his or her right mind would say yes, but that’s the course we’re on. The glimmer of good news is that this is not inevitable. It’s like the future shown in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – what might be, if nothing is done. With political leadership and public outcry, a can-do country like the United States can reform its entitlement programs, cut wasteful spending and find ways of raising new — but not onerous — revenues. Look into your child’s or grandchild’s eyes and think of their future when you consider what our president and Congress must do.
54e1349548701d26a29da750df261d27	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/democratic-expressions-amidst-fragile-institutions-possibilities-for-reform-in-dutertes-philippines/?shared=email&msg=fail	Democratic expressions amidst fragile institutions: Possibilities for reform in Duterte’s Philippines	Democratic expressions amidst fragile institutions: Possibilities for reform in Duterte’s Philippines This primer characterizes the authoritarian practices of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and their legacies for liberal democracy in the country. It argues that the policy and rhetoric of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs have created fragile democratic institutions that are prone to abuse of power. It highlights three key areas of concern: the increasing role of coercive institutions like the police and the military in all levels of governance undermines long efforts at institutionalizing democratic control over security forces; the regime’s systematic and aggressive attacks against the political opposition, the judiciary, and the media weaken the capacity of monitory institutions to scrutinize and hold the regime accountable; and disinformation campaigns further corrode the capacity of the public to engage in critical discourse and informed political decisionmaking. Despite the intensification of authoritarian practices in the Philippines, there remains robust albeit fragmented democratic expressions in the form of standout local mayors, digital innovations, and electoral resilience. These micropolitical democratic practices may have limited scope, but they are meaningful in consequence. The primer concludes by offering possibilities for scaling up these seemingly mundane yet nevertheless powerful expressions of counterauthoritarian practices. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte registered an approval rating of 91%. A vast majority of Filipinos support the government’s pandemic response, despite the Philippines recording one of the highest numbers of infections and COVID-19-releated deaths in Southeast Asia. The debate continues about the reasons behind the president’s popularity, but one thing is for certain: that public satisfaction lends legitimacy to Duterte’s authoritarian project. The Senate opposition did not win a single seat in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is packed with Duterte’s appointees. The media is facing increasing constraints. Indeed, there are fewer obstacles for the current administration to mainstream authoritarian practices. This primer begins by providing an inventory of authoritarian practices by the Duterte regime and reflect on their implications to democratic institutions. The term “authoritarian practice” is deliberately used to refer to patterns of action that disable voice and accountability. Instead of using the catch-all term “authoritarianism,” which confounds rather than clarifies political transformations in the Philippines, the term authoritarian practice lends precision in identifying political decisions, policies, and rhetoric that undermine democratic contestation and scrutiny of power. The key message in the first part of the primer is that authoritarian practices corrode the quality of democratic institutions by rendering them vulnerable to abuses of power. But this is not the whole story. As the Philippines witness the intensification of authoritarian practices, there remains room for democratic action that facilitate participation and creative forms of co-governance. These not only serve to push back against authoritarian practices but also develop democratic projects that fit the Philippines’ youthful, global, and digital participatory cultures. This primer spotlights these democratic expressions as opportunities for reform, and concludes by considering possibilities to scale up these counter-authoritarian practices in the remainder and in the aftermath of the Duterte regime. The Philippines has an uneven trajectory of building democratic institutions. Three decades after the 1986 People Power Revolution that put an end to Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship, the country appears to have developed an electoral habit of rotating power between populist and reformist presidents. 2016 was a populist leader’s turn, but instead of perpetuating a rich-versus-poor narrative, Rodrigo Duterte amplified the latent anxiety of many Filipinos that pit the virtuous citizens against unscrupulous criminals. Duterte referred to Davao — the city where he was mayor for over two decades — as Exhibit A. With unconventional methods of governance, Duterte, so the story goes, was able to transform Davao from the murder capital of the Philippines to a peace and order paradise. Becoming president allowed him to scale up this effort. “It will be bloody,” he warned the nation. Four years into his term, President Duterte did fulfill his campaign promise. He empowered the Philippine National Police to lead his “war against drugs” which has resulted in over 8,000 deaths, as reported by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Even the pandemic did not halt drug-related killings. The drug war is not only Duterte’s landmark policy. It also serves as the organizing logic of his rule. A nation at war justifies authoritarian practices, for due process is a slow-moving process, and protests of “bleeding heart liberals” get in the way of the president’s law and order agenda. The policy and rhetoric of the drug war have vast implications. They create fragile democratic institutions that are prone to abuse. Three key areas of concern are worth highlighting. First, the drug war mainstreamed the securitization of social issues. Coercive institutions such as the police have been at the forefront of implementing social policies. Addressing the issue of illegal drugs is a clear example, with the Philippines bucking the global trend of treating substance abuse as a public health issue rather than a law and order issue. The logic of securitizing social issues extended to pandemic response. The police were among the most visible front-liners enforcing curfew and social distancing policies with punitive measures. Protesters were dispersed and arrested with the police wearing full battle gear. Military tanks were deployed in Cebu City to communicate strict lockdown policies. A little over a month since Manila went on lockdown, over 30,000 people were arrested for breaking quarantine restrictions. Cases of police brutality surfaced. Some violators were locked in dog cages while others were made to sit under the sun. The tone from the top guarantees impunity for the state’s security forces. “Shoot them dead” was the president’s order for violators, just like the “permission to kill” in the drug war. The result of the president’s rhetoric is the culture of impunity in the police force. Decades-long efforts at institutionalizing democratic control over security forces are being undermined, where a new generation of police officers is socialized to an unaccountable institution where police offers who killed suspects on drug raids were hailed as heroes and rewarded with promotions. A greater role is also accorded to ex-military generals who sit in key sites of power including the task force in charge of pandemic response. The growing power of the military is further legitimized by legislation such as the Anti-Terror Law, which broadens the definition of terrorism and legalizes detention without charge for 14 days. These developments, among others, illustrate the reach of authoritarian practice as far as curtailing prospects for accountability and democratic control of security forces are concerned. Second, authoritarian practices compromise monitory institutions or bodies designed to scrutinize power. Among the earliest signs of monitory institutions’ fragility is the complicity, if not active participation of lawmakers, to the prosecution of opposition Senator Leila De Lima. As former human rights commissioner, De Lima led a Senate investigation into Duterte’s death squads a few months after Duterte assumed the presidency. Sixteen of her fellow senators voted to oust her as chair of the Senate Committee on Human Rights, followed by a series of humiliating investigations that suggested De Lima had taken money from drug lords. De Lima has been in detention for three years based on what appears to be politically-motivated charges. De Lima’s case is a clear manifestation of authoritarian practice. It constrains accountability by subverting the role of the Senate as a check to executive power. It also constrains voice as De Lima was made an example of how far the state can go in retaliating against critical voices. Following De Lima’s detention is the ouster of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, also a former human rights lawyer, justified based on her failure to disclose financial earnings when she was first appointed to the Supreme Court. Threats and humiliation of critical voices extend outside formal political institutions. Other controversial examples include a military general who tagged female celebrities who speak up for human rights as communist sympathisers and threatened they would “suffer the same fate” as activists killed in military encounters. The cases of Senator De Lima and Chief Justice Sereno serve as a reminder that such threats may be carried out. This sends a strong signal to watchdogs and whistleblowers to think twice about scrutinizing power. Third, authoritarian practices create a fragile public sphere. The Duterte regime is notorious for its systematic distortion of public discourse. Academic studies as well as investigative reports have uncovered the administration’s mobilization of state-sponsored troll armies, which creates a toxic online environment that punishes dissenting voices. Press freedom in the Philippines is also eroding, as news organizations not only face threats of being shut down but have actually been closed by congressional votes and judicial rulings. As in previous sections, these authoritarian practices are given the green light from Duterte, who labelled journalists as “presstitutes” and propagators of fake news. Meanwhile, the Philippines’ protest culture is confronted by pandemic-related restrictions, leading to arrests of activists despite protestors practicing social distancing. The fragility of the public sphere, however, is not the sole creation of the Duterte regime. Long before Duterte assumed power, the Philippines already suffered from a patchy track record of press freedom. The Philippines is widely celebrated as having a vibrant media environment and robust commentary culture, especially when compared to its neighbours in Southeast Asia. This reality, however, uncomfortably co-exists with the country’s track record as the deadliest peacetime country for journalists. Similarly, increasing mistrust of news organizations has made the public sphere more vulnerable to disinformation. One cannot overstate the worry of seeing an increasingly fragile public sphere. The Philippines may not have well-established political parties, but the highly networked and vibrant public sphere has always been a political force in sparking change, whether it was ousting the Marcos dictatorship or calling out the corruption of Presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Many observers find it curious that dissent against the Duterte regime has not crystallized to date. At best, protests have been fragmented and fleeting. Could this be an indication of the normalization of authoritarian practices? There are two ways of answering this question. A pessimistic answer is yes, all these developments signal the normalization of authoritarian practices. The Philippines’ pathway to democratization has long been undermined by political elites’ refusal to institutionalize reforms that strengthen political competition and accountability. President Duterte, one could argue, is simply a beneficiary of clan politics that has long defined electoral democracy in the Philippines. With political families dominating all sectors of government, including Duterte’s own family in Davao City, there is little space for alternative voices — whether in the form of opposition parties, social movements, or civil society groups — to offer credible democratic projects that can withstand the political machinery of political elites that benefit from the Duterte regime. On the other hand, a less pessimistic take, is no, the fragmented and fleeting contestation of the Duterte regime does not signal the normalization of authoritarian practices. What it could signal, however, are less spectacular expressions of democratic participation today. This section of this briefing, therefore, places a spotlight on some of these democratic expressions. These, one could argue, are plausible efforts at sustaining democratic action amidst authoritarian practices. Three bright spots are worth paying attention to. The first bright spot can be found in local governance. The pandemic has generated attention to standout local mayors whose open and participatory approaches to governance stand in contrast to the Duterte regime’s centralised and militarized approach. Vico Sotto — the thirty-year-old mayor who put an end to the three-decade reign of a political clan in Pasig City — has established a reputation for institutionalizing good governance practices inspired by participatory practices in cities like Naga in the Bicol region. Sotto focused on democratizing government data — from creating Freedom of Information kiosks to soliciting citizen-centred scorecards that monitor and assess the local government’s delivery of public services. He also championed inclusive governance during the pandemic. He granted financial aid to LGBTQ families and converted hotels to quarantine facilities for communities living in poverty. The young mayor is not the first and certainly not the only local chief executive that has embraced the language and practice of inclusive and participatory governance. But what is curious about his governance style is it is pitched not as an opposition to the Duterte regime — indeed the mayor has been cautious in not condemning the Duterte administration — but an alternative way of governing effectively without an iron fist. This is worth spotlighting for it invites observers to notice practices that are not overtly oppositional but nevertheless creates pockets of democratic innovations even in challenging times. The second bright spot rests on the emergence of digital governance cultures in the Philippines. The rise of troll armies has been diagnosed as an outcome of a tech-savvy generation left with little choice but to engage in precarious digital labor. The flipside of this development, however, is the rise of a generation confident in proposing technological interventions to complex governance problems. Millennial data scientists have creatively used mobility apps like Waze and Google Maps to track the spread of COVID-19, while others focused on developing a dashboard that allows citizens to monitor government spending during the pandemic. These examples, among others, lend insight into the character of democratic innovations embraced by young Filipinos today. Beyond expression of dissent in social media, the digital public sphere is also made alive by seemingly depoliticized yet nevertheless important behind-the-scenes work that promote open data critical for inclusive governance. The third, final, and undoubtedly most obvious avenue for democratic expression are elections. As the Duterte administration’s rule draws to a close in 2022, speculations about “no election” scenarios are being raised, while questions about succession increasingly heat up. Despite the fragility of democratic institutions, one can argue that elections remain as one of the most resilient features of the Philippine democracy. It not only serves a mechanism for peaceful transfer of power but it has, in local culture, been celebrated as a “ritualized gamble.” Elections, as anthropologists describe, are “hugely popular, are taken seriously, and draw very high participation rates.” It is therefore important to focus attention towards identifying political actors that enhance competitive elections, such as grassroots movements and community leaders that can challenge entrenched political clans. The Philippine legislature continues to be controlled by a handful of families but there are exceptional success stories of so-called “dragon-slayers” that challenge the configuration of local power. The three avenues of democratic expressions discussed in the previous section send a key message — micropolitical reforms may have limited scope, but they are meaningful in consequence. This briefing concludes by offering three possibilities for scaling up these seemingly mundane yet nevertheless powerful expressions of counter-authoritarian practices. First, champions of participatory governance at the local level warrant support, but this must go beyond idealizing individual leaders. The success stories discussed above are not singlehanded achievements of heroic politicians, but are built on a cadre of professionalized and committed civil servants who not only have the technical skills to manage day-to-day problems of running local governments but also have the sensibility to listen and engage with the feedback of ordinary citizens. A critical space for reform, therefore, rests on normalizing this ethos of civil service and drawing attention to collective achievements rather than glamorizing individual leaders. Second, it is critical for the Philippines’ large population of digital natives to serve as main defenders of the digital public sphere. Doing this goes beyond campaigns of digital literacy and education against disinformation. As the previous section suggests, the thriving disinformation industry was a beneficiary of a precarious class of digital workers left with little choice but to work for shady clients. A polluted public sphere cannot be rescued without addressing the political economy of disinformation. Finally, expanding field for electoral competition remains a challenge for the Philippines. Large-scale efforts at voters’ education remain futile if voters are left with a narrow field of candidates to choose from. The discourse of voter-blaming does little to deepen democratic practice. Advocacies on party building and reform remain relevant today, as well as a more serious recognition of cultural agents that shape citizens’ views on democracy and politics. While celebrities and influencers have been disparaged as insignificant voices in politics, it is worth recognizing that some of the most successful albeit fleeting campaigns against authoritarian practice, especially disinformation, are sustained by supporters of these cultural actors who are key vectors in shaping public conversation. As authoritarian practices in the Philippines’ national politics continue to unfold, increasing attention is needed to consistent, behind-the-scenes, less spectacular forms of democratic labor. These, as this primer argues, have the power from preventing fragile democratic institutions from completely breaking apart.
bc0381735f1e5e172c506bfc31ea8aaf	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/democratization-on-hold-in-malaysia/	Democratization on hold in Malaysia	Democratization on hold in Malaysia In May 2018, Malaysians elected a new coalition to power, putting an end to 61 years of a single party’s de facto monopoly on power. Two years later, the democratization many expected has yet to materialize. Structural and contextual factors have plunged the country in a political crisis alongside the health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic has been relatively well-handled, it has created a unique climate of emergency, uncertainty, and fear. These extraordinary twin crises are shaking Malaysia’s fragile democratic equilibrium, creating new political opportunities and failures that could lead to another change in government. General elections are expected in early 2021. Meanwhile, the democratic reforms many anticipated have been put on hold. This paper explores Malaysia’s domestic politics and its recent democratic struggles, as well as their implications for U.S. foreign policy. Malaysia has been a carrefour of civilization, culture, and religion and a strategic route on the Maritime Silk Road since the 6th and 7th centuries. Its society is diverse, including large minorities of Chinese and Indians whose migration goes back as far as the 15th century as well as indigenous peoples, the majority of which inhabit the two states of Borneo, in East Malaysia. Roughly 60% of the population practices Sunni Islam but other religions are also highly represented. The United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), a Malay nationalist party, ruled Malaysia continuously from independence to 2018. Most political parties are ethnically and/or religiously based. Religion is highly politicized, which regularly results in tensions and occasional, mostly politically orchestrated sparks of violence. Despite this, Malaysia remains a relatively peaceful country and an important strategic partner to the United States for trade and strategic cooperation in a highly sensitive regional context. Malaysia is a hybrid regime oscillating between democratic institutions and authoritarian practices, considered “partly free” by Freedom House. Several laws have been designed to control the public space and suppress dissenting voices in the opposition and the media. The 2018 victory of an opposition coalition raised hopes in democratic reforms after 61 years of single-party rule. However, the new government failed at reforming a system embedded in an old political culture of patronage and lasted for only 21 months. The new ruling coalition (Perikatan Nasional, or PN) that took power in March 2020 has revived a more Malay-oriented agenda. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the PN government led by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has prioritized health and economic measures rather than deep reforms. The opposition coalition (Pakatan Harapan, or PH), led by Anwar Ibrahim, is in limbo. In the last few months, Anwar, a former democratic icon jailed twice on sodomy charges, has lost credibility as a potential prime minister in the eye of his allies, who are now asking for his resignation. Mahathir Mohammad, who after two decades ruling Malaysia under the UMNO flag (1981-2003) switched to the opposition in 2016 and won the election in 2018, is still eyeing the top job in the next general elections, at age 95. The unending feud between the two men, Anwar and Mahathir, further destabilizes a fragile political equilibrium. In May 2018, after a fierce campaign, Mahathir Mohammad’s coalition Pakatan Harapan (the Pact of Hope, or PH) won Malaysia’s general elections. Mahathir, who had ruled over the country for more than two decades starting from 1981, resigned in 2003, promising to never come out of retirement. In spite of this promise, Mahathir made an unexpected comeback in his nineties, reuniting with his former rival Anwar Ibrahim to topple then-Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was embroiled in the 1MDB financial scandal, and the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Since their loss of power, Najib and other UMNO leaders have been charged on several accounts of abuse of power, corruption, and misappropriation of state funds. Najib was sentenced to 12 years in prison in July 2020, a decision which he is currently appealing. During the campaign, with Anwar’s blessing, Mahathir had taken over the leadership of Anwar’s democratic movement (Reformasi) while the latter was in jail. In exchange, Mahathir had promised: (1) he would deliver the victory the movement had fail to achieve since its creation in 1998, (2) upon victory, he would release Anwar Ibrahim, and (3) he would hand leadership of the government to Anwar within a few years. Mahathir delivered on his first two promises — an electoral victory and the release of Anwar — but over the course of 2019, the old leader seemed more and more reluctant to hand over power to his ally. Anwar’s mounting pressure on Mahathir’s government, and the growing divisions this created in both Anwar’s party (Keadilan) and in the government coalition precipitated Mahathir’s resignation in January 2020. A few weeks later, to end the feud between Anwar and Mahathir, the country’s monarch appointed a third man to replace Mahathir: Muhyiddin Yassin. Muhyiddin, then vice president of Bersatu, a party he had created with Mahathir and his son Mukhriz Mahathir in 2016, became prime minister in March 2020. He had previously served as a loyal deputy for both Mahathir and Najib Razak, occupying several ministerial posts before rising to the position of deputy prime minister and ultimately resigning in 2015 after voicing concerns regarding Najib’s role in the 1MDB financial scandal. Muhyiddin Yassin now faces multiple crises: political instability, a health crisis, and a looming economic recession. In the midst of these storms, the premier is also struggling with continuous challenges from opposition political leaders as well as those within his own camp. In March 2020, Muhyiddin formed a Malay majority government with the support of a coalition that includes the former ruling party UMNO and the Islamist Party (PAS). The new opposition was then composed of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) including the ethnic Chinese-based DAP (Democratic Action Party), Anwar’s Keadilan, and the Bersatu faction who chose to remain faithful to Mahathir. Keadilan suffered a tremendous loss with the departure (and purge) of some top leaders who pledge allegiances to the new government. Despite their historic loss in 2018, UMNO, now led by Zahid Hamidi (who has also been accused of corruption) is steadily regaining its political influence. The party currently occupies key ministerial positions in Muyhiddin’s cabinet and 38 of 222 seats in the parliament, making it the most powerful party in the ruling coalition with the strongest political machinery, a factor which helped to deliver the coalition its recent victories. In July, Najib was sentenced to 12 years jail on different counts of corruption, a decision he appealed to the higher courts. While outsiders might expect that Najib’s popularity would have crashed, he is in fact slowly rebuilding his image and inventing a new narrative. “Bossku” (My Boss), as his supporters colloquially have named him, is still a major player. Despite UMNO’s deep factionalism, and the fact that Najib has yet to regain the support of the party’s entire leadership (and he might not), the talented tactician is paving his way back to power. The path forward for Malaysia’s democracy remains unclear. On September 23, Anwar Ibrahim announced he had the necessary parliamentary majority to unseat Prime Minister Muhyiddin, a declaration he made without showing any proof to the public or giving any warning to his allies. Anwar had made similar claims in the past. In each case, his assertions ultimately proved unfounded, as they did in this case as well. While Anwar’s prophecy of power did not materialize, the chaos it created for Malaysian democracy sent tremors through the entire country. The coalition is now in limbo and some of its leaders are calling for Anwar’s resignation. Mahathir is also actively pursuing power, attempting to create a political front led by his new party, Pejuang. Though 95 years old, he recently announced his intent to run in the next election (possibly 2021). As for Muyhiddin, he remains in a vulnerable position, pressured from within by his own coalition allies (mostly UMNO) as well as by the opposition. In reviewing the twists and turns of Malaysia’s recent domestic politics, a few key trends deserve to be highlighted. The silence of a new generation and the resilience of old leaders. While younger democratic leaders have emerged elsewhere in Southeast Asia, this is not the case in Malaysia, where Malaysian voters appear more willing to trust older leaders and father figures. Najib, Anwar, and Mahathir have been at the forefront of Malaysia’s political scene for decades and a new generation of leaders has not yet emerged. Mahathir’s successful reinvention from autocrat to democrat in the 2018 campaign suggests that Malaysians voters in general remain conservative and unlikely to call for a new generation of leadership despite the controversies of the past. The (non-)impact of other democratic movements in the region. Democratic movements in Hong Kong and in Thailand have had limited impact in Malaysia. This may be partially explained by the absence of a coordinated, nonpartisan youth movement (as noted above). The new youth party (Muda) created by former Minister of Youth and Sport Syed Saddiq has not received the attention some had hoped, nor is it clear this party would be independent from Malaysia’s longtime power brokers. The party is an offspring of Mahathir’s new movement, and Syed remains a fervent supporter of the former premier. The role of the monarch. While the status of royalty is under threat in Thailand, the Malaysian king, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, is subtly crafting a new role to himself, far from the political tradition and his constitutional prerogatives. In this highly volatile political context, the king is portraying himself as a neutral arbitrator and a guarantor of stability. COVID-19 adds further stress. Malaysia’s unstable governance has added to the economic challenges caused by COVID-19, pushing Malaysia into a recession that will leave an impact throughout 2021. The partial lockdowns caused by the pandemic are increasingly contested, creating further tensions between Malaysians and their government. In some cases, these lockdowns, such as the one in Selangor, seem to have been used a way to means of asserting government strength and preventing further political instability. The prime minister has announced he will call for a general election as soon as the pandemic has ended, but this delay is perceived by many merely as a strategy to contain the opposition’s disaffection and the instability within his own government. Malaysian politics are admittedly complex, even for close observers. One of the problems this causes is that outside observers including U.S. policymakers can often make misguided assumptions about the more important factors shaping Malaysian democracy. Two examples come to mind: the “China factor” and civil society. For most Malaysians, the question of China’s influence over domestic issues is perceived as quasi-irrelevant. For many, the question of Western (and specifically American) interference and support for civil society groups is a bigger concern. Many Malaysians share a general suspicion of superpowers — whether the United States or China — that transcends simple dichotomies such as a preference for democracy or illiberalism. Outside observers can also overestimate the impact that civil society can exert on Malaysian democracy. Observers often overlook the fact that (1) few Malaysian non-government organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) are independent; most are partisan and politically obedient; (2) several large CSOs are in fact umbrella organizations for militants or political proxies that have been paid to mobilize voters; (3) the influence of CSOs are limited; most of Malaysia’s most impactful reform movements have been led or supported by political parties or politicians (ie: the Reformasi movement in 1998 and the Bersih movement since 2007). As such, any real movement for change in Malaysia will have to be a political one. Because Malaysia’s civil society lacks strength and independence, external support to CSOs needs to be made with more diligence, as it is sometimes directed at the wrong organization or short-sighted initiatives. Long-term initiatives targeting youth civic education are urgently needed in both English and vernacular languages. General knowledge about democratic values is poor in Malaysia and the universality of these values is sometimes contested. There is also a need for more civic education focused on equal rights (gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.), and the inclusion of minorities and vulnerable populations that often remain outside of the Malaysian policy debates and are ignored in the general discourse on democracy. Malaysia’s democracy would also benefit from stronger support for outside voices such as journalists and academic researchers. Malaysia’s low levels of civic awareness and the absence of public debates about democratic principles is partly due to censorship and self-censorship, but also to the limited training offered to journalists and/or political commentators. New media are attempting to bridge academia and journalism, like New Naratif, but their existence remains fragile due to both political and economic pressure. In Malaysian academia, while there are researchers conducting excellent research, they often lack external funding. This dependance on public funds tends to subject them to administrative and political constraints. Despite its political uncertainties, Malaysia remains a stable partner for the United States in Southeast Asia. For that reason, constant analysis and anticipation of Malaysia’s domestic political developments based on solid on-the-ground research is key. The looming economic crisis and the political chaos provoked by party rivalries and ego fights have thus far stymied all attempts at reform. The next few months, and particularly the coming election, will be crucial to determine the future of democracy in the country.
3800536ff2c9e30ef3fc0794f865abcc	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/dirt-into-dollars-converting-vacant-land-into-valuable-development/	Dirt Into Dollars: Converting Vacant Land into Valuable Development	Dirt Into Dollars: Converting Vacant Land into Valuable Development American cities have always been about growth. A hundred years ago, boosters organized boomtowns to exploit resources like minerals and cattle. Today, growth coalitions design New Urbanist towns to maximize value while deflecting political backlash by husbanding resources like farmland and road capacity. But from Sunbelt cities to suburbs everywhere, growth is the logic, the politics, and the policy of American places. For the past half-century, this reality has made the older, once-central cities of the Northeast and Midwest awkward anomalies. St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland lost about half their population between 1950 and 2000. Yet even after 50 years it remains difficult for such cities to adapt to a world in which the policy problem is one of managing decline rather than growth. That failure has allowed several consequences of long-term depopulation, namely abandoned property and blight, to reach overwhelming levels in many older American cities. When depopulation and blight are addressed at all, it is piecemeal: by attacking the environmental issue of brownfields, the public safety issue of crack houses in empty row homes, the quality-of-life issue of trash-strewn vacant lots. But depopulation is so fundamental and has been so sustained in older industrial cities during this century that blight is now a problem in its own right and demands bold and comprehensive policy responses. Philadelphia, my own home town, is a powerful illustration of these concerns. Like all the nation’s older cities, it has suffered major population loss. Like them, it has been slow in coming to grips with the problem of depopulation. But in the past five years the tide may have begun turning. Philadelphia may now have the opportunity to lead the way in what I call “civic speculation.” Guided by a strategic vision of a “right-sized” city for its current population, civic leaders could leverage abandoned and vacant land and change the subject from decline through abandonment to growth through consolidation. The Good Old Days From its founding in 1683, Philadelphia grew steadily for more than 250 years. The city’s boundaries were enlarged in 1854, when what is known today as Center City was consolidated with the townships of the surrounding county. In 1860, with 565,529 residents in the consolidated city, Philadelphia reclaimed its traditional rank as the nation’s second largest city (it had slipped to fourth behind Baltimore and New Orleans after 1840). By 1900, the population of this economic and political powerhouse had more than doubled to 1,293,697 residents. And by 1950, it had increased another 60 percent to 2,071,605. With the largely undeveloped tracts of Far Northeast and Southwest Philadelphia beckoning, it seemed that the city’s population growth could continue unimpeded. But troubling signs existed, even at mid-century. A 1952 city planning report noted that many older wards had been losing population since 1920 or even earlier. These planners calculated that because the population of the city’s older neighborhoods had already peaked, the city’s housing stock was capable of accommodating nearly 2.5 million people in 1950. With the actual population only 2.1 million, it was clear that the city’s older neighborhoods were being left for newer housing farther north, south, and west of city hall. The city’s overall population growth was hiding this depopulation in the older neighborhoods. What no one could foresee then was the extent to which the city as a whole would begin to lose population. From 1950 to 1970, the city’s population fell about 6 percent, from 2,071,605 to 1,948,609. In the next two decades, the pace picked up dramatically. The population dropped from 1,948,609 in 1970 to 1,585,577 in 1990, a loss of 19 percent. And it has continued falling. In a widely cited statistic, Philadelphia has lost more people than any county in the United States in the past two years. Its population now hovers around 1.4 million?roughly what it was at the turn of the last century. The population loss since 1950 is related, of course, to suburbanization and the fixed political boundaries of the metropolitan region. While Philadelphia lost half a million residents between 1950 and 1990, its surrounding suburbs gained nearly four times that number. Depopulation and Blight Philadelphia’s steady, sometimes precipitous, decline since 1950 has many causes, some good and some bad, some intended and some not. Rising prosperity allowed middle-class households to purchase privacy in suburban subdivisions, while racial prejudice drove whites out of cities where minorities lived. Technological innovation made sprawling one-story business campuses more efficient than dense multi-story loft buildings, while redlining by lending institutions made stability in older neighborhoods virtually impossible. Public policies fostered the growth of modern and lower-density housing, as well as over-subsidizing growth at the suburban edge and over-depreciating assets at the urban core. But regardless of the causes, the city’s oldest neighborhoods, outside of Center City, have suffered catastrophic residential losses. Between 1950 and 1990, one neighborhood in North Philadelphia lost nearly half its population, dropping from 210,000 to 109,000. Another lost two-thirds, down from 111,000 to 39,000 residents. Vacancy and abandonment have been extensive. As of 1992, the Department of Licenses and Inspections identified 27,000 abandoned residential buildings and 15,800 vacant residential lots. More recent estimates approximately double both those estimates, and the number of abandoned houses is now thought to exceed 50,000. In 1999, a study by Fairmount Ventures for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society identified 30,900 vacant residential lots of one acre or less in the city, about two-thirds of which are privately owned. About 1,000 residential structures have been demolished every year during the 1990s?not nearly fast enough to keep long-term vacant buildings from becoming unsafe. A series of recent reports has attempted to sound a warning bell. In June 1995, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission released Vacant Land in Philadelphia, an excellent analysis of both vacancy conditions and the administrative procedures that have evolved to deal with them. The report, which has become the definitive source for the underlying state law relevant to the myriad departments and procedures affecting vacant property, makes two recommendations. First, the city needs to build an information base on vacant property that is comprehensive, timely, and capable of supporting strategic decisionmaking. Second, it must coordinate agencies and streamline procedures in accordance with a strategic plan for property acquisition and disposition. In September 1995, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society with the financial support of the Pew Charitable Trusts released Urban Vacant Land: Issues and Recommendations, a state-of-the-art review of vacant land and how it is managed not only in Philadelphia, but in other pioneering cities, including Boston and Cleveland. The report describes a variety of management techniques, both short-term strategies related to greening and gardening and long-term techniques such as parcel assembly and intensive reuse. The report echoes the two key City Planning Commission recommendations. First, Philadelphia should create an integrated land records database or an inventory that is easy to access and update. Second, it should coordinate decisionmaking to assure that various city agencies are working toward common goals. By the end of 1997, the City’s Office of Housing and Community Development had issued Vacant Property Prescriptions and Neighborhood Transformations, two reports that advanced public debate by illustrating the variety of partnerships and specific projects that the city and nonprofits had pursued during the administration of Mayor Edward Rendell. Distilling lessons from that experience, the reports recommend that the city tailor programs and interventions to neighborhood-specific needs, which can vary considerably, and coordinate efforts, especially between the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the Office of Housing and Community Development. The William Penn Foundation has also supported a far-ranging series of reports under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The first was a cost-benefit analysis of remediating and maintaining the inventory of over 30,900 vacant residential lots in the city. Later reports highlighted demonstration efforts in target neighborhoods, suggested changes in city policies and practices, and developed a financing plan for citywide vacant land management. Barriers to Progress Philadelphia is now in the forefront of policy analysis and action on the issue of vacant property. But several barriers to significant and lasting progress remain. The most important is the administrative apparatus available to confront the problem of blight. The responsibility for vacant property in Philadelphia is divided among 15 public agencies. Anyone wanting to buy a property may spend weeks negotiating the maze of agencies just to apply. A developer often invests months to meet the differing agency requirements. Decisions made by one city agency can undermine those made by others. A single city block can contain homes owned by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, slated for demolition by the Department of Licenses and Inspections, included in a Redevelopment Authority urban renewal project, awarded an Office of Housing and Community Development grant for rehabilitation, and promised for a specific redevelopment plan by a council person. Each action, taken independently, has a profound effect on the others. The current system of land management, complete with numerous checks, balances, and mandatory waiting periods, evolved to help structure and organize a growing city. Despite a half-century of decline, the complex system continues to define the city’s approach to managing vacant property today. The 1995 City Planning Commission report exhaustively summarizes the missions and procedures of the key public agencies. As just one example, obtaining a certification of blight (which allows the Redevelopment Authority to condemn, acquire, and ultimately transfer a property to a new owner) involves no fewer than six city agencies. Improved interdepartmental cooperation during the Rendell administration has made transfers such as this one more efficient, cutting average time from two years to six months. But it is not enough to expedite the current approach to property disposition, which operates on an individual first-come, first-served basis and largely without reference to any strategic plan for the affected block, neighborhood, or city as a whole. To the extent that these small-scale property transfers reduce the inventory of available parcels and transfer them to individual owners, they also reduce the opportunity for assembling and consolidating parcels into larger redevelopment opportunities. Transferring a small parcel to an adjacent owner to use as a side parking lot or to a local group to use as a community garden will often be the appropriate use for vacant lots. But these transfers should be held to some standard comparison with alternate uses rather than simply determined by who’s in line at the title window. Repeated recommendations to strengthen interagency coordination have arguably led to improvements in the past year or two but still have not created a strategic vision or public apparatus bold enough to confront the effects of 50 years of depopulation. Coordination, even if it could be achieved, is not likely to be a strong enough response. As noted, the dozen or so agencies to be coordinated evolved during an era of growth and remain oriented to the obsolete land uses that abandoned properties had decades ago. Prior use too often determines jurisdiction under this administrative regime though it is a weak criterion for determining responsibility and authority for vacant property. To be sure, in some cases prior use has technical implications for vacant property’s future disposition (for example, remediating the contamination of some former industrial properties; preserving the historic character of some former residential properties). But 50 years of depopulation and its accumulated effects on vacancy and abandonment demands an administrative capacity that can think strategically beyond prior use and understand vacant property as a generic resource. These vacant properties must be viewed in the context of surrounding neighborhoods. In some Philadelphia neighborhoods half the lots have no houses, and half the houses left standing are abandoned. Areas that often look like Dresden after World War II must be consolidated and, in some cases, the remaining households relocated. A single authority should replace the current fragmented efforts to acquire, manage, consolidate, and dispose of the abandoned buildings and vacant land in Philadelphia. This is the crux of the policy debate now under way in the city in the first months of the new administration of John F. Street. Mayor Street has made blight removal the top priority of his first year, and a transition planning committee has endorsed the idea of a single blight authority. But the devil is in the administrative details, and right now Philadelphia is the center of a fascinating debate on both blight policy and municipal governance issues. A consolidated public authority in a city like Philadelphia should have the administrative capacity to pursue three functions. First, it should create a strategic plan with a citywide view of the vacant property inventory. This change of scale is essential to “right-sizing” a city’s land use to serve a much smaller population. Fairly obviously, this approach implies a triage strategy. Triage will always be difficult. But its object, it is important to note, is near-empty streets and blocks, not people or neighborhoods. Properties can be assembled with minimal relocation to improve every person’s housing quality and stabilize vulnerable neighborhoods. What is valuable is the land, not the largely obsolete buildings. Demolition, maintenance, redevelopment?almost everything?is cheaper with assembly and consolidation. Only a citywide strategic plan can motivate and sustain a “right-sizing” approach. Second, a single public authority could redevelop its consolidated inventory as market conditions warrant. The complex, and politicized, maze of fragmented public authority in Philadelphia impedes even when private actors want to act, whether it be a homeowner wanting to acquire an adjacent lot for parking or a supermarket chain looking for a 10-acre parcel. There is certainly demand, especially in this economy, for some sites in some locations to develop some uses. A consolidated authority can help restore the property market to places like North Philadelphia. Finally, a single authority can serve as an intentional land bank. Philadelphia has several unintentional land banks in the form of the dormant holdings of multiple public agencies. A single authority probably facilitates redevelopment. But even more important, it creates the capacity for responsibly maintaining the undoubtedly large fraction of the vacant property inventory that is unlikely to be redeveloped any time soon. That maintenance is an obligation all too easily shirked in Philadelphia today. Of course, all this administrative capacity would be pointless without financial resources. The consensus estimate in Philadelphia is that more than $750 million would be needed to fund demolition alone. To his credit, Mayor Street in his first few months in office has backed his commitment to blight removal with a new $250 million anti-blight proposal. The jury is still out on the financing and administrative details of that proposal. But it is increasingly clear that managing the effects of 50 years of decline is an issue whose time has come for Philadelphia and for the nation’s other once-central cities.
39182ff5b8a39e9bc6f89be0f65c682e	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/drug-trafficking-from-north-korea-implications-for-chinese-policy/?shared=email&msg=fail	Drug Trafficking from North Korea: Implications for Chinese Policy	Drug Trafficking from North Korea: Implications for Chinese Policy Despite many press reports, magazine articles, and academic analyses about drug production and trafficking by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) since the early 1990s, Chinese authorities have avoided acknowledgement of this fact – possibly due to political reasons. In China’s press reports, drug trafficking from North Korea is usually referred to as trafficking from an unidentified overseas country. But in July 2004 Chinese authorities officially recognized that relatively limited quantities of North Korean drugs, mostly methamphetamine (also called “ice”), were shipped into China. In recent years, drug trafficking from North Korea has posed a more and more serious threat to Northeast China, and will be a new challenge to Northeast Asia. North Korean drug trafficking into Northeast China Methamphetamine production in North Korea is reported to have started in 1996 after heavy rains decreased income from poppy production.[1] It is believed the most methamphetamines produced in North Korea are trafficked into Northeast China, then to Shandong, Tianjin, Beijing, and other interior provinces; a smaller percentage is smuggled into South Korea and Japan, where they turn a high profit. Yanbian Korean Autonomous Pefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County in China’s Jilin Province, and Dandong city in Liaoning Province, along the border with North Korea, have been identified as key transit points for North Korean drugs into China. Yanbian shares a border of 522.5 kilometers with North Korea; over 1 million Korean Chinese live in the region, as well as 100,000 to 200,000 North Korean refugees. Geographical and ethnic-cultural-linguistic ties provide helpful networks for cross-border trafficking of drugs and illegal immigrants. Furthermore, drug trafficking groups from North Korea, China, and South Korea often cooperate on drug trafficking across the border. South Korea’s JoongAng Daily newspaper has even reported that a “drug trafficking triangle” has been established between them.[2] Recently uncovered cases illustrate this trend. In October 2008, Baishan city border patrol agencies seized 5.4kg of 100 percent pure ice in Changbai Korean Autonomous County.[3] In July 2010, in the celebrated “5. 20” case, Yanbian border patrol agencies arrested 6 suspects from North Korea, including drug kingpin “Sister Kim,” and several Korean Chinese; seized 1.5 kg of ice; and confiscated RMB 132,000 (about US$19,300) of drug money and two cars.[4] As China’s biggest border city on the Yalu River, opposite Sinuiju in North Korea, Dandong city in Liaoning Province is another major transshipment point for drug trafficking from North Korea into Northeast China. On December 23, 2004, Dandong border patrol agencies uncovered the largest drug trafficking operation from North Korea into China since this border patrol was established, seizing 13,775 MaGu tablets (in which the dominant ingredient is amphetamine), and arresting 4 suspects.[5] On February 17, 2005, Dandong law enforcement officials again seized 2,000 MDMA or called ecstasy tablets and 300 MaGu tablets from North Korea, and arrested 7 suspects.[6] Jilin Province is not only the most important transshipment point for drugs from North Korea into China, but has itself become one of the largest markets in China for amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS). Chinese scholar Cui Junyong notes that over the last three to five years, most of the ice consumed in Yanbian has originated from North Korea. In Yanji, Yanbian’s capital, there were 44 registered drug addicts in 1991, but 2,090 in 2010.[7] In all of Jilin Province, as of early June 2010, there are more than 10,000 registered drug addicts, and the provincial Public Security Agency admits that the actual figures may be five or six times more than the official data. Across China, more than 70 percent of drug addicts abuse heroin, but in Jilin Province more than 90 percent of addicts abuse new synthetic drugs and ice in particular. Potential drug crisis in Northeast Asia Clearly, ATS from North Korea have become a threat to China in recent years. It is uncertain whether drug trafficking across the North Korea-China border is sponsored by the North Korean government.[8] But the Chinese National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) has recognized the increasing threat of drug smuggling and use in the region, and in 2005 it opened a Northeastern battlefield fighting against cross-border drug trafficking. This strategy focuses on Jilin Province, which emphasizes counternarcotics cooperation between China’s Customs and Public Security agencies on deterrence, and patrols check along the China-North Korean border. Similar to other issues including traditional and non-traditional security, Chinese counternarcotics policy relating to North Korea is often subordinated to the goal of maintaining a good overall relationship between two countries. The Chinese government implements a relatively tolerant policy toward the cross-border drug traffic, which could be very costly in the long run. As drug abuse is established in Northeast China, increased demand will lead to a substantially increased supply of illicit drugs. This will stimulate drug production in North Korea, and will also attract other international drug trafficking organizations. Some have speculated that Afghan heroin smuggled into the Russian Federation will be re-trafficked into Northeast China via the China-Russia border.[9] If a northeast route for Afghan heroin is established, traffickers could also use it to target other countries in Northeast Asia. The Northeast China market has also attracted domestic drug producers and traffickers from Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong provinces. This poses the danger that ATS production factories from South China will be expanded and/or relocated to Northeast and North China. If this interaction between North China and South China in ATS production and trafficking is consolidated, China may become a major ATS consumer and producer, which would be a new threat to Northeast Asia. Finally, and somewhat paradoxically, if North Korea carries out a reform and opening policy in the near future, the China-North Korean border trade would grow and economic ties would be strengthened. As a result, the Chinese government will not only relax its control of the border area but also actively facilitate cross-border commerce. In such an environment, the volume of drug trafficking across the border into Northeast China and other Northeast Asian countries would quickly increase unless the DPRK were to take strict measures to eliminate drug production. China currently faces similar dilemmas in its southwestern and northwestern border regions. Policy recommendations Though Chinese authorities have begun to confront the issue, its measures have not been able stop or significantly interdict North Korean drug trafficking into China. What new steps should be taken to deal with this problem, or at least to avoid a new tragedy in Northeast Asia which might originate from North Korea? First, the Chinese government should actively urge North Korea to undertake serious investigations into the scope and patterns of ATS production in North Korea and subsequent trafficking across the border. Whenever feasible, the Chinese government could provide technology and equipment assistance to North Korea, in order to help it control and ultimately eliminate drug production and trafficking. Second, the Chinese government should promote the establishment of a regional counternarcotics cooperation mechanism and intelligence sharing system. Initially, China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. could cooperate to stem outbound drug trafficking from North Korea and potentially from Russia, and thereby work to prevent the deterioration of drug problems in Northeast Asia. Ideally, North Korea itself could also be involved in this effort in the future. Third, Chinese central, provincial, and local governments should strengthen counternarcotics law enforcement, border checkpoints and border control in Northeast China, and establish a network to monitor the illegal activities related to drug trafficking in the Korean Chinese and Uyghur Chinese communities that are often located in border regions that see the heaviest drug trafficking in China. Fourth, Chinese authorities should enhance their education of the public on the harm caused by amphetamine-type stimulants, establish advanced drug treatment centers for ATS addicts. Without efforts to reduce the demand for illicit drugs, actions aimed at reducing the illicit drug supply will be doomed to failure.
bf0a8c3fc66c5bc91f52f925240a2d61	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/economic-reform-and-military-downsizing-a-key-to-solving-the-north-korean-nuclear-crisis/	Economic Reform and Military Downsizing: A Key to Solving the North Korean Nuclear Crisis?	Economic Reform and Military Downsizing: A Key to Solving the North Korean Nuclear Crisis? U.S. policy toward North Korea is in need of a major overhaul. Six-party negotiations in Beijing in late August did not break down, but neither did they achieve any substantive progress. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to develop a nuclear arsenal right before our eyes. We propose an ambitious plan that would get to the heart of the matter—North Korea’s broken economy and other aspects of its failed society—by proposing a grand bargain to Pyongyang. North Korea would be offered a new relationship with the outside world and substantial aid if it would denuclearize, reduce military forces, and move in a direction similar to that of Vietnam and China in recent decades. If the plan failed, Washington would have a huge consolation prize—having seriously attempted diplomacy, it would then be in a much stronger position to argue to Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing that tough measures were needed against North Korea. Despite some impressive successes, notably the 1994 Agreed Framework capping North Korea’s nuclear activities, the Clinton policy of engagement does not offer a promising route. That approach was effective for a time but was somewhat too narrow and tactical, focusing largely on the crisis du jour. The approach appears ultimately to have encouraged in North Korea’s repressive leaders a worsening habit of trying to extort resources from the international community in exchange for cutting back its dangerous weapons programs. President Bush is impatient with this sort of attempted blackmail. But his apparent policy preference—insisting that North Korea immediately stop its nuclear activities and severely limiting talk of possible incentives to Pyongyang until it does—may fail. To date, it clearly has been failing, as the North Korean situation has changed from a serious security problem to a major crisis on his watch. North Korean leaders tend to become more intransigent when their backs are against the wall, and they are clearly willing to see their own people starve before capitulating to coercion. Pushing North Korea to the brink may also increase the odds that it will sell plutonium to the highest bidder to rescue its crumbling economy and preserve its power. North Korea is now well into its second decade of poor economic performance, and its leaders do not seem to know what to do. They have tried modest reforms—price liberalization, special economic zones, and limited business transactions with South Koreans—with little success. They have not yet been prepared to take the risks associated with China-style economic reforms, and their instincts still push them toward high military spending. The ——1 million troops out of a population of 22 million—is the largest in the world in per capita terms and 10 times the global average. North Korea devotes a far greater share of gross domestic product to its armed forces than any other country, and its forces arrayed near the demilitarized zone with South Korea are the densest concentration of firepower in the world by far. We propose a plan that would address the nuclear weapons crisis that has so dominated headlines in recent months—and would also go much further to recast North Korea’s overly militarized economy (see box). Its centerpiece would be a combination of deep conventional arms cuts, economic reform, and external economic assistance aimed at reform. President Bush himself, shortly after taking office, suggested the need for conventional arms cuts in North Korea in exchange for continued aid and diplomatic relations. Though the administration did not follow up on the president’s suggestion, the idea is worth pursuing seriously. Aside from the security value of reducing North Korea’s huge military presence on the Korean peninsula, a fleshed-out plan along those lines could reduce the enormous economic burden that pushes North Korea to provoke nuclear crises to extort resources from the international community. Our plan to prod North Korea toward demilitarization and serious economic reform and to provide the resources to give reform a real chance offers no guarantee of success. But it also has few downsides. Failure would leave us no worse off than we are today. In fact, it would probably improve our hand in convincing South Korea, Japan, and China to adopt a tougher policy toward North Korea as needed. Success would admittedly help a totalitarian regime stay in power. But the alternatives—further economic collapse attended by misery and starvation, war, or the sale of nuclear weapons if the nation finds itself on the verge of collapse—are worse. And under our plan, the regime would be radically transformed even if it clung to power. The Rise and Fall of the North Korean Economy When the Korean peninsula was divided after World War II and set free from Japanese colonization, North Korea had a relatively strong economy. It boasted three-fourths of the peninsula’s mining production, at least 90 percent of its electricity generation capacity, and 80 percent of its heavy industry. The South, with a better climate, was largely an agricultural region. North Korea quickly nationalized major industries and drove up production. Its economic success probably contributed to President Kim Il Sung’s confidence that he would win a war against the South, which he unleashed in 1950. North Korea continued to outperform South Korea immediately after the war. But the seeds of its eventual economic deterioration were soon sown. It collectivized agriculture in 1953 and increasingly invested in heavy industry, much of it defense related, while turning inward and autarkic. Kim Il Sung’s juche concept of self-reliance kept North Korea isolated from the outside world and deprived it of foreign trade. By the late 1960s, North Korea was devoting 15–20 percent of its GDP to the military, and its economic growth gradually slowed. During the early 1970s Pyongyang tried to boost output by borrowing capital on international markets and purchasing whole factories from abroad. But oil price shocks and global stagflation thwarted that strategy. Matters thereafter went from bad to worse. The nation came to depend more and more on economic relations with the Soviet bloc, importing arms and exporting minerals, textiles, steel, and other goods. It also increased its own arms exports, largely to Iran. When the Soviet Union dissolved, North Korea lost access to most of its markets and also to subsidized Soviet oil. China provided coal and oil on favorable terms to stanch the flow of North Korean economic refugees across its borders, but even so, by the end of the decade North Korean energy resources were about half what they had been in 1990. In the past 13 years, North Korea has suffered continuous economic contraction. GDP and per capita income have been cut roughly in half. Alternating periods of drought and flooding, together with a broken political system, have exacerbated agricultural problems. Famine has killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans despite food aid from abroad. Attempts at Reform For the better part of 20 years, North Korea, like China, has shown an interest in finding a “third way” between communism and capitalism. But unlike China, it has not shown a serious commitment to reform and has achieved little success. As its economy has worsened, North Korea has grown ever more dependent on extortion, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, whatever arms exports it can still find markets for, and cash remittances from overseas North Koreans. Its foreign trade is roughly half what it was in the 1980s. About half of all imports come from China, much of the rest from Japan and South Korea. Likewise, exports go principally to Japan, South Korea, and China. North Korea also still receives aid—mostly food and energy—averaging up to $1 billion a year from China, South Korea, Japan, the United States, and the European Union. Given its poor track record and the leadership’s continuing communist rhetoric, North Korea’s dedication to economic reform today is weak. Its leaders surely fear that liberalizing the economy could lead to political liberalization—and thus their own loss of power. Still, President Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung’s son and successor, and other North Korean leaders seem to be searching for alternatives. Kim Jong Il has visited China at least three times since May 2000, traveled to economic centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, and received briefings from Chinese economists. Korean Workers Party functionaries have also met with their Chinese counterparts to explore reform at the working level. The challenge for the United States and its chief regional allies in this matter—South Korea, Japan, and China—is to give North Koreans a push to take reform more seriously. North Korean leaders have made three types of reforms to date. They have created special economic zones, in which they have encouraged foreign investment. They have allowed South Korean tourists to visit the North, demanding expensive surcharges for the privilege. They have also recently liberalized prices, increased wages, and begun to tolerate limited private agriculture as well as an expansion of farmers’ markets where goods can be bought and sold outside the rigidities of the command economy. North Korea established its primary investment-oriented economic zone in the Rajin-Sonbong area, also known as the Tumen River delta, in the early 1990s. More than 700 square kilometers in area and deliberately removed from much of the rest of the country, it benefits from relatively good natural port potential. The terms granted to foreign investors here are more generous even than those granted by China and Vietnam in their similar zones, at least on paper. Foreign firms can own all the capital invested in a given project, repatriate profits, access the region without visas, enjoy guarantees against nationalization of their assets, and possess 50-year leases on land. So far, however, the region has yet to attract much capital. By the end of the 1990s, foreign investments totaled no more than $34 million, and progress appears not to have accelerated. Problems include poor infrastructure, the great distances from Pyongyang and other cities, and high wage rates. Unresolved geopolitical tensions also hinder investors. Whatever the region’s ultimate prospects, recent times have seen a decline in South Korean ventures in the North. Would-be foreign investors voice continued frustration with political and economic conditions in the region and the country as a whole. In other moves to increase foreign private investment—and win desperately needed support from international financial institutions—North Korean leaders have lobbied the United States to lift trade sanctions and to remove North Korea’s name from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. They have also attempted rapprochement with Japan. But these efforts too have been generally unsuccessful to date. Other reform efforts have also faltered. Although South Koreans pay up to several hundred dollars a person to visit certain important sites in North Korea, much of the cash appears to have wound up in the hands of the regime for its own uses, not for nationwide development efforts. And although in 2002 North Korea finally liberalized prices and raised wages in much of the country, the nation’s distorted industrial production base, poor trade balance, and limited natural resources have hamstrung the reform move. Inflation has become severe, and some industries are reportedly unable to pay workers the promised higher wages. Prospects for Recovery and Reform Against this backdrop, could a serious program of economic reform buttressed by outside resources succeed? One big plus is the nation’s workforce. As its South Korean counterpart has demonstrated, Korean culture, with its emphases on hard work and group effort, is capable of remarkable things. And North Korea’s population is reasonably well educated, despite heavy doses of propaganda in school and decades of isolation from the outside world. A transition period would be necessary, but on balance North Korea’s human raw materials are impressive. China’s experience also provides an important model for North Korea, as its leaders seem to recognize. The PRC’s ability to take an economy that Mao had largely destroyed and, without losing political power, turn it into one of the fastest- growing countries in the world must hold enormous appeal for North Korea’s leaders. To be sure, reform could be harder in North Korea. China’s reforms began only after Mao had departed the scene, whereas Kim still rules. China was able to accomplish many reforms by making agriculture more efficient, taking workers off the land and putting them into industrial activity. Because North Korea already has a large share of its workers in industry and a relatively small share in agriculture, its leaders would have to take workers from unproductive industry to devote to more productive nonfarm enterprises. But North Korea has available another huge source of productive manpower—its military. Downsizing its armed forces would be a key to reform, for it would free the nation’s youngest, strongest, best workers for important tasks in the years ahead. Many economists are positive about what reform could accomplish. In Avoiding the Apocalypse, Marcus Noland shows that North Korea’s real GDP might be expected to grow anywhere from 60 percent to almost 100 percent under various assumptions about reform. As he puts it, “There are solutions to North Korea’s economic problems?.The real issue is whether reform would be compatible with the continued existence of the Kim Jong Il regime?.” On this latter point, Noland is agnostic, as are we. But that is no argument against proposing reform as part of a grand bargain to Pyongyang and trying to negotiate an acceptable arrangement. Many scholars and officials in Northeast Asia have concluded that North Korea has little choice but to try such reforms. Our plan would encourage leaders in Pyongyang to get the message and act on it. The Role of External Aid in Reform Given the North Korean regime’s apparent interest in economic reform, but uncertainty how to make it work while maintaining political control, how can outside powers play a constructive role? Clearly no guarantees for success exist. But the downsides to trying seem few. The cost to the United States, Japan, and South Korea would be small, especially when weighed against the security implications of the likely alternatives—either a collapsing North Korea possibly willing to sell fissile materials abroad or war on the peninsula. Successful reform would gradually change North Korean society, making life better for citizens while forcing the nation’s leaders to modify at least some of their ways. Failure would leave the United States no worse off than it would have been otherwise, especially since the North Korean nuclear program would have been capped in the interim in any event. (This would be a precondition to any negotiation, along with a U.S. pledge not to use force against North Korea while talks continued and a resumption of U.S. fuel oil shipments to North Korea.) Outside aid would be provided over time, rather than in a lump sum. There would be a strong presumption that the aid would continue from year to year, even in the face of setbacks in reform. But Washington and its allies would retain an unspoken leverage over Pyongyang to continue its compliance with the plan and gradually expand economic reforms. The aid efforts would serve as a form of pilot project, while also giving leaders in Pyongyang confidence that they could manage reform as it gradually spread countrywide. To the extent that North Korea allowed nationwide aid efforts and continued to support the economic reforms needed to make aid work, assistance would expand. In the first couple of years, aid would focus on improving infrastructure, mainly in the special economic zones. Implementing such projects should be relatively straightforward. Broadening the aid effort nationwide would require North Korea to accept a greater international presence on its territory and to accept more changes to its educational, agricultural, public works, and health care sectors. China could mitigate North Korean fears by providing most of the on-the-ground development experts, with funding itself coming in large measure from Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Initial success in the special economic zones might also increase North Korea’s confidence in the package deal. Above and beyond humanitarian relief and energy assistance, North Korea would probably need an average of roughly $2 billion a year for a decade to embark on the path of economic recovery. In per capita terms—roughly $50–$75 a year—the total is commensurate with that given such development success stories as Taiwan and South Korea. There is good reason to think that Japan might provide much of this assistance as a form of reparations for its colonial occupation of Korea until 1945. Japan provided $500 million to South Korea during the 1960s; adjusting that number to account for inflation and economic growth would lead to aid in the range of $5–$10 billion. Other outside assistance would also be critical. As an expression of its good faith and its commitment to improving relations, the United States would have to go beyond its current humanitarian aid, roughly $200 million a year. It would also lift all trade sanctions and provide funds to develop North Korea’s infrastructure. Its annual development aid to North Korea might reach roughly $300 million a year. The total aid—about $500 million annually—would be well below what it gives Israel and Egypt and roughly comparable to the amount it provides to the next tier of U.S. aid recipients—Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Colombia. The United States, one of the least generous aid providers among the major industrial economies as a share of its national wealth, can certainly afford this expansion in aid to North Korea. South Korea and China would clearly be critical players too. Both are already providing more aid to North Korea than the United States is. South Korea, which has largely recovered from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, should be able to provide much more assistance under this type of radical overhaul in North-South relations. But its private sector would be the real growth engine, investing in North Korea on a major scale over time. Aid would largely lay the economic groundwork for this private investment. China would help North Korean leaders learn how to create a mixed economy that retained command features in some areas but enterprise zones in others, one that gradually carried out further price liberalization nationwide. Prospects for Success The prospects for this aid effort are unclear. But it has a good chance of succeeding if North Korea wants to make it work. Expectations, of course, must be reasonable—North Korea need not become another South Korea, or even another China, anytime soon. Vietnam might be a better near-term model. As first priorities, North Korea needs to fix its economy enough to take care of the basic survival needs of its people, get out of its extortionate habit of trying to use dangerous weapons programs to gain hard currency, and stop counterfeiting and drug running. More broadly, it must accept a vision for constructive engagement with the international community. By convincing Pyongyang to do so, the United States and its partners can use aid to achieve much better national security. The benefits of the aid effort would go beyond its immediate prospects for economic success. By uniting the major powers of Northeast Asia in pursuit of a common vision for the Korean peninsula, it would harmonize the interactions of Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing as they face the simmering nuclear crisis. These four capitals have had a difficult time uniting around any Korea policy, and their confusion and open dissension not only have hurt the prospects for collaboration but also complicate coordinating policy in case things go badly wrong and more dire measures need to be considered. A combination of conventional force reductions and major economic reform initiatives strikes many observers as too much to add to the North Korea agenda. But more limited engagement has failed. Focusing on North Korea’s nuclear program and missile programs holds little appeal for President Bush, who feels he is being blackmailed by Pyongyang’s words and deeds in these areas. And without a broader reform effort, North Korea will remain a broken economy whose leaders will almost surely continue to resort to extortion—or worse—given their stark lack of alternatives for gaining hard currency. President Bush’s initial instincts that North Korea needed to reduce its threatening conventional military forces if it wished more aid and diplomatic relations with the United States were on the mark. It is time now to translate that view into a comprehensive policy proposal.
7a60444a342a9e7ede4459216a7cc8ce	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/europes-lost-decade/	Europe’s Lost Decade	Europe’s Lost Decade Europe’s role in world affairs over the next five years will be determined more by how it has handled the euro crisis and challenges to European integration than by its external environment or bureaucratic efforts to forge a common foreign and security policy. During the past five years, analysts have concluded that Europe faces three possible futures. The euro could collapse, Europe could take a great leap towards fiscal and political integration or the continent could ‘muddle through’. In 2012 and 2013, the verdict came in. It is very unlikely that the eurozone will collapse in the next few years and a major leap forward in integration is off the table. We are left with muddling through. But this third scenario has served as a catch-all to describe everything except collapse and unity. Very little work has been done to explore what it actually means. Muddling how? Through to what? The term is something of a misnomer because it incorrectly suggests that Europe is making its way out of its predicament, however inefficiently. The evidence provides no such assurance. Based on current policy and its likely effects, we are looking at a lost European decade of economic stagnation – low growth, high unemployment, zombie banks and vulnerability to exogenous shocks – which will sap Europe’s strength, heighten political tensions about the future of the eurozone and European Union, and cause Europe to play a diminished role in world affairs. To escape this scenario, Europeans must dismiss muddling through as an acceptable alternative to collapse. Instead, it should be recognised for, and treated as, what it is: one of two worst-case scenarios that should be avoided, if at all possible. European policymakers must consider radical steps to escape a lost decade, and the United States should assist Europe in this endeavour. This essay explains why the greater unification and collapse scenarios have failed to materialise, and identifies the characteristics of a prolonged period of stagnation. It considers the impact of stagnation on European integration, the implications for Europe’s global role and what must be done to escape a lost decade. Read the essay » Editor’s note: “Europe’s Lost Decade,” by Thomas Wright received the 2013 Palliser Essay Prize, an annual award in honor of Sir Michael Palliser (1922–2012), former chairman of the council and vice-president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
d37d81ffe4b0e52786fedf93d9e4e8bc	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fabulous-formless-darkness-presidential-nominees-and-the-morass-of-inquiry/	Fabulous Formless Darkness: Presidential Nominees and the Morass of Inquiry	Fabulous Formless Darkness: Presidential Nominees and the Morass of Inquiry The White House wants to know what real estate you or your spouse now own. It also wants a list of properties you and your spouse have owned in the past six years but don’t now. The FBI wants to know about properties in which you have an interest. Presumably the properties you might have an interest in include more than those you own outright. Drop the spouse and drop the past six years. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics wants you to report real properties that you have sold or bought. It also wants you to list real estate assets currently held, as well as any you have sold that made you at least $200. Drop the past six years, but add the past two. Skip the properties you own but have not bought recently. Add your spouse to the mix. Add any dependent children. Then set the values of the transactions within one of eleven ranges. A Senate committee wants to return to the White House question of ownership, drop the spouse, drop the dependent children, take the FBI time frame, drop the past six years, then drop the two years, forget about sales and acquisitions, drop the value ranges. But add a specific value to each of the properties reported. Though W. B. Yeats had in mind the primordial chaos of mythology when he penned my title phrase, the Irish poet could well have been speaking of the inquisition that U.S. presidential appointees face in securing a post in the federal government. Over the past 30 years, the process by which the president’s nominees are confirmed has become an increasingly murky fen of executive branch and Senate forms, strategic entanglements, and “gotcha politics.” According to the 1996 Task Force on Presidential Appointments assembled by the Twentieth Century Fund, the appointment process has discouraged and demoralized many who would work in a presidential administration. A recent survey of former appointees from the past three administrations released by the Presidential Appointee Initiative elicited such descriptions of the process as “embarrassing,” “confusing,” and “a necessary evil.” The PAI study concluded that “the Founders’ model of presidential service is near the breaking point. Not only is the path into presidential service getting longer and more tortuous, it leads to ever more stressful jobs. Those who survive the appointment process often enter office frustrated and fatigued.” Both the Twentieth Century Fund’s task force and the Presidential Appointee Initiative report called for finding ways to diminish the blizzard of form filings. This article explores what such efforts might entail. It describes the different inquiries, identifying the general areas of scrutiny, specific questions and their variants, and the array of relationships between these questions. It demonstrates the degree of commonality in areas of scrutiny and across forms. And it assesses three potential approaches to reform, concluding that two strategies seem most effective. The Formless Darkness Anyone nominated for a position requiring Senate confirmation must file four separate forms. The first, the Personal Data Statement (PDS), originates in the White House and covers some 43 questions laid out in paragraphs of text. Applicants permitted by the White House to go on to the vetting stage fill out three other forms. The first, the Standard Form (SF) 86, develops information for a national security clearance investigation, commonly called the “FBI background check.” The SF-86 has two parts: the standard questionnaire and a “supplemental questionnaire” that repackages some questions from the SF-86 into broader language often similar though not identical to questions asked on the White House PDS. The second additional questionnaire, SF-278, comes from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and gathers information for financial disclosure. It doubles as an annual financial disclosure report for all federal employees above the rank of GS-15. For most nominees, the third additional form comes from the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the nomination. Having returned each of these four forms, some nominees will receive a fifth questionnaire, again from the Senate committee of jurisdiction, with more specific questions about the nominee’s agency or policies it implements. While nominees complain about several aspects of the process, they regularly and uniformly express frustration with the repetitive and duplicative questions. Indeed, nominees leave the impression that the forms contain nothing but repetitive inquiries. Although the problem is not that severe, the degree of repetitiveness does represent an undue burden. As indicated at the outset, for example, a presidential nominee is obliged to muster information on real estate property on four forms involving three separate time periods, three separate classes of owners, and at least two separate types of transactions—providing essentially the same information four times, but sorted each time in a different way. Table 1: How Repetitive Are the Questions? Topic Nonrepetitive Questions Repetitive Questions Total Questions Percent Repetitive Personal & family background 39 22 61 36 Professional & educational background 22 39 61 64 Tax & financial information 11 21 32 66 Domestic help issue 1 0 1 — Public & organizational activities 2 7 9 78 Legal & administrative proceedings 10 25 35 71 Miscellaneous 31 3 34 9 Totals 116 117 233 Avg. 50 Source: White House Personal Data Statement, Standard Form 86, Standard Form 278, and a representative Senate committee questionnaire. Measuring Repetitiveness Just how repetitive are the forms? This section tackles that question, first identifying the different levels of repetitiveness and then assessing the distribution of repetitiveness over the different categories of inquiry pursued in the questionnaires. The questions fall into three repetitiveness categories based on how much common information they require. Identical questions (for example, “last name”) inquire into the same subject without varying the information elicited. Repetitive questions (for example, the real property questions) request information on the same subject but vary it along at least one dimension. And nonrepetitive questions (for example, the “nanny-tax” question asked only on the White House PDS) seek different information. On the four forms mentioned (one a representative Senate committee questionnaire), nominees must respond to 233 questions. They must answer 116 nonrepetitive questions (those without an analog) and 99 repetitive questions (those with analogs). They regularly repeat the answers to 18 identical questions. Thus half of the questions nominees answer have some analogs elsewhere while slightly less than half have no analogs anywhere. Table 1 shows how questions are distributed across the seven topics used in the White House Personal Data Statement—personal and family information, profession and education, taxes and finances, domestic help, organizational activities, legal and administrative activities, and miscellaneous. More than a third of the questions cover personal and family background. This large share derives primarily from the detailed background information required on the SF-86. Most of the remaining questions focus on professional and educational achievement—much emphasized by the PDS and the FBI background check—legal entanglements. Table 1 also reports the degree to which a category includes repetitive questions. One potentially misleading result, however, should be noted. Although the personal and family background category has a repetitiveness rate of 36 percent, it is not as burdensome on nominees as might appear, primarily because it contains almost all the identical questions (15 of the 18 asked) found across the four forms and those questions tend to focus on basic information such as name and telephone number. This category also accounts for the largest number of separate questions (39). One prescription for reducing repetitiveness in this category, then, could simply be to reduce the contact information required of nominees. The greatest repetitive burden occurs on three topics: professional and educational background (64 percent over 61 questions), tax and financial information (66 percent over 32 questions), and legal and administrative proceedings (71 percent over 35 questions). Association with employers and potential conflicts of interest constitute a classic example of repetitiveness. Everyone involved in vetting nominees wants to know about potential conflicts of interest embedded in the nominee’s professional relationships. Patterns of repetitiveness in reporting conflicts of interest resemble those found in reporting property: multiple reporting periods, multiple subjects, and multiple types of information. Real property, of course, is a classic example of the kinds of repetitiveness found under the rubric of tax and financial information. The level of repetitiveness under the rubric of legal and administrative proceedings seems particularly telling because, as noted, the Office of Government Ethics asks no questions about legal entanglements. The repetitiveness results almost exclusively from the FBI’s tendency to turn a single general question from the PDS into multiple specialized variations. For example, while the White House asks about arrests, charges, convictions, and litigation all in one question, the FBI asks a series of questions covering separate classes of offenses and case dispositions: felonies, firearms, pending charges on felonies, courts martial, civil investigations, agency procedures, and so on. The FBI background check also changes the time period from that used on the PDS. Strategies for Rescuing Nominees The informational burden on nominees can be eased by reform in three directions—by narrowing the scope of inquiry, by cutting redundancy, and by reconsidering strategic institutional imperatives. Ask Fewer Questions Reducing the scope of inquiry would be most straightforward. Because fewer than half of all questions asked of nominees are repetitive, reform could properly focus on reducing the number of unique questions. Yet of the 116 questions having no counterpart elsewhere, exactly half (58) are on the FBI background check; more than half of those (37), or a third of the total, involve personal and family background. They establish a host of background characteristics presumably necessary to trace an individual’s identity, including basic descriptors like “height” and “hair color” and spouse citizenship. The only questions that might seem superfluous require information on the nominee’s previous marriages and descriptions of adults who reside with the nominee but are not part of the immediate family. It does not seem likely that trying to ask fewer questions will reduce the burden on nominees, except where authorities are willing to challenge the basic techniques used in carrying out a background investigation. One possible reform in this area would be to transfer basic background information on a nominee before the FBI conducts its investigation. The administration would request a name search on the nominee from the government’s files, transfer the results to the appropriate forms, then hand the forms to the nominee to check, amend, and complete. At that point the background check would begin in earnest. This approach would not only reduce the burden on nominees but also reduce the time the FBI spends retracing its earlier investigatory steps. Table 2: How Repetitive Are the Questions after Reform? Topic Nonrepetitive Questions After Reform Repetitive Questions After Reform Total Questions After Reform Percent Repetitive After Reform Percent Repetitive Before Reform Personal & family background 39 19 58 33 36 Professional & educational background 22 11 33 33 64 Tax & financial information 11 6 17 35 66 Domestic help issue 1 0 1 — — Public & organizational activities 2 7 9 78 78 Legal & administrative proceedings 10 7 17 41 71 Miscellaneous 31 3 34 9 9 Totals 116 53 169 Avg. 31 Avg. 50 Source: White House Personal Data Statement, Standard Form 86, Standard Form 278, and a representative Senate committee questionnaire. Reduce Repetitiveness Reform could also accommodate nominees by reducing repetitiveness, as shown in table 2. Taking this approach increases the number of identical questions by smoothing the questions asked across forms, and it may involve changing congressional mandates. Among the repeated questions, three-quarters require nominees to reshape answers to previous questions. The real property questions described earlier are a perfect example. Nominees must answer six separate though similar questions. Settling on a single question—using the OGE approach, for example—instead of on six, would cut the percentage of repetitiveness in the tax and financial category by 47 percent, from 66 percent to 35 percent, while cutting the number of questions in this category almost in half. To create one common question, the four institutions could rely on the broadest range of information required on any dimension involved in a topic. For example, on the real property example, all institutions could settle on the longer time periods of the White House, the broader definition of subjects used by the FBI, and the broader notion of ownership inherent in the FBI’s term “interest.” In the end, this reform reduces the burden on nominees by affording them a standard format in which to provide information. Rethinking questions about professional relationships could also help. At least ten separate questions involve connections between the nominee and corporations and other institutions. Like the questions on property, they vary by time period, the type of organizations involved, the level of connection to the organization necessary to report, the level of compensation triggering a report, and so forth. Reform here could reduce the number of questions on conflict of interest from ten to, say, three. Other changes could cut the number of questions about education, plans for post-government compensation, and foreign representation. Consolidation in these three groups could reduce eight questions to three. In all, reformulation could decrease repetitiveness in this area by half—from 64 percent to 33 percent. Under the last topic with serious repetitiveness, legal and administrative proceedings, reformulation could eliminate all but seven questions, reducing repetitiveness from 71 percent to 41 percent. Overall, reformulating these questions would reduce repetitiveness in the executive branch forms from almost half of all questions to less than one-third—a very substantial improvement of 38 percent. The difficulty of this approach is that the questions generated by both the FBI in SF-86 and the OGE in SF-278 have substantial institutional justification. In the former, the FBI can rely on expertise about the nature of the investigative process to suggest that it must generate sufficient data to discover security risks. In the latter, the SF-278 has a substantial statutory basis for its inquiries. Changing the form requires changing the statute. Reconsidering Institutional Imperatives A final reform strategy would be for one of the four institutions to surrender control over information and rely instead on information already gathered by others. The White House has the best opportunity to take this approach. Because it initiates the process, it can afford to limit its own information requirements by securing the information delivered to the other agencies. Instead of offering its own form, the White House could rely on the fact that it can see how applicants fill out their SF-86 and draft their SF-278 as part of the initial negotiations that identify eventual nominees. Based on those drafts, the White House would then decide whether to carry through its intent to nominate, thereby triggering the appointment vetting process. Because almost all the PDS questions are repeated on other forms, this strategy would reduce repetitiveness to around 28 percent, slightly less than the more complicated strategy outlined earlier. For its own deliberations, the White House would not lose any relevant information. Except for the “nanny question,” the PDS provides information secured on other forms. Because the PDS does not provide information on any “decision criteria” unique to White House concerns, eliminating it would not adversely affect White House considerations. The Senate Forms Except for a few questions requiring the nominee to list publications and honors, Senate committee questionnaires differ from executive branch forms in two important respects. First, they attempt to commit nominees to resolving “constitutional” conflicts in the Senate’s favor. For example, committee questionnaires regularly require nominees to commit to reporting to the Senate on policy decisions that vary from legislative policy. No amount of reform will likely reduce the interest of the Senate in committing nominees to follow committee dictates on policy differences. Second, many Senate committees require more detailed financial information than the executive branch questionnaires, in the form of “net worth” statements. The issue here has become the necessity of requiring information about net worth when it does not clearly indicate the kinds of relationships typically understood to create conflicts of interest. The Relative Ease of Reform Extracting nominees from the formless darkness of the appointment questionnaires requires only a few simple changes in the requirements imposed on them for information. As noted, streamlining information across forms, taking the highest and broadest levels of variation as the focus, greatly reduces repetitiveness without severely curtailing the information made available. Without even attempting to assess either what information is necessary to select the president’s team or whether decision criteria are appropriate, the government can make big improvements and thereby begin to reverse the unwholesome atmosphere for potential appointees.
647010c966ab20969ea12527af80841d	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/family-structure-the-growing-importance-of-class/	Family Structure: The Growing Importance of Class	Family Structure: The Growing Importance of Class In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan released a controversial report written for his then boss, President Lyndon Johnson. Entitled “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” it described the condition of lower-income African American families and catalyzed a highly acrimonious, decades-long debate about black culture and family values in America. The report cited a series of staggering statistics showing high rates of divorce, unwed childbearing, and single motherhood among black families. “The white family has achieved a high degree of stability and is maintaining that stability,” the report said. “By contrast, the family structure of lower class Negroes is highly unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete breakdown.” Nearly fifty years later, the picture is even more grim—and the statistics can no longer be organized neatly by race. In fact, Moynihan’s bracing profile of the collapsing black family in the 1960s looks remarkably similar to a profile of the average white family today. White households have similar—or worse—statistics of divorce, unwed childbearing, and single motherhood as the black households cited by Moynihan in his report. In 2000, the percentage of white children living with a single parent was identical to the percentage of black children living with a single parent in 1960: 22 percent. What was happening to black families in the ’60s can be reinterpreted today not as an indictment of the black family but as a harbinger of a larger collapse of traditional living arrangements—of what demographer Samuel Preston, in words that Moynihan later repeated, called “the earthquake that shuddered through the American family.” That earthquake has not affected all American families the same way. While the Moynihan report focused on disparities between white and black, increasingly it is class, and not just race, that matters for family structure. Although blacks as a group are still less likely to marry than whites, gaps in family formation patterns by class have increased for both races, with the sharpest declines in marriage rates occurring among the least educated of both races. For example, in 1960, 76 percent of adults with a college degree were married, compared to 72 percent of those with a high school diploma—a gap of only 4 percentage points. By 2008, not only was marriage less likely, but that gap had quadrupled, to 16 percentage points, with 64 percent of adults with college degrees getting married compared to only 48 percent of adults with a high school diploma. A report from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia summed up the data well: “Marriage is an emerging dividing line between America’s moderately educated middle and those with college degrees.” The group for whom marriage has largely disappeared now includes not just unskilled blacks but unskilled whites as well. Indeed, for younger women without a college degree, unwed childbearing is the new normal. These differences in family formation are a problem not only for those concerned with “family values” per se, but also for those concerned with upward mobility in a society that values equal opportunity for its children. Because the breakdown of the traditional family is overwhelmingly occurring among working-class Americans of all races, these trends threaten to make the U.S. a much more class-based society over time. The well-educated and upper-middle-class parents who are still forming two-parent families are able to invest time and resources in their children—time and resources that lower- and working-class single mothers, however impressive their efforts to be both good parents and good breadwinners, simply do not have. The striking similarities between what happened to black Americans at an earlier stage in our history and what is happening now to white working-class Americans may shed new light on old debates about cultural versus structural explanations of poverty. What’s clear is that economic opportunity, while not the only factor affecting marriage, clearly matters. The journalist Hanna Rosin describes the connection between declining economic opportunities for men and declining rates of marriage in her book The End of Men. Like Moynihan, she points to the importance of job opportunities for men in maintaining marriage as an institution. The disappearance of well-paying factory jobs has, in her view, led to the near collapse of marriage in towns where less educated men used to be able to support a family and a middle-class lifestyle, earning $70,000 or more in a single year. As these jobs have been outsourced or up-skilled, such men either are earning less or are jobless altogether, making them less desirable marriage partners. Other researchers, including Kathryn Edin at Harvard, Andrew Cherlin at Johns Hopkins, and Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, drawing on close observations of other working-class communities, have made similar arguments. Family life, to some extent, adapts to the necessities thrown up by the evolution of the economy. Just as joblessness among young black men contributed to the breakdown of the black family that Moynihan observed in the ’60s, more recent changes in technology and global competition have hollowed out the job market for less educated whites. Unskilled white men have even less attachment to the labor force today than unskilled black men did fifty years ago, leading to a decline in their marriage rates in a similar way. In 1960, the employment rate of prime-age (twenty-five to fifty-five) black men with less than a high school education was 80 percent. Fast-forward to 2000, and the employment rate of white men with less than a high school education was much lower, at 65 percent—and even for white high school graduates it was only 84 percent. Without an education in today’s economy, being white is no guarantee of being able to find a job. That’s not to say that race isn’t an issue. It’s clear that black men have been much harder hit by the disappearance of jobs for the less skilled than white men. Black employment rates for those with less than a college education have sunk to near-catastrophic levels. In 2000, only 63 percent of black men with only a high school diploma (compared with 84 percent of white male graduates) were employed. Since the recession, those numbers have fallen even farther. And even black college graduates are not doing quite as well as their white counterparts. Based on these and other data, I believe it would be a mistake to conclude that race is unimportant; blacks continue to face unique disadvantages because of the color of their skin. It ought to be possible to say that class is becoming more important, but that race still matters a lot. Most obviously, the black experience has been shaped by the impact of slavery and its ongoing aftermath. Even after emancipation and the civil rights revolution in the 1960s, African Americans faced exceptional challenges like segregated and inferior schools and discrimination in the labor market. It would take at least a generation for employers to begin to change their hiring practices and for educational disparities to diminish; even today these remain significant barriers. A recent audit study found that white applicants for low-wage jobs were twice as likely to be called in for interviews as equally qualified black applicants. Black jobless rates not only exceed those of whites; in addition, a single-minded focus on declining job prospects for men and its consequences for family life ignores a number of other factors that have led to the decline of marriage. Male employment prospects can lead to more marriages, but scholars such as Harvard’s David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks have argued that economic factors alone cannot explain the wholesale changes in the frequency of single parenting, unwed births, divorce, and marriage, especially among the least educated, that are leading to growing gaps between social classes. So what else explains the decline of marriage? First, and critically important in my view, is the changing role of women. In my first book, Time of Transition: The Growth of Families Headed by Women, published in 1975, my coauthor and I argued that it was not just male earnings that mattered, but what men could earn relative to women. When women don’t gain much, if anything, from getting married, they often choose to raise children on their own. Fifty years ago, women were far more economically dependent on marriage than they are now. Today, women are not just working more, they are better suited by education and tradition to work in such rapidly growing sectors of the economy as health care, education, administrative jobs, and services. While some observers may see women taking these jobs as a matter of necessity—and that’s surely a factor—we shouldn’t forget the revolution in women’s roles that has made it possible for them to support a family on their own. In a fascinating piece of academic research published in the Journal of Human Resources in 2011, Scott Hankins and Mark Hoekstra discovered that single women who won between $25,000 and $50,000 in the Florida lottery were 41 percent to 48 percent less likely to marry over the following three years than women who won less than $1,000. We economists call this a “natural experiment,” because it shows the strong influence of women’s ability to support themselves without marriage—uncontaminated by differences in personal attributes that may also affect one’s ability or willingness to marry. My own earlier research also suggested that the relative incomes of wives and husbands predicted who would divorce and who would not. Women’s growing economic independence has interacted with stubborn attitudes about changing gender roles. When husbands fail to adjust to women’s new breadwinning responsibilities (who cooks dinner or stays home with a sick child when both parents work?) the couple is more likely to divorce. It may be that well-educated younger men and women continue to marry not only because they can afford to but because many of the men in these families have adopted more egalitarian attitudes. While a working-class male might find such attitudes threatening to his manliness, an upper-middle-class man often does not, given his other sources of status. But when women find themselves having to do it all—that is, earn money in the workplace and shoulder the majority of child care and other domestic responsibilities—they raise the bar on whom they’re willing to marry or stay married to. These gender-related issues may play an even greater role for black women, since while white men hold slightly more high school diplomas and baccalaureate degrees than white women, black women are much better educated than black men. That means it’s more difficult for well-educated black women to find black partners with comparable earning ability and social status. In 2010, black women made 87 percent of what black men did, whereas white women made only 70 percent of what white men earned. For less educated black women, there is, in addition, a shortage of black men because of high rates of incarceration. One estimate puts the proportion of black men who will spend some time in prison at almost one third. In a forthcoming book, Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City, Timothy Nelson and Edin, the Harvard sociologist, describe in great detail the kind of role reversal that has occurred among low-income families, both black and white. What they saw were mothers who were financially responsible for children, and fathers who were trying to maintain ties to their children in other ways, limited by the fact that these fathers have very little money, are often involved in drugs, crime, or other relationships, and rarely live with the mother and child. In other words, low-income fathers are not only withdrawing from the traditional breadwinner role, they’re staging a wholesale retreat—even as they make attempts to remain involved in their children’s lives. Normative changes figure as well. As the retreat from marriage has become more common, it’s also become more acceptable. That acceptance came earlier among blacks than among whites because of their own distinct experiences. Now that unwed childbearing is becoming the norm among the white working class as well, there is no longer much of a stigma associated with single parenting, and there is a greater willingness on the part of the broader community to accept the legitimacy of single-parent households. Despite this change in norms, however, most Americans, whatever their race or social class, still aspire to marriage. It’s just that their aspirations are typically unrealistically high and their ability to achieve that ideal is out of step with their opportunities and lifestyle. As scholars such as Cherlin and Edin have emphasized, marriage is no longer a precursor to adult success. Instead, when it still takes place, marriage is more a badge of success already achieved. In particular, large numbers of young adults are having unplanned pregnancies long before they can cope with the responsibilities of parenthood. Paradoxically, although they view marriage as something they cannot afford, they rarely worry about the cost of raising a child. Along with many others, I remain concerned about the effects on society of this wholesale retreat from stable two-parent families. The consequences for children, especially, are not good. Their educational achievements, and later chances of becoming involved in crime or a teen pregnancy are, on average, all adversely affected by growing up in a single-parent family. But I am also struck by the lessons that emerge from looking at how trends in family formation have differed by class as well as by race. If we were once two countries, one black and one white, we are now increasingly becoming two countries, one advantaged and one disadvantaged. Race still affects an individual’s chances in life, but class is growing in importance. This argument was the theme of William Julius Wilson’s 1980 book, The Declining Significance of Race. More recent evidence suggests that, despite all the controversy his book engendered, he was right. To say that class is becoming more important than race isn’t to dismiss race as a very important factor. Blacks have faced, and will continue to face, unique challenges. But when we look for the reasons why less skilled blacks are failing to marry and join the middle class, it is largely for the same reasons that marriage and a middle-class lifestyle is eluding a growing number of whites as well. The jobs that unskilled men once did are gone, women are increasingly financially independent, and a broad cultural shift across America has created a new normal. Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the January/February 2013 issue of The Washington Monthly under a different title.
a1b150fda074476c44e5ad547ade1620	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fifty-years-after-black-september-in-jordan/	Fifty years after “Black September” in Jordan	Fifty years after “Black September” in Jordan The Jordanian civil war in 1970, better known as Black September, was decided by an intelligence success led by King Hussein and his chief of intelligence. It was a mystery for years until revealed in the memoir of a former CIA officer serving in the region at the time. President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger took great credit for managing the Black September crisis, but in fact their role was marginal to the outcome of the biggest threat to Hussein’s survival, the Iraqi army in eastern Jordan.
f85e29a84bf12cf3100707e92995d308	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/finding-a-new-normal-in-u-s-india-relations/	Finding a New Normal in U.S.-India Relations	Finding a New Normal in U.S.-India Relations To hear recent commentary on US-India relations, one would think observers were talking about a fraught relationship, full of crises between two countries with little in common and little interaction. This narrative, however, ignores the broader dynamics of the relationship, as well as how far it has come in a short period of time – it was only about a decade and a half ago, after all, that the US had sanctions on India in place. Today, India’s relationship with the US is broader and deeper than ever before – yes, this is a cliché, but one that also happens to be true. Cooperation ranges from India buying C-130s from America to the US Centres for Disease Control helping their Indian counterpart establish an Epidemic Intelligence Service; it spans from sectors like education to economics. Bilateral trade and investment has increased; with over $120 billion in trade in goods and services, the US is India’s largest trading partner. Significantly, the economic relationship has been a two-way street. American companies have invested an estimated $50 billion in India and there’s an estimated $25 billion of Indian investment in the US. Bilateral defence trade has gone from zero to $10 billion dollars, with American companies wanting to sell more to India. In addition, in a few years, US liquefied natural gas exports to India are scheduled to begin. Over the last year and a half, dozens of senior American and Indian policymakers from both the central and state levels have exchanged visits. It’s also no longer unusual for US governors (like those from Arizona and Kentucky) or mayors (like those from San Antonio and Indianapolis) to visit India or for chief ministers from India to travel to the US – even from landlocked states like Madhya Pradesh that haven’t traditionally been as globally connected. There are indeed so many dialogues, working groups, and visiting business and government delegations, that observers seem to lose track of the exact number. On people-to-people ties, there are over 2.2 million non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin in the US – more than in any other single country in the world. Furthermore, in poll after poll, the Indian public expresses support for good relations with the US, often urging that they be improved further. Indian officials, in turn, admit that these good relations and US interest in India has benefited India’s relations with countries like China, Japan and Saudi Arabia. An Indian official recently referred to this existing phase of relations between the two countries as one of normalcy. Currently, however, despite all these links between India and the US, normalcy seems to have brought with it loud, public condemnations, a sense of drift, an emphasis on differences, and even a questioning of the value of the relationship. The challenge for the new government in Delhi – and the opportunity – will be in finding a new normal. Any new government will first have to assess how significant the US is for India. It will have to ask the question: Is this bilateral relationship ‘India’s most important foreign policy relationship’, as the Indian ambassador to the US recently stated, or is the US at least one of India’s most crucial partners? There are reasons to answer yes. The US will matter for India – and not just for the positive reasons that policy-makers point out when they’re listing areas of convergence. Given the global role and power of the US – with an improving economy and in the midst of an energy revolution – even if Indian leaders are not convinced that the US can play a critical role in helping India achieve its strategic and economic interests, they will have to grapple with the fact that the US will play a role in shaping the environment in which India is operating and, potentially, could play spoiler vis-à-vis Indian interests. Whether a relationship with the US is seen as important for positive or negative reasons, a new Indian government will have to deal with five dangers vis-à-vis the India-US relationship: drift, the dominance of differences, disillusionment, the difficulties of dealing with another democracy, and the dilution of India’s importance. It will also have to seek new opportunities to find a new normal that will benefit Indian interests. Drift: Policymakers in both India and the US are likely to continue to be domestically preoccupied over the next few years. Strengthening the economy and creating jobs at home are likely to be priorities in both countries. In the US, the mid-term elections in November 2014 will be the main focus of political attention. Once that is over, the 2016 presidential election season will begin – some would argue that it already has. There’s a possibility that like his predecessors, President Obama will experience a lame-duck phase – one that could be challenging in terms of getting things done. However, it could also be an opportunity for India-US relations. American presidents are thought to have more flexibility on foreign policy during such phases, and if the president believes that a strong relationship with India will be one of his key legacies, he might be inclined to pay greater attention to it. In the foreign policy realm, both India and the US will likely have more pressing concerns for the next few years. On the US side, the last two or three years have involved a focus on crises in the Middle East and Ukraine and, to a certain extent, in East Asia. As a result, many are wondering what happened to the pivot or rebalance to Asia in which the Obama administration had seen India as playing a crucial role. A new Indian government, in turn, might find itself preoccupied with foreign policy issues closer to home. With limited bureaucratic capacity (time, energy, resources), these other foreign policy priorities and crises might constrain the amount of attention Indian and US policymakers can devote to India-US relations. Having recently experienced a diplomatic crisis and seen its impact on the relationship, neither country would like this kind of (negative) attention. However, absent crises or high profile initiatives (such as the nuclear deal) that can focus bureaucratic and political attention on the relationship, it might suffer from inattention. Dilution of importance: Inattention can also stem from a sense that the other country isn’t as important – and the potential dilution of American importance in India and Indian importance in the US is a danger. Some doubters in India have questioned the value of getting closer to a country that they believe is on the decline. The American investment in India, on its part, has been predicated on at least three assumptions. For some, it has been the idea of India that has been important – a diverse, developing democracy that could be a partner. For others, India’s economic potential has been what makes it attractive. For yet others, it has been India’s strategic potential, especially as a balance against China. India’s importance because of the latter, however, can wax and wane with the health of Sino-US relations or with assessments of India’s willingness and capacity. As for economic potential, there has been more doubt than hope on this front over the last three years. Recent developments have also meant that the India-as-a-role-model constituency is disappointed. All this has resulted in the devaluation of India’s stock in the US. This has been exacerbated by the fact that some of the strongest advocates of strong India-US relations in the US government have moved on to other positions. Disillusionment: The two countries are also no strangers to disillusionment. Often this is a result of heightened expectations that are left unmet. The disillusionment problem is exacerbated because, in many cases, the returns on the investment in the relationship may only become apparent in the medium to long term. It perhaps also results from a phenomenon that one might call India-US exceptionalism: each of the countries involved not just thinks that it is exceptional, but that the other should make exceptions for it. Each also expects more from the other than perhaps any other of its allies or partners and expects that, as a fellow democracy, the other should understand its constraints. Each also seems to believe that the other does not understand its exceptionalism, leading to doubt and disappointment. Differences: Over the last year such disillusionment has been evident, especially as differences have dominated the relationship – or at least the narrative about it. Over the next few years, these differences might continue to be in the spotlight instead of the bilateral achievements that tend to take place behind the scenes. Progress in terms of style (the bureaucracies developing habits of cooperation) or substance (in areas like intelligence sharing) are sometimes invisible. But even when progress is visible, achievements might get little, if any, attention – especially with the media seeming to believe that good news doesn’t necessarily make good copy. A new Indian government could have to deal with potential differences with the US on a number of issues. The US relationship with Pakistan is one, especially with concerns that US actions in the run-up to the 2014 draw down of troops in Afghanistan will compromise Indian interests vis-à-vis Afghanistan, Pakistan and, potentially, counter-terrorism. As Washington continues to calibrate its relationship with Beijing, concerns about a China-US G-2 may also arise again. Similarly, Sino-Indian cooperation might create consternation in some quarters in the US. If US relations with Iran deteriorate again, that might be another area of difference, as might US-India divergences on other countries. Renewed activity in three multilateral arenas – trade, non-proliferation, climate change – might also bring India-US differences to the fore. Finally, growing economic ties will mean that economic tangles will naturally increase. This has already been evident, with US companies and legislators complaining about domestic sourcing, the state of intellectual property protection, and taxation and regulatory policies in India. Indian companies, on their part, have expressed concerns about protectionism, immigration reform and market access in the US. Dealing with another democracy: All these differences are likely to be complicated and exacerbated by an element that also facilitates the India-US relationship – the fact that both countries are democracies. This factor means that debates and differences will play out publicly, negotiations will take place under the gaze of a free press, and domestic politics will have to be navigated and negotiated. Adding to the complications is another element that has driven good relations: the breadth and depth of relations between these two democracies. The quantitative and qualitative change in the relationship means that it involves more issues, interactions and stakeholders than ever before, making greater friction natural. The relationship also involves engagement on issues that span the foreign-domestic divide, including in the economic, energy, education and immigration realms. These issues will require policymakers to tread carefully, given that both countries are sensitive to outsiders trying to influence their domestic politics and policies. However, the depth and breadth of the relationship also provides an opportunity for the new Indian government in its relations with the US. The nature of the relationship means there’s not only one particular person or department or company interested in a good working relationship. This is only one factor that creates opportunity. Second, there is bipartisan support for India in the US, particularly in the mainstream of the Democratic and Republican parties. Third, India can make the case that it is – especially through its companies’ investment in the US – contributing to US policy-makers’ economic goals. Fourth, while in the US there are negative references to outsourcing and complaints about Indian trade and investment policies, India is not seen as a strategic threat. On the contrary, American policymakers have reiterated in public and private venues that the US supports India’s rise. Chinese observers indeed comment on the difference between Washington’s pronouncements vis-à-vis India and China in this regard. The reason offered for this support is that a strong, prosperous India will be good for US geopolitical and economic interests, even if this India won’t always be on the same page as the US and will sometimes create problems for it. Fifth, there is a value-based reason that many in the US want India to succeed – this is where ‘the democracy thing’ plays a positive role. While American commentators often state that their country is unique, a strong, successful, democratic India – in some ways in its own image – is seen by some in the US as validation of the democratic idea and thus as a role model (the unstated part being the contrast to China). This is especially important at a time when democracy hasn’t been getting good press. Taking advantage of these opportunities, however, will require avoiding the dangers mentioned above. A new Indian government will have to ensure that this relationship doesn’t just get bureaucratic attention, but that of the political leadership as well. There is a tendency to take this bilateral relationship for granted. But, natural as India-US relations might seem, without nurture they won’t get beyond the current state. A new Indian government will also have to deal with differences. Differences are unavoidable; India and the US will differ at times, as all allies and partners do – sometimes the two countries will agree on ends, but disagree on means. However, India and the US have shown an ability to manage differences – for example, they successfully navigated the Iran sanctions issue in 2012, when US Congressional unhappiness with Indian oil imports from Iran could have caused serious tensions and loss of support for India on Capitol Hill. Working with American counterparts, Indian officials can also try to minimize the negative impact of differences, for example, through advance consultation and notification. Officials can also deal with differences privately to the extent possible, without assuming the worst of the other side. Furthermore, it’s worth planning for the scenario of such differences becoming public. The next Indian government can’t make policy always thinking, ‘What will Arnab say?,’ but such planning will help if disagreements do dominate the headlines. And, when differences do become public, it would help if the two sides worked to temper the public discussion. In dealing with another democracy, it would also help if the next government (and its American counterpart) tried to support – rather than undermine – the other side in dealing with various domestic constituencies. Sometimes, this will also require showing the same patience with the domestic political constraints their American counterparts face that Indian officials expect or request. On a less defensive note, a new Indian government can also consolidate existing constituencies and create new ones for the relationship in India and the US among officials, legislators, corporations, and individuals outside government. First, it can strengthen the Indian economy and its security. This will increase India’s importance and alleviate the problems of ‘India fatigue’ and ‘India irrelevance’ in the US. Improved economic growth and a sense of momentum will be especially likely to change the narrative about India and India-US relations for the better. To put it bluntly, if India is once again seen as a winner, it will quieten the whiners. Moreover, it will change how countries around the world perceive India and an India taken seriously globally will be taken more seriously by the US. Second, a new Indian government can work with the US to implement existing agreements, conclude outstanding negotiations and explore new opportunities, especially on the economic front. There are potential initiatives that can be taken in the trade and investment, defence trade, space, maritime, energy and education realms. There are regions, such as Southeast Asia or Africa or the Indian Ocean, where India and the US might consider working together on specific initiatives. What about a big-ticket item, which some have called for? Perhaps, but only if the associated agreements are not just negotiated, but implemented as well. A big idea unfulfilled, on the other hand, can lead to disillusionment – as with the two countries’ civil nuclear deal. Third, the Indian government can create greater awareness of the opportunities India offers, as well as the constraints that exist in the country. There is a tendency in the policymaking community and the public in India and the US to assume that they know the other country. Yet one thing the recent crisis involving the detention of an Indian diplomat showed is how little the two countries know or understand each other, often reverting to long-held negative stereotypes in times of crises. A new Indian government can encourage learning about contemporary India. It can facilitate study tours for influential Americans – and not just or even primarily for Indiawallahs. The next government can also ease the ability of a greater number of Americans to work and study in India – including by making easier the research and employment visa application processes and, perhaps, by encouraging the private sector to create a significant scholarship fund for US students designed to increase understanding of contemporary India. It should also promote greater learning about the US in India. There are few real experts focusing on the US in India – this needs to be rectified, especially if Indian government and business would like to understand the country in which and with whom they’re increasingly operating. Finally, a new Indian government can act on initiatives to show specific US constituencies – especially political and corporate ones – that their investment in India can yield tangible benefits. Both India and the US need to get beyond asserting that the bilateral relationship is not transactional, while constantly asking of the other: ‘What have you done for me lately?’ Realistically, foreign relations are not altruistic; if the India-US partnership is to be sustainable and if the new normal is to be at a higher, more constructive level, each needs to feel that they derive or will derive benefit from it. Taking advantage of some of these opportunities will help not just if and when an Indian government believes that the US will be a supporter vis-à-vis Indian objectives, but also if and when it proves to be – or has the potential to be – a spoiler. This article was first published in Seminar Magazine .
c46ad43a9e6cd782c8d1006a07a6f462	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/france-and-europe-an-ambivalent-relationship/?shared=email&msg=fail	France and Europe: An Ambivalent Relationship	France and Europe: An Ambivalent Relationship France’s relationship with Europe is paradoxical. On one hand, France has long been a strong supporter of the idea of a united Europe. Aristide Briand, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman were the founding fathers of European integration. This enthusiasm also stems from the intellectual, idealistic and universal dimensions of French philosophy. But France is also a country with a long history as a nation-state and an early experience with global power. Even when France’s position within Europe was weakened during the 19th century as a result of the rising power of Germany, France was able to maintain its importance in the global arena. It found solace in its colonial adventures and by 1914 was the second largest colonial empire in the world. And even when the Cold War forced Europe to rely on the United States, France was quick to demonstrate its independence and weight during the presidency of Charles de Gaulle. Since the break-up of the Soviet bloc and the reunification of Germany, France’s place at the center of Europe has become threatened. France’s reaction was to step up its attempts to bring about European integration, especially through promotion of the single currency. France decided also to help to create a political Europe (“Europe puissance”) by promoting the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and by re-launching a common European security and defense policy (ESDP), together with the UK, at the 1998 St. Malo Summit. Three lessons about France’s approach to Europe derive from the past and apply to the present. First, the concept of Europe is popular in France and is perceived by many as a way of avoiding both the conflicts of European history and the problems of a balance of power in Europe. View Full Article (PDF—87kb) Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
8c3002902459090d8f32ce55bad342b5	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/heavy-traffic-international-migration-in-an-era-of-globalization/	Heavy Traffic: International Migration in an Era of Globalization	Heavy Traffic: International Migration in an Era of Globalization At the start of the new millennium, some 150 million people, or 2.5 percent of the world’s population, live outside their country of birth. That number has doubled since 1965. With poverty, political repression, human rights abuses, and conflict pushing more and more people out of their home countries while economic opportunities, political freedom, physical safety, and security pull both highly skilled and unskilled workers into new lands, the pace of international migration is unlikely to slow any time soon. Few countries remain untouched by migration. Nations as varied as Haiti, India, and the former Yugoslavia feed international flows. The United States receives by far the most international migrants, but migrants also pour into Germany, France, Canada, Saudia Arabia, and Iran. Some countries, such as Mexico, send emigrants to other lands, but also receive immigrants?both those planning to settle and those on their way elsewhere. Institutions and laws for achieving cooperation among receiving, source, and transit countries are in their infancy. The World Trade Organization oversees the movement of goods worldwide and the International Monetary Fund monitors the global movement of capital, but no comparable institution regulates the movements of people. Nor does a common understanding exist among states, or experts for that matter, as to the costs and benefits of freer or more restrictive immigration policies. The surge in international migration, though, is prompting states everywhere to recognize the need for greater harmonization of policies and approaches. Bilateral discussions of migration issues?between the United States and Mexico, for example, over an expanded guestworker program and amnesty for unauthorized Mexican workers?have become more commonplace. During the past decade, regional groups have been set up in the Americas, Europe, East Asia, Africa, and elsewhere to allow receiving, source, and transit countries to address issues of mutual concern. New Trends Economic, geopolitical, and demographic trends reinforce the need to consolidate these regional institutions and begin to develop a global regime for managing migration. Economic trends influence migration patterns in many ways. Multinational corporations, for example, press governments to ease movements of executives, managers, and other key personnel from one country to another. When labor shortages appear, whether in information technology or seasonal agriculture, companies also seek to import foreign workers to fill jobs. Although the rules for admitting foreign workers are largely governed by national legislation, regional and international trade regimes such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Trade in Services include provisions for admitting foreign executives, managers, and professionals. Under NAFTA, for example, U.S., Canadian, and Mexican (as of 2004) professionals in designated occupations may work in the other NAFTA countries without regard to numerical limits imposed on other foreign nationals. The growth in global trade and investment also affects source countries. Economic development has long been regarded as the best long-term solution to emigration pressures arising from the lack of economic opportunities in developing countries. Almost uniformly, however, experts caution that emigration pressures are likely to remain and, possibly, increase before the long-term benefits accrue. Wayne Cornelius and Philip Martin postulate that as developing countries’ incomes begin to rise and opportunities to leave home increase, emigration first increases and declines only later as wage differentials between emigration and immigration countries fall. Italy and Korea, in moving from emigration to immigration countries, give credence to that theory. Geopolitical changes since the Cold War era offer both opportunities and challenges for managing international migration, particularly refugee movements. During the Cold War, the United States and other Western countries saw refugee policy as an instrument of foreign policy. The Cold War made it all but impossible to address the roots of refugee movements, which often resulted from surrogate conflicts in Southeast Asia, Central America, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa. Few refugees were able or willing to return to lands still dominated by conflict or Communism. With the end of the Cold War, new opportunities to return emerged as decades-old conflicts came to an end. Democratization and increased respect for human rights took hold in many countries, as witnessed in the formerly Communist countries of East Europe, making repatriation a reality for millions of refugees who had been displaced for years. At the same time, rabid nationalism fueled new conflicts that have led to massive displacement in places such as the former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region of Africa. When the displacements spilled over to other countries, or became humanitarian crises that threatened the lives of millions, governments proved willing to intervene?even with military force?on behalf of victims. Faced with crises in northern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and east Timor, classic notions of sovereignty that would once have precluded such intervention came under considerable pressure. On the positive side, people who once would have had to cross international borders to find aid could now find it at home. On the negative side, however, the so-called safe zones established in Bosnia, Iraq, and elsewhere often proved far from secure, leaving internal refugees more vulnerable than those able to cross into neighboring countries. Demographic trends also reinforce arguments for a global regime to manage migration. Worldwide, fertility rates are falling, although developing countries continue to see rapid population growth. In most industrialized countries, fertility levels are well below replacement rates. In Europe, the average number of children born per woman is 1.4; Italy’s fertility rate is 1.2. Countries with declining fertility face the likelihood of a fall in total population, leading some demographers to see a looming population implosion. Such nations can also expect an aging population, with fewer working-age people for each older person. Although immigration will not solve the problem, it will help ease labor shortages and redress somewhat the aging of the society. Demographic trends also help explain emigration pressures in Africa, Latin America, and some parts of Asia, where fertility rates are high. Rapidly growing societies often cannot generate enough jobs to keep pace with new entries into the labor force. Growth may also cause environmental degradation, particularly when land use policies do not protect fragile ecosystems. Natural disasters also wreak havoc on densely populated areas in poor countries. Recent hurricanes in Honduras and Nicaragua and earthquakes in El Salvador and India displaced huge numbers of people from ravaged homes and communities. New Responses In 1997, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed the possibility of convening a conference on international migration and development. Upon consulting with UN member governments, he found insufficient consensus about what such a conference could accomplish and reported: “The disparate experiences of countries or subregions with regard to international migration suggest that, if practical solutions are to be found, they are likely to arise from the consideration of the particular situation of groups of countries sharing similar positions or concerns with the global international migration systemÉ. In the light of this, it may be expedient to pursue regional or subregional approaches whenever possible.” Since 1997, regional processes have matured. Perhaps most developed is the Regional Migration Conference, the so-called Puebla Group, which brings together all the countries of Central and North America for regular dialogue on migration issues, including an annual session at the vice-ministerial level. The Puebla Group’s Plan of Action calls for cooperation in exchanging information on migration policy, exploring links between development and migration, combating migrant trafficking, returning extra-regional migrants, and ensuring full respect for the human rights of migrants, as well as reintegrating repatriated migrants, equipping and modernizing immigration control systems, and training officials in migration policy and procedures. Discussions have led law enforcement officials of the United States, Mexico, and several Central American countries to cooperate in arresting and prosecuting members of large-scale smuggling and trafficking operations that move migrants illegally across borders and then force them to work in prostitution, sweatshops, and other exploitive activities. Similar regional groups are working in East and Southeast Asia. The “Manila Process” focuses on unauthorized migration and trafficking in East and Southeast Asia. Since 1996, it has brought together each year 17 countries for regular exchange of information. The Asia-Pacific Consultations include governments in Asia and Oceania and focus on a broad range of population movements in the region. Both ongoing dialogues were strengthened by a 1999 International Symposium on Migration hosted by the Royal Thai government. In the resulting Bangkok Declaration on Irregular Migration, 19 Asian countries agreed to cooperate to combat smuggling and trafficking. Other such groups are in the making in the Southern Cone of South America, in western and southern Africa, and in the Mediterranean. The intent is to bring together the governments of all countries involved in migration, whether origin, transit, or receiving. At present, the groups are forums for exchanging information and perspectives, although the more developed ones, such as the Puebla Group, are leading to joint action as well. Given the lack of sharedinformation or consensus about migration policies and practices, the discussion stage is a necessary first step in developing the capacity for joint efforts. Steps Toward a Global Regime Will these regional processes lead to a global migration regime? It is too early to know. Three issues must first be addressed. First, states must reach a consensus that harmonizing policies will make migration more orderly, safe, and manageable. And in fact signs exist of growing convergence among regional groups in setting out an agenda for harmonization. Many items on regional agendas relate to unauthorized migration?and how best to deter it, consistent with respect for the rule of law and the human rights of migrants. Although source and destination countries may differ still about what causes unauthorized migration, agreement is growing on some approaches to it?for example, that curbing alien smuggling and trafficking (a global enterprise that nets an estimated $7?10 billion a year) requires international cooperation. Other issues arise in addressing forced migration. How, for example, should states protect people fleeing repression and conflict? When conflicts end and migrants no longer need protection, when and how should they be required to return? The growing use of temporary protection, as in the crises in Bosnia and Kosovo, has led European Union member states to place a high priority on harmonizing temporary protection policies and mechanisms for burden sharing. At the same time, the Puebla Group has focused on temporary protection of victims of natural disasters in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. More recently, issues involving legal admissions have appeared on regional agendas. When and to whom should visa restrictions apply? Under what circumstances should family reunification be guaranteed? Who should be eligible for work and residence permits? What rights should accrue to those legally admitted for work or family purposes? Answers to these questions will take time because states still differ widely in their attitudes and policies toward legal immigration. But signs of change can be seen even here. The European Union has led the way, with free movement of labor a long-held principle for its own nationals. The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty takes the EU the next step, mandating a common immigration policy for participating states. Second, a global migration regime will require standards, policies, and new legal frameworks. A legal framework already exists for refugee movements, with most countries now signatories to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. Most important, signatories agree that they will not return (refoule) persons to countries where they have a well-founded fear of persecution. International agreements also apply to the rights of migrant workers, but few states ratified the 1990 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, showing that they were unwilling to take on a comprehensive set of obligations toward migrant workers and their families. No body of international law or policy governs responses to other forms of international migration. But with growing economic integration, global trade agreements may become vehicles for formulating such policies. Ongoing negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services involve new agreements?under the rubric of the “movement of natural persons”?to ease the admission of executives, managers, and professionals providing services. The third issue to be settled before a global migration regime can come into being is organizational responsibilities. At the heart of the refugee regime is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, whose mandate dates back to 1950. No comparable institution exists for other migration matters. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a Geneva-based intergovernmental body, with 86 member states and 41 observer states, comes closest. Since its founding in1951 to help resettle refugees and displaced persons from World War II and the Cold War, IOM has taken on a broad set of responsibilities, including counter-trafficking programs, migrant health and medical services, technical assistance and capacity building, and assisted return programs. In particular, it serves as the secretariat for some of the regional processes discussing international migration. IOM is not a part of the UN system (although it cooperates with UN agencies), and it represents far fewer states. To become the focal point of a new migration regime, it would need substantial new resources and government support, particularly in helping governments formulate new global migration policies. Its governing board, composed of government representatives, has already requested and provided funds to IOM to strengthen its capacity to advise governments on best practices in migration management. Both source and destination countries recognize the need for improved responses, and IOM’s broad membership helps it devise policies that balance varied governmental interests. A Multilateral Approach In an increasingly interconnected world, governments are unlikely to be able to solve the many problems posed by international migration through unilateral approaches only. Source, receiving, and transit countries must all cooperate to manage international migration. Reaching agreement will be relatively straightforward when countries share similar interests and problems?for example, in combating the most exploitive type of human trafficking. Often, however, interests will diverge. Source countries such as Mexico will press for easier access to the labor markets of wealthier countries. Receiving countries such as the United States will face public concerns about seemingly uncontrolled movements into their territories. Agreement will be difficult. Still, these issues will not go away just because different countries see them differently. Sheer necessity is likely to move governments toward a global migration regime.
9613060967d238bb2301bf270fefc80e	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/help-wanted-connecting-inner-city-job-seekers-with-suburban-jobs/?shared=email&msg=fail	Help Wanted: Connecting Inner-City Job Seekers with Suburban Jobs	Help Wanted: Connecting Inner-City Job Seekers with Suburban Jobs Cities have historically been the hubs of economic activity in America?the focal points of commerce where farmers brought crops and livestock, where office buildings bustled, and where manufacturing industries thrived. In short, cities were the places where people worked. Suburbs began growing up around the cities in the 1950s and 1960s, but they were originally mostly residential. People commuted from them to jobs in the city. Now, though, after decades of decentralization from city to suburb to exurb, the landscape of home and work has radically changed. Today, work is still central to the role of cities in the new knowledge-based economy. With the U.S. economy booming, many new jobs are being created in central cities. Between 1993 and 1997, for the first time in nearly 30 years, central city job growth rivaled both national and suburban growth rates. Urban unemployment rates fell nearly 40 percent between 1993 and 1999.
b7066bd3cc8505980df49b759a941443	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/high-and-low-politics-in-afghanistan-the-terrorism-drugs-nexus-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/	High and low politics in Afghanistan: The terrorism-drugs nexus and what can be done about it	High and low politics in Afghanistan: The terrorism-drugs nexus and what can be done about it As the world debate drug policy at the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS 2016), opium poppy remains deeply routed in Afghanistan. Narcotics production and counternarcotics policies there are of critical importance not only for drug control in the country and worldwide, but also for the security, reconstruction, and rule-of-law efforts in Afghanistan. Perhaps nowhere in the world has a country and the international community faced such an extensive illicit drug economy as in Afghanistan. Given deteriorating security, economic, and political conditions in Afghanistan, there is no realistic prospect for radically reducing the Afghan opium poppy economy and the Afghanistan’s economy dependence on it for years. In 2007 opium production climbed to a staggering 8,200 metric tons (mt).[1] As a result of the subsequent oversaturation of the illicit opiates market and the intense outbreak of a poppy disease, production subsequently fell to 3,600 mt in 2010 but rose again to 5,800 mt in 2011 and remained with some fluctuations at this level. [2] In 2015, as a combination of market saturation and correction and poppy disease (and far less so as a result of sustainable policies), in 2015 opium production declined to 3,300 mt again.[3] These levels of production are enough to supply most of the world’s opiates market.[4] For two decades, opium has been Afghanistan’s leading cash-generating economic activity. Valued at the border, profits from opiates represent about 10-15% of GDP.[5] But when one takes into account macroeconomic spillovers, with drugs underpinning much of other legal economic activity, drug easily constitute between a third and a half of the overall economy.[6] The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) provides a smaller number – namely, that the farmgate value of opium production in Afghanistan represents single-digit percent portion of the GDP, such as, for example, about 4% of the country’s GDP in 2013.[7] But this number is misleading. By focusing on farm-gate value only, this number does not take into account value-added in Afghanistan or economic spillover effects, such as the fact that much of consumption of durable and non-durables as well as construction is underpinned by the opium poppy economy. For much of the rural population, the opium poppy economy is an essential source of basic livelihoods and human security. When access to the opium poppy economy is cut off, such as through bans on cultivation or eradication, large segments of the rural population face economic emiseration and deprivation even in terms of access to food, medical treatment, and schooling for children.[8] The significance of the opium poppy production for the Afghan economy and crucially for employment will only grow as Afghanistan has entered serious economic and fiscal crises due to the departure of international military forces, the presence of which structured much of economic activity in Afghanistan over the past decade, and due to political instability and persisting insecurity scaring away investment and generating large capital flight. The Taliban offers itself as a protector of poppy farmers, drawing great political capital as well as physical resources from opposing eradication and taxing the poppy fields. Measuring the size of illicit economies and any derivative numbers, such as profit levels, is notoriously difficult, but it is estimated that somewhere between 20-40% of the Taliban’s income comes from drugs.[9] But the Taliban is not the only actor profiting in multiple ways from the opium poppy economy. So are various criminal gangs, often connected to the government, the Afghan police and other elements of the Afghan security forces, tribal elites, and many ex-warlords cum government officials at various levels of the Afghan government, including the top one. In short, the illicit drug economy exacerbates insecurity, strengthens corruption, produces macroeconomic distortions, and contributes to a vast increase in drug use and addiction in Afghanistan But it also provides a vital economic lifeline for many Afghans and enhances their human security. It thus produces political capital for those who sponsor opium poppy cultivation and it is politically explosive for those who sponsor eradication. Neither opium poppy cultivation nor heroin production is a new, post-2001 phenomenon: each robustly existed during the Taliban era and before. Already during the 1990s, the Taliban sponsored and taxed opium poppy cultivation.[10] Its 2000 ban on cultivation drove production down by some 90% for one year, but was unsustainable…and indeed not sustained. Other decreases poppy cultivation and opiate production since 2001, like last year’s, have been largely driven by the saturation of the global and local drug markets, by poppy crop disease, or by temporary coercive measures in certain parts of Afghanistan that could nonetheless not be sustained and have mostly already broken down. The structural drivers of the Afghan poppy economy, including critically insecurity, political power arrangements, and a lack of ready economic alternatives, remain unchanged and cannot easily be overcome for years to come. The Taliban and related insurgencies remain deeply entrenched and pose a serious threat to the survival of the Afghan government and a potential trigger of an expanded civil war. Although also facing serious constraints on its expansion and sustainment and now also internal fragmentation and the rise of a rival Islamic State in Afghanistan,[11] the Taliban feels the battlefield momentum is on its side. As U.S. and ISAF troops significantly reduced their presence, they handed to the Afghan security forces and people an on-going war that has significantly intensified in 2014.[12] Unfortunately, many of the counternarcotics policies adopted during most of the 2000s not only failed to reduce the size and scope of the illicit economy in Afghanistan, but also had serious counterproductive effects on the other objectives of peace, state-building, and economic reconstruction. Most counterproductive of all, eradication and bans on opium poppy cultivation, often born by the poorest and most socially marginalized, have generated extensive political capital for the Taliban and undermined counterinsurgency. In a courageous break with a previous counterproductive policy, the Obama administration wisely decided in 2009 to scale back poppy eradication in Afghanistan, but it struggled to implement its new strategy effectively. Although the Obama administration backed away from centrally-led eradication, Afghan governor-led eradication haphazardly goes on but since it is extremely politically explosive and dependent on good security conditions, it is minimal in its intensity. Blanket interdiction efforts only vertically integrated smuggling networks. Selective interdiction focused on Taliban-linked traffickers, conducted by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) between 2008 and 2014, complicated the Taliban’s logistics, but did not severely weaken the Taliban. Moreover, during the surge in Afghanistan, ISAF-led interdiction became at times so intense that it approximated eradication in its negative effects on farmers’ well-being and their receptivity to Taliban mobilization. But the reduction in ISAF presence means that the scale of interdiction has radically declined, and like the rest of Afghanistan’s policy is subject to political favoritism, patronage, and corruption. Under such circumstances, interdiction efforts can thus reshuffle who controls a local drug market within a district or a province and alter the individual’s (often top politician’s) political power and resource access, but does not produce system-wide effects on drug production and smuggling in Afghanistan. Often designed ineffectively and implemented poorly, alternative livelihoods efforts rarely have generated sustainable income for poppy-dependent populations, if they have materialized at all. These outcomes are not surprising, and both Afghanistan and the international community should have expected them. Lessons from anti-poppy policies in Thailand, Burma, and even China as well as against coca in Peru, Bolivia, and Peru clearly indicate that even under the most auspicious circumstances, such as in Thailand in the 1980s, a significant sustained reduction of opium poppy cultivation would require years, even decades, of systematic and well-designed efforts as well as a prior end to military conflict.[13] Given high world demand for illicit opiates, suppression of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan would not leave a highly lucrative market unsatiated, but would shift it elsewhere. Unlike coca, for example, opium poppy is a very adaptable plant that can be grown under a variety of climactic conditions. Theoretically, its cultivation could spread to many areas –Central Asia, back to the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, or West Africa.[14] By far the worst scenario from a global security perspective would be the shift of poppy cultivation to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Khyber-Pakhtunkwa or even Punjab of Pakistan. For over twenty years, Pakistan has been a major heroin refining and smuggling hub in the region. It has an extensive hawala system, including for moving drug profits. Today, these territories also have extensive and well-organized salafi insurgency and terrorist groups that seek to limit the reach of the Pakistani state and topple the Pakistani government. A relocation of extensive poppy cultivation there would be highly detrimental to global security and counterterrorism interests since it would contribute to a critical undermining of the Pakistani state and fuel jihadi insurgencies and terrorism. Such a shift would not only increase profit possibilities for Pakistani belligerents, but also provide them with significant political capital by allowing them to become an important local employer sponsoring a labor-intensive economy in areas with minimal employment opportunities. Nor would Pakistan be a newcomer to the drug trade. During the heyday of illicit poppy cultivation in Pakistan in the 1980s, opium poppy was grown in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the then Northwest Frontier Province (NFWP; now renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkwa), with agencies such as Bannu, Khyber, and Dir being significant loci of cultivation. In many of these areas, opium poppy cultivation involved entire tribes and represented the bulk of the local economy in these highly isolated (geographically, politically, and economically) places.[15] Pakistan was also the locus of heroin production and smuggling, with prominent and official actors, such as Pakistan’s military and intelligence services deeply involved in the heroin trade. Counternarcotics policies in Afghanistan must be judicious, well sequenced, and well prioritized. Eradication should remain suspended. It should only be undertaken in areas where a legal economy already exists and generates sufficient livelihoods. Interdiction operations should predominantly target the most dangerous actors, such as international terrorist groups, the Taliban and the Islamic State, but also violent disruptive powerbrokers who oppose the Taliban but seek to bring down the Afghan government for their own political power-plays. Alternative livelihoods efforts should be streamlined into overall economic development and human capital development. Focused on secure areas, such efforts must include both rebuilding the rural economy and creating off-farm opportunities. Improving access to treatment for addicts and undertaking smart approaches to prevent opiate abuse should be greatly elevated in policy and funded far more extensively than has the case so far. The latter is probably the most feasible, as well as important, policy tool. But perhaps the most important policy implication is patience and realistic expectation: Aside from some major exogenous shock, such as the outbreak of some poppy disease persisting in the Afghan soil for years to come, opium poppy will flower in Afghanistan for decades. This article was originally published by Ahora in Spanish. [1] See United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007: Executive Summary,” August 2007, http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/AFG07_ExSum_web.pdf.[2] UNODC, “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2014,” November 2014, http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghan-opium-survey-2014.pdf: 7.[3] UNODC, “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2015,” http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/_Afghan_opium_survey_2015_web.pdf: 8[4] See UNODC, World Drug Report 2011 (New York: United Nations, 2011), http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/WDR2011/World_Drug_Report_2011_ebook.pdf: 45[5] William Byrd and David Mansfield, “Afghanistan’s Opium Economy: An Agricultural, Livelihoods, and Governance Perspective,” The World Bank, revised version, June 23, 2014: ii.[6] See UNODC, “Afghan Opium Survey 2007;” Since 2002, the percentage of drugs to licit GDP has oscillated between 60 and 30 percent, not because the illicit economy has been reduced, but due to the expansion of some sectors of the legal economy, such as telecommunications. See, for example, Christopher Ward and William Byrd, “Afghanistan’s Opium Drug Economy,” World Bank Report No. SASPR-5, December 2004, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/12/5533886/afghanistans-opium-drug-economy.[7] UNODC, “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2013,” December 2013, http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opium_survey_2013_web_small.pdf: 12.[8] See, for example, David Mansfield, “From Bad They Made It Worse,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), May 2014. http://www.areu.org.af/Uploads/EditionPdfs/NRM%20CS6%20ver%202%20(2).pdf.[9] See, for example, Christopher M. Blanchard, “Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy, Congressional Research Service,” Report No. RL32686, July 2009, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32686.pdf; and Letizia Paoli, Victoria A. Greenfield, and Peter Reuter, The World Heroin Market: Can Supply Be Cut? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 41-83 and 111-114.[10] Vanda Felbab-Brown, Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2010): Ch. 5.[11] Borhan Osman, “Toward Fragmentation? Mapping the Post-Omar Taliban,” Afghanistan Analysts Network, November 24, 2015.[12] Erin Cunningham, “Taliban Fighters Seize Afghan Territories as NATO Chief Visits in Kabul,” The Washington Post, March 15, 2016.[13] Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Improving Supply Side Policies: Smarter Eradication, Interdiction, and Alternative Livelihoods and the Possibility of Licensing,” LSE Drug Reform Series, May 2014, https://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2014/05/07-improving-supply-side-policies-felbabbrown/improvingsupplysidepoliciesfelbabbrown.pdf.[14] For a discussion of these drug markets and their history of drug production and trade, see, Vanda Felbab-Brown, “The Drug-Conflict Nexus in South Asia: Beyond Taliban Profits and Afghanistan,” in Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Clifford May, eds., The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security, and Stability (Washington, DC: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, May 2010): 90-112, and Vanda Felbab-Brown, “West African Drug Trade in the Context of Illicit Economies and Poor Governance,” Brookings Institution, October 14, 2010, https://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2010/1014_africa_drug_trade_felbabbrown.aspx.[15] Amir Zada Asad and Robert Harris, The Politics and Economics of Drug Production on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border (Burlington: Ashgate, 2003) and Nigel J. R. Allan, “Opium Production in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” in Dangerous Harvest: Drug Plants and the Transformation of Indigenous Landscapes, Michael K. Steinberg, Joseph J. Hobbs, and Kent Mathewson, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004): 133-152.
febf7009da1c7d5e75c27c4b2b8584f3	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-americas-cities-are-growing-the-big-picture/	How America’s Cities Are Growing: The Big Picture	How America’s Cities Are Growing: The Big Picture Suburban sprawl has been the dominant form of metropolitan-area growth in the United States for the past 50 years. This article analyzes the nature of such sprawl, why it occurs in U.S. metropolitan areas, the problems it causes or aggravates, and some alternative possible forms of future metropolitan-area growth.
46a1423c6aa5e2825059e9d642a5a23e	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-china-is-responding-to-escalating-strategic-competition-with-the-us/	How China is responding to escalating strategic competition with the US	How China is responding to escalating strategic competition with the US There seems to be a growing consensus in Beijing that U.S.-China relations will remain rocky for the foreseeable future. Even so, President Xi Jinping and others have been touting that time and momentum are on China’s side in its quest to move closer to the center of the world stage. Chinese officials recognize that they will need to overcome obstacles in their country’s pursuit of its national goals. To do so, China appears to be pursuing a three-pronged medium-term strategy: maintaining a non-hostile external environment in order to focus on domestic priorities; reducing dependence on America while increasing the rest of the world’s dependence on China; and expanding the reach of Chinese influence overseas. At the same time, China’s actions are generating significant reactions, both at home and abroad. Whether China can learn from this feedback loop to address its own vulnerabilities remains an open question, one that only China will be capable of answering. Understanding China’s evaluation of – and response to – sharp shifts in U.S.-China relations and its international environment have rarely been more important. Given its expanding economic reach and growing strategic weight, China’s actions now directly impact lives in the United States and around the world. Yet, in some respects, it has become more difficult to see clearly what assumptions and decisions are guiding China’s changing approach to America and the world. There has been more heat than light in many recent American debates about China’s ambitions. Travel restrictions due to COVID-19 have eliminated opportunities for both informal in-person exchanges with Chinese officials and first-hand observation of Chinese society, which often have served as one of the richest sources of insight into the policy zeitgeist in Beijing. And into this vacuum, many American scholars have come to rely more on interpreting official and semi-official Chinese texts to develop conclusions on China’s strategic direction. My previous government service at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and in the White House National Security Council (NSC) has instilled me with humility about extrapolating China’s strategic designs from its publicly available statements and reports. Nevertheless, drawing from over 50 hours of Zoom-based dialogues with Chinese officials and scholars, a review of Chinese officials’ speeches and Chinese expert commentaries, and over a decade of interacting with senior Chinese officials on such questions, I do believe it is possible to draw some preliminary observations about China’s evolving approach to its changing international environment. This evaluation of China’s orientation toward the United States remained largely intact through January 2020, when both sides finalized negotiations on a “phase-1” trade deal. In the weeks that followed, the bilateral dynamic shifted sharply. Facing the humanitarian and financial losses resulting from the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19, President Trump shifted from touting Xi Jinping as his friend to branding China as his enemy and the source of the pain that many Americans were feeling. And China largely reciprocated, pointing its propaganda cannons at America’s response to the public health crisis and the cascade of social, economic, and political problems that flowed from it. In subsequent months, a tit-for-tat pattern emerged, e.g., on treatment of each side’s journalists, on consulate closures, on recriminations over each side’s involvement in the origin of COVID-19, and on sanctions of high-level individuals in both countries. Beijing began mirror-imaging America’s economic pressure toolkit. Like the United States, China developed laws and regulations for export controls, national security investment screening, policy-related visa sanctions, and extraterritorial provisions in laws and administrative regulations. Beijing also grew less restrained in its actions at home and abroad. Chinese authorities advanced a campaign of brutal suppression in Xinjiang, tightened control of Hong Kong, crushed dissent across the country, engaged in deadly clashes with Indian troops for the first time in 45 years, punished countries and individuals that challenged China’s preferred narratives on sensitive issues, and pointedly criticized the performance of Western democracies. These actions represented a significant departure from the foreign policy focus on calibration and caution that HAD BEEN observable as recently as spring 2019. There appears to be broad agreement among officials and experts in China that America’s power in the international system is declining relative to China’s. Many Chinese experts diagnose America’s anxiety about its relative decline as driving its reflexive efforts to undermine China’s rise. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave expression to this viewpoint, for example, in his end-of-year interview with Xinhua on January 2, 2021. Reflecting on U.S.-China relations over the previous year, Wang concluded: In recent years, China-US relations have run into unprecedented difficulties. Fundamentally, it comes down to serious misconceptions of U.S. policymakers about China. Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is simply wrong. What has happened proves that the U.S. attempt to suppress China and start a new Cold War has not just seriously harmed the interests of the two peoples, but also caused severe disruptions to the world. …China policy toward the United States is consistent and stable.3 In other words, Wang put forward Beijing’s boilerplate explanation for the downturn in relations – it’s America’s fault. There are a diminishing number of Chinese officials or experts who remain willing, at least visibly, to question this explanation of the downturn in U.S.-China relations. One of the few to do so, albeit subtly, is Wang Jisi, president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University. In a January 2021 op-ed, Wang observed, “Our actions at home and in the world determine to a large extent the attitude of the U.S. toward us. I believe that China, not the United States, can turn the tide of U.S.-China relations at historical junctures, although this position may be debatable.”4 One issue where there does appear to be convergence of views inside China, though, is the expectation that there will be continuity in America’s strategic orientation toward China from Trump to Biden. Even as Chinese experts acknowledge that the Biden administration likely will adopt a more nuanced tone and professional approach for dealing with problems, they expect the root causes of American antagonism toward China will remain unchanged. Reflecting this view, Yuan Peng, an advisor to China’s top leaders and president of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), assesses, “A divided United States and polarized politics will limit Biden’s room to maneuver and force him to focus more energy on domestic challenges. …Biden’s first priority is to reunite the United States. …The U.S. will be consumed with dealing with its own structural challenges for many years.”5 Peking University’s Wang Jisi similarly has concluded, “American policy toward China will continue unchanged under Biden.”6 Beijing appears to be preparing for a long-term struggle with a declining but still dangerous United States. Privately, according to a well-informed policy advisor, China’s leadership has re-evaluated long-term trends and concluded that it no longer can base its national plans on expectations of generally stable relations with the United States.7 Partly as a result, Chinese leaders have pulled forward plans to promote a “dual circulation” economic strategy. In rolling out the strategy, President Xi Jinping explained, “Only by being self-reliant and developing the domestic market and smoothing out internal circulation can we achieve vibrant growth and development, regardless of the hostility in the outside world.”8 China’s spokespeople and official Chinese state media have sought to set public expectations for a long-term struggle with the United States. Key security officials, such as Politburo member and domestic security chief Guo Shengkun, have warned of the likelihood of a long-term struggle with the United States.9 China’s leaders now often refer to “profound changes unseen in a century” to describe their evaluation of the current fluidity IN the international system. These changes often are presented as a paradox, presenting both risks and opportunities for China. On one side of the coin, “profound changes unseen in a century” portend dangerous challenges to China. Politburo member and top diplomat Yang Jiechi framed the challenges by noting, “The world economy has been hit hard. …The pandemic has had a tremendous impact on international trade, investment, consumption, and other economic activities. …The pandemic [also] has exacerbated social cleavages, ethnic conflicts, and political confrontations. …The number of international security risks has increased.”10 On the other side of the coin, Yang observed, “Reform of the international order has sped up. The PRC has taken the lead in controlling the epidemic on a global scale, and in achieving full resumption of work and production, all parties have increased their expectation and reliance on China.”11 Thus, despite expectations of a protracted struggle with the United States, a view of China as an ever more central actor in the international system appears to be gaining traction inside China. At least outwardly, China’s leaders have grown self-congratulatory in their assessment of global trends working in China’s favor. In October, Xi Jinping told cadres at the 5th Plenum that “time and momentum are on our side.”12 Similarly, Chen Yixin, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission – the top oversight body for China’s domestic security – told a study session on January 15, “The rise of China is a major variable [in the world today]…the rise of the East and decline of the West has become a trend; changes of the international landscape are in our favor.”13 Discerning Beijing’s medium- and long-term strategic objectives has become one of the most heated debates in Western discourse on China. Proponents of viewing China as a malevolent power that seeks to impose its vision and its values on the rest of the world have been emboldened in recent years, largely as a result of China’s brutish behavior at home and abroad. China’s trampling of its citizens’ rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong has undermined arguments outside of China that the country will pursue its national ambitions in a benign manner. From my vantage, Beijing sees itself as progressing along a continuum leading to China’s restoration as a central actor in Asia and a leading power on the world stage, a country with greater ability to shape rules, norms, and institutions toward its preferences. China’s leaders have consistently made clear their desire to have their political and economic models respected.14 It also has been a consistent feature of Chinese foreign policy to push for deference to its “core interests.”15 China’s foreign policy practitioners have explained that the country’s external relations should support its national goals, particularly its sustainable development.16 These goals include realization of the country’s 14th five-year plan, its 2035 plan, and its second centenary goal of becoming a prosperous, strong, advanced country by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 2049.17 In recent years, key Chinese voices also have become more willing to articulate China’s global ambitions. For example, Politburo member Yang Jiechi has written about the need for China’s foreign policy to lay a foundation “for national rejuvenation and provide an important guarantee for us to lead the world’s great changes and shape the external environment” (emphasis added).18 To reach its long-term goals, Beijing recognizes it must first overcome near-term obstacles. One such potential obstacle is the formation of allied blocs to oppose Chinese initiatives and to obstruct China’s rise. Such concerns have taken on added urgency with Joe Biden’s election as President given Biden’s sustained emphasis on coordinating with allies and partners to push back against Chinese behaviors of concern. Although the absence of any publicly available definitive government strategy document makes it difficult to assert what strategies China will employ to advance its objectives, a few preliminary judgments can be reasonably made based on behavioral pattern recognition, statements by senior officials, and commentary by Chinese experts and policy advisors. In recent years, three strategic lines of effort have become visible. 1. Maintain a Non-hostile External Environment Key features of Beijing’s medium-term strategy appear to be seeking to lower the temperature of tensions with the United States, strengthening ties with its neighbors, deepening relations with Russia, and encouraging the European Union’s continued movement toward strategic autonomy. Beijing sees such efforts as critical to breaking what it perceives as Washington’s encirclement strategy of China. China’s leaders also view it as important to keep external problems at bay in order to maintain the primary focus on addressing domestic concerns – including its anti-poverty, anti-pollution, and anti-corruption campaigns – upon which public perceptions of its performance ultimately will be most heavily based. On U.S.-China relations, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson has been appealing to the “better angels” of U.S.-China relations to lead the relationship away from adversarial antagonism.19 State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has been promoting “peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation” with the United States.20 At the same time, Beijing has signaled no willingness to moderate its approach to Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, human rights, or Taiwan. Beijing’s unwillingness to recalibrate its approach to issues that are most inflaming U.S.-China tensions effectively forecloses any broad improvement in overall relations. At best, the U.S. and China will be able to manage tensions and lower the temperature on recent mutual recriminations. On regional affairs, China’s completion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) marked a significant step in its efforts to strengthen relations with its neighbors. The trade bloc accounts for nearly 30 percent of global GDP and global population.21 RCEP has positioned China at the heart of the world’s largest trade grouping in the most dynamic region of the global economy, thus ensuring China will remain central to regional value chains, not isolated from them. Even beyond trade, China has tailored a regional strategy that speaks to the top interests and concerns of leaders in the region. Foreign Minister Wang has laid out a China-ASEAN agenda for 2021 that is focused on defeating COVID-19; bolstering economic recovery; and pushing forward poverty reduction, disaster prevention and relief, climate change, and environmental protection.22 In so doing, Wang appears to be acting on a recognition that many leaders in Asia prioritize economic development and improvement of social conditions. Regional leaders are not indifferent to security concerns, but they recognize that economic instability poses a more proximate threat to their hold on power than the risk of armed conflict. On Russia, China has shown sustained interest in steepening the upward trajectory in overall relations. In recent years, Beijing and Moscow have grown closer across the full range of relations, including technological and military cooperation. Foreign Minister Wang Yi now touts both countries as standing “side by side against power politics,” supporting each other’s core interests, and serving as each other’s “strategic anchor” and “global partner.”23 Beijing also has been encouraging the European Union to pursue strategic autonomy, including by resisting Washington’s entreaties for Brussels to join a trans-Atlantic front in opposition to China. Such encouragement by Beijing for Brussels to chart its own path on the world stage has been a mainstay of leader-level communications for years. Foreign Minister Wang Yi put a fine point on such messaging in his end-of-year press interview on January 2, 2021, when he implored China and the EU to dedicate themselves to “unity and cooperation rather than group politics,” and to “transcend systemic differences rather than draw lines along ideology.”24 Beijing’s desire to forestall trans-Atlantic policy convergence on China seems to have played a role in the December 30, 2020, closure of negotiations on a China-European Union Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. After seven years and 35 rounds of negotiations, the imminent inauguration of Joe Biden appears to have provided an impetus for Beijing to make fresh concessions that contributed to getting the agreement over the finish line. In this contest between Washington’s efforts to form coalitions to confront China on specific issues and Beijing’s counter-bloc strategy, Beijing does not appear to be taking success for granted, at least in its messaging to foreign audiences. Xi Jinping used an address to the Davos World Economic Forum on January 25 to warn of the dangers of attempts to build an alliance of democracies to counter China. Xi warned, “Forming small groups or launching new cold wars on the world stage …would only push the world toward division, if not confrontation.” He stressed, “Repeatedly, history and the reality remind us that, if we walk down the path of confrontation – be it a cold war, a hot war, a trade war or a tech war – all countries are going to suffer in terms of their interests and their people’s well-being.”25 2. Reduce Dependence on America While Increasing the World’s Dependence on China Faced with the prospect of being cut off or having curtailed access to American supply chains, Chinese leaders in recent years have intensified their push to diversify economic relationships and strengthen self-sufficiency. They also have pursued policies that have had the effect of encouraging other countries to become more dependent upon China for their own economic development. China’s “dual circulation strategy” seeks to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers through a domestic cycle of production, distribution, and consumption, alongside a separate cycle of external trade of goods and services. The early results of this approach provide cause for optimism from Beijing’s perspective. In 2020, the world became more reliant on China for growth. China’s economy is expected to account for 16.8 percent of global gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, the most of any country in the world, according to forecasts by Moody’s Analytics.26 China is forecast to smash historical records in 2020 for the largest surplus in its current account for any country in history.27 China also became the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2020, thereby displacing the United States from its customary role as the largest magnet for foreign capital.28 Chinese economic growth and rising living standards have fueled external demand for commodities, as well as autos, luxury goods, and other sectors. This demand has made trading partners that specialize in these industries more dependent upon exports to China for future growth. This dynamic, combined with recently completed trade and investment agreements with ASEAN and the EU, respectively, have reordered China’s trade patterns. In 2020, the ASEAN bloc became China’s No. 1 trading partner, with the EU moving to No. 2 and the US falling to third place. At the same time, China is embarking on an aggressive push to become more self-sufficient in the high technology sector. This directive, endorsed by Xi Jinping, has been embraced at every level of China’s government and Party institutions. Jiang Jinquan, head of the Communist Party’s influential Central Policy Research Office, recently framed technological self-reliance as being essential for overcoming America’s efforts to impede China’s scientific and technological development.29 Beijing has been allocating eye-popping sums of money to push China down the path of technology independence. Whether on domestic semiconductor development, 30 next-generation technology infrastructure, 31 artificial intelligence, 32 biotechnology, aerospace, or a range of other advanced technology sectors, the Chinese government has laid out ambitious plans to become the global pacesetter. Across these sectors, China’s technology incubation strategies have combined a closed domestic market, massive subsidies for domestic national champions, aggressive acquisitions of intellectual property, strategic investments in firms in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, and cyber and other means of relentless industrial espionage. 3. Expand the Reach of Chinese Influence Overseas In recent years, Chinese authorities have become more proactive in seeking to extend their reach into other countries. Chinese entities have made significant investments in overseas media platforms as part of the central government’s mandate to strengthen China’s discourse power.33 Beijing has sought to present itself abroad as a non-revolutionary power, a contributor of global public goods, an opponent of geopolitical bullying, and an upholder of regional and global stability.34 In Beijing’s preferred telling, China is a benevolent rising power, standing on the side of science and reason to lead global efforts to beat back the spread of COVID-19 and to counter the effects of climate change. As part of such efforts, Chinese media outlets also have been generating a wave of commentaries extolling the virtues of China’s governance model and the shortcomings of Western democratic governments, e.g., in containing the spread of COVID-19, delivering economic growth, maintaining social stability, etc. Chinese officials and Chinese media outlets have employed an increasingly sharp tongue in responding to perceived slights to China’s international image. China’s Executive Vice Foreign Minister, Le Yucheng, has justified this approach by explaining that China “cannot submit to the unscrupulous suppression by hostile anti-China forces but naturally fights back. The criticism about ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ is another version of ‘China threat theory’ and another ‘speech trap,’ which aims to make China give up and never fight back. China’s diplomacy has always been free from all cowardice or obsequiousness and firmly determined to defend national interests and dignity.”35 Reports of China’s use of coercive, corrupt, or covert tools to interfere in other country’s domestic political decisions also have become more common.36 China also has sought to leverage its expertise in infrastructure construction to push forward the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which, at its core, seeks to increase China’s influence in many countries across the globe. Beijing also has been punishing countries and foreign individuals that have promoted viewpoints that have challenged China’s preferences. Beijing’s justification of its economic penalties on Australia, for example, was based in part on the Australian government’s call for an independent assessment of the origins of COVID-19, and on reports issued by an Australian think tank on Xinjiang that Beijing found objectionable. A similar story applied to China’s announcement of sanctions on twenty-eight former Trump administration officials for advocating or implementing policies that Beijing opposed.37 At the same time, Beijing has been expanding the overseas mandate of its domestic security agencies, including through extradition treaties, institutional partnerships between Chinese and foreign security agencies, new legal provisions,38 as well as the export of high-technology tools of surveillance to foreign governments.39 In so doing, Beijing appears to be seeking to advance three interlocking objectives. The first is to have a chilling effect on any individual, Chinese or foreign, who advocates views or policies that challenge Chinese interests, broadly defined. Beijing wants to build an impression, particularly among its expatriate community, that no individual is beyond the reach of Chinese law enforcement. Second, Beijing has a growing need to strengthen its capacity to protect Chinese citizens and commercial interests overseas. Third, Beijing would like to encourage more countries to emulate or to draw from its practices for addressing security challenges. The more that countries embrace Chinese practices and/or Chinese surveillance technology, the more likely it will be for Beijing to gain legitimation overseas for its own domestic security model.40 It remains an open question as to whether China’s medium-term strategy will enable China to overcome hurdles that stand in the way of achieving its national ambitions. China’s strategic choices are not made in a vacuum. Chinese actions often generate reactions, whether at home or abroad. For example, China’s tightening grip on the corporate sector appears to elevate control over innovation. This raises a fundamental question about whether a system that presses for conformity and adherence to plans is capable of allowing the unorthodox and boundary-testing thinking that is the lifeblood of next-generation innovations. Such constraints may partly explain why some of China’s most creative minds, such as the founders of the video-conferencing service Zoom and chipmaker Nvidia, along with many of the world’s leading AI researchers, have chosen to pursue their goals outside of China. Beneath China’s flashy economic growth numbers, there also are flashing warning signs about the long-term health of the economy. One such indicator is the declining growth in productivity – or output per worker and unit of capital. China’s economy is only 30 percent as productive as the world’s best-performing economies, such as the U.S., Japan, or Germany, according to the IMF.41 And as China’s aging population demands more resources for social services, this will place stress on the government’s ability to continue propping up growth with government expenditures and state-sector investments. China also confronts questions about whether its pursuit of technological self-sufficiency is achievable or practical as a policy goal. Without access to advanced lithography and other critical external inputs for semiconductor manufacturing, it will be very difficult for China to produce cutting-edge chips that are necessary inputs for China to achieve its technological ambitions. The more adversarial Beijing’s relationship with other advanced powers becomes, the more longshot will its attempts be to achieve technological self-reliance. Similarly, China’s domestic policies are failing to win over the Chinese who live along the country’s borders. There are growing numbers of examples of ethnic Mongols, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and others chafing at Beijing’s intrusive involvement in their lives and its attempts to impose cultural conformity.42 Ditto for Hong Kong.43 The tighter Beijing squeezes, the more that negative attitudes toward China appear to be hardening along the country’s inner periphery and in many parts of the world.44 The United States government already has characterized China’s conduct in Xinjiang as an act of genocide.45 Furthermore, China’s stated ambitions and determined efforts to become a world leader in an expanding number of high technology fields, and to push for rules and norms around those technologies that reflect Beijing’s illiberal tendencies, have generated unease in many parts of the Western world. In response, London has proposed the establishment of a D-10 of leading powers (G-7+ Australia, South Korea, India) to pool resources and align policies to accelerate development of new technologies in democratic societies. By a similar token, the more loudly nationalistic China’s diplomacy becomes, the more alarmed many Western countries have become about China’s domestic and foreign policy trend-lines. China’s expanding interests overseas will demand a greater Chinese presence. Already, as the PLA Navy has become more active beyond its immediate periphery, so too has the level of coordination among other powers in response. This trend can be seen in the Indian Ocean, where there have been corresponding increases in Chinese naval activity alongside rising security coordination among like-minded powers (i.e., “The Quad,” Australia, India, Japan, the United States). Perhaps for some of these reasons, some Chinese experts have been urging sobriety in evaluations of China’s position in the international system. For example, Renmin University scholar and government advisor Shi Yinhong recently cautioned: China’s chances of filling the vacuum created by the Trump administration’s abandonment of America’s original “global leadership role” are limited, and indeed smaller than many at home and abroad predicted. The appeal of China’s “soft power” in the world, the resources and experiences available to China, are quite limited, and the domestic and international obstacles China will encounter, including the complexities created by the coronavirus pandemic, are considerable.46 Experts such as Shi Yinhong appear to be warning against presupposing that China will continue to ascend on a linear trajectory indefinitely in the direction of its national ambitions. Analysts outside of China similarly would be well-served to preserve a healthy degree of modesty in forecasting China’s future path. From Mao’s upheavals to Deng’s reform and opening, from the Tiananmen tragedy to double-digit economic growth, from low-profile foreign policy to brash assertiveness on the world stage, China’s path over recent decades has navigated a series of shifts. These shifts have been driven in large measure by a dynamic interaction between China’s strategic goals, its evaluation of its external environment, and its domestic requirements. This dynamic interaction between external and internal forces has not ended under Xi Jinping. Going forward, continued study of the interplay of these forces on China’s policy decisions will merit further in-depth evaluation.
e6b0ce5b679312218fca1fecc423be78	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-center-right-co-opts-the-far-right-in-austria/	How the center-right co-opts the far-right in Austria	How the center-right co-opts the far-right in Austria The various country cases discussed in this project show the extent to which right-wing populist parties have shaped and radicalized the discourse on Islam and Muslims in European societies. In contrast to the United States, with its de facto two-party system, the multiparty systems in Europe afford smaller and niche parties greater opportunities to engage in agenda setting and influencing larger parties. This happened with radical right and right-wing populist parties, which, once marginal, have grown their support and can now often act as agenda setters in national politics. This is especially salient in countries where such parties are part of governing coalitions, as has been the case in Denmark, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, and Austria. In contrast to Western Europe, in Hungary and Poland mainstream right parties have basically transformed themselves into radical right populist parties. But this radicalization process was not the result of niche party influence; rather, it was due to ideological shifts and voter seeking strategies of the governing parties themselves. The Austrian case is instructive because the governing People’s Party (ÖVP) under the leadership of 33-year-old Sebastian Kurz has started co-opting the anti-Muslim (and anti-immigration) agenda of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). Here, we have a nominally centrist-right rather than a radical right-wing party (like the League in Italy), which plays a central role in the implementation of anti-Muslim positions. It is thus important to understand how these policy claims have been popularized and subsequently implemented through legislation and other measures such as shutting down mosques, banning facial covering in public, and issuing a headscarf ban in kindergartens. Despite the many differences among the cases in the project, there are also crucial similarities. For instance, the Dutch case highlights the rather specific context of a consensus oriented political system in which right-wing anti-Muslim rhetoric has emerged. Anti-Muslim discourse in the Netherlands is based on the notion of defending liberal values against the perceived anti-liberal tendencies of Islam. This stands in stark contrast to situation in Hungary, where, among the far-right, the dominant notion centers on defending Europe’s traditional conservative Christian character. Typically, Western Europeans do not perceive their countries as especially Christian or, for that matter, Europe as a Christian continent, which is an important difference with Poland and Hungary. In Western Europe, the idea of a “Judeo-Christian tradition in Europe” has become a new way of excluding Muslims from the construction of a national identity. As radical right parties have gained at the polls, they have also increased their cooperation. This trend has culminated in the emergence of populist a far-right party group in the European Parliament — Identity and Democracy (ID) — for which Europe’s Christian and anti-Muslim identity is a central pillar. These radical right parties have strategically shifted from their former often more explicitly anti-Semitic profile to an anti-Muslim one. Steve Bannon’s transnational operation The Movement is another recent example of such increased transnational cooperation. Understanding the structure of these networks and their connections to external actors like Russia is important for understanding the future development of Europe’s radical right parties. From a comparative perspective, understanding the different influences of each national context is important. For example, a widely shared understanding of national identity in secular terms plays into producing a perception of Islam as “the other.” This is the case in France. In addition, socially liberal countries such as the Netherlands offer a completely different point of departure when dealing with Muslim minorities than do countries with a strong Catholic tradition. To take another example, the East-West divide within Germany can be viewed also from the perspective of varying degrees of secularism. Eastern Germany with its long history of anti-religious socialization during state-socialism may have influenced the way in which anti-Muslim mobilization thrives. The emergence of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA) as well as the relative strength of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany’s eastern states shows the need for further research into how this historical legacy is shaping voter preferences. How center-right and center-left parties respond to the radical right’s othering of Muslims also plays an important role depending on whether such positions gain mainstream acceptance (e.g., the Christian Democrats in Austria) or rejected and delegitimized (e.g., Christian Democrats in Germany). While conservative parties in many cases fully co-opt the radical right agenda, social democrats on the center-left tend to not have a clear position on Islam as they seek to appeal to both more cosmopolitan urban voters and the working class. Lastly, Muslim constituencies or, generally speaking, a more pro-diversity constituency that wants to include Muslims in their societies without demanding assimilation, also shapes the political system. In the Netherlands, Muslims were estranged from established political parties which led to two former Social Democratic politicians to set up their own political party, called DENK. In other cases such as Austria, Muslims are integrated into more mainstream parties. Returning to the similarities between cases, an experience shared by many contributors to this project was methodological: it was more difficult to find party representatives willing to make themselves available for interviews on the specific issue of Muslims as compared to discussions on other issues. Hence, while publicly criticizing Islam and Muslims is more accepted, and more “mainstream” today than it was some years ago, party members still seem generally reluctant to discuss this development and its underlying reasons. Still, our interviews with voters and supporters of the Austrian Freedom Party offered considerable insight. The extensive discussions and listening to their concerns afforded us an opportunity to trace their individual reasons for their skepticism toward Muslims. The conservatives suggested that concerns about Muslims are less the result of actual personal experiences but rather of impressions gained from public discourse, which is shaped to a large extent by the very parties hostile toward Islam. In addition, the interviews also revealed certain inconsistencies. This was the case, for example, when the same person who criticized Muslims for parading their religion because, according to the interviewee, religion ought to be a personal and private thing, then simultaneously complained that Christian symbols and traditions were being pushed out of public life to appease Muslims’ supposed desires (e.g., discussions about banning crucifixes or Christmas-related celebrations in public schools and kindergartens). To be sure, we conducted a small number of interviews which were not representative of the entire population of Freedom Party supporters. However, our initial findings suggest that engaging supporters of populist parties instead of merely talking about them — as some mainstream political parties do — could be an opportunity for potentially mitigating some of the hostile views toward Islam while responding to these citizens’ concerns.
e680c6dc2ba5c3c2f02fc582c3715dba	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-will-chinas-privacy-law-apply-to-the-chinese-state/	How will China’s privacy law apply to the Chinese state?	How will China’s privacy law apply to the Chinese state? China’s government is drafting its first Personal Information Protection Law (the “Draft”) to regulate the collection, storage, use, processing, transmittal, provision, and disclosure (collectively, “handling”) of personal information by “organizations and individuals.” Most attention so far has surrounded the Draft’s application to companies. But it also specifically imposes personal information handling requirements on “state organs.” These include China’s legislatures, courts, procuratorates, supervision commissions, and military commissions, in addition to administrative departments under the central government—the State Council—and all levels of government throughout the country. The Draft’s inclusion of state authorities is notable, given the Chinese government’s national security orientation and broad information access powers as regulator and enforcer. As discussed below, actual enforcement of the Draft’s obligations against the state will be challenging. Nonetheless, China’s privacy law will be supported, in principle, by an evolving and ostensibly privacy-protective regulatory framework that purports to constrain, as well as empower, public authorities. The Chinese government, like all governments, collects and creates massive amounts of information in connection with diverse regulatory, security, law enforcement, and social welfare tasks. It also regulates data flows and is responsible for the security of data created or acquired by government departments throughout the country, which is to be governed by a proposed Data Security Law that also covers state organs. Many Chinese citizens have seemed rather untroubled by governmental, as opposed to commercial, collection and use of personal information. But they are raising concerns about hacking, illegal sale, and leaks of personal data, whether held by private entities or the government, and about practices like publicizing blacklists of court judgment defaulters. Citizens are contesting, including through lawsuits, over-collection and abuse of personal data through facial recognition and other forms of surveillance technology during the COVID-19 epidemic and more generally within public spaces, prompting some municipal bans. Chinese regulators acknowledge that, in the information age China has embraced, personal information protection is among the most direct concerns of the people. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and State Council even cited personal information infringement as an issue that could impact social stability during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday. Although some revisions are likely before enactment of the law, the Draft subjects state organs to its general limiting principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and minimum scope for data handling, and specifies they must handle personal information according to their legal authority and not exceed the scope and limits necessary to carry out their statutory duties (Article 34). Like other personal information handlers, state organs must notify individuals and obtain their consent, unless handling such personal information is necessary to fulfill statutory duties, respond to public health and other emergencies, or take other action in the public interest (Article 13). For state organs specifically, notice and consent is also not required if laws adopted by the national legislature or administrative regulations issued by the State Council (collectively, “law”) require confidentiality or where it would impede performing their duties (Article 35)—situations that presumably would apply to national security and law enforcement matters. Without the individual’s consent, state organs must also not publicly disclose or provide others—including other state organs—with personal information they handle, absent authorization stipulated in law (Article 36). State organs must further comply with general requirements relating to automated decision-making (Article 25) and use of facial recognition and surveillance for public safety purposes (Article 27). China’s highest law, the Constitution, stipulates that all state organs must abide by and be held accountable for any violation of the Constitution and the law; specifically protects as civil rights a citizen’s personal dignity and confidentiality of correspondence—foundational concepts supporting privacy protection; and grants citizens compensation for infringement thereof by state organs or personnel. The new Civil Code, adopted last year, in Article 1039 expressly requires state organs and staff to keep confidential, and not leak or unlawfully provide to others, the personal information they learn while performing their duties. Diverse other laws require courts to protect privacy when trying cases and publishing decisions; procuratorates to do the same when investigating crimes; and judges, procurators, and supervision personnel to keep confidential private information they learn through their work. Moreover, a recent law covering “public employees” of both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and state entities imposes sanctions for unlawfully divulging private information acquired in their official capacities. The Draft does not mention privacy, and instead identifies a category of “sensitive personal information” requiring special procedures (Article 29), but the Civil Code (Article 1034) defines privacy as a subset of personal information. The administrative bureaucracy is subject to the widest array of law on information management generally. China has long regulated government information through archives and state secrets legislation and, more recently, through regulations and policies on the internet, e-government, credit reporting, and social credit. The Draft would operate within a regulatory environment that emphasizes the sharing and public disclosure of government-held “information resources,” breaking down “information silos” to facilitate more efficient governance, innovation and economic development, social welfare, and a well-functioning market. A joint CCP and State Council “informatization” project is building a basic information resources system for collecting, managing and using information, which is to protect privacy and other confidential information while ensuring information usability. CCP proposals for China’s 14th five-year development plan, for the period 2021–2025, urge both orderly opening of basic public information and enhanced personal information protection. Chinese laws, including expansive national security legislation, and administrative regulations, increasingly require personal and other information handling by government agencies to accord with law and be confined to what is necessary for carrying out statutory duties. State Council Open Government Information (OGI) Regulations promote public disclosure of government-held records as a general presumption, but prohibit administrative organs from releasing private information absent consent, subject to a public interest override. Public interest–based disclosure would constitute a statutory exception to the Draft’s consent requirement for disclosure (Article 26), but individuals can contest such decisions. Apart from public disclosure, the Draft normally requires consent to provide personal information to others (Article 24), which could inhibit inter-governmental sharing of government information that contains personal information. Such sharing, encouraged to facilitate efficiency of government services, is currently regulated by policy, not law. Following earlier, local provisions, 2016 State Council measures stipulate “government information resources” shared across departments should be lawfully collected by government departments, managed within the scope of their legal authority, and used to perform government functions. While government-produced information is presumed eligible for sharing, departments seeking information from other departments must indicate their need for and use of requested information, which is provided based on catalogues that classify information for unconditional, partially restricted, and no sharing. Other State Council provisions, which explicitly require protecting personal information, prohibit government service providers from using material shared by administrative counterparts for purposes unrelated to their services. Concerns about privacy and personal information protection are prominent in China’s evolving, fragmented social credit “system” (SCS), which entails governmental collection and sharing of regulatory information across departments and levels of government, and disclosure of “public credit information” (PCI) that is generated or acquired while performing regulatory duties, such as fines, punishments, court orders, and professional licenses. The Civil Code identifies one’s credit as an important reputational element (Article 1024) and grants individuals the right to request correction, deletion, and other measures regarding their credit information (Article 1030). Credit reporting and enterprise information publicity components of the SCS are governed by State Council regulations that impose governmental privacy protective obligations, as does some local social credit legislation. However, SCS development to date is largely governed by policy documents, which are not “law.” The State Council’s foundational 2014 SCS development plan called for regulating personal information handling, misuse, and protection, and 2016 guidance on personal creditworthiness requires privacy protection, prohibits collecting personal PCI unless authorized by law, and advocates compiling a national personal PCI catalogue—still being finalized—with classification and sharing standards. Concurrent guidance on government integritylimits official action to that expressly authorized by law, and conditions government information disclosure on protecting privacy. Court provisions on publishing judgment defaulter lists, considered part of the SCS inter-departmental enforcement system, stipulate non-private information to be released. December 2020 State Council guidance on standardizing the SCS further emphasizes privacy protection and requires the government to observe principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and minimization, and to state clearly the purpose, method, and scope when collecting and using private information. Disclosure of personal credit information in particular must be based on consent or laws, regulations, or State Council decisions and orders. The Draft specifies safeguards and remedies concerning violations by personal information handlers, some of which are not entirely new. In the Draft, individuals are given the rights to access and copy their personal information (Article 45) and correct (Article 46) or delete (Article 47) inaccurate or illegally collected information. They already may access and request correction of information relating to themselves held in government files pursuant to the 2007 OGI Regulations, which further provide the right to request reconsideration of or litigate an administrative organ’s unsatisfactory response. They can file objections and correct inaccurate personal information in social credit files and credit reports, including reports issued by the government-sponsored Credit Reference Center. The Draft empowers individuals to file complaints and reports with responsible departments concerning illegal handling of personal information (Article 61), for which some procedures already exist. Most state organs have online channels for filing claims and petitions concerning rights violations, as well as other matters, and individuals may file reports and accusations regarding the CCP with its discipline inspection authorities. The Draft also provides that unlawful acts be recorded in personal information handlers’ credit files (Article 63), and administrative organs and staff have their own files under the SCS. Where state organs fail to fulfill their personal information protection duties, the Draft directs their superior organs or other competent departments to order correction and discipline responsible officials (Article 64), internal redress mechanisms already codified in law. Individuals may seek compensation for handling activities that infringe their personal information rights, including court determination of the amount (Article 65). While the Draft does not establish the compensation procedure, individuals should be entitled to sue administrative organs for compensation for actions taken and failures to act that violate the Draft’s requirements. Article 67 provides criminal liability for violations that constitute a crime; China’s Criminal Law imposes fines on units including, at least theoretically, “organs” and criminal liability on their personnel for selling or illegally providing personal information. The Beijing CCP committee and municipal government in December endorsed making personal information protection violations eligible for procuratorate-led public interest litigation, a remedy the Draft anticipates for large-scale infringements (Article 66), against both administrative organs and civil entities. However, while the top court in December added “disputes over privacy and personal information protection” to official civil causes of action, making it easier to sue private persons, it did not include them in its administrative causes of action, thus raising questions concerning judicial enforcement against administrative organs, at least until the Draft becomes law. Moreover, Chinese courts cannot entertain administrative lawsuits involving foreign policy or national defense, and are reluctant to adjudicate national security matters. Remedies against the non-administrative state organs such as legislatures and courts are even more problematic. It is doubtful individuals can seek formal legal remedies and compensation for infringement of personal information rights from state organs other than government agencies in the absence of clear procedures stipulated in other laws. Further legislation and implementing regulations will be required to shore up the statutory basis and establish procedures for applying the Draft’s limiting requirements to administrative and other state organs. They typically would be required to publish detailed rules on personal information handling, including its statutory basis, purpose, necessity, use, and scope; procedures to access, copy, correct, and delete information; and available remedies. They should release drafts for public comment, as required by law and as China’s State Internet Information Office did for its draft scope of necessary personal information for mobile applications. They should also publish the compliance audits required by Article 53 to enhance implementation. Clearly, the Draft’s application of personal information handling requirements to all state organs reflects a largely aspirational intent at present, and it would maintain broad authority for state organs to access and use personal information to perform broad statutory functions. And formal legal challenges to even administrative actions are seldom successful, although they can help foster improvements. Yet, China is developing the legal infrastructure for a comprehensive, privacy protective government information management system onto which additional personal information handling requirements for administrative—and potentially other—organs can be grafted. The Draft reinforces or codifies: existing information handling principles of legality, necessity, and minimization that already apply as a policy matter to government employees and are being enforced as to privacy limitations on disclosure through OGI litigation; the privacy protection obligation of all public employees, which has been criminally enforced against government staff including police that leak or unlawfully sell private information; and the rights to access and correct erroneous personal information and seek compensation for infringement, through private as well as official enforcement. Overall, the Draft generally aligns with global privacy trends. It also provides some common ground, in principle, for China’s participation in formulating international personal information protection norms (Article 12). To be sure, the CCP’s role in overseeing China’s legal system, which faces substantial enforcement challenges, China’s divergent stance on data sovereignty, its ubiquitous use of surveillance, and other seemingly intractable issues including how to balance privacy against broad cybersecurity and national security priorities complicate the prospect of reaching agreement on global data governance rules. Nonetheless, the Draft suggests that China is taking personal information protection seriously and establishing related legal checks on government authority for ordinary operations, based on domestic dynamics propelled by the expectations of the Chinese people. The final law, which should undergo at least one more round of public comment, should explicitly grant citizens the legal tools to help assure a measure of enforceability of their privacy rights against the Chinese state.
9bf7136b28d9551e2e7c7a076ec566a9	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/indonesian-foreign-policy-a-million-friends-and-zero-enemies/	Indonesian Foreign Policy: ‘A Million Friends and Zero Enemies’	Indonesian Foreign Policy: ‘A Million Friends and Zero Enemies’ After nearly ten years in office, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (widely known as SBY) will hand power this July to an elected successor in competitive multi-party elections. His efforts to consolidate Indonesia’s democracy and expand its economy have yielded tangible gains across a variety of measures, with much more room to improve. His mark on Indonesian foreign policy, while rooted in nonalignment and pragmatism, has been noteworthy for its willingness to address values of democracy and human rights head-on. What will this legacy mean for Indonesia’s potential as a leader for other societies, particularly from the Muslim world? Indonesia’s first directly elected president, SBY came to power in 2004 with more than 60 percent of the vote; in 2009, he won re-election in the first round by a similarly wide margin. After a tumultuous transition following the 1998 downfall of the despot President Suharto, the relative success of these two elections, and the country’s acceptance of the results, propelled Indonesia’s rapid transformation into a flourishing democracy and economic dynamo with a rapidly expanding middle class. Now, with SBY unable to seek a third term due to constitutionally mandated term limits, the race is on to succeed him. Several figures have emerged at the forefront. Abdul Rizal Bakrie, head of a successful business conglomerate, is the leading candidate for the Golkar Party, the ruling party during General Suharto’s 32-year reign. Prabowo Subianto, a former Special Forces commander under Suharto who ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 2009, heads the Gerindra Party ticket. Joko Widodo, the current governor of the capital city Jakarta, is most favored to become the next president according to nationwide polls. Unlike Bakrie and Prabowo, Jokowi (as he is known), is a relatively new politician who made his name in the post-Suharto era. He has a reputation for being an honest politician with a can-do attitude, detached from the old political guard embodied by Bakrie and Prabowo. Although he is a favorite to win, it remains unclear whether he will run if his party’s leader, former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, chooses to make another claim for the presidency. As the campaign heats up, one thing is certain: most of the presidential hopefuls will focus on tackling domestic issues such as improving infrastructure and curbing corruption. During the past year, SBY’s Democratic Party has been marred by corruption scandals and his political image has taken a hit. While his domestic policy agenda may now be in jeopardy, it seems that SBY’s foreign policy legacy will largely remain unscathed as his term comes to an end. Much credit should be given to his administration for guiding Indonesia to economic prosperity and international prominence in the last ten years. He has worked to expand Indonesia’s clout on the international stage mainly through its active leadership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and closer cooperation with India, Australia and China. SBY’s administration has been eager to share its experiences on democratic transition with other leaders of aspiring democracies, including Myanmar and Egypt, and hosts an annual Asia-Pacific forum on democracy designed to lend legitimacy to a political reform agenda. SBY also has chosen gradually to increase Indonesia’s international profile by taking part in the G-20 summits and co-chairing the UN Secretary General’s 27-member High Level Panel on the Post-2015 (Millennium Development Goals) Development Agenda. Although this strategy has elevated Indonesia’s standing in the international spotlight, doubts on its rise as an influential global player persist, as SBY’s administration has avoided major commitments that would compromise its historic preference for neutrality and non-interference. To understand Indonesia’s current foreign policy behavior, one must delve into its recent history. Just like politicians in the United States who channel its founding fathers, Indonesian leaders look to their independence heroes for inspiration. After gaining independence in 1945, Indonesia’s first president—Sukarno—pursued a “free and active” foreign policy strategy. The strategy entailed protecting its own national interests, not aligning with major world powers (i.e. the Soviet Union and the United States), and forming strong bonds with other non-aligned countries such as India. During this period, Indonesia became one of the leading members of the Non-Aligned Movement, which grew out of the group’s founding conference hosted by Indonesia in Bandung in 1955. After General Suharto came to power (1967-98), however, Indonesia kept a lower international profile and cultivated close relations with Washington and other Western economic powers in order to develop its economy. What we see in Indonesia’s current foreign policy stance is a blending of these two strategies. It is engaging with the international milieu of both major and minor powers, but still holding back on making significant commitments that could challenge its preference of remaining relatively neutral in international disputes. In a country obsessed with Facebook and other social media, SBY used his 2009 inaugural address to describe the strategic outlook of Indonesia’s current foreign policy this way: “Indonesia is facing a strategic environment where no country perceives Indonesia as an enemy and there is no country which Indonesia considers an enemy. Thus Indonesia can exercise its foreign policy freely in all directions, having a million friends and zero enemies.” For Indonesia, having “a million friends and zero enemies” does much to help sustain its impressive growth in foreign trade and investment. It also helps explain its reluctance to take hard human rights positions that might upset major economic partners that have poor human rights records, such as China. Furthermore, Indonesia is generally timid in making strong commitments to uphold human rights at the international level because it continues to struggle with its own human rights issues. Recently, for example, Indonesia has seen a significant uptick in religious intolerance and government infringement on civil rights and liberties. As the Muslim world’s largest democracy, such troubling internal human rights issues pose a real threat to the credibility of its leaders’ claim to be a beacon of democracy for other fragile democracies. Indonesia’s longstanding preference for non-intervention and opposition to external attempts to meddle in others’ internal affairs align conveniently with its desire to avoid international criticism of its own domestic agenda. This is one motivation behind Indonesia’s failure to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Amid calls from the DPR (House of Representatives) to ratify the Statute, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro stated: “We’ve already got a law on human rights, a law on human rights tribunals and the Constitution, all of which govern the rights and responsibilities of all citizens. All of them cover the issue of human rights. So even without ratifying [the Rome Statute], we’re already complying with the principles enshrined in it.” Although Indonesia is generally complying with the Rome Statute, it has not officially ratified it for fear of compromising its independence to handle sensitive issues on its own. Ratifying the statute could open Indonesia to unwanted attention by the ICC and limit its options if crimes against humanity were to occur within its borders. While Indonesia is not high on anyone’s list for ICC scrutiny, religious intolerance is growing (most notably the destruction of homes belonging to the Shias of the Sampang Regency at the hands of their Sunni neighbors), and a culture of impunity prevails amongst the country’s security forces. Its elite counterterrorism unit—Densus 88—has been implicated in killings of suspected terrorists and last March, members of Kopassus—the Indonesian Special Forces—stormed Cebongan prison and executed four detainees suspected of murdering a Kopassus sergeant. Unfortunately, this culture of impunity amongst members of the armed forces is nothing new. During Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of East Timor, its military committed atrocities against the East Timorese—most notably the 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre and the spate of killings after the East Timorese independence referendum in 1999. The Santa Cruz tragedy occurred when Indonesian troops opened fire on a memorial procession at the Santa Cruz Cemetery in the East Timor capital of Dili. The East Timorese independence referendum of 1999 saw at least 1,200 East Timorese slaughtered by anti-independence militias backed by the Indonesian army. Efforts to seek justice for the atrocities in East Timor bore no fruit. A makeshift human rights court set up by Indonesia and the UN Special Panels in East Timor tried 18 individuals for abuses committed during 1999, but all were acquitted. The CAVR, which ran from February 2002 to October 2005, accused Wiranto, Chief of the Armed Forces during 1998-99, of being complicit in the abuses committed in East Timor. The Serious Crimes Unit—a prosecutorial body within the UN Mission in East Timor—issued a warrant for Gen. (ret) Wiranto’s arrest in 2004, but the East Timorese government never forwarded it to Interpol. East Timor’s leaders have opted for a reconciliatory approach with Indonesia, rather than seeking punishment. Former East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta spoke on the issue in 2006: “We have consciously rejected the notion of pushing for an international tribunal for East Timor because, A, it is not practical, B, it would wreck our relationship with Indonesia, and, C, we are serious about supporting Indonesia’s own transition towards democracy…In today’s Indonesia or in the foreseeable future, there will be no leader strong enough who can bring to court and prison senior military officers who were involved in violence in the past. . . . They are still too powerful.” Indeed, these former Indonesian military officials still hold much power. Wiranto ran for the presidency in 2004, the vice presidency in 2009, and will likely run for the presidency again in 2014. Lt Gen. (ret) Prabowo—mentioned earlier as a possible presidential candidate—is alleged to have been responsible for human rights violations during the widespread rioting in Jakarta surrounding Suharto’s downfall in 1998. Although the ICC’s jurisdiction is not retroactive, Indonesia’s troubled history of impunity may give its current leaders reason enough to hold the international lawyers at bay for the foreseeable future. Regardless of the Rome Statute’s fate, the next president will have to tackle the rule of law agenda frontally, on its own or with help from the international community. Further from home, Indonesia’s evolving views on international norms of democracy and human rights were evident in its handling of Syria. SBY suggested that Bashar al-Assad step down from power to allow for a political transition towards leadership accepted by all Syrian parties involved. SBY made the suggestion during a meeting with a delegation of Islamic scholars led by Sheikh Muhammad Ali Ash-Shobuni of Saudi Arabia on January 7, 2013. It seemed Indonesia would take a more active approach in helping to resolve the Syrian crisis. However, Indonesia so far has done little to follow up on SBY’s statement. At the UN General Assembly on May 15, it abstained from voting for a resolution condemning al-Assad’s Syrian regime and accepting the Syrian National Coalition as party to a political transition. Foreign Minister Natalegawa summed up the reason behind the abstention: “Indonesia is not able to support the resolution because it contains elements that run counter to the established international law and international relations by taking side with certain parties in the conflict. For Indonesia, the legitimate government of Syria is for Syrian people themselves to decide, not outside parties.” Indonesia’s behavior towards the Syrian crisis encapsulates a shift toward a more engaged effort to encourage others to uphold international human rights and democracy norms, particularly in the Muslim world, while avoiding any meaningful, substantive action. From the Indonesian perspective, supporting the rebels would cross a line toward meddling in Syria’s affairs, which would contradict its coveted notion of non-interference. Supporting the rebels could also disappoint China and Russia and cause rifts in the already deeply divided bloc of Islamic nations. Similarly, in regards to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster, SBY has maintained Indonesia’s commitment to non-interference: “We do not have a recipe, neither are we advising Egypt on what to do. We are not in the position to do so, and that would not be right.” At Egypt’s request, with some gentle prodding from Jakarta, Indonesia advised Cairo in 2011 regarding organizing elections and setting up regulations on political parties. But this assistance was carefully packaged in tones of non-interference as highlighted in Foreign Minister Natalegawa’s comment: “We used the bilateral approach, which was more acceptable and they opened up to us and invited us to come to share our experience…But we must ensure that we do it cautiously without giving the impression that we are lecturing them.” While these examples demonstrate Indonesia’s growing engagement with the international community, it remains wedded to its historical preference for neutrality and non-interference, i.e., to have “a million friends and zero enemies.” Apart from its limited engagement at the global level, Indonesia has taken some action within its neighborhood to promote human rights and democracy. For example, it has made concrete efforts to encourage Myanmar to make the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Shortly after the Burmese government crackdown on the participants of the Saffron Revolution in 2007, SBY sent retired General Agus Widjojo to cajole Myanmar’s military junta to embrace democratic transition. During the 1990s, Gen. Widjojo was known to be one of the reformist thinkers in the Indonesian military who encouraged Gen. Suharto to step down to make way for a democratic transition. Indonesia has also provided humanitarian assistance to conflict-prone areas of Myanmar, including $1 million to help build three schools in the Rakhine State. These and similar efforts to help Myanmar’s transition have drawn praise from its democratic friends, including Australia. The Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) is another medium through which Indonesia has promoted international norms of democracy. Indonesia launched BDF in 2008 as an annual open intergovernmental forum on the development of democracy in the Asia-Pacific region. Participating countries engage in dialogue based on sharing experiences and best practices in regards to promotion of democratic ideals. The Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD)—also established in 2008—supports the BDF’s goal of instilling concepts and skills for peace and democracy through intellectual exchanges, training for practitioners, joint missions, network building, publications, and capacity building at Bali’s Udayana University where it is headquartered. It also has actively supported the creation of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), a weak but nonetheless important initiative to insert human rights into the ASEAN agenda, and appointed a civil society leader as its representative. It voluntarily held a human rights dialogue with the Commission on June 25, 2013, where it reported to the Commission on the current human rights issues within the country. While these developments are a step in the right direction, they also highlight that Indonesia is playing it safe in taking responsibility on human rights and democracy promotion. It cautiously promotes rights in countries of the greatest immediate interest – those within its ASEAN neighborhood – with a modest and soft touch. As the champion of ASEAN, Indonesia carefully has leveraged Myanmar’s interest in the rotating presidency, which it will assume in 2014, to nudge it closer to embarking on a serious democratic transition. The Bali Democracy Forum, for all its appeal, is also criticized for its inclusivity; countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran take part in the Forum largely to pay lip service to their own credentials as “democracies.” Similarly, although Indonesia has boosted the AICHR’s influence by voluntarily opting to engage in a human rights dialogue with the Commission, ASEAN’s human rights body continues to have limited impact because it lacks a mechanism to enforce good human rights practices or to demand information from member countries. It is merely a consultative body, where member countries can choose whether or not to consult with it to improve their protection of human rights. Indonesia’s next president should use its clout in ASEAN to encourage other member nations to support the development of enforcement mechanisms for the AICHR. SBY has taken Indonesia a great distance toward a special seat at the global table. In order for Indonesia to reach its full potential as an influential global player, its next leader should build on this record and be willing to saddle up and take on more substantive actions to promote human rights and democracy at the international level. To do so, it will have to make more commitments than it has to date to both practicing and promoting the liberal international norms it now proudly embraces. It should also invest in building the regional architecture needed to help engender and sustain democratic transitions in its own neighborhood, where it has immediate interests. If, on the other hand, Indonesia does not take the fight for human rights and democracy to the global stage, it will limit its influence as a global leader. In sum, Indonesia is making a lot of interesting noises, but isn’t really making any music yet. The country’s next president needs to continue where SBY left off, and do much more. This article was originally published by The Diplomat .
4754f7edc3b332eb18c82a743d109148	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/inside-the-inferno-counterterrorism-professionals-reflect-on-their-work/?shared=email&msg=fail	Inside the Inferno: Counterterrorism Professionals Reflect on Their Work	Inside the Inferno: Counterterrorism Professionals Reflect on Their Work Ursula Wilder, a clinical psychologist working within the Intelligence Community, explores the impact of counterterrorism (CT) work on the professionals who operate in high intensity and high stress environments, often for many years. For some, the work involves actual combat or engagement with terrorists and their violent acts. For others, the work involves making decisions that affect the lives of many and, as a consequence, bearing the weight of making life and death decisions. And for yet another group, counterterrorism assignments involve piercing through massive amounts of intelligence data and reports, while coping with the great uncertainty in locating terrorists and, in turn, warning others of potential terrorist acts before bad outcomes happen. Writing in the Central Intelligence Agency’s journal Studies in Intelligence, Wilder covers new territory for the 60-year-old publication – the examination of the effects of violence and high stress on counterterrorism practitioners and the impacts caused by the weight of making many difficult decisions on a routine basis. While some researchers have explored the impact of war on the human psyche – most notably recent work on post-traumatic stress disorder – less research has been done on the psychology of individuals who work in high-stress world of counterterrorism. The attached article is based on interviews with people who work across the range of counterterrorism (CT) vocations. Some purposefully pursued work in CT, deliberately dedicating themselves to this work for a short period or for an entire career. Other professionals found themselves thrown unexpectedly into CT work because an act of terrorism occurred in close proximity to a recent assignment, requiring the urgent deployment of their knowledge and skills. Local medical and emergency personnel, police, reporters, mental health practitioners, and morticians are examples of professionals who have increasingly been required since 9/11 to react to violence of this sort. Whether CT professionals have been engaged in the work of counterterrorism by choice or by circumstances beyond their control, those who have stepped up to perform these jobs have been—and will continue to be—affected by their professional experiences, in ways subtle and profound and positive and negative. Often their loved ones have been affected, secondarily, but no less profoundly. Wilder’s article draws from interviews with 57 professionals from the main domains in the CT field. The interviews were conducted in 2012 while the author was an Intelligence Community Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution. While those interviewed represent only a small portion of the CT profession in which many thousands work and have worked, their personal reflections and insights nevertheless provide a window into the psychological trends that likely exist among their colleagues in the entire CT community. Download the full article » Ursula M. Wilder is an Intelligence Community psychologist with field experience in counterintelligence and counterterrorism, who is currently posted at CIA’s Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis. She was a 2011-2012 Federal Executive Fellow at Brookings. Editor’s Note: This work is part of unclassified extracts from Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Extracts, December 2014), a publication of the Center for the Study of Intelligence, a division of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Studies in Intelligence explores many aspects of the intelligence community and its people. Most often it has addressed the field’s history, its methods, and future development. Less often have the journal’s authors examined the personal and psychological impact on intelligence professionals as Wilder undertakes in this piece.
b66eb148ac2521388b803a53505cce7c	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-obama-like-eisenhower/	Is Obama Like Eisenhower?	Is Obama Like Eisenhower? “I remember some of the speeches of Eisenhower,” Hillary Clinton said during a joint interview with President Obama in January. “You know, you’ve got to be careful, you have to be thoughtful, you can’t rush in.” It seems likely her memories were jogged by the reviews of Evan Thomas’s recent book, Ike’s Bluff, which argued that Eisenhower’s experience as a soldier and general taught him the limitations of exercising power. That book and a spate of other recent studies have established Ike firmly in the public mind as the very embodiment of presidential prudence. They have also turned him into a posthumous adviser to the Obama administration. Before becoming secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel bought three dozen copies of David A. Nichols’s study of the Suez Crisis and distributed them to (among others) the president, Hillary Clinton, and Leon Panetta, his predecessor as secretary of defense. At Suez, Ike refused to support Britain and France when they (in collusion with Israel) invaded Egypt, and he effectively killed the intervention. Hagel’s lesson was clear: Don’t let allies drag you into ill-advised military adventures. In an influential essay published last year in Time entitled “On Foreign Policy, Why Barack Is Like Ike,” Fareed Zakaria argued that when the president showed a wariness to intervene in places like Syria, he was displaying an uncanny resemblance to Eisenhower. The key quality that the two share, Zakaria argued, is “strategic restraint.” In his recent book, Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (Princeton University Press, 200 pages), Joseph S. Nye of Harvard takes the argument even one step further. Nye claims Eisenhower was actually an early practitioner of what an Obama aide, speaking of the administration’s role in the ouster of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya, notoriously called “leading from behind.” A cursory examination of Eisenhower’s actual Middle East policies reveals the hollowness of both this thesis and the notion that Eisenhower, as president, followed a strategy of restraint—especially as regards the Middle East. To be sure, he frequently exercised prudence in military affairs. He ended the war in Korea and did not intervene in 1956 when the Hungarians rose in revolt against their Soviet masters. Most notable of all, he refrained from intervention in Vietnam. But military prudence should not be confused with global strategy. Modern-day “restraintists” are quick to cite Eisenhower’s warning, in his farewell address, regarding the dangers of “the military industrial complex.” They typically forget, however, to quote his justification for it: “We face a hostile ideology—global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration.” Eisenhower, in other words, zealously prosecuted the Cold War. Indeed, contemporary critics diagnosed his administration as suffering from “pactomania,” an irresistible urge to organize alliances against Communism. Many historians now regard his reliance on the CIA, which toppled regimes in Iran and Guatemala, as anything but restrained. And there are also more public examples of Eisenhower flexing his presidential muscles. There was Syria, for one. Then, as now, the country was at the center of a regional power struggle. In the summer of 1956, when the Syrian government began to drift toward the Soviet Union, Eisenhower instructed the CIA to topple it. By summer 1957, the spy agency had attempted to stage two coups, both of which failed. No sooner had Syrian counterintelligence rolled up the second plot than Eisenhower formulated another plan: fomenting jihad. He instructed the CIA to position itself in order to stir up violent disturbances along Syria’s borders. The goal was to present these incidents to the world as a threat—a Syrian threat—to the peace and security of the region. Syria’s neighbors would then use the unrest as a pretext to invade and topple the government in Damascus. The trickiest part of the plan was convincing the Arab states to invade. In the hope that Saudi Arabia would help, Eisenhower wrote to King Saud. The letter expressed alarm over the “serious danger that Syria will become a Soviet Communist satellite.” It affirmed that “any country that was attacked by a Syria which was itself dominated by International Communism” could count on the United States for support. And then it closed with an appeal to Islam: “In view of the special position of Your Majesty as Keeper of the Holy Places of Islam, I trust that you will exert your great influence to the end that the atheistic creed of Communism will not become entrenched at a key position in the Moslem world.” The letter missed its mark. “Saud,” as the historian Salim Yaqub wrote, “had little interest in Eisenhower’s jihad.” In praise of Ike’s pacific record, Zakaria notes that “from the end of the Korean War to the end of his presidency, not one American soldier died in combat.” The statistic is striking, but it creates a misleading impression. In truth, Eisenhower had the one quality all successful leaders have: He was lucky. Any number of his policies could easily have backfired, producing a much less impressive statistic. The Syrian crisis of 1957 is a case in point. While Eisenhower was attempting to generate a jihad, the Turkish government amassed 50,000 troops on the Syrian border. The move provoked the Soviets. In an interview with the New York Times, Nikita Khrushchev, then the Soviet premier, publicly accused the United States of fomenting the crisis and issued a warning to the Turks: “If the rifles fire,” he said bluntly, “the rockets will start flying.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles immediately came to the aid of the Turks: “If there is an attack on Turkey by the Soviet Union,” he said, “it would not mean a purely defensive operation by the United States, with the Soviet Union a privileged sanctuary from which to attack Turkey.” In such tense circumstances, a miscalculation by a Turkish, Syrian, or Soviet commander could have dragged the United States into an extremely ugly conflict. History, in that case, would have produced less impressive statistics. Zakaria also happens to be factually wrong. A number of soldiers did die on Eisenhower’s watch—three, to be exact. One fell to an enemy sniper; the other two to friendly fire. All of them died in Lebanon during the 1958 intervention. Zero or three—either way the record is remarkable, but the fallen Marines should remind us of an important fact: Eisenhower, when the situation required, did not shrink from entering a messy conflict. In the first half of 1958, Camille Chamoun, the Lebanese president, was battling an insurgency and strongly urged Eisenhower to come to his assistance. The insurgents were receiving support from Syria, which by this time had merged with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt to form the United Arab Republic. Eisenhower feared a quagmire and resisted calls to intervene. But overnight, his calculus changed. When Eisenhower went to bed on Sunday, July 13, Iraq was an ally—“the country,” he wrote in his memoirs, “that we were counting on heavily as a bulwark of stability and progress in the region.” By the time he woke on Monday, the bulwark had collapsed. In the early morning hours, renegade army officers staged a successful coup, destroying Iraq’s Hashemite monarchy and replacing it with an Arab nationalist republic that Eisenhower feared might align with the United Arab Republic and its Soviet patron. In a mere instant, a Cold War ally had disappeared. Fearing a push by Nasser and the Soviet Union against all Western-leaning states of the region, a number of American allies—including the Lebanese, Saudis, and Jordanians—called for immediate intervention by the United States. Cairo and Moscow, they argued, must be put on notice that the Americans would not let their remaining friends go the way of the Iraqi monarchy. If the United States failed to intervene, the Saudi king informed Eisenhower, it would be “finished” as a power in the region. Eisenhower sprung to action with remarkable speed. Within a few hours, he gave the order to send in the Marines to bolster the resolve of allies and reinvigorating the deterrent capability of the United States. Almost immediately, Eisenhower invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House for a briefing. Sam Rayburn, the speaker of the House, expressed concerns: “If we go in and intervene and our operation does not succeed, what do we do then?” He also worried that “the Russians would threaten general war.” Eisenhower replied that it was impossible “to prophesy the exact course of events. If we do or if we don’t go in, the consequences will be bad.” He calculated, however, that it was crucial to take “a strong position rather than a Munich-type position, if we are to avoid the crumbling of our whole security structure.” Rayburn also believed that “intervention would intensify resentment against us throughout the area.” Eisenhower shared his fear. The Lebanon intervention, we now know, went as cleanly as any such operation in history. At the moment of decision, however, Eisenhower regarded the venture as highly risky—so dangerous, in fact, that it reminded him of giving the go order on D-Day, the most momentous event of his life. “Despite the disparity in the size of the two operations,” he wrote in his memoirs, “the possible consequences in each case, if things went wrong, were chilling.” What, in particular, made the intervention so dangerous? “In Lebanon, the question was whether it would be better to incur the deep resentment of nearly all of the Arab world (and some of the rest of the Free world) and in doing so to risk general war with the Soviet Union or to do something worse—which was to do nothing.” Over the last year, a parade of America’s Middle Eastern allies have made their way through the White House, raising the alarm of Syria, and urging Obama to organize a more robust international response. Unlike Ike, Obama calculated that doing nothing was preferable to taking actions that have uncertain outcomes. As a result, when Obama finally decided that some response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons was necessary, he found himself almost bereft of allies. And what about Nye’s favorable comparison of Obama’s foreign policy with Eisenhower’s? “An incautious comment by a midlevel White House official characterized the Libya policy as ‘leading from behind,’ and this became a target for political criticism,” Nye writes, but adds that “Eisenhower was a great exemplar of knowing that sometimes it is most effective to keep a low profile and to lead from behind.” This is an act of rhetorical legerdemain. Nye’s use of the term gives the impression that two very different things are actually one and the same. With respect to Obama, “leading from behind” describes his administration’s policy toward Libyan intervention. With respect to Ike, it describes his management style, which Fred Greenstein famously called “the hidden-hand presidency.” In Eisenhower’s day, intellectuals almost universally regarded him as an amiable dolt, more golfer than strategist. Before Greenstein (together with Stephen Ambrose and others) set the record straight in the 1980s, it was widely assumed that John Foster Dulles was the man who actually ran American foreign policy. Using declassified documents, Greenstein and his cohort showed that Eisenhower was resolutely in charge, a master of detail, fully in command of strategy and tactics. Eisenhower might have put Dulles out front and center stage, but he was always guiding him with a “hidden hand.” The diary of Jock Colville, Winston Churchill’s right-hand man, provides a vivid example of Eisenhower’s skills at “gentle persuasion,” to use Nye’s phrase. After Stalin died in March 1953, Churchill, then in his final term as prime minister, perceived signs of moderation in Moscow. He began a campaign to convince Eisenhower to convene a summit with the USSR on the model of the great wartime conferences. Ike repeatedly rebuffed Churchill, who eventually made his differences with Eisenhower publicly known. Tensions came to a head in Bermuda in December 1953 at a conference attended by the leaders of the United States, Britain, and France. During one of the opening meetings, Churchill immediately delivered an eloquent appeal for engaging the new Soviet leaders. Eisenhower, Colville writes, was enraged. He reacted with “a short, very violent statement, in the coarsest terms,” likening the Soviet Union to “a whore” whom the United States would drive off the main streets. Colville was shocked by Eisenhower’s profanity. “I doubt,” he noted, “if such language has ever been heard at an international conference.” Now consider: The Islamic Republic of Iran recently elected a new president, Hassan Rouhani, whom many observers regard as a moderate. Those observers have beenurging Obama to engage with him directly, just as Churchill urged Ike. Imagine a conference between Obama and a delegation of European leaders who argue eloquently for reaching out to Rouhani. Obama springs up, enraged. The veins in his forehead pop out, throbbing. He launches into a profanity-laced tirade. “Iran,” he thunders, “is a whore and we are going to drive her off the streets of the Middle East.” If Obama were truly like Ike in foreign policy, this thought experiment would not be a fanciful one. The popular association of the Eisenhower administration with “strategic restraint” is itself he product of historical revisionism. It was not the contemporary view. Until the 1980s, most pundits believed the opposite. Their view was perfectly distilled in Townsend Hoopes’s The Devil and John Foster Dulles (1973). The unstated goal of the book was to saddle the Republicans with responsibility for the Vietnam War—no mean feat, given that Democrats Kennedy and Johnson had made the key decisions to intervene. Nevertheless, Hoopes found an ingenious method to lay the responsibility squarely on Eisenhower’s shoulders—or, more precisely, on the shoulders of his secretary of state. John Foster Dulles’s influence, Hoopes explains, was so immense that it extended beyond the Republican Party. Dulles managed to shape the zeitgeist by establishing in the broad culture the unassailable sanctity of “America’s posture of categorical anti-Communism and limitless strategic concern.” Once he successfully stamped the culture with anti-Communist zealotry, the Democrats had no choice but to follow its inexorable logic, which led to imperial overreach in Vietnam. “In early 1968,” Hoopes writes, “when the Tet offensive and Lyndon Johnson’s withdrawal from further political combat tore away the final veil hiding the misperception and failure of America’s freedom-defending and nation-building in South Vietnam, I faced, along with many others, the dawning of the realization that an era in American foreign policy had ended.” This was hysterically overwrought, obviously, but in its day, intellectuals took the argument seriously. It’s worth considering why. Caricature, of course, exaggerates recognizable aspects of reality. In the 1970s, the very real anti-Communism of the Eisenhower era was still a part of living memory. “Mutual Assured Destruction,” “the domino theory,” “brinkmanship”—these 1950s catchphrases reverberated, testifying to the fact that Ike, even while steering clear of military adventures, took the fight to the enemy. By contrast, contemporary audiences know Ike only from history books such as Greenstein’s, which emphasizes Eisenhower’s pragmatism precisely in order to supplant the prevailing caricature of his stupidity. Still, there was more than just a grain of truth to Hoopes’s presentation. Ike operated in a specific ideological context. To detach “Ike the pragmatist” entirely from it is to draw a caricature every bit as distorted as “Dulles the zealot.” Zakaria sees Ike and Obama as uncannily similar for exhibiting “strategic restraint” in their Middle East policies. That Obama has been restrained is undeniable. In what way, however, is his reluctance to use military force “strategic”? What larger plan does the policy serve? The best answer came last March from Tom Donilon, his former national-security adviser. The Obama administration, he explained in an interview, had determined that the United States was “over-invested in our military efforts in South Asia and in the Middle East.” At the same time, it was “dramatically under-invested” in Asia, which was “the most economically dynamic region in the world.” Therefore, it was “rebalancing” to Asia. So Obama, the global strategist, pores over a huge map spread out on the table before him. Using his pointer stick like a croupier, he slides pieces from the Middle East to Asia. That’s all well and good on the global level, but what about the Middle East? The region is undergoing an epochal transformation. Where does the president see it headed? What is the American role in guiding it there? In May 2011, a few months after the Arab Spring first broke out, Obama identified a powerful movement toward freedom and democracy and reached out his hand in partnership. “The question before us,” Obama said at the time “is what role America will play as this story unfolds.” He answered with clarity: “There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity.” Only two years later, he struck a less hopeful note. In the Middle East, he said, “there are ancient sectarian differences, and the hopes of the Arab Spring have unleashed forces of change that are going to take many years to resolve. And that’s why we’re not contemplating putting our troops in the middle of someone else’s war.” Where Obama was nurturing democracy two years ago, he is now arguing for quarantining sectarian violence. This blatant shift raises even more questions. Will this sectarianism burn itself out, or will the conflagration grow? What security structures will best contain it? How will the “rebalancing” to Asia help build them? One suspects that there are no answers to any of these questions, because the decision to pull back was disconnected from a larger vision of the Middle East. “Strategic restraint,” when applied to Obama’s policies, is synonymous with “strategic neglect.” That was not true of Eisenhower’s policies. His eight years in office also coincided with a revolutionary wave. The old imperial and colonial order was crumbling. A new one, dominated by secular pan-Arab nationalism, was taking its place. Eisenhower saw it plainly and formulated a strategy to deal with it. His goal was to channel the nationalism of the region away from the Soviet bloc and toward the West by offering security and economic assistance. The United States was engaged in a delicate balancing act, supporting its European allies against the Soviet Union while simultaneously facilitating the rise of the independent nations of the Middle East, which were hostile to the Europeans. It is impossible to understand any of Ike’s major moves without reference to this vision. Take, for instance, the Suez Crisis, which Zakaria cites as a prime example of “strategic restraint” and which Hagel holds up as a model for Obama. When Eisenhower turned against his allies, he did not do so out of any overarching commitment to “restraint.” He simply believed Britain and France were alienating Arab nationalists and destroying the prospect for a strategic accommodation between the Arab states and the West. He therefore shunted the Europeans aside—in what was actually the most dramatic assertion of American primacy of the Cold War. In the midst of the crisis, he announced the Eisenhower Doctrine, a unilateral American commitment to defend the entire Middle East. His doctrine put the world on formal notice that the United States was replacing Britain as the dominant power in the region. The result of Ike’s “strategic restraint” was a massive increase in the global responsibilities of the United States. Obama’s restraint represents an attempt to shed those responsibilities. The Ike–Obama analogy creates an illusion of commonality and historic continuity where none exists. It is bad history, because it depicts Eisenhower as a two-dimensional figure, entirely detached from his key associates and their core beliefs. At the same time, the analogy presents us with a distorted view of Obama. The Eisenhower Doctrine asserted American primacy in the Middle East, and every president since has regarded it a vital American interest to shape the international order of the region. Every president, that is, except the present one. The old order in the Middle East is crumbling. The enemies and rivals of the United States—Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda—are working assiduously to mold the new order that benefits them. Their efforts, which are often in conflict, have ignited a great fire. Unlike his predecessors, Barack Obama has determined that the United States is best served by hanging back. This is a sharp break with the past—especially with Eisenhower. Those desperately looking to burnish Obama’s reputation when it comes to foreign policy by associating it with that of a successful presidency will have to look elsewhere. This article originally appeared in Commentary Magazine.
bc852b3b7f3422f66be43c69345358ec	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/islam-in-france/	Islam in France	Islam in France In a long-planned public-relations initiative, France faced Algeria in a “friendly” soccer match three weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The organizers hoped to showcase the success of “republican” integration and the maturity of the Algerian migrant presence in France. Contrary to script, however, some young soccer fans booed the national anthem, threw objects at two government ministers and—once the French lead had reached 4-to-1—ran onto the field, forcing the game’s cancellation. The game’s spectacular ending gave a different impression from that desired by its organizers. It also confirmed the misgivings of those wondering, in the aftermath of September 11, whether Muslims in France could represent a threat to the Republic. “Where are the beurs going?” asked the cover of Le Nouvel Observateur, above photographs of the second- and third-generation immigrant youth invading the soccer field. (“Beurs” is a French slang term for Arabs.) Whether from the disruptive actions of a few, or because the five million Muslims residing in France are beginning to take on organized religious and political contours, a decisive moment has arrived in the French Republic’s long coexistence with Islam. Nationality It is difficult to know exactly how many Muslims of different nationalities live in France because the state does not collect religious or ethnic census data. The republican notion of citizenship keeps religious practice and ethnic origin squarely in the private domain (and the French are wary of past abuses of such government files). Half of the estimated five million French Muslims are born or naturalized French citizens. Those of Algerian origin form the largest subgroup. Most arrived during the post-war economic boom: North African independence coincided with strong French demand for manual labor. These workers were already settling in France and starting families when the government ended labor migration in the mid-1970s. A steady annual flow of thousands has persisted under family reunification provisions. This has especially reinforced the Muslim populations around Paris, where one-third are concentrated, and in Lille and Marseilles, which together are home to another one-third. National Origins of the Muslim Population These migrants have tended to concentrate geographically and have benefited from state supports in social and religious policy. But any articulation of their interests as group interests is discouraged. Here the revolutionary spirit of the National Assembly debate granting citizenship to the Jews is still current: deny them everything as a nation and grant them all as individuals. To suggest that Muslims form a coherent, unitary “community” is a taboo act of reification, inconsistent with the Jacobin tradition. Of course practical electoral and symbolic politics leads to a different outcome. French politicians actively court different religious communities. Though there were some 1.2 million Muslim voters by the mid-1990s, the foreign nationality of other Muslims in France complicates the state’s interaction with them. Moreover, France’s reluctance to identify specific suffering or needs of sub-national groups has recently been tested. The last two governments have issued decrees compensating the Jewish communities of France for material and spiritual damages under Vichy. France has also timidly begun revisiting its mixed history of domination and war in Algeria. But there remains a general “republican” reluctance to address the specific challenges of integrating the heirs of this experience. French Muslims and the War on Terrorism Journalists’ speculations in the early fall that the largely migrant-populated suburbs might harbor wasps’ nests of America-haters—if not sleeper cells–coincided with the lethal explosion of a chemical factory in Toulouse, breeding weeks of speculation that France was again victim to Islamic terrorism. Reports of a foiled suicide bomb plot against the American embassy in Paris were followed by coverage of Zaccarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman arrested by FBI agents in August and thought to be the missing twentieth 9/11 hijacker. But Usama Bin Laden’s videotaped call for Muslims to rise up against western host societies does not seem to have won sympathy with French Muslims. French Muslims as a community, even in the religiously sensitive period of Ramadan, overwhelmingly condemned the attack on New York. Ninety-two percent agreed in an IFOP survey that Islam condemns terrorist acts and the same number said the hijackers were not legitimately Muslim “because Islam is a religion of peace and moderation.” Seventy percent also approved of French participation in an eventual military response, only slightly lower than support among the overall French population. 1 Muslims have organized themselves in several principal federations, oriented in part along lines of national origin. Total membership in these associations probably does not exceed 10-20 percent of Muslims in France. Foremost among the Algerian presence is the Grande Mosquée de Paris and its associated Muslim Institute. Similar in size, the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF) is a large umbrella organization with Moroccan and Egyptian ties. There are also three main Turkish and various African religious associations, in addition to small cliques around individual religious and political personalities. Nearly all of these religious groups and the mosque they represent have participated in consultations with the Interior Ministry to create a High Authority of Islam in France. In the realm of civic society, a host of groups representing Muslim students and women have gained associational status under to the 1901 law governing secondary associations. Some of these associations have had established contact with local authorities for decades, such as those founded on behalf of the resident “Harki” population of Algerians who sympathized and fought on the French side during the Algerian War. Muslim Piety in 2001 (and 1994) Laïcité The 1905 law separating church and state prevents the public funding and official recognition of religious communities. The law allows for the public maintenance of religious buildings in existence at the time of the law’s passage and also contains similar exceptions for the salaries of clergy employed by prisons, hospitals and the army. In its affirmation of the principle of equality in the free exercise of religion for all French citizens, however, the law is increasingly interpreted as a commitment to create sufficient material conditions for Muslims to practice their religion. This includes prayer spaces and Halal-related requirements, and eventually the training of clergy and the accommodation of Muslims in public cemeteries. Efforts like the recently elected mayor of Marseille’s project to build a large Islamic cultural center and mosque have required consultation of the local Muslim populations, and thus the organization of their representatives. The community’s religious needs are not minor. Of 1558 prayer spaces in France, the vast majority can accommodate fewer than 150 people, and only 20 can hold more than 1,000 congregants. In all, there are five mosques in use in France that were built expressly as mosques. These numbers compare with 40,000 Catholic buildings, 957 temples and 82 synagogues. Since Napoleon forcefully organized Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in centralized consistoires with designated religious heads, those communities have developed parallel umbrella institutions in the political and social domains. Many Muslim leaders would like to combine the roles of political and religious interlocutor in a single council. Consultations have been taking place at the national level under the Interior Ministry (also the Ministère des cultes) since the Rocard government in 1990. Ministers Joxe, Pasqua, Chevénement, and now Vaillant, have attempted to finalize a new High Authority of Islam. But the French government—which strongly supports the republican brand of secularism known as laïcité—favors the creation of a strictly religious council. It is is especially loath to institutionalize domestic political consultations with non-French citizens. Nationality of Imams in France (1990) State involvement in the provision and training of Muslim clergy is also a question of concern to national security, as recent raids on Islamic religious centers in Hamburg and Milan have shown. Due to state inaction in the prison system, for example, a lack of state-provided Imams has created space for Islamic proselytizing to take root. With the share of Muslims in the prison population surpassing 50 percent, only forty-four clerics fulfill the state’s duty to provide religious consultation. By comparison, the prisons employ 460 Catholic clerics. To address technical issues of Muslims’ religious needs, advisers in the Interior Ministry maintain close contact with the diverse components of the Muslim organizational world. The Ministry says it is “accompanying” the Muslims in their quest for centralized organization. But the inclusive nature of this consultation has provoked accusations of religious extremism and nationalism among rival associations. Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grande Mosquée de Paris, and his ally Soheib Bencheikh, Mufti of Marseille, have systematically opposed the inclusion of the UOIF, whose Moroccan spokesman they denounce as an Islamic extremist. Plans for a regional assembly election in spring 2002 have also been the subject of controversy. Delegates will be allotted according to a mosque’s surface area, which does not always reflect actual attendance. These technical questions of representation will likely prove resolvable, as the recent elections in Belgium have shown. Indeed in the French region of Alsace-Moselle, governed by a special state-church regime because is was under German control at the time of the 1905 law, organized Islam enjoys the same recognition and benefits as other officially recognized religions. Reconciliation While integration of Islam is taking place at the symbolic and institutional levels, political leaders have begun to confront France’s troubled past with Algeria. Plaques have gone up on the Pont Saint-Michel and in the Invalides courtyard commemorating Muslims who died during the Algerian war. The long-neglected Harkis, who had fought on the side of France and were massacred by nationalist Algerians, finally received a presidential day of honor. And the victims of police violence during a 1961 Paris protest—a still uncounted number of “French Muslim of Algerian origin” estimated at between 50 and 200—had their memory inscribed by the mayor at the site of their deaths. Indeed it was in the context of formally expressing gratitude to 100,000 Muslim soldiers who had died for France in WWI that the Grande Mosquée de Paris and Muslim Institute were founded in 1922, in contravention of the 1905 law. The recent official review of the historical service and suffering of France’s half-million Jews has certainly accelerated their community recognition and strengthened their hand in negotiations with the state. Will something similar happen with France’s Muslim population? Reacting to the October 6 soccer match in Le Monde, the Algerian ambassador to France argued that the French state was equally responsible for the alienation of second-generation migrant youth, and called for their prompt social and political incorporation. The consequences of not integrating Islam into existing state-church structures would likely include an increase in foreign Imams and foreign money, and a decline in transparent and homegrown religious organization. Authorities would rightly fear the increasing hostility of a new generation excluded from public institutions; many also feel a duty to extend to them the promise of republican citizenship. President Chirac did not let a month pass after September’s attacks before convening leaders from the French Muslim world at the Elysée, and the new mayor of Paris organized a gala soirée du Ramadan at the Hôtel de Ville this year. But echoes from the bizarre soccer match still linger in the media, a striking counter-image to Algerian-born French star Zinedine Zidane’s heroics during the World and European Cup championships in 1998 and 2000 that won so much support among the French. When Franco-Portuguese youth whistled at the Marseilleise during a recent France-Portugal game, politicians and the press did not pay any attention. This reflects a strong impression that Arab-Muslim youth in particular have not been properly integrated into French society, and that achieving this will require the development of targeted state policy in domains where it is reluctant to act. How this occurs, over the course of the next decade, will be a major factor in the successful integration of one-third of Europe’s Muslim population.
b4d68f10d9e1248c992736473381d15d	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/israeli-palestinian-peace-talks-must-be-inclusive/	Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks Must Be Inclusive	Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks Must Be Inclusive Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in The Guardian on September 29, 2010. The future of a viable Palestinian state will ultimately lie in the choices that President Abbas makes in the coming days. His overtures to the Arab League to garner support on next steps is a positive move. Whether or not the peace talks will proceed in the long run is unclear. But if negotiations are to continue – and be successful – now is the time for Abbas to re-examine how they can truly become more inclusive and representative of the realities at play in the West Bank and Gaza. With Gaza under the control of Hamas, decision-making regarding the future of its population’s welfare and statehood will end up without the buy-in of Hamas. Saudi Arabia, a major player in past peace negotiations, is currently sidelined while it could serve as a stabiliser of relations between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The exclusion of affected players around the table makes neither political nor economic sense. Finding a way to bring Gaza representatives into the discussions is critical, not only for the legitimacy of the negotiations but because in order to have a viable and sustainable two-state solution, the West Bank and Gaza need to be integrated economically. Currently, the government of Israel has in place more than 500 barriers to movement in the West Bank. In 2008, a World Bank study found that these barriers increase costs to Palestinian businesses by increasing the distance of internal routes from one West Bank town to another by as much as 40%. Additionally, with the completion of the security wall, the government of Israel plans on implementing a “back-to-back” transportation system for all goods from the West Bank moving into Israel. In Gaza, the back-to-back system caused delays of more than 24 hours at the Karni crossing as well as increased costs and damaged goods because of excessive handling and spoilage during the loading and unloading process. Even without this system, it takes almost two hours for Palestinian goods from the West Bank to cross into Israel. Since Israel is the destination for over 85% of Palestinian exports, representing 45% of total West Bank GDP, further delays will make Palestinian exports uncompetitive with those coming from Asia and Latin America. For the West Bank to have a viable economic future, it needs Gaza. It needs the potential of a Gaza port and airport to serve as a connection to the outside world as Israel plans to continue the regime of imposing increasingly high costs on Palestinian imports and separation from the West Bank economically. Today, outside a few areas of growth, the Palestinian economies of both territories continue to suffer. Unemployment in 2009 was nearly 40% for men in Gaza and nearly 20% in the West Bank. This does not even take into account youth unemployment, which is as high as 65% in Gaza with young people having to wait an average of two years after graduation to find a job. Because their economic future depends on each other, the current diplomatic efforts need someone at the table who can speak for the interest of Gaza. Given Hamas’s militant position, this does not have to be Ismail Haniyeh or any other official Hamas representative. In fact, absence of direct talks with Hamas does not mean that indirect representation is impossible. This could be achieved in two ways. First, a set of high-ranking bureaucrats or expatriate Palestinians who are sympathetic to Hamas could sit at side tables to the main talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel to ensure that Hamas’s voice is heard. Second, another Arab head of state could stand to represent and be a liaison to Hamas. The second approach is more likely to be successful than the first. The reason is simple. Excluding Hamas from the talks is only one example of the many other representatives that are missing. Palestinians from outside the West Bank, including refugees in surrounding Arab states, do not have a voice for their interests. But because the issue of refugees is on the table, they too must be represented. Saudi Arabia has emerged as the country that is best suited to give voice and represent the various political factions in a reconciliatory manner – especially when looking at how to tackle Palestinian-to-Palestinian politics. The Arab Peace Initiative, spearheaded by King Abdullah, showcases the country’s inclination toward addressing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through regional Arab diplomacy and co-operation. In a recent letter to the Saudis on their national day, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, acknowledged the contribution of the king’s regional vision via the bilateral peace talks. This now must translate into practical action: along with speaking to Syria about its role this week, the US – alongside Egypt and Jordan – needs to proactively seek other countries in the region to engage. Securing peace is certainly a formidable challenge, but finding ways to sustain peace and prosperity can only be done through total inclusion and unbiased representation. Ultimately, the real test of success will be President’s Abbas’s ability to secure a deal that can bridge the growing political divide between the two territories and meet the economic needs of all Palestinians.
9beda45ad4f792af555e21377669e7cc	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-time-for-a-new-policy-on-confucius-institutes/	It’s time for a new policy on Confucius institutes	It’s time for a new policy on Confucius institutes On March 5, the U.S. Senate voted to deny Department of Education funding to universities that host Confucius Institutes (CIs)—the controversial Chinese language and culture centers partially financed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—unless they meet oversight requirements. A federal campaign against their alleged “malign influence,” pressure from politicians and Department of Defense funding restrictions have prompted and accelerated closure of more than half the CIs in the United States. Faculty concerns over preserving academic freedom and university budget constraints concerning operating funds have all contributed to the trend. But so has a decline of American student interest in China studies and learning Mandarin Chinese. These closings and the attendant inflammatory rhetoric exacerbate a national foreign language deficit at a time when training Mandarin speakers familiar with an ever more consequential China should be a national priority. To meet this challenge, the U.S. government should increase funding for Mandarin language and China studies courses, but also stop forcing cash-strapped universities to choose between federal funding and properly managed CI programs. Multiple investigations into U.S.-based CIs, including by the Senate, have produced no evidence that they facilitate espionage, technology theft or any other illegal activity, no evidence that federal funds are used for their support, and only a handful of objectionable U.S. incidents. The Biden administration should lift, or provide necessary waivers of, federal funding restrictions on universities that demonstrate appropriate academic freedom and institutional safeguards around their CIs, which are no longer directly funded by the Chinese government. It should also consider authorizing the Confucius Institute U.S. Center (CIUS) to serve as a visa sponsor to assist Chinese teachers and staff of CIs obtain the proper visas, as well as enable CIUS to serve as a clearinghouse for information on such PRC personnel for relevant U.S. government agencies. The global CI program was initially launched under China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2004, and more recently has been advanced as part of the PRC’s national strategy of Chinese culture “going global.” It consists of campus-based language and culture partnerships formerly funded in part and supported by the MOE. Many CIs also assist Confucius Classrooms teaching Chinese language at K-12 schools. The CI program sent hundreds of teachers to help meet U.S. government goals for Mandarin instruction under the Bush and Obama administrations. An estimated 51 CIs, 44 of them campus-based, continue to operate, down from a peak of 110 throughout the country. This number includes at least seven CIs that are scheduled to close in 2021. In addition, K-12 schools continue to host about 500 Confucius Classrooms. Prior to a June 2020 reorganization, U.S. universities typically negotiated five-year CI agreements with the MOE CI headquarters, called “Hanban,” and Chinese partner universities. While a 2019 Senate subcommittee report described CIs as being “controlled, funded, and mostly staffed” by the Chinese government, they have operated as U.S.-Chinese joint ventures, jointly funded and managed. Sometimes, they have co-directors from China and the United States but many are directed by a U.S. faculty director and a Chinese deputy. Boards of directors composed of university officials and faculty from each side exercise general oversight. Hanban contributed start-up funds to, and shared operating costs with, the U.S. partner institution, which also supplied classrooms and administrative support. Hanban additionally provided language teaching materials, if requested, and paid the salaries and international travel costs for the Mandarin language teachers from the Chinese partner university, as well as grants for research, study tours to China and other matters in some cases. The exact arrangements vary. At larger universities with separate Chinese language departments teaching for-credit courses, CIs typically focus on language teacher training, K-12 language classes and community language and cultural outreach. Some CIs specialized in areas such as healthcare, business, Chinese food and beverage culture, and Chinese film. CIs generated legitimate concerns about academic freedom and independence due to their direct support from, and admitted role as a “soft power” instrument for, China’s party-state. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front organization oversees propaganda and education and is tasked to promote cultural exchanges, friendship between the Chinese and other peoples and a good international environment for achieving China’s policy objectives. In a 2014 report on CI partnerships, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) argued that allowing third-party control of academic matters compromises academic freedom and institutional autonomy. AAUP recommended that universities cease involvement with CIs, which it characterized as “as an arm of the Chinese state,” unless their agreements are transparent to the university community, afford them control over all academic matters and grant CI teachers the same rights enjoyed by other faculty. The subsequent closure of CIs at two universities attracted congressional scrutiny and prompted a series of dueling reports. An influential 2017 study of 12 CIs by the National Association of Scholars identified a range of concerns including transparency, contractual language, academic freedom and pressure to self-censor. It urged closing all CIs and suggested prudential measures for universities that refused to do so. The study further called for congressional inquiries to evaluate CI national security risks through “spying or collecting sensitive information” and their role in monitoring and harassing Chinese, although it documented no such incidents. In contrast, a 2018 joint Hoover Institute-Asia Society study of Chinese influence activities in the U.S., which acknowledged concerns that campus-based CIs might “potentially infringe” on academic freedom—and made similar recommendations to reduce potential risks—found no actual interference by CIs in mainstream Chinese studies curricula on U.S. campuses and that most CIs operate without controversy. A congressionally-commissioned study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published in February 2019 essentially supported that view. Its analysis of governance and secrecy provisions in 90 CI agreements found that U.S. university personnel generally control curriculum and teaching materials, although this is not always made clear in agreements. With respect to a frequently voiced concern that CI agreements often stipulate applicability of both U.S. and Chinese law, it reproduced a common provision also contained in the Hanban template CI agreement that Chinese personnel working at CIs must comply with U.S. law, while Chinese law would apply to Americans involved in China-based CI activities. It further reported a variety of negotiated provisions making U.S. law, as well as school policies, applicable to all CI activities, as in this published agreement. The GAO found that, although 42 of the 90 agreements contained confidentiality clauses, many agreements are publicly available, either posted online, as at least 11 universities did, through state open records laws, or upon request. After describing the benefits including increased resources and concerns about potential constraints on campus programming and speech associated with CIs, the GAO reported that school officials denied having such concerns about their CIs, a finding supported by a contemporaneous 2019 Senate report. Early attempts to impose political requirements for CIs to support the “One China Principle or refrain from discussing Tibet,” for example, were rejected. At least three U.S. universities with CIs have hosted the Dalai Lama, although a CI director warned another university’s provost that re-scheduling a cancelled visit by the Dalai Lama could disrupt relationships with China, leading the provost to observe that a CI does present opportunities for “subtle pressure and conflict.” Most CIs do limit their scope to language and traditional culture, leaving political and other topics to other university contexts. The CI project is intended to promote a favorable understanding of China, but CIs do not enjoy a monopoly over information available on campuses, and based on interviews and at least one study, any concerns that American students will be brainwashed by CCP propaganda, delivered through CIs or otherwise, are overblown. Nonetheless, school officials joined others interviewed in the GAO and Senate studies in suggesting CI management improvements, such as clarifying U.S. universities’ authority and making agreements publicly available. CI partnerships also became embroiled in a Department of Education (DOE) initiative to enforce a foreign gift reporting requirement. After the 2019 Senate study found nearly 70 percent of universities that received more than $250,000 from Hanban failed to properly file, the drive focused on China, even though other countries were larger donors to U.S. higher education.The DOE report on the initiative’s results referenced CIs in connection with concerns that “foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research.” Widespread non-compliance with the reporting requirement, more a matter of confusion, rather than secrecy, prompted a new DOE reporting portal in June 2020. As tensions between the U.S. and China grew, federal policymakers frequently conflated CI-related academic freedom concerns with a broader set of issues including: Chinese efforts to steal technology, intellectual property and research data; disruptive activities by some campus-based Chinese student associations and China’s consulates; Chinese talent recruitment plans; and other suspect influence efforts. Passed in August 2018, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibited the Pentagon from financing Chinese language programs at universities that host a CI, absent Department of Defense waivers, which have not been granted. Despite a bipartisan congressional finding announced in February 2019 of “no evidence that these institutes are a center for Chinese espionage efforts or any other illegal activity,” the 2021 NDAA broadens the restriction to funding for any program at universities that host CIs. China’s MOE reorganized the CI project in June 2020, implementing a CCP-approved reform plan to develop CIs as a “significant force” for cultural and educational exchange with other countries. MOE replaced Hanban with a new agency to manage overseas language and culture exchanges, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC). CLEC will continue to help provide Mandarin teachers and requested teaching materials. However, the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF), a nominally independent organization registered with the Civil Affairs Ministry, supervised by MOE, and initiated by 27 Chinese universities, companies and social organizations, will manage the CI brand and program. CIEF is now responsible, working together with Chinese partner universities, for contractual and funding arrangements, not Hanban or MOE. This rebranding is unlikely to relieve suspicions about the role of CIs in China’s “soft power” projection. Chinese universities that participate in CIEF and serve as CI partners are mostly state-funded and, like everything in China, under CCP leadership. Moreover, as a recent study commissioned by China’s MOE observed, in a charged U.S. political atmosphere, the “Confucius Institute” brand is now associated with Chinese political interference. Nonetheless, at least one U.S. university, Georgia’s Wesleyan College, signed on with CIEF for the duration of its current CI agreement, although others in the U.S. and Europe are proceeding with announced closures. Elsewhere, CIs continued to open in Chile, South Africa, Kenya and Greece, with plans to establish them in Dominica, Maldives, Chad and Central Africa. In August 2020, the Department of State designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center (CIUS) as a “foreign mission,” effectively controlled by the Chinese government that funds it. Established in Washington, D.C. in 2012 to promote Chinese language teaching and learning in the U.S., CIUS connects school districts interested in developing a Chinese language curriculum to appropriate CI and other resources, and provides professional development opportunities to Confucius Classroom teachers. While acknowledging that CIUS does not undertake diplomatic activities and none of its employees are government officials, the department characterized it as the “de facto headquarters of the Confucius Institute network” and “an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K through 12 classrooms.” Citing its opacity and state-directed nature as the “driving reasons behind this designation,” the State Department also directed CIUS to provide details on funding and curriculum materials it supplied to CIs and K-12 Confucius Classrooms and the names of all PRC citizens CIUS had referred or assigned to them. In its response to the department, CIUS explained that, although it seeks to foster awareness of CI programs, it does not fund, supply, staff, supervise or serve as a headquarters for CIs in the U.S. As a registered nonprofit corporation, its financials and related organizational details are publicly available through annual IRS Form 990s. Moreover, after the Hanban reorganization in June 2020, CIUS is no longer directly supported by China’s MOE, nor has it received any funding from CLEC or CIEF and must look to fundraising from Chinese and U.S. universities and other sources. Given this reorganization and CIUS’s role, the State Department might revisit its foreign mission designation. Regardless, CIUS could usefully serve as a visa sponsor, as do some states and nonprofits like the Cordell Hull Foundation, for U.S.-based CIs. Visa issues for visiting teachers have prompted suspensions and contributed to cancellation of some CI programs. As a centralized visa sponsor, CIUS could help ensure compliance with U.S. law and serve as an information clearinghouse on Chinese CI personnel in the U.S., one of the benefits the department had hoped to obtain from the CIUS foreign mission designation. A State Department report on the China challenge calls for the U.S. to train a new generation of public servants and policy thinkers to attain fluency in Chinese and acquire extensive knowledge of China’s culture and history. Yet, interest among U.S. students has been declining since peaking around 2011, as American views of China more generally have plunged to the lowest level since polling began. Multiple factors, including dimmer China-related job prospects, as well as pollution and academic and lifestyle concerns relating to study within the PRC, explain this trend. Nonetheless, official U.S. pressure to close CIs and their K-12 programs, including by withholding federal funds for universities that host CIs, is further exacerbating a national “language deficit” precipitated in part by decreased U.S. government higher education and foreign language funding over the years. In addition, some universities still have difficulty finding qualified Mandarin teachers, especially at the K-12 level, to satisfy remaining demand. Meanwhile, Chinese students are required to learn English from elementary school and as a requirement to gain admission to, and in many cases graduate from, college, with an estimated 400 million Chinese—including front-line military troops—now learning English. To be sure, some private U.S. NGOs offer Mandarin learning, including an Asia Society program with 35,000 students studying Chinese in 100 K-12 schools around the country that are linked with sister schools in China. U.S.-based China and Taiwan-oriented groups also offer various Chinese education, culture and teacher training courses, as well as teaching of Chinese dialects and traditional Chinese characters still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Nonetheless, federal funding is needed to adequately meet the Mandarin language challenge and lessen cash-strapped universities’ dependence on Chinese funding and other teaching support. The U.S. government launched an initiative with Taiwan in December 2020 to expand existing Mandarin language opportunities in the U.S. and help fill a gap created by CI closings. It should also increase Mandarin language and China studies funding under other critical language programs, and re-authorize the Fulbright program with China, including language awards, that were terminated in July 2020. Budget cuts impacting universities’ ability to finance their share of operating costs, coronavirus obstacles and low Mandarin class enrollment, compounded by federal government funding restrictions, may mean the end of CIs after a 15-year, generally controversy-free record in the United States. Yet the U.S. is facing a critical shortage of Mandarin-speaking China experts. Even critics concede the CI program has provided valuable learning experiences otherwise unavailable due to budget constraints and the lack of Mandarin teachers at universities and public schools across the nation. The Biden administration has the opportunity to reassess the concerns, evidence and U.S. actions taken with respect to the remaining Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. It should disaggregate legitimate national security concerns, including Chinese espionage and technology theft, from academic freedom issues that are best left to our universities. The federal government and Congress should work to protect our national security in a manner that does not impinge on the academic freedom or institutional autonomy they also seek to protect. Over 30 of the universities, as well as the College Board, that ended CI partnerships since 2017 did so under political pressure that threatened loss of federal funding—not over concerns of Chinese interference or declining interest. Marshall Sahlins, an early and eloquent CI critic who was instrumental in closing the University of Chicago CI in 2014, observed ironically in mid-2018 that “the American government now mimics the totalitarian regime of the PRC by dictating what can and cannot be taught in our own educational institutions.” Universities should, of course, continue to be vigilant against the potential for unwelcome influence including implicit pressure on faculty to self-censor, as well as to ensure compliance with the Department of Education’s foreign gift and other reporting requirements, and visa rules for CI exchange visitors. Given the allegations surrounding CIs, which continue to be pressed by bipartisan Congressional coalitions, CI host universities should all publish their CI agreements online. The CIUS, no longer directly funded by China’s MOE, is well positioned to serve as both a visa agent to help ensure appropriate visas are obtained and a clearinghouse for information on Chinese teachers and administrators working in CIs. More broadly, the U.S. government also has an urgent interest in stabilizing the U.S.-China relationship so that the two countries can work together constructively to meet common challenges. That formidable task requires the U.S. to foster more realistic and actionable expectations, criticisms and commitments, rather than policies and actions based on an alarmist China caricature that does not reflect the more complex reality of that country, its people and its behavior abroad. In an era of tight funding for and decline of interest in Chinese language and culture programs, and a clear need for cultivating Mandarin speakers and China expertise across multiple disciplines, the modest financial contribution and native Mandarin language professionals provided through an appropriately managed CI network should be welcomed, not castigated.
db9a428c0f807b44ed31df54a23c8392	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/japans-democratic-renewal-and-the-survival-of-the-liberal-order/	Japan’s democratic renewal and the survival of the liberal order	Japan’s democratic renewal and the survival of the liberal order Japan plays a central role in the endeavor to rekindle liberal internationalism. The country boasts one of Asia’s oldest democracies and the fulcrum of institutions and norms of representative democracy: free and fair elections, rule of law, full civil rights, and freedom of the press. Given that stable democracies that have adjusted to economic globalization and avoided populist disruption are increasingly in short supply, Japan’s strengths are undisputable. However, the current era of political stability has derived largely from the fragmentation of opposition parties, and there are troubling signs of waning democratic dynamism such as voter apathy, tepid inter-party competition, and the weakening of accountability channels. Internationally, the United States and Japan share concerns about democratic recession and China’s coercive diplomacy. Even though Washington and Tokyo have not historically aligned on a strategy of democracy promotion, they can coordinate efforts to ensure democratic resilience and the survival of the liberal order. Japan has long pressed to include democracies in Asia’s regional architecture and to disseminate economic standards that tame corruption and curb digital protectionism, and it has cultivated deeper security cooperation with democracies that share strategic interests. These are diplomatic tracks that can find resonance with the Biden administration. As the second decade of the 21st century drew to a close, the world order has been consumed by a vortex of change. The casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic keep mounting both in terms of lives lost and livelihoods shattered. Government competence has been tested — and frequently found wanting — in the pressing tasks of outbreak control and long-term economic viability. For many nations, COVID-19 has underscored the growing inequalities of opportunity and risk and the deep tears to the social fabric that confound whole-of-society responses. The international order has not fared much better. The U.S.-China rift has deepened, vaccine nationalism and economic mercantilism have reared their ugly heads, and the spirit of multilateral cooperation has at times appeared depleted. Long gone are the days when liberal democracy looked ascendant. Not only have authoritarian governments perfected digital tools of social control, but populism has shaken the institutions of representative democracy in the West. The challenges for the United States, long a paragon of the free world, are particularly poignant as the recent assaults by members of the losing party on the integrity of the presidential election outcome attest. At this critical juncture, it is nevertheless possible to build on positive trends. Science, with the record-breaking development of vaccines, has offered us the truly viable strategy to overcome the pandemic. Asian democracies, leaning on the lessons learned from past infectious disease outbreaks, have demonstrated their ability to respond effectively to the current public health crisis without compromising civil liberties. Global supply chains have proven resilient and ensured that the world economy did not seize up with prolonged shortages of critical supplies. Middle powers have doubled down on rules-based trade brokering large-scale agreements. The incoming Biden administration has pledged to reassert American leadership in addressing transnational challenges, shoring up multilateralism, and reinvesting in alliances. Central to its governance project is a call for democratic renewal, both at home and abroad. These tasks will undoubtedly face myriad obstacles. Japan plays a central role in the endeavor to rekindle liberal internationalism. The country boasts one of Asia’s oldest democracies and the fulcrum of institutions and norms of representative democracy: free and fair elections, rule of law, full civil rights, and freedom of the press. Japan’s credentials as a consolidated democracy matter more at a time of widespread democratic backsliding and the rising influence of an authoritarian economic behemoth like China. The move away from “America First” transactionalism offers an opportunity for the United States and Japan to deepen bonds based on shared values and seek to leverage their partnership to tackle transnational challenges and shore up multilateralism. Making the U.S.-Japan alliance a bulwark of democracy is a shared and important goal, one that has acquired greater urgency in light of the profound challenges to democratic governance in America. Given that stable democracies that have adjusted to economic globalization and avoided populist disruption are increasingly in short supply, Japan’s strengths are undisputable. Yet, the nation’s penchant for stability has also come at a price, with troubling signs of declining democratic dynamism: weakened inter-party competition and disengaged voters frustrated by insufficient government transparency and responsiveness. In the past, Tokyo’s forays into values-based diplomacy proceeded haltingly and the U.S. and Japan have not converged on the goals and tactics of democracy promotion. Japan faces a distinct set of challenges in reinvigorating its own democracy, but can also share some lessons learned in its efforts to deepen collaboration with fellow democracies and to promote governance and rule of law via economic assistance to developing Asia. Democratic resilience, functional collaboration among like-minded countries, and a commitment to a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific offer significant venues for U.S.-Japan collaboration. In understanding Japan’s democratic trajectory, it is helpful to revisit the moniker applied to the country during the Cold War era as an “uncommon democracy.” The term was used to denote the phenomenon of decades of unbroken rule by a dominant party (the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP) in a political system with free elections and media, and well-established civil and political rights.1 Of course, much has changed domestically and internationally since. The LDP lost power twice (for a few months after the election of August 1993 and for three years in 2009-2012), and the geopolitical context has also changed dramatically with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a moment of American unipolarity, and the shift to U.S.-China strategic rivalry. And yet, Japan has reverted to a dominant political ticket (the LDP plus its coalition partner Komeito, a lay-Buddhist party) dwarfing opposition parties. The U.S.-China context does not approximate the original Cold War (given China’s extensive integration into the modern world economy and the absence of a formal Chinese bloc of influence), but it has increasingly acquired an ideological undertone with calls for the “free world” to oppose Chinese authoritarianism. Hence, “uncommon democracy” offers a useful frame to highlight what sets Japan apart from other liberal democracies rocked by populism, its distinctive democratic evolution where apathy trumps polarization,2 and the different approach on democratic support pursued by Tokyo in its aid diplomacy towards Asia — ground zero for U.S.-China strategic competition. Populism is far from a new political phenomenon, but it has risen lately to new prominence in Western democracies as it has made electoral inroads with the growing weight of far right parties in Continental Europe, the success of the Brexit campaign, and a populist American president in Donald J. Trump. Populism thrives when the political establishment appears ineffective in addressing the concerns of disaffected citizens, and it has important consequences for both representative democracy at home and an open international order. It can yield illiberalism by promoting exclusionary politics (where only the interests of the “true people” matter), and by eroding institutional checks and balances. And to the extent that the country’s ills are attributed to outside forces, populist governments favor closed borders and economic nationalist policies. Japan’s political stability has cut a stark contrast to the upswing of populist forces elsewhere. In September 2020, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finished an eight-year run in office as the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s history. During his tenure, Japan moved towards more economically liberal policies by assuming leadership in ambitious trade negotiations and with more modest immigration reforms to allow entry of manual workers. While the lock of the establishment on Japanese politics looks secure, the public has grown frustrated with prolonged economic stagnation and the palpable rise of income inequality. The disappointment has manifested in growing ranks of unaffiliated voters (by some counts 39% of total voters in the last general election in 2017) that can decide elections when persuaded by a candidate’s reform promises. They came in force in 2005 for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he attacked vested interests within his own party, in 2009 for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama when he led the Democratic Party of Japan’s dethroning of the ruling party, and in 2018 for Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike when she promised to disrupt the “old boy network.” But none of these maverick politicians preached or practiced populism to the detriment of Japan’s representative democracy. Nor has the Japanese public scapegoated globalization. If anything, with the realization that demographics dictate a shrinking internal market, an open trading system is seen more as opportunity than peril.3 The rhythm of postwar Japanese politics was largely set by the rules of electoral competition. The single non-transferable vote in multi-member districts was not widely adopted elsewhere, but it had important consequences for the evolution of Japan’s democracy. It compelled members of the same party to face each other at the electoral booth, thereby weakening party labels and encouraging the operation of party factions to manage internal competition over nominations, funds, and posts. Individual candidates sought to differentiate themselves by cultivating ties with blocs of organized voters (construction, agriculture, etc.) or catering to the needs of local constituencies. Pork barrel practices and money politics were rampant. The electoral and political funding reforms ushered in during the brief stint of a coalition of parties in opposition to the LDP in the early 1990s created an opportunity to improve the quality of Japanese democracy. Increased transparency in political funding with the establishment of public subsidies for political parties and the adoption of a hybrid electoral system (with Japanese citizens casting two votes in Lower House elections: one for a candidate in single-member districts and another for a party in regional blocs with proportional representation rules for the allocation of seats) transformed the currents of Japanese politics. The role of factions declined and programmatic campaigns became more important to electoral contests. While corruption was not eliminated, it did diminish overall, and the pattern of politically-targeted fiscal spending (with “bridges to nowhere”) abated.4 Much hope was placed on the emergence of a robust two-party system to bring about greater government accountability and spur healthy debates over competing policy platforms. After the creation of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 1996, Japan did experience strong inter-party competition during the 2000s. When the DPJ won the national election in 2009, it promised to usher in a new era for Japanese politics by reining in bureaucrats, increasing politician oversight, and cutting wasteful spending. However, the DPJ botched domestic policymaking, created friction with the United States over the fate of the Futenma air base in Okinawa, and found itself ill-prepared to respond to the Triple Disaster of March 2011 (earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant accident). In 2012, the party was voted out of office as the LDP under Shinzo Abe made a comeback. The short-lived DPJ experiment is frequently described as Japan’s inoculation to populism, but its impact is more profound: It dashed hopes that party turnover could bring genuine political and economic reform. The DPJ was unable to regain voters’ confidence and eventually fractured, paving the way for a string of six wins in national elections (three each for both the Lower House and the Upper House) for the current ruling coalition, which has resulted in a commanding position in both houses of the National Diet. In September 2020, the splinter groups of the DPJ coalesced into the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP, established in 2017), with 150 Lower House seats, far short of the 233 needed to create a majority. Recapturing the public’s trust is still an uphill battle, however, with a modest 8% support rate for the consolidated party. Japan’s much vaunted political stability, therefore, has much to do with the implosion of a viable opposition and is less motivated by a ringing endorsement of government performance. The Japanese public’s normative support of representative democracy remains very strong. In the 2016 Asian Barometer Survey, 95% of Japanese respondents endorsed the notion that while democracy may have its problems, it still is the best form of government. However, there is frustration with the degree of government responsiveness to the public’s demands and pessimism over the country’s long-term future. According to a 2018 Pew Research Center poll, only 35% of respondents feel that elected officials care about what ordinary people think and 62% believe that no matter who wins, things do not change much. The marked disengagement from politics does not bode well for a dynamic democracy. Voter turnout in general elections dropped from 69.3% in 2009 to 59.2% in 2012, then bottomed out at 52.7% in 2014, and had a small recovery to 53.7% in 2017. More broadly, few Japanese report a disposition to participate in civic/political activities: In a 2014 NHK survey, 70% of survey respondents disclosed no intention to partake in demonstrations, political assemblies, or letter writing to parliamentarians or media outlets.5 Apathy towards the political process hinders the vitality of the democratic process in Japan as captured by the democracy index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. In 2019, Japan ranked number 24 (sitting one slot ahead of the United States) with an aggregate score of 7.99. Japan had higher marks on electoral process, pluralism, and civil liberties, but its lowest scores were in the categories of political participation and culture which measure among other things citizen engagement in politics and the number of female politicians, both of which are weak spots for Japan. The close-knit ties between journalists and public officials through the kisha kurabu system (media associations that receive exclusive access to public figures) hinders the participation of outside media and more robust investigative journalism. Those concerns area a primary reason for Japan ranking number 66 in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index. The arrival of political stability during Abe’s second premiership (2012-20) afforded Japan many advantages. Executive leadership enabled the country to become a more proactive actor in world affairs and to make progress in the fight against domestic deflation. However, the sources of stability matter, and when it is derived from the inability of the opposition camp to offer a meaningful alternative to LDP rule, the vibrancy of democracy takes a toll. The weakening of meaningful political competition in Japan has had significant consequences. For one, it encourages citizen passivity towards a political process that seems incapable of delivering change. It also dulls legislative deliberations, and without the prospect of alternation in office between competing political tickets, transparency and accountability weaken. It is no coincidence that some of the political scandals that emerged in the Abe years flowed from the phenomenon of sontaku (government officials awarding policy favors to individuals who they surmise enjoy the prime minister’s support). Robust electoral competition incentivizes governments to remain attuned to public demands. The LDP, and Abe in particular, mounted a comeback in 2012 showing such responsiveness, running with a platform of economic revitalization and an unconventional reflationist strategy.6 The stimuli to remain nimble, however, has since receded. Japan, therefore, is managing its first leadership transition in eight years at a time when the pandemic has delivered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Yoshihide Suga, Abe’s former chief cabinet secretary, cinched his position as Abe’s successor as prime minister both by skillfully navigating factional politics and portraying himself to the public as a steady hand at a time of turbulence. In aiming to deliver structural reform, Prime Minister Suga has rolled out two landmark initiatives: digitalization and carbon neutrality by 2050. Because these are cross-cutting reform initiatives that will impact multiple vested interests and step into sensitive bureaucratic turfs, they are bound to elicit strong resistance. Nevertheless, Suga has very little time to prove that he will be more than a caretaker leader capable of delivering on an ambitious economic reform program. He faces both reelection as LDP party president and a general election in less than a year. Greatly complicating his chances of success is the fact that the honeymoon period with the Japanese public proved short. His decision to break precedent in not appointing the full roster of nominees to the Science Council, the resurfacing of Abe’s scandals over alleged violations of political funding laws (by subsidizing cherry blossom viewing parties for his supporters), and more importantly, dissatisfaction with the government’s pandemic response as COVID-19 cases continue to soar have resulted in a marked drop in public support: from 74% in September to 42% in December. As Japan faces this most severe crisis and with voters heading to the polls later this year, much hangs in the balance for Japan’s political parties: Can the ruling coalition convincingly steer the ship in addressing these pressing national problems? Can a reconsolidated opposition party rise to the occasion and offer a credible alternative to meet these challenges in order to recapture the public’s trust? Political stagnation could yet again bring back the disruptive dynamic of a rapid turnover of prime ministers — which would hamper both the quality of domestic governance and the ability of Japan to sustain a proactive international role. A potential inward turn would be much more consequential at a time when Japan has filled an international leadership vacuum with initiatives such as the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy (FOIP). Democratic recession and the weakening of the liberal international order are shared concerns for the United States and Japan. However, values-based diplomacy has evolved differently in each country, and there has not been convergence on the policy of democratic promotion. Japan’s most explicit effort to incorporate universal values into its foreign policy took place in the mid-2000s in the form of the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity initiative. Keenly aware of China’s growing clout in the region, Tokyo chose to emphasize values such as freedom, democracy, and fundamental human rights to distinguish its diplomatic approach from China’s. However, this redirection in Japanese diplomacy proved ephemeral. The policy was quickly shelved when it faced pushback from China who deemed it a containment ploy and was received unenthusiastically in Southeast Asia where the norm of non-interference in domestic affairs runs deep. The role of democratic support in Japan’s aid programs has differed from Western liberal democracies. Japan has shied away from political uses of aid, citing painful memories of Japanese militarism in Asia, the desire to maintain stability in recipient countries and not engage in nation-building, and a belief that gradual governance reforms will improve democracy’s chances in the future. Hence, Japan’s share of economic assistance allocated to civil society is very modest (1.7% of the total aid budget) and it operates through official channels responding to project requests from counterpart governments. As Yasunobu Sato explains, the precepts of the Japanese approach have been human security (with an emphasis on freedom from want by attending to basic human needs) and rule of law. Japan’s lower-case democracy efforts include judicial capacity building, civil code development, and election support. They are deemed essential to check abuse of state power, protect human rights and adjudicate conflicts, and develop the institutions of a market economy.7 Japan’s distinctive approach to democracy support has been met with skepticism in some quarters. For critics, Tokyo is willing to prioritize strategic interests at the expense of defending universal values, and its cautious approach to democratic support runs the risk of solidifying the hold of authoritarian regimes.8 In launching the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in 2016, Japan sought to respond to an even starker shift in the regional balance of power and to leave its own imprint on the regional architecture. The diplomatic push advances Japanese national interests but is also built on lessons learned from previous forays into values-based diplomacy. In FOIP, Tokyo has sought to prevent China’s dominance in regional affairs, yet has also emphasized inclusivity by leaving open the possibility of cooperation if China abides by Japan’s higher standards for economic integration. The FOIP incorporates values such as openness and freedom, commitment to universal rights, and promotes a connectivity agenda with economic assistance programs to improve governance and free trade. A central line of effort is the dissemination liberal values such as respect for international rule of law, freedom of navigation, and the rejection of coercion to solve inter-state disputes. As Maiko Ichihara carefully documents, Japan’s foreign policy discourse on values has shifted over time, with more recent emphasis on liberal rules that both democracies and non-democracies can endorse to bring stability to the region.9 This, more than democracy promotion, is an area where Japan and the United States have found alignment. Cooperation with established Indo-Pacific democracies that share strategic interests is a core tenet of Japan’s FOIP strategy. By resurrecting the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or simply, “the Quad”) framework which includes Australia, India, and the U.S., Tokyo is placing a bet on closer ties with maritime democracies that can countervail China’s influence based on greater defense and intelligence cooperation. Both values and interests inform this track of Japanese diplomacy and the desire to buttress security ties with each of the Quad members is unmistakable. Japan has sought greater military interoperability with the United States and the Abe administration reinterpreted the right of collective self-defense to enable Japan to assist its ally if under attack — provided Japan’s own security is also at stake. Ties with India have also deepened with the launch of a 2+2 ministerial dialogue and Japanese participation in the Malabar military exercises. Japan’s security partnership with Australia has made great strides, most recently with the November 2020 reciprocal access agreement which grants military personnel from each country rights to visit and participate in joint training. The launch this year of a Quad-Plus mechanism to address the pandemic by including three additional countries (New Zealand, Vietnam, and South Korea) shows flexibility in embracing functional cooperation with like-minded countries. It also offers a glimpse of hope for Japan and South Korea to cooperate in addressing common challenges given the profound deterioration of relations between America’s two democratic Northeast Asian allies. The newly arrived Biden administration has announced a major shift in U.S. foreign policy priorities — with calls for a Summit for Democracy to address the world’s most pressing challenges. It also confronts at home a profound crisis for American democracy as painfully captured by the attack on the Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent Congressional certification of the presidential election results. Hence, the fight for democratic renewal has acquired new poignancy for the United States, creating a greater sense of identification with struggles elsewhere to defend democracy. Times are hard, but there are ample opportunities for the United States and Japan to jointly advance their shared values and interests. Japan and the United States have in the past taken different approaches to the task of democracy support, but share a common concern over democratic recession in Asia and the use of coercion to settle inter-state disputes. The allies can find common ground in ensuring resilience of liberal democracy and of the liberal international order. To this end, there are elements from Japan’s own experience that can be helpful. A Summit for Democracy may appear as an exclusionary endeavor and blunt its appeal and effectiveness. An alternative approach is to use the politics of membership towards greater inclusivity and representation of democracies in the regional architecture. This is the tack that Japan used in the membership battles over the East Asia Summit and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to ensure there is greater democratic representation in Asian institutions to balance China’s weight. Second, much can be learned from Tokyo’s embrace of functional cooperation with democracies and non-democracies to disseminate rules that promote good governance and limit the reach of state-controlled models (digital economy) or corrupt practices (transparency and sustainability in infrastructure finance). Functional cooperation and rule-making efforts show great promise in tackling areas such as vaccine distribution, supplier chain resilience, international debt management, and open and trusted data flows. Finally, where values and interests align, deeper bilateral security cooperation and networked cooperation can be effective, as the revival of the Quad suggests. The return of the United States to multilateralism, regionalism, and the commitment to coordination with allies should energize these endeavors.
bb8764f8f25673a3dda405eb4ae264b6	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/mass-displacement-caused-by-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-national-and-international-responses/	Mass Displacement Caused by Conflicts and One-Sided Violence: National and International Responses	Mass Displacement Caused by Conflicts and One-Sided Violence: National and International Responses INTRODUCTION Massive displacement of people within countries and across borders has become a defining feature of the post-cold war world. It is also a major feature of human insecurity in which genocide, terrorism, egregious human rights violations and appalling human degradation wreak havoc on civilians. The need of internally displaced persons (IDPs), people forcibly uprooted in their own countries, for international protection from conflict and one-sided violence was one of the factors that prompted a shift in global policy and security thinking. Over the past two decades, a strictly state-centred system in which sovereignty was absolute has evolved into become a matter of international concern and scrutiny. This evolution largely grew from the efforts of the human rights movement, which had long championed the view that the rights of people transcend frontiers and that the international community must hold governments to account when they fail to meet their obligations. It also arose from the efforts of the humanitarian community to reach people in need. The deployment of large numbers of relief workers and peacekeeping operations in the field to protect civilians reflects this new reality as do preventive and peacebuilding efforts. Nonetheless, concepts of sovereignty as responsibility and the responsibility to protect remain far ahead of international willingness and capacity to enforce them. The failure of states to protect their citizens has too often met iwth a weak international response. It is therefore critical that the United Nations, concerned governments, regional bodies and civil society assist states in developing their own capacities to prevent mass atrocities while also pressing for the development of the tools needed to enable the international community to take assertive action when persuasive measures fail and masses of people remain under the threat of violence and humanitarian tragedy. This chapter examines the challenges posed by mass displacement caused by violence. Section II looks at the scale and nature of displacement, presents examples of states’ failure to protect their citizens and discusses the consequences of displacement. Section III focuses on the political, legal and operational steps needed to provide greater protection for displaced populations and other civilians caught up in massive violence. Section IV presents conclusions and recommendations for the way forward. Download complete article »
0f7f27b33e129bdfbf39a44dd92b2d80	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/meet-the-sims-and-shoot-them/	Meet the Sims…and Shoot Them	Meet the Sims…and Shoot Them The country of Ghanzia is embroiled in a civil war. As a soldier in America’s Army, your job is to do everything from protect U.S. military convoys against AK-47-wielding attackers to sneak up on a mountain observatory where arms dealers are hiding out. It is a tough and dangerous tour of duty that requires dedication, focus, and a bit of luck. Fortunately, if you get hit by a bullet and bleed to death, you can reboot your computer and sign on under a new name. America’s Army is a video game — a “tactical multiplayer first-person shooter” in gaming lingo — that was originally developed by the U.S. military to aid in its recruiting and training, but is now available for anyone to play. Among the most downloaded Internet games of all time, it is perhaps the best known of a vast array of video game-based military training programs and combat simulations whose scope and importance are rapidly changing not just the video-game marketplace, but also the way the U.S. military finds and trains its future warriors and even how the American public interfaces with the wars carried out in its name. For all the attention to the strategic debates of the post-9/11 era, a different sort of transformation has taken place over the last decade — largely escaping public scrutiny, at modest cost relative to the enormous sums spent elsewhere in the Pentagon budget, and with little planning but enormous consequences. These “games” range from the deadly serious, like programs designed to train soldiers in cultural sensitivity or help veterans overcome the trauma of combat, to the truly outlandish, like a human-sized hamster wheel that makes virtual-reality software feel more realistic. There are even video-game modules that teach soldiers about the perils of sexual harassment. All told, the U.S. military is spending roughly $6 billion each year on its virtual side, embracing the view, as author Tom Chatfield put it, that “games are the 21st century’s most serious business.” The link between games and war goes all the way back to “boards” scratched onto the back of statues by Assyrian guards almost 3,000 years ago. Three millennia later, as the U.S. military recruits from, and is increasingly led by, a generation raised on Grand Theft Auto, real warfare is taking on the look and feel of a video game, from the aerial drones launching precision strikes at terrorists in remote hideouts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the joystick-controlled robots defusing roadside explosives in Iraq. “The biggest change is that it’s gone from being unique to being ubiquitous. It’s everywhere now,” Mark Sinclair, a staff vice president at military contractor General Dynamics, told a U.S. Navy journal. The Pentagon’s embrace of video games is part of a much larger phenomenon — “militainment” — that is reshaping how the public understands today’s conflicts. The term was first coined to describe any public entertainment that celebrated the military, but today it could be redefined to mean the fascinating, but also worrisome, blurring of the line between entertainment and war. For example, while America’s Army is technically a publicly funded recruiting and training platform, its main commercial rival is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a game published by Activision Blizzard. The two games compete for market share, but also over who can better define contemporary war zones. In America’s Army, you deploy to the fictitious country of Ghanzia; in Modern Warfare 2, you join a U.S. special operations team that roams from Afghanistan to the Caucasus, winning hearts and minds (or losing them) with a mix of machine pistols and Predator strikes. The players also fight it out in a range of potential future areas of conflict, from Brazil’s rough urban favelas to a simulated Russian invasion of Washington, D.C. (This is actually a major flaw in the game; any invasion force would clearly get stuck in Beltway traffic.) The stakes are high. Modern Warfare 2 came out on Nov. 10, 2009. By the end of the next day, it had racked up $310 million in sales. To put this in perspective, Avatar, James Cameron’s latest Hollywood blockbuster (notably following an ex-Marine remotely fighting through a video-game-like battle environment), earned a measly $27 million on its first day. Another comparison might be even more apt. Roughly 70,000 young Americans chose to join the U.S. Army last year. By contrast, 4.7 million chose to spend Veterans Day playing war at home. And this is no mere American trend. More than 350 million people play video games worldwide, with the war-oriented sector perhaps the most important part of the global market. Modern Warfare 2 may have players join a U.S. special operations team, but one out of every 49 British citizens did so in its first 24 hours. Niche games have also amassed huge followings; in the polarized Middle East, Hezbollah-produced Special Force plays out an attack on Israeli soldiers, while Ummah Defense provides the vicarious thrill of taking on the U.S. military, Israeli settlers, and killer robots. Reporting on militainment sometimes suffers from either an uncomfortable gee-whiz quality or blanket condemnation, when the story is far more complex. There’s much to be impressed by: The Pentagon is saving millions in training costs while creating a learning environment that can look astonishingly like the real thing, potentially saving real-world lives. But as the training and fighting — and even the public’s relationship with war — becomes ever more distant and virtual, there is also an emerging dark side to keep our (glazed-over) eyes on. Be (Online) All That You Can Be Like many innovations, America’s Army and the broader rise of militainment didn’t grow out of a grand strategic plan. Almost a decade ago, a group of U.S. Marines hacked the commercial video game Doom II to create “Marine Doom,” a software program that helped them teach urban warfare (instead of fighting the demons of hell, the Marine version has players team up to take out an enemy bunker). Col. Casey Wardynski, then a professor at West Point, was impressed by the program, as well as by the fact that his two teenage sons were fans of action video games. While researching how to build an increasingly high-tech U.S. military, he approached the Pentagon about making an online game as a recruiting tool. The idea stuck, and in 2000 the Army contracted the Naval Postgraduate School to create it. After two years of development, the game, called America’s Army, was released at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, a sort of annual pilgrimage for video-gamers that draws some 60,000 people to the Los Angeles Convention Center. What happened next surprised all: The Army didn’t just have a new recruiting tool, but an actual market hit. It quickly became one of the top 10 most popular games on the Internet, and within its first five years, some 9 million individuals had signed up to join America’s video-game army, spending some 160 million hours on the site and making it one of the top 10 of all video games, online or otherwise. From the Army’s perspective, commercial triumph was secondary. Its goal was to recruit. And at this, too, the game proved to be a wild success. To log on to the game, you have to connect via the Army’s recruitment website and fork over your information. Gamers can also check out profiles of current Army soldiers and video testimonials of why they joined. Just one year after America’s Army was released, one-fifth of West Point’s freshman class said they had played the game. By 2008, a study by two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that “30 percent of all Americans age 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined.” Notably, this is from a game that the Pentagon has spent an average of $3.28 million a year developing and promoting over the last 10 years — compared with the military’s roughly $8 billion annual recruiting budget. Behind the success of America’s Army lies a story of entrepreneurship and good old-fashioned interservice rivalry. As one of the developers explained in an online forum, “The Navy started to get pissed at the Army because there was never any mention that the game was actually built within a Naval think tank.” So, with the Navy angry, the Army did the only logical thing: It brought in the French. Future versions of America’s Army were licensed to French game company Ubisoft, which also allowed the game to be used on Microsoft Xboxes — a breakthrough because it meant the game could penetrate a much wider marketplace. Ubisoft paid the Army $2 million upfront, plus 5 percent in royalties per game sold. The Army also kept its right to edit content; video games were becoming too violent even for the U.S. military. As Wardynski, the program’s originator who now directs the Army Game Project that administers it, told National Defense, the military wanted to ensure that it wouldn’t be “the sort of game where you tear off someone’s arm and beat them to death with it.” Instead, America’s Army is meant to imbue potential recruits with traditional military values. To join, would-be video soldiers have to pass training sessions not only for the game but also for U.S. military systems, lingo, and values. Over time, they can go through added training to specialize in becoming anything from a Javelin missile operator to a Humvee driver. Once in, players enter a virtual battle built around a scenario from recent real-world U.S. Army experience — in a squad with other online soldiers anywhere in the world. America’s Army has proven so popular globally that, with so many users signing on from Internet cafes in China, the Chinese government tried to ban it. Real soldiers play too, usually identifiable by the unit insignias listed in their gamer names. The game itself isn’t just a regular shoot ’em up, but features an “honor system.” Those who cooperate the best tend to win the most, while the go-it-alone Rambo types tend not to last too long. Following the rules of engagement wins extra points, as does stopping to give medical care to your buddies. Commit a “friendly fire” incident, and you get banned from the server. If you log back on under that same account, your point of view is from behind jail bars in a virtual Fort Leavenworth military prison. The game is not without its shortcomings, suggesting a far more antiseptic version of war than the real thing. Get hit by a bullet and there is only a tiny puff of pink smoke that quickly disappears. And the real world’s “fog of war” — the chaos, confusion, and mistakes in battle that Prussian überstrategist Carl von Clausewitz defined as an enduring feature of warfare — doesn’t cloud the game. One scenario, for example, is built around a real battle during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A team of Green Berets was attacked by an Iraqi motorized infantry company backed by artillery, tanks, and armored personnel carriers. As the real-life Green Berets did, you can beat back the virtual Iraqis by deftly firing Javelin anti-tank missiles. However, the game leaves out the part when the Green Berets called in an airstrike. Instead of hitting the Iraqis, the plane mistakenly dropped a bomb on friendly forces, killing 17 U.S. troops and their Kurdish allies. Virtual Vets America’s Army quickly expanded from a potent recruiting tool into a valuable training system for soldiers already in the military. Military contractor Foster-Miller’s Talon robot, for example, is used widely in Iraq and Afghanistan to dismantle roadside bombs, the most deadly weapon used against U.S. troops there. The game’s Talon training module cost just $60,000 to develop, but took training in how to operate robots in war to a whole new level. “Prior to this, the only way to train was to take the robot and the controller to the trainees, give them some verbal instruction, and get them started,” Bill Davis, head of the America’s Army future applications program, told National Defense. “This allows them to train without breaking anything.” But with these advances, it’s getting harder to figure out where the games end and the war begins. In Talon the game and the real-life version, soldiers are watching the action through a screen and even holding the very same physical controllers in their hands. And these controllers are modeled after the video-game controllers that the kids grew up with. This makes the transition from training to actual use nearly seamless. As one Foster-Miller executive explained to me, describing the game’s training package for the Talon’s pissed-off big brother, the machine gun-armed Swords robot, “With a flip of the switch, he has a real robot and a real weapon.” Because of “the realism,” he said, the company is finding that “the soldiers train on them endlessly in their free time.” Such “serious games,” as the Army calls them, go well beyond the America’s Army series. One program trains aerial drone operators while Saving Sergeant Pabletti teaches some 80,000 Army soldiers a year what is and isn’t sexual harassment. This use of gaming extends across the entire experience of war. Virtual Iraq is being used at 40 clinics around the United States to help the thousands of veterans returning from war cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. The game platform allows them to re-experience traumatic episodes in a safe environment. These training tools are not just for raw recruits. For example, Gator Six is built around 260 realistic video clips that simulate many of the difficult judgment calls an officer might have to make in modern wars. Designed with the help of 20 Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, it is broken into three parts: pre-deployment, combat, and transitioning into post-conflict. The military is also turning to video games to help raise its soldiers’ cross-cultural understanding. Army 360 presents 11 “choose your own adventure” mission episodes that take place in present-day Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. The player chooses from four or more decision paths at various stages in the mission, which ultimately lead to as many as 20 different outcomes. Produced by Ken Robinson, a 24-year Special Forces veteran, the game aims to prep soldiers for the real conundrums that they might experience when deploying into different cultures. For instance, upon hearing a burst of AK-47 fire, an infantry patrol leader might mistake a wedding celebration for an ambush, taking the game down a far more dangerous path. Much like their civilian counterparts, military game designers are moving from two-dimensional screens and sitting behind simulator mock-ups to three-dimensional experiences that hit multiple senses. At the Institute for Creative Technologies, founded with a $100 million Pentagon grant and housed at the University of Southern California, the self-described mission is to tap the best of Hollywood to create “synthetic experiences so compelling that participants react as if they are real.” Its Army leader training module, for example, builds off a scenario that has more than 300 pages of script, works in 75 characters, and was even coordinated with USC’s School of Theatre. The program sends trainees out wearing not just 3-D goggles, but also a “scent collar,” which sprays what one reporter described as “aromatic microbursts — of anything from cordite to spices.” One driving simulator is said to be so lifelike that the participants often unconsciously wave to virtual trucks that drive by. A few of the virtual drivers even get carsick. Another center for military gaming research — conveniently located just a short drive from Walt Disney World — bills itself as “a theme park on steroids.” It marries physical sets with virtual-reality projectors for an experience its creators dub “mixed reality.” The Pentagon’s ultimate goal with all this gaming technology is to create “simulation on demand” for almost any military skill set. The concept is not unlike Neo’s kung fu crash courses in the movie The Matrix: When the military needs its people to learn something, it’ll be able to get personally tailored, realistic training instantly. A good example is a tool for young officers called Self-Directed Learning Internet Modules, or SLIMs. They turn the latest military intelligence reports into packets that can be “played” by soldiers. Instead of just getting a briefing a few hours before a mission, the officer can virtually “play” what he might have to do in his real-world mission. For example, a Sadr City SLIM, layered on top of a 3-D map of the Baghdad neighborhood, is the game’s version of what a patrol there might entail. Kids come out and warn of a mine, and then the player has to figure out whether to believe them. A woman screams that the Americans killed her husband, and he has to decide how to respond. Hidden within the training are also lessons the Army wants the young officer to pick up. Taking digital photos and GPS locations of key sites, for example, bumps up the tally, and a “hearts and minds” score measures interaction with the public. The collective effect is potentially revolutionary. Game-based training can be tailored to specific scenarios as well as to an individual’s own rate of learning, sped up or slowed down based on how quickly he or she acquires knowledge. The result is an enormous gain in efficiency. The Navy, for example, switched to such programs for its communications technicians and estimates that it saved some 58 man-years in training time. Virtual training is also appealing because it allows soldiers to learn and exercise their skills, again and again, without the accompanying physical risks. “Combat veterans live longer,” Col. Matthew Caffrey, professor of war gaming and planning at the Air Command and Staff College, told National Defense. “One reason we use war games is to make virtual vets.” For the military as a whole, there are also tens of millions of dollars saved by conducting virtual training at the unit level. One recent war game, for instance, linked the crew of a U.S. aircraft carrier at sea, British and German submarines (docked in harbor, but the crews were on simulators), British airplane crews (sitting at simulators), and a set of Patriot missile batteries (working on practice mode). The players shared information and made joint decisions, just as if the exercise were real. The Navy estimates that its use of gaming at bases, in lieu of doing the same exercises at sea, saves it some 4,000 barrels of fuel a year, while simulated missile launches, rather than firing the real thing, save some $33 million annually. Avatar Fatigue Not everything about militainment is controversial: Who is going to complain, after all, about trying to find a better way to save soldiers’ lives, help trauma victims, or prevent sexual harassment? And as Maj. Gen. John Custer told Training & Simulation Journal, the world has changed: “You have to realize what generation you’re trying to teach. You know what? PowerPoint is not the way to go.” But there are many concerns about what these dramatic changes mean for war’s future. With only so many hours in the day, some in the military worry that video games are beginning to edge out real-world training. Navy Capt. Stephen David complained in the service’s in-house journal that the virtual vets arriving aboard his ship lacked “the requisite familiarity with even the most basic shiphandling skills.” Others raise what is called the “O’Brien Effect,” referring to the time talk-show host Conan O’Brien challenged tennis champion Serena Williams to a match, only to defeat her on the Nintendo Wii. At some point, piloting a plane in combat is different from piloting a computer workstation, just as hitting a real tennis ball is not the same as hitting the Wii version. The real danger of militainment, though, might be in how it risks changing the perceptions of war. “You lose an avatar; just reboot the game,” is how Ken Robinson, the Special Forces veteran who produced Army 360, put it in Training & Simulation Journal. “In real life, you lose your guy; you’ve lost your guy. And then you’ve got to bury him, and then you’ve got to call his wife.” This is not just an issue for the military, but also for a broader public that has less and less to do with actual war. As Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia, a mother who lost her son in Iraq, told Salon, “I’ve always believed when people participate in virtual violence, it makes the victims of violence become less empathetic and less real, and people become immune to the real pain people suffer.” But for most parents, having to send their children to war is not something they worry about, even as it becomes something that more of them play at. At the same time, the nexus of video gaming, war, and militainment is growing even fuzzier with the rapid growth in unmanned systems that use video-gaming technology to conduct actual military operations (the United States now has some 7,000 unmanned systems in its aerial inventory and another 12,000 on the ground). Indeed, the executive at robot-maker Foster-Miller worries that it is becoming too fuzzy. “It’s a Nintendo issue,” he told me. “You get kids used to playing Grand Theft Auto moving on to armed robots. Are you going to feel guilt after killing someone?” With more and more soldiers sitting at a robot’s computer controls, experiencing no real danger other than carpal tunnel syndrome, the experience of war is not merely distanced from risk, but now fully disconnected from it. One Air Force officer speaking to Wired’s Noah Shachtman about his experiences in the Iraq war, which he fought from a cubicle hundreds of miles away, described the feeling: “It’s like a video game…. It can get a little bloodthirsty. But it’s fucking cool.” A commander of a Predator drone squadron based in Nevada probably best summed up to me the quandaries, for both the military and the public. A former F-15 pilot, the officer described the new generation of unmanned systems operators with awe. Years of video gaming had made them “naturals” in the fast-moving, multitasking skills required for modern warfare. But there was also a cost. “The video-game generation is worse at distorting the reality of it [war] from the virtual nature. They don’t have that sense of what’s really going on,” he told me. This might be the essence of this new era of militainment: a greater fidelity to detail, but perhaps a greater distortion in the end. Every day, this officer heads off to virtual war. But when he comes home, he doesn’t let his own children play the many war games aimed at them. “We do the car ones instead.”
afbfb4b38cd1cdc66a8e62e35fb572a3	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/must-innocents-die-the-islamic-debate-over-suicide-attacks/	Must Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate Over Suicide Attacks	Must Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate Over Suicide Attacks Over the last two years, the issue of suicide attacks or “martyrdom operations” against Israel has dominated public discussion throughout the Arab world. Since the outbreak of the current Palestinian intifada, in September 2000, the Palestinian resort to suicide attacks has won widespread Arab public acceptance as a legitimate form of resistance against Israeli occupation. Some Muslim clerics and other commentators justify them on political, moral, and religious grounds. Even those attackers who bomb and kill women and children are hailed as martyrs for their heroism in confronting the enemy. It is often said that the “martyrdom operations” are acts of religious extremism. The operatives who recruit young men and women to detonate themselves in crowds of Israelis manipulate religious fervor by wedding the ideas of heavenly reward to martyrdom. A young believer who detonates himself in the midst of the enemy will ascend straight to heaven and enter paradise—so he or she is indoctrinated. This is presented as the ultimate sacrifice and reward for a devout young Muslim. But the operations themselves are very carefully calculated maneuvers. Islamist and other groups launch suicide attacks because they are seen as effective means to demoralize Israel. The “martyrdom operations” are deemed the only answer to the vastly superior military capabilities of the Israeli army. In the words of the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, “Once we have warplanes and missiles, then we can think of changing our means of legitimate self-defense. But right now, we can only tackle the fire with our bare hands and sacrifice ourselves.” Advocates have described the attacks as the most important “strategic weapon” of Palestinian resistance. And while religious justification of such attacks is important for many Muslims, secular groups related to Fatah such as the Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade have resorted to similar tactics. Suicide attacks enjoyed almost unquestioning support in the Arab world—until the suicide attacks of September 11, 2001. Overnight, Muslims everywhere found themselves defending their religion against charges of espousing violence and terror. Many Muslim scholars have responded by condemning the assault against America as terrorism. But even as they affirm that the attacks in America were terrorism—because they killed innocent civilians—many of the same scholars still regard attacks carried out against Israeli civilians as “martyrdom operations,” a form of legitimate resistance to occupation of holy Muslim land. These scholars now seek to explain the difference between suicide operations in New York and Washington and those perpetrated in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The acceleration of Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in spring 2002 complicated the issue still further. The “martyrdom operations” against Israeli civilians, following one another in rapid succession, licensed Israel to launch massive reprisals. Before these reprisals, Arab governments and opinion-makers had been content to let the “suicide fever” run rampant, in the media and in street demonstrations. But as Israeli military responses escalated, Arab governments sent their clients—Muslim clerics, journalists, and officials—to throw cold water on the frenzied enthusiasm of the masses. The specter that such operations might spread to their own countries, threatening their own security, cannot be far from their minds. In short, three main arguments have emerged: the first, endorsing the attacks of September 11 and against Israeli targets; the second, rejecting attacks like September 11, but supporting attacks against Israeli targets; and the third, rejecting all suicide attacks, wherever they take place. The debate is now fully engaged, yet it is not entirely new. The debate over “martyrdom operations” goes back to the 1980s, when various groups employed the technique against U.S., French, and Israeli forces in Lebanon. But the sheer number of Palestinian “martyrdom operations” against Israel and the unprecedented number of Americans killed in New York and Washington have imparted a new urgency to the debate. What follows is a sketch of the recent arguments for and against the operations against Israel. It is important to acknowledge that a debate is underway. It is also crucial to recognize that those who sanction attacks against Israeli civilians seem to be winning it. For and Against The debate began in early December 2001, when a deadly wave of suicide operations struck Jerusalem and Haifa, leaving 26 Israelis dead. The bombings constituted the first major wave of terrorism, post-September 11. They came at a time when the leadership of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose nationals had been implicated in the September 11 attacks, were still reeling from criticism that they had not done enough to battle terrorism and suicide fever in the region. After September 11, the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia faced severe criticism for the role their nationals played in the attacks. They also deemed it in their interest to promote a more conciliatory image of Islam—to argue that it opposes the killing of innocent civilians and is based on ideals of peace and justice. In November, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Abdullah called a meeting of senior Islamic clerics including the grand mufti of the kingdom, to urge them to exercise caution in their public declarations, and to remember that their words were now under unprecedented international scrutiny: Brothers, you know that we are passing through crucial days. We must be patient and you must clarify to your brothers in good words since you are now the target of the enemies of the Islamic faith…do not be unnerved or provoked by passion. President Mubarak of Egypt made similar appeals to religious scholars and preachers during the holy month of Ramadan. He stressed the tolerant nature of Islam, calling on the religious figures to “clarify the real nature of Islam’s divine message, that it is the religion of tolerance and mercy, that it forbids the killing of innocent civilians.” The December 2001 bombings in Israel immediately put Egypt and Saudi Arabia to the test. Would their religious leaders finally speak out against the widespread glorification and acceptance of “martyrdom” and indiscriminate killing that had taken root in their own societies? Two of them did. Sheikh Muhammad Sa’id Tantawi, head of Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque and university, had been equivocal about the issue in past declarations. Now he reiterated the government’s position, declaring that the shari’a (Islamic law) “rejects all attempts on human life, and in the name of the shari’a, we condemn all attacks on civilians, whatever their community or state responsible for such an attack.” Echoing Tantawi’s ruling, Sheikh Muhammad bin ‘Abdallah as-Sabil, member of the Saudi council of senior ulema (clerics) and imam at the grand mosque in Mecca, also decried the suicide attacks. “Any attack on innocent people is unlawful and contrary to the shari’a,” he announced, adding, “Muslims must safeguard the lives, honor, and property of Christians and Jews, attacking them contradicts the shari’a.” The Islamic legal arguments against the operations relied upon three principles of Islamic law: the prohibition against killing civilians, the prohibition against suicide, and the protected status of Jews and Christians. But would these arguments hold? For centuries, Muslim rulers have paid the salaries of religious figures and used them to boost their own legitimacy. The highest religious leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are government-appointed officials. Any edict emanating from these religious bodies inevitably reflects state policy. Both governments tap their religious establishments whenever they need religious backing for controversial policies. In the past, the Sheikh al-Azhar, the head of the Azhar theological seminary, provided Anwar Sadat with a religious edict, or fatwa, in support of the peace treaty Sadat signed with Israel. During the Kuwait war, the late grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Baz, ruled that the presence of foreign troops was permitted on Saudi soil to defend the kingdom from Saddam Hussein. He also issued an extremely controversial fatwa in 1995, ruling that the shari’a permitted peace with Israel, under certain conditions. The dependence of the clerics on the rulers has sometimes eroded the credibility of state religious officials and their edicts. In any event, no Muslim authority exercises a kind of “papal” authority over his coreligionists. And so it was not surprising that the declarations of Tantawi and Sabil, far from ending the debate, actually intensified it. The harshest rebuttal came from the Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who currently heads the Sunni studies department at Qatar University. Sheikh Qaradawi is a consistent critic of the United States as well as many pro-Western Arab governments, and is increasingly popular throughout the Muslim world. He was also one of the first religious scholars to sanction the use of suicide attacks by Palestinian militants during the waves of Hamas-led bombings in the mid-1990s. Qaradawi has gained popularity and legitimacy throughout the Arab world by questioning the authority of the state, and he reaches a broad audience through his regular appearances on the Arabic satellite channel, al-Jazeera. Qaradawi has emerged as one of the preeminent Islamic religious figures in the Arab world and arguably represents the mainstream of Arab Muslim society. “I am astonished that some sheikhs deliver fatwas that betray the mujahideen, instead of supporting them and urging them to sacrifice and martyrdom,” announced Qaradawi. Responding specifically to the imam of Mecca, Qaradawi stated, “It is unfortunate to hear that the grand imam has said it was not permissible to kill civilians in any country or state, even in Israel.” Qaradawi based his opposition to these fatwas on the premise that Israelis were not civilians but rather combatants in a war of occupation waged against the Palestinians. He argued that Israeli society was completely military in its make-up and did not include any civilians…How can the head of Al-Azhar incriminate mujahideen who fight against aggressors? How can he consider these aggressors as innocent civilians? While sanctioning suicide attacks against Israelis, Qaradawi quickly condemned the September 11 attacks against American civilians, claiming that “such martyrdom operations should not be carried out outside of the Palestinian territories.” Attempting to differentiate between terrorism and “martyrdom,” Qaradawi declared, “The Palestinian who blows himself up is a person who is defending his homeland. When he attacks an occupier enemy, he is attacking a legitimate target. This is different from someone who leaves his country and goes to strike a target with which he has no dispute.” Qaradawi distinguished “martyrdom operations” from terrorism as an act of self-defense and thus a legitimate form of resistance. He continues: “The Palestinians have a right to defend their land and property from which they were driven out unjustly…the Palestinians have a right to resist this usurping colonialism with all the means and methods they have. This is a legitimate right endorsed by the divine laws, international laws, and human values.” Qaradawi was also at pains to distinguish between suicide and martyrdom. Islam clearly prohibits suicide, yet views martyrdom as a noble act, assuring individuals a place in heaven. In an interview with al-Jazeera, Qaradawi rejected the term “suicide operations.” This is an unjust and misleading name because these are heroic commando and martyrdom attacks and should not be called suicide operations or be attributed to suicide under any circumstances. He clarified that the term suicide applies to someone who kills himself for personal reasons and is therefore a coward. In contrast, an attack against Israel is defined as martyrdom and therefore legitimized as a brave, unselfish sacrifice carried out on behalf of the entire Muslim community. Other critics of the edicts issued by Tantawi and Sabil based themselves on the status of Jews and Christians in Islam, considered “people of the covenant”—ahl adh-dhimma, or dhimmis. There are clear guidelines in the Qur’an and Sunna for Muslim relations with Jews and Christians, providing for the protection of their lives and property. But as one commentator argued, “preserving the life of the dhimmis is conditional on their living under Muslim rule in a Muslim state. This does not apply to the dhimmis mentioned by the imam [of Mecca], since they are living in their own state that has usurped the rights of Muslims and occupied their lands.” Jews and Christians are protected under Islam, but only when they live under Muslim rule; outside the boundaries of Islamic rule, they are no longer protected. According to this chain of reasoning, it is permissible to kill Jews in Israel who live in their own state, especially as its territory has been usurped from Muslims. Other religious scholars within the Azhar establishment continued to challenge the prohibition on killing civilians espoused by Tantawi and Sabil. ‘Abd al-‘Azim al-Mit’ani, a lecturer at Al-Azhar University, rejected arguments differentiating between Israeli civilian and military targets claiming, “They should not make any difference between civilians and military. It is a fact that Israel is one big military camp. There is no real civilian there. It is the Palestinians’ rights to hit all the inhabitants of Israel as they can.” Al-Mit’ani continued by claiming that the Prophet’s words prohibiting the killing of children, elderly, or women did not apply in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers, stating, “He was talking about an ordinary war, between two armies. The situation in occupied Arab Palestine is different. We are faced with an enemy that attacks indiscriminately. The Palestinians have every right to return the treatment.” The killing of innocent women and children is often quickly dismissed by advocates of suicide operations as “collateral damage” and an inevitable by-product of the struggle against Israel. Addressing this issue in an interview, Sheikh Qaradawi denied that such casualties contradict Islamic doctrine. “Some children, old people, and women may get hurt in such operations. This is not deliberate. However, we must all realize that the Israeli society is a military society, men and women…we cannot say that the casualties were innocent civilians.” ‘Abd as-Sabur Shahin, a lecturer at the Islamic Dar al-‘Ulum College in Cairo, concurred and argued that, “We are at war, as we have never been before throughout history. If civilians are killed in the course of Palestinian operations, this is not a crime.” Islamic scholars who endorse and even promote suicide or “martyrdom” attacks justify their positions by reference to the shari’a. But these rulings are driven more by emotions and television images of Palestinian suffering than by deep immersion in the records of ancient Islamic precedent. These clerics, like many secular enthusiasts of the bombings, seek to champion the Palestinians in their resistance against Israel. And for the Muslim believer, the young men who sacrifice their lives in the name of resistance are not only defending the Palestinian nation, they are also defending the wounded honor of the Arab nation, in a struggle that was lost decades ago by the secular Arab regimes. Enter the Rulers Once the clerics had staked out their positions, it was the turn of the rulers to “operationalize” them. Yet it did not take long for the debate to become muddled, as both the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian governments hedged their own condemnations of the operations. The judgments of Tantawi and Sabil condemning violence against civilians prepped the call by the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria to “reject all forms of violence,” at a May 2002 tripartite summit meeting in Sharm al-Sheikh. But their final statement did not specifically condemn “martyrdom operations.” Syria soon exploited the loophole. True, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had attended the meeting and agreed to the text of the final communiqué—this, despite the fact that Syria continues to support suicide attacks carried out by Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad. But after the summit, Syrian foreign minister Faruq ash-Shar’ explained why Syria put its name to the summit communiqué, by claiming that the term “violence” referred to “Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.” Syrian sources then confirmed that there would be no change in Syria’s political support for “resistance” and for leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Saudi Arabia’s effort to curb support for violence against Israel was discussed between President George W. Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah at their meeting in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, with Abdullah promising to use his influence over both Hamas and Syria. Widely circulating reports later claimed that Saudi Arabia was attempting to use its influence on Hamas to end suicide attacks through high-level meetings. But Hamas spokesman Mahmud az-Zahar denied that any meetings occurred, while affirming the movement’s willingness to discuss the issue of “martyrdom operations” with any Arab party. Such attempts were renewed later in the year under the auspices of the Egyptian government, yet broke down over the refusal of Hamas to end the attacks. Moreover, it soon turned out that Saudi Arabia itself had been paying allowances to the families of “martyrs” and funneling money directly for Hamas, which was responsible for a majority of suicide attacks. The Saudi Committee for the Support of Al-Quds Intifada, headed by Saudi interior minister Prince Nayif bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, had been channeling money to Hamas and affiliated organizations. In the words of the Saudi government, the committee “has been extending assistance to the families of Palestinian martyrs, as well as injured and handicapped Palestinians.” According to its own figures, published on an official Saudi government website, the family of each suicide bomber is paid 20,000 Saudi riyals (about $5,300). In addition, money from the Saudi Committee for the Support of Al-Aqsa Intifada was paid to the Tulkarm Charity Committee, an organization cited by the United States as connected to Hamas. While it is clear that the charity committee does administer social work and aid, it is also known to have ties with the military apparatus of Hamas. Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that Saudi cash was funding Hamas during a hearing of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In response to a question about the destination for funds raised through a series of Saudi telethons which raised millions of dollars, Secretary Powell claimed, “We have seen some indications, and I’ve even seen in an Arab newspaper—handed to me by Chairman Arafat, I might add—where some of the money, at least according to this Arab newspaper advertisement, would be going to elements of Hamas.” The Saudi embassy in Washington attempted to deflect criticism that it was funding the families of suicide bombers by claiming that the term “martyr” used in relation to official Saudi efforts to raise funds for Palestinians referred not to suicide bombers but to “Palestinians who are victimized by Israeli terror and violence.” Yet the executive manager of the Saudi committee stated otherwise: “We support the families of Palestinian martyrs, without differentiating between whether the Palestinian was a bomber or was killed by Israeli troops.” In the Egyptian case, the weak link in the debate proved to be Sheikh Tantawi. The Sheikh al-Azhar, subjected to withering criticism, began to issue confusing and contradictory statements, effectively abrogating his earlier fatwa. In an interview with the Egyptian state-owned magazine Ruz al-Yusuf, Tantawi claimed that his earlier rulings had been distorted, stating, My words were clear…a man who blows himself in the middle of enemy militants is a martyr, repeat, a martyr. What we do not condone is for someone to blow himself up in the middle of children or women. If he blows himself up in the middle of Israeli women enlisted in the army, then he is a martyr, since these women are fighters. In later statements he reiterated this formula, declaring, “I repeat that those who defend their rights by blowing themselves up in the midst of their enemies who murder his people, occupy their land or humiliate their people, are martyrs, martyrs, martyrs.” Since shifting his position on attacks, Tantawi has continuously sought to clarify the issue by distinguishing between terrorism and jihad, which is the impetus for “martyrdom.” “Jihad in Islam was ordained in order to support the oppressed and defend sacred places, human lives, personal funds, occupied land, and so on. Terrorism, on the other hand, is an aggression and an insistence on killing innocent people, civilians, and peaceful people.” The distinction rests on the notion of self-defense, which distinguishes martyrdom operations from terrorism. Tantawi intended to cover both angles of the debate, conferring the status of martyr on Palestinian suicide bombers engaged in a struggle of self-defense, while condemning the killing of innocent civilians. Within Palestinian society there have been calls to halt the campaign of suicide attacks. Unfortunately, the majority of these appeals are based on strategic considerations and not on religious or moral arguments. The usual arguments against suicide attacks are that they harm the image of the Palestinian struggle or engender harsh Israeli reprisals—not that the attacks are themselves reprehensible. Some Palestinians support attacks only within the West Bank and Gaza and not in the pre-1967 borders of Israel. But Palestinian critics of the attacks clearly have not persuaded their planners and perpetrators since the attacks continue. Next Phase? If suicide attacks are permissible against Israeli targets, might they be deemed legitimate against repressive Arab leaders accused of being “apostates”? Religious decrees were used to justify the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Various edicts issued against leading intellectuals such as the Egyptian author and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz (who was stabbed by a would-be assassin), and Egyptian secular thinker Farag Foda (who was murdered), have put secularists on notice. All of this raises the prospect that, even if the “suicide fever” subsides among the Palestinians, it could surface elsewhere—not just in the West, where it has already taken a devastating toll, but in Arab capitals ruled by regimes friendly to the West and at peace with Israel. This would be the point of entry for theological freelancers. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of fatwas issued by various religious scholars of dubious authority. These fatwas may lack legal soundness, yet they are often accepted and adhered to by many Muslims who are dissatisfied with the status quo. Some of these fatwas conform to Islamic law, and some do not. But the crucial point is that the lack of qualifications of those issuing such rulings has become nearly irrelevant. Usama bin Ladin’s so-called fatwa of 1998, for example, urged Muslims to “kill the Americans and their allies, civilians and military.” Though such a ruling by a person lacking legal training has no authority in Islam, the fact remains that a small group of people who believed these words perpetrated an unprecedented act of terror against the United States on September 11. Thus, is it inconceivable that a disgruntled extremist group, desperate in its confrontation with an authoritarian state in the Middle East, could use such tactics against an Arab regime? Bin Ladin’s 1998 call for murder was directed at “Americans and their allies,” easily interpreted as the Western-allied states of the Arab world. Arab governments have struggled against the proliferation of fatwas and have taken various measures to limit those issuing religious rulings. The government of Saudi Arabia issued a public statement that only authorized clerics could issue fatwas. This was in part a response to a fatwa issued by a dissident cleric, calling for jihad against the United States. The Saudi minister of Islamic affairs also attempted to curb public calls for jihad, which he declared could only be ordered by the government. In Kuwait, which faces a growing Islamic opposition, the Ministry of Justice, Religious Endowments, and Islamic Affairs issued rules to mosque preachers in an attempt to control religious discourse. The ministry also established a fatwa committee to coordinate and approve religious rulings. Similar restrictions and regulations have been enacted throughout the Arab world in an attempt to limit the influence of independent clerics. Until now, most Islamic groups have refrained from directly confronting the state for ideological or tactical reasons. Generally speaking, those groups that have chosen violence have been crushed. But the widespread legitimacy of the “martyrdom operations” could set extremists to considering the tactic, if and when they revive armed struggle against the state. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak raised such concerns in an interview with The New York Times: “I am afraid of what’s happening in the Middle East for the future…the seriousness of the situation may generate new kinds of terrorism against all of us, against the U.S., against Egypt, against Jordan.” Arab rulers could find themselves the next target of a new wave of “martyrs.” This suggests that the debate over “martyrdom operations” may continue for a long time to come. And at this moment in time, those in favor of such attacks seem to be scoring points. Cairo and Riyadh remain reluctant to oppose such attacks fully in clear and definitive language, and such attacks continue. Perhaps their hesitation has to do with the answer to this question: Even if they were to call unambiguously for an end to the suicide attacks, would anyone heed them?
9e543e79daeb37f5f7087ab66ec4a1b3	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/north-koreas-long-shadow-on-south-koreas-democracy/	North Korea’s long shadow on South Korea’s democracy	North Korea’s long shadow on South Korea’s democracy South Korea has often been touted as a democratic and economic miracle. After decades of authoritarianism, it transitioned into a consolidated democracy and a technologically advanced, economic powerhouse in the past three decades. In recent months, the country has received international praise for its successful tackling of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet South Korean presidents’ desire to advance their goals vis-à-vis North Korea and the legacy of authoritarianism, especially the centralization of power in the presidency, have led to uneven applications of liberal democratic functions and, at times, egregious examples of abuse and rights violations. President Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer, seemed to offer a break from the previous decade of conservative rule during which the Cold War-era National Security Law was invoked to quash pro-North Korea sentiment and punish any critic of then-Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. Moon, however, has used his power to dampen anti-North speech and activities to support his pro-engagement policy toward Pyongyang, undermining his domestic policy goals — such as taming corruption and inequality — while making little headway in relations with an intransigent Kim regime. Progress on strengthening South Korea’s democratic institutions will take time and political will, but in the meanwhile, Moon can take small steps toward those longer-term goals by changing his approach to North Korean human rights and defector groups, empowering civic organizations, and setting the foundations for principled and sustainable policies. With the world still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, few countries get as much positive attention for successfully managing it than South Korea. Not only did President Moon Jae-in’s administration show what effective governance, technology and science, and expert-driven policies can accomplish in protecting public health, Seoul also showed that it could safely hold national legislative elections, even as Britain, France, and almost 20 U.S. states postponed votes. An impressive two-thirds of South Korea’s eligible voters turned out during the pandemic and delivered a supermajority for the ruling party. The Washington Post, among other media, lauded South Korea for showing the world how “free, fair, and safe elections” can be done, even during a pandemic. Even as South Korea was being touted as a beacon of democracy in global media, the Moon administration has been criticized by domestic observers and international organizations, including the United Nations, for its illiberal practices related to North Korean defectors and human rights advocates in the country. A democracy since the late 1980s, South Korea still bears the weight of previous military regimes’ legal and institutional legacies that continue to hamper consistent application of liberal democratic functions. In particular, each South Korean president’s goals vis-à-vis relations with North Korea, as well as the centralization of power in the position itself, cast shadows on Seoul’s policy choices. While conservative presidents had generally cracked down on any whiff of pro-North sentiment, citing the notorious National Security Law, a relic of the Cold War and South Korea’s anti-communism often deployed to silence pro-democracy entities, Moon’s progressive government has flipped the script, aiming to squelch opposition to his pro-engagement policy toward Pyongyang. From October 2016 to March 2017, hundreds of thousands of South Korean citizens — families, young adults, the elderly, schoolchildren — gathered every weekend in Seoul demanding President Park Geun-hye’s resignation for charges of graft. While corruption scandals that marked the Park administration were the initial cause of these “candlelight protests,” decades of pent-up anger and resentment about deepening socioeconomic inequality, harsh labor conditions and lack of benefits for temporary jobs, long working hours, and low quality of life bubbled up to the surface. In 2016, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked South Korea 28th among 38 countries in its quality of life index report; it fell further to 29th in 2017. For South Koreans who protested in the streets for months against the corruption of Park, the daughter of one of South Korea’s dictators, seen as aloof and out of touch — and ultimately impeached and removed from office in March 2017 — Moon Jae-in was seen as a breath of fresh air. Among 13 candidates, Moon won a commanding 41% of the vote, with a 17-point lead over the runner-up. An astonishing 77% of eligible voters cast their ballots. At the time, international observers pronounced the exuberant and peaceful candlelight protests as a “democratic miracle” and wrote that South Korea “showed the world how to do democracy.” Moon Jae-in entered office in May 2017 promising to reform the chaebols, or conglomerates, that dominate the social, economic, and political landscape in South Korea, improve working conditions and hours, and increase the minimum wage. A civil and human rights lawyer who had been jailed for his pro-democracy activism during the country’s authoritarian rule, the progressive Moon said he would be a “president for the people.” In a prescient article, Alexis Dudden, a U.S. historian of modern Korea, celebrated the successes of the candlelight protests in ousting the sitting president and showing that no one is above the law. But she also warned that, “South Koreans will find it challenging in the coming years to keep attention trained on what they want for their country and for the broader Korea because the North Korean vortex will likely define Moon’s presidency.” Indeed, driven by a desire to “take an audacious step” toward an end of the Korean War declaration and the signing of a peace treaty — and undoubtedly alarmed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s apparent lack of concern about South Korea’s security during the “fire and fury” threats in late 2017 that many feared would spiral into a military conflict — Moon has elevated rapprochement with Pyongyang as a top priority. He has also resolved to use the powers of the presidency toward that goal, even if it meant the selective tamping down of civil liberties in his own country. The same abuses of power that was rife under President Park Geun-hye proved their stickiness in the Moon administration, in what political scientists Aram Hur and Andrew Yeo call the “democratic ceiling” in South Korea. Much like his predecessors, President Moon’s tenure has been rocked by scandals, including a reported intervention by top presidential Blue House officials to help one of Moon’s friends become mayor of a southeastern city and graft charges and ethics violations against Moon’s close ally Cho Kuk, who was appointed as minister of justice in September 2019 and resigned a month later. The Cho scandal drew massive crowds to oppose his appointment. Additional allegations that Cho and his wife forged documents to help their daughter get admission into medical school enraged young people who were already sensitive to economic inequality and unfair advantages enjoyed by the elite, and they directed their ire at Moon for covering up for Cho, whom they called a hypocrite. Moon has also drawn criticism and protests for suppressing dissent, particularly from conservatives, continuing a cycle of recrimination and retaliation, and deepening the polarization of Korean politics. But what has drawn special attention from the international community has been Seoul’s cracking down of North Korean defector organizations and others who oppose Moon’s pro-engagement policy toward Pyongyang. Fiercely protective of his goal of making inter-Korean progress during his single five-year term, Moon’s government has put intense pressure on non-governmental organizations and defector groups that focus on human rights in North Korea to mollify Kim Jong Un. In late 2018, the government cut funding for the North Korea Human Rights Foundation (established by law in 2016) by 93%, in part to sustain the summitry of that year. In October 2018, the South Korean government barred a veteran journalist who was a North Korean defector from covering the inter-Korean talks, reportedly to avoid irritating the North Korean regime. The incident spurred the International Press Institute, a global network of media executives and journalists, to write a letter to Moon stating, “We fear that the government has set a new precedent, and, in the future, it would attempt to silence any journalist who is critical of North Korea or the talks between the two countries.” Since then, Seoul has stripped licenses of NGOs that conducted activities such as floating anti-regime leaflets into the North, raided offices and filed criminal complaints, and surveilled or detained activists, prompting these nongovernmental organizations to appeal to the United Nations for help. Activists told Reuters that Seoul’s investigations and withholding of funds have scared away donors, further hampering the organizations’ efforts to support defections and defector networks. A senior leader of the international organization Human Rights Watch stated that “South Korea should be standing up for its own principles” and that the Moon administration is at risk of “violating the rights they spent their entire careers trying to build up.” In December 2020, the Moon government passed a controversial bill that banned the sending of anti-North Korea leaflet balloons, sparking an outcry from civic groups, defectors, and international human rights organizations. Progressive goals, like reining in the power and influence of chaebols and strengthening the social safety net, also fell to the wayside. Political scientist Robert Kelly observed that previous liberal presidencies of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun “lost themselves in trying for an elusive deal with Pyongyang,” and that Moon, too, appeared to be ignoring longstanding liberal domestic agenda items for an as-yet unrequited promise of inter-Korean reconciliation. Furthermore, Moon enlisted the chaebols for his North Korea project. Seeking to lure Kim Jong Un’s regime with economic carrots, Moon brought a group of business leaders, including the heads of four of South Korea’s biggest conglomerates — Samsung, SK, Hyundai, and LG — to the third inter-Korean summit in September 2018. Samsung’s leader at the time was a defendant in a bribery scandal during the Park administration, an inconvenient truth that the Blue House batted away, stating that it was a separate matter. Meanwhile, the South Korean public viewed the economy as the most urgent issue. A poll from September 2018 showed Moon’s approval rating falling to a low of 49%, reflecting the respondents’ view that the Moon administration did little to improve the employment rate, check soaring real estate prices, or address other economic problems. Nevertheless, the Moon administration proposed multiple infrastructure projects, such as the inter-Korean railroad and rebuilding North Korea’s roads and ports, which would have cost tens of billions of dollars, according to expert and government estimates. Seoul’s actions also elicited concern in Washington, as policymakers there reportedly called South Korean companies and banks to remind them of the need for North Korea sanctions enforcement. As one of Moon’s close advisers told the Voice of America in July 2020, “The peaceful management of inter-Korean relations is the number one priority for us, and human rights would come second.” Such sentiment was consistent with the administration’s position since Moon took power. A senior adviser said in January 2019, “North Korean defectors might not enjoy the same benefits that they enjoyed during the two previous conservative governments,” and emphasized that resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue was the top goal for Moon. The attempts to marginalize and silence civil society organizations like the North Korea defector and human rights groups are both symptom and driver of a weakness in South Korean democracy, particularly the extreme centralization of power in the presidential Blue House. South Korean political scientist Choi Jang Jip argued that his country’s democracy lacks the systematic inclusion of societal actors in the policymaking process because of the overarching goals of economic development and national security, even at the cost of protecting individual rights. In the milieu of anti-communism and maintaining order, the progressive forces that drove the country’s pro-democracy movement in the 1980s did not embrace the concept of placing checks on government power to enhance individual rights and liberties. As a result, political parties were weak, underdeveloped and dependent on the personality of the president, the National Assembly continued to lack institutional autonomy as in the authoritarian era, and the judiciary saw its value through the lens of national security and economic development, often to the advantage of the wealthy and powerful. The concentration of power in the Blue House has been rooted in South Korea for decades and has been reinforced regardless of which party is in power. Asia scholars Stephan Haggard and Jong-Sung You have observed that, “Governments on both the political right and left have placed limits on freedom of expression to contain political opposition, and constitutional, legal, and political checks have proven insufficient to stop them.” The progressive governments of Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008) have prosecuted journalists and sought to neutralize conservative media. In 2012, Amnesty International issued a scathing condemnation of the conservative government of Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013), for a “dramatic increase in the abuse of national security laws in a politically motivated attempt to silence debate.” And the Park Geun-hye (2013-2017) government’s application of the National Security Law to surveil, monitor, and crack down on critics, often implying that they are pro-North Korea subversives, elicited warnings from the United Nations Human Rights Council, Freedom House, and South Korean civic groups. A corollary legacy of the military dictatorships of the past is the corruption stemming from the toxic partnership between the state and conglomerates, which impedes the advancement of pluralism and policies responsive to the people. Historians have well documented that South Korea’s economic “miracle” was grounded in the authoritarian practices of President Park Chung-hee — the impeached Park Geun-hye’s father — whose export-dominated policies and government incentives gave rise to the now household names such as Samsung and Hyundai, while violently suppressing unions and tolerated labor exploitation by the corporations.1 Over the years, these family-controlled conglomerates have amassed enormous political influence and have wielded that power to protect their interests despite persistent calls for reform. Every presidential administration since democratization has been implicated in bribery and corruption scandals, including the current Moon government, underscoring the difficulties of decoupling chaebol money from politics and policies. Unwillingness or inability to reform the chaebols leaves in place a system that propagates corruption, entrenches corporate power, and undermines good governance and democratic accountability. Choi Jang Jip averred that the chaebol “have proven a formidable obstacle for furthering the development of democracy, the wide application of the rule of law, and the liberalization and pluralization of civil society.” Frustrated by the lack of progress on chaebol reform under the Moon government, workers (again) took to the streets, given the absence of governance structures that mediate between civil society and government. To their credit, Moon and his party have attempted to revise the Constitution, unsuccessfully in 2018 and again in 2020, to try to decentralize the power of the presidency, change the single five-year presidency to a four-year term with opportunity for a second term, lower the voting age, grant more autonomy to local governments, and delegate more authority to the prime minister, as well as to dismantle conditions that contribute to rampant corruption. Even though Moon said he would not personally benefit from these measures, the National Assembly scuttled the proposal, calling it “imperial” but also highlighting the sclerosis of the legislature and the polarization of politics. Moon has also worked to target and investigate corruption in the previous administration, but, as South Korean economist Park Sang-in noted, the administration has yet to produce and implement specific measures to curb the power the concentration of power and wealth. Yet, part of the reason for the persistence of the practice of tamping down on freedom of expression is their political utility for the presidents in managing opponents, especially since South Korean presidents have a single five-year term to establish their legacy. South Korea’s strong, centralized presidency, relatively unencumbered by legislative or judicial oversight — and dependent on the chaebols to deliver on promises of economic growth — has had negative implications for foreign policy. Choi Jang Jip has argued that the result of such a system is policymaking that is a “makeshift, short-sighted, and improvised process influenced by the president’s immediate policy concerns.” A top-down, personalized foreign policy approach runs the risk of producing inconsistent policies from one administration to another. For example, Moon cast doubt on the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system, which the previous government had agreed to install. He also threatened to withdraw from a military intelligence sharing agreement with Japan, another product of the previous administration. The wide fluctuations in policies from one president to another have created concerns in Washington and elsewhere about the reliability and consistency of South Korea’s policies. Indeed, Moon’s approach does not appear to be having the intended effect on Pyongyang. The consistent volley of anti-South rhetoric from the Kim regime, its refusal to accept Seoul’s humanitarian aid during the COVID-19 pandemic, and destruction of the inter-Korean liaison office in June 2020 all strongly suggest that Moon’s conciliatory approach is not working. In fact, Moon’s attempts to silence civil society voices, especially on human rights issues, might be fueling Kim’s perception that he can coerce Seoul to comply with his demands, rather than inspiring him to dismantle his nuclear weapons program. The Trump administration’s decision to not focus on North Korea’s human rights violations since early 2018 at the outset of summit diplomacy — the human rights envoy position has been vacant since 2017 — also played a part in shifting global attention away from the Kim regime’s repressive practices, while providing tacit acceptance of Seoul’s actions against rights groups. Robert R. King, the former special envoy for North Korea human rights under the Obama administration, pithily wrote, “Ignoring human rights does not make the abuses go away, nor does ignoring abuses increase the desire or will of the Kim regime to reach an agreement on security issues in the long run.” Furthermore, the chaebols probably have little to contribute to inter-Korean economic engagement, given existing sanctions, the poor investment and business environment in North Korea, and the Kim regime’s lack of interest. There also is a mismatch in what North Korea can offer and to these companies. The South Korean economist Park Sang-in writes, “South Korean chaebols are concentrated in heavy and chemical industries, and North Korean workers do not yet have the human capital that would be suitable for these industries.” Moon has an opportunity to further consolidate South Korea’s democracy by allowing civil society groups, even ones that are critical of North Korea, to flourish, without damaging his pro-engagement policy toward Pyongyang. Although North Korea typically responds harshly to any criticisms about the regime, when pressed on the issue of human rights, it has taken efforts to improve them in certain cases. For example, North Korea in 2017 delivered progress on the rights of persons with disabilities and allowed for the visit of an official from the U.N. Human Rights Council, to the surprise of many Korea observers. More broadly, the Moon administration and its successors will continue to wrestle with the weaknesses in its system inherited from South Korea’s autocratic predecessors. As this author has laid out elsewhere, tackling these legacies and loosening the grip of chaebols will require bold actions to increase resources to the public sector and services, institutionalize an improved, bipartisan system of checks and balances, encourage and provide more opportunities for the younger generation of political leaders, and address the culture of widespread corruption that lingers in both government and businesses. The risks of letting North Korea policy objectives eclipse domestic priorities are not insignificant. The resounding win for the ruling party at the April 2020 legislative elections was the result of the Moon administration’s successful management of the pandemic, not its flailing North Korea policy; before the pandemic, Moon’s approval rating had fallen to as low as 30% as a result of the country’s economic slowdown and political scandals. But since the election, Moon’s approval rating has fallen steadily, as scandals, counterproductive policy moves, labor controversies, and slow or insensitive government responses soured the public’s view of the administration. Moreover, the conditions that fueled the candlelight protests of 2016-2017 still exist and in some cases have worsened. According to the Bank of Korea, 25-29 year-olds accounted for over 20% of the unemployed in 2018, the highest figure among OECD numbers for seven consecutive years. The income disparity is wider than when he came to office and the support of voters in their 20s who had helped to propel Moon into office dropped from 90% in June 2017 to 44% in October 2019. Progress on strengthening South Korea’s democratic institutions will take time and political will, but in the meanwhile, Moon can take small steps toward those longer-term goals by changing his approach to human rights and defector groups. As Jennifer S. Oh of South Korea’s Ewha Women’s University has argued, “civil society strengthens democratic governance by creating democratic citizens.” What better way to show North Korea and the world how to “do democracy” than to show the power and resilience of South Korea’s democracy — confident enough to listen to critics, empower civic organizations, and sustain wise policies beyond a single presidential term.
68ee6ed0959b519f151c476aefe0c42b	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/not-by-bread-alone-the-role-of-the-african-american-church-in-inner-city-development/	Not by Bread Alone: The role of the African-American church in inner-city development	Not by Bread Alone: The role of the African-American church in inner-city development Deep social problems continue to plague inner-city America. Fashioning a response to the scourge of drugs, gangs, violent crime, unemployment, AIDS, failed schools, fatherless families, and early unwed pregnancy is among the most serious domestic policy challenges confronting the nation today. Some attribute these problems solely to structural causes. But a key aspect of the problems is the patterns of behavior that have emerged among young men and women in inner-city communities that limit their ability to seize existing opportunity. While social analysts agree that these behaviors must change if progress is to occur, they disagree fundamentally about how to accomplish such change. For some, the intensification of pathological behaviors among the urban poor is due to the lack of economic opportunities; for others, it is the result of disincentives created by various welfare programs. Though sharply different in their policy implications, these two positions have something important in common. Each assumes that economic factors ultimately drive the behavioral problems, even behaviors involving sexuality, marriage, childbearing, and parenting, which reflect peopleþs basic understanding of what gives meaning to their lives. A different view of these matters takes off from the biblical injunction, “man must not live by bread alone.” From this perspective, the values, attitudes, and beliefs that govern a person’s behaviors are at least partially autonomous, leaving open the prospect that communal agencies of moral and cultural development might change the way individuals conduct their lives. Since religious institutions are primary sources of legitimate moral teaching in our society, this point of view suggests that significant positive change may be possible if inner-city churches can reach individuals, engage them in the activities of the church, and thereby help transform their lives. This suggestion raises interesting issues of theory, of evidence, and of ethics for students of social change. Setting aside appeals to divine intervention, the question arises as to what are the characteristics of religious institutions that, in principle, might make them effective instruments of behavior modification and that are not present in secular settings. Also, what evidence supports the claim that the scope of church involvement in the inner city, and its impact on the behavior of churchgoers, is large enough to potentially make a real difference in these communities? Moreover, instrumental calculations aside, one might ask why churches, in particular, should be charged with the awesome responsibility of helping to achieve renewal in our society’s most desolate backwaters. Each of us, both as scholar and as citizen, has been interested for some time in the idea that religion might promote development in low-income communities. Recently we have been investigating it more systematically. This essay reports on some of our findings and opinions in this critical, but as yet little explored, area of social policy studies, relative to the questions of theory, evidence, and ethics raised above. It is hardly our last word on the subject. Not a Task for Government Arguably, encouraging þgood behavior” means making discriminations among people based on assessments that are difficult, legally and politically, for public agencies to make. Discerning the extent to which particular people have risen to, or fallen short of, our expectations in the concrete, ambiguous circumstances of everyday life is a nontrivial task. If promoting “virtue” necessitates setting, communicating, and enforcing standards, then it requires a high level of knowledge about a person’s circumstances and an ability to draw fine distinctions among individual cases based on that knowledge. Both the informational demands of this activity and the requisite authority to act on what information is available will often exceed the capacity of governmental actors, since citizens have procedural protections and privacy rights that cannot and should not be abrogated. Publicly enforced judgments must be made in a manner consistent with these rights. Voluntary civic associations, as exemplified by religious institutions, are not constrained in the same way or to the same degree. A government agency, when trying to assess whether a welfare recipient has put forward adequate effort toward achieving self-sufficiency, is forced to rely on information like a caseworker’s observations and self-reports of the recipient. Any attempt to limit assistance because the recipient failed to try hard enough would stand up to subsequent judicial review only in the most egregious of cases. Yet families and communal groups providing help to the same person would typically base their continued assistance on a much richer (and, admittedly, often impressionistic) array of information. They would discriminate more finely than a state-sponsored agent ever could between the subtle differences in behavior among individuals that constitute the real content of morality and virtue. Moreover, in a pluralistic society public agents must be neutral in areas where private citizens differ sharply among themselves as to which set of values is the “correct” one. Publicly enforced judgments necessarily reflect a “thin” conception of virtue, weak enough to accommodate the underlying diversity of values among the citizenry, to be contrasted with the “thick” conceptions characteristic of the moral communities in which we are embedded in private life. Thus, introducing into the public schools in any large city a curriculum of sex education that teaches the preferability of two-parent families might be resisted by educators who would cite the great number of their students from single-parent backgrounds. But what if these are the students most in need of hearing the authoritative expression of such a value judgment? In a parochial school context, such a possibility well might affect the design and implementation of a sex education curriculum. Consider the fact that some (one hopes, few) young mothers are not competent–for emotional and intellectual reasons–to nurture their children. In such circumstances, the autonomy of the parent-child relation must somehow be breached if the children are to have a decent shot at developing their God-given talents. Although this is difficult ground, there clearly are circumstances in which, to prevent significant injustice to children, we have somehow to get inside the family sphere and get our hands on the lives of these youngsters. Where does the authority–the standing–come from for that kind of intervention to take place? The government’s doing it is deeply problematic. Yet faith-based communities, where participation is voluntary and social relations among members are close, can in some situations exercise that authority. The Role of Religious Communities Assume for the moment that religious communities do have a unique role to play in the socioeconomic development of low-income areas. What has been their performance to date? Hope for a substantial church role rests in part on the fact of widespread religious participation in the United States. The existing literature documents that more than half of all Americans regularly attend church or are church members. This level of participation and the relative strength of the various denominations appear not to have changed much for at least 20 years. In addition, the bulk of the literature on church attendance concludes that any fall in participation has been mainly among young people with relatively high social status and thus would not affect urban low-income populations. Indeed, studies of racial differences in church participation uniformly find that blacks participate at a greater rate than whites. Nevertheless, a sober review of the evidence does not support the view that inner-city churches are now having a substantial impact on the quality of life in low-income communities by altering the socio-economic status of individual church members. (We say this despite the many examples of outstanding urban ministries doing excellent work in particular communities.) For example, while overall church attendance is higher among blacks than whites, it is relatively low in urban areas, especially in the central cities of the North, where much of the low-income black population is concentrated. Also the fastest growth in church membership for blacks (and for whites) over the past two decades has been among Baptists and other, more conservative religious groups whose members have fewer years of schooling than those of other denominations even after differences in the nonreligious characteristics of members are taken into account. Studies of the effects of religiosity on income and schooling invariably find only small positive effects. We want to stress that the existing literature is unsatisfactory in a number of ways. More direct measures of “religiosity” are needed to determine whether behavioral effects exist. Furthermore, only a few studies can break down their results by race and socioeconomic status; yet there may be important differences across groups. To illustrate, if the social networks of poor black families are less dense than those of others, the effects of any particular social connection might be magnified. Also, if children from more advantaged families acquire beneficial skills or attitudes inside their household, while children from poorer families are relatively more dependent on beneficial external influences, then the potential of religious institutions to play an important role in the inner cities will be underestimated. We therefore urge caution in extending to low-income urban populations the findings of a small effect of religiosity on behavior obtained from aggregate samples. We are well aware of the knotty problem of inferring causality in this area of research. While it is certainly plausible that religiosity favorably affects work, education, and other behaviors, these behaviors may themselves affect religious commitment and participation. Moreover, measures of religiosity may also be correlated with unobserved nonreligious traits that affect, say, years of schooling. One of us has tried to address these problems in a study of the effect of religious participation on schooling using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. That study looked at how church attendance during the senior year of high school affected the total years of schooling ultimately completed, relying on differences in the effects of church attendance before, during, and after the senior year to control for any spurious correlations. We found that church attendance during the senior year of high school adds about 0.2 years to total schooling for white women and for blacks, but had no significant effect for white men. We construe this as modest evidence that church attendance may alter behavior in a constructive way. Beyond Social Science Ultimately we do not believe that social scientific evidence can justify what we see as an ethical imperative for institutions of faith, rooted in urban black America, to work toward the redemption and reconstruction of these communities. It is perhaps worth recalling that, as an historic matter, the religiosity now so widespread among black Americans grew out of the experience of slavery. People were driven by brute circumstance to create among themselves a culture with spiritual and moral depth of heroic proportion. They simply had no choice. The brutality of the assault they endured–on their persons, their relations one with another, and their sense of dignity and self-respect–was such that either they would be destroyed as moral beings or they would find a way, through faith, to transcend their condition. That “man must not live by bread alone” was for them more than a theoretical proposition. Grasping the truth of that proposition was their key to survival. These moral and spiritual values proved profoundly significant in the post-slavery development of black Americans. A spirit of self-help, rooted in a deep-seated sense of self-respect, was widely embraced among blacks of all ideological persuasions well into this century. They did what they did–educating their children, acquiring land, founding communal institutions, and struggling for equal rights–not in reaction to or for the approval of whites, but out of an internal conviction of their own worth and capacities. Even acts of black protest and expressions of grievance against whites were, ultimately, reflections of this inner sense of dignity. The crowning achievements of the civil rights movement–its nonviolent method and its successful effort at public moral suasion–can be seen as the projection into American politics of a set of spiritual values that had been evolving among blacks for more than a century. Jesse Jackson, Sr., teaches young blacks the exhortation, “I am somebody,” and this is certainly true. But the crucial question then becomes, “Just who are you?” Many of our fellow citizens now look upon the carnage playing itself out on the streets of ghetto America and supply their own dark answers. The youngster’s response should be: “Because I am somebody, I waste no opportunity to better myself; I respect my body by not polluting it with drugs or promiscuous sex; I comport myself responsibly, I am accountable, I am available to serve others as well as myself.” It is the doing of these fine things, not the saying of any fine words, that teaches oneself and others that one is somebody who has to be reckoned with. But who will show the many hundreds of thousands of black youngsters now teetering on the brink of disaster how to be somebody? One finds a precedent for the huge task we face in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, which begins as follows: “Hanani, one of my brethren came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. And it came to pass when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” “The wall is broken down and its gates are burned with fire.” This metaphor of decay and assault is an apt one for our current ills. We are invited to think of a city without walls as one with no integrity, no structure, subject to the vagaries of any passing fad or fancy. We imagine the collapse of civil society; the absence of an internally derived sense of what a people stand for, of what they must and must not do. With the wall broken and its gates burned, anything becomes possible. In the biblical account Nehemiah heroically led the Jews of Jerusalem to renewal. He went to the Persian king whom he served as cup bearer, secured provision, and returned to Jerusalem, where he rolled up his sleeves and went to work restoring the physical integrity of the environment, but also presiding over a spiritual revival amongst the citizenry. Now, let us relate this to our overarching theme, lest you think you are about to read a sermon. (We are fully capable of sermonizing on this subject–that our second son’s name is Nehemiah is no accident.) Nehemiah, a Jew, was specifically concerned about his people. His work, the reconstruction of civil society, could only be undertaken, as it were, “from the inside out.” He dealt in the specific and concrete circumstances confronting the Jews. He did not deal only in abstractions. He made himself present among those for whom he had a special affection, toward whom he felt a special loyalty. His is not so bad a model. In the inner-city ghettos today “the remnant there are in great affliction and reproach.” For the civic wound of black alienation to be fully and finally bound, a great deal of work must be done in these communities. We blacks are connected–by bonds of history, family, conscience, and common perception in the eyes of outsiders–to those who languish in the urban slums. Black politicians, clergy, intellectuals, businessmen, and ordinary folk must therefore seek to create hope in these desolate young lives; we must work to rebuild these communities; we must become our brotherþs keeper. To say this is, of course, not to absolve the broader American public of its responsibility to formulate decent and prudent social policies aimed at assisting all who languish on the social margins, regardless of race or creed. The ultimate goal is for the sentiment that we must become our brother’s keeper to become more widely shared. Yet when reflecting on the role that churches can play in renewing civil society among the urban poor, we find moral considerations such as those set out here to be, unavoidably, an important part of the dialogue that is now so desperately needed.
c4f05ce0086c71537df26b6037efb2fb	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/outlaw-of-the-sea-the-senate-republicans-unclos-blunder/?shared=email&msg=fail	Outlaw of the Sea: The Senate Republicans’ UNCLOS Blunder	Outlaw of the Sea: The Senate Republicans’ UNCLOS Blunder When U.S. Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), both vice presidential hopefuls, recently declared their opposition to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, they virtually guaranteed that it would be dead on arrival if it were sent to the Senate. A group of 34 senators, including Ayotte and Portman and led by Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), is now on the record promising to vote against UNCLOS, which is enough to make getting the two-thirds majority necessary for ratification impossible. UNCLOS was first negotiated 30 years ago. But back then, U.S. President Ronald Reagan objected to it because, he argued, it would jeopardize U.S. national and business interests, most notably with respect to seabed mining. A major renegotiation in 1994 addressed his concerns, and the United States signed. Now, the U.S. Navy and business community are among UNCLOS’ strongest supporters. So, too, was the George W. Bush administration, which tried to get the treaty ratified in 2007 but failed due to Republican opposition in the Senate. Today’s opponents, including Ayotte, DeMint, and Portman, focus on two issues. First, they argue, the treaty is an unacceptable encroachment on U.S. sovereignty; it empowers an international organization — the International Seabed Authority — to regulate commercial activity and distribute revenue from that activity. Yet sovereignty is not a problem: During the 1994 renegotiation, the United States ensured that it would have a veto over how the ISA distributes funds if it ever ratified the treaty. As written, UNCLOS would actually increase the United States’ economic and resource jurisdiction. In fact, Ayotte, DeMint, and Portman’s worst fears are more likely to come to pass if the United States does not ratify the treaty. If the country abdicates its leadership role in the ISA, others will be able to shape it to their own liking and to the United States’ disadvantage. Read the full article at foreignaffairs.com »
26ec88eb6042892aade9c30259ee1d18	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/outsourcing-war/	Outsourcing War	Outsourcing War Understanding the Private Military Industry The tales of war, profit, honor, and greed that emerge from the private military industry often read like something out of a Hollywood screenplay. They range from action-packed stories of guns-for-hire fighting off swarms of insurgents in Iraq to the sad account of a private military air crew languishing in captivity in Colombia, abandoned by their corporate bosses in the United States. A recent African “rent-a-coup” scandal involved the son of a former British prime minister, and accusations of war profiteering have reached into the halls of the White House itself. Incredible as these stories often sound, the private military industry is no fiction. Private companies are becoming significant players in conflicts around the world, supplying not merely the goods but also the services of war. Although recent well-publicized incidents from Abu Ghraib to Zimbabwe have shone unaccustomed light onto this new force in warfare, private military firms (PMFs) remain a poorly understood—and often unacknowledged—phenomenon. Mystery, myth, and conspiracy theory surround them, leaving policymakers and the public in positions of dangerous ignorance. Many key questions remain unanswered, including, What is this industry and where did it come from? What is its role in the United States’ largest current overseas venture, Iraq? What are the broader implications of that role? And how should policymakers respond? Only by developing a better understanding of this burgeoning industry can governments hope to get a proper hold on this newly powerful force in foreign policy. If they fail, the consequences for policy and democracy could be deeply destructive. Private Sector and Public Interest PMFs are businesses that provide governments with professional services intricately linked to warfare; they represent, in other words, the corporate evolution of the age-old profession of mercenaries. Unlike the individual dogs of war of the past, however, PMFs are corporate bodies that offer a wide range of services, from tactical combat operations and strategic planning to logistical support and technical assistance. The modern private military industry emerged at the start of the 1990s, driven by three dynamics: the end of the Cold War, transformations in the nature of warfare that blurred the lines between soldiers and civilians, and a general trend toward privatization and outsourcing of government functions around the world. These three forces fed into each other. When the face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union ended, professional armies around the world were downsized. At the same time, increasing global instability created a demand for more troops. Warfare in the developing world also became messier—more chaotic and less professional—involving forces ranging from warlords to child soldiers, while Western powers became more reluctant to intervene. Meanwhile, advanced militaries grew increasingly reliant on off-the-shelf commercial technology, often maintained and operated by private firms. And finally, many governments succumbed to an ideological trend toward the privatization of many of their functions; a whole raft of former state responsibilities—including education, policing, and the operation of prisons—were turned over to the marketplace. The PMFs that arose as a result are not all alike, nor do they all offer the exact same services. The industry is divided into three basic sectors: military provider firms (also known as “private security firms”), which offer tactical military assistance, including actual combat services, to clients; military consulting firms, which employ retired officers to provide strategic advice and military training; and military support firms, which provide logistics, intelligence, and maintenance services to armed forces, allowing the latter’s soldiers to concentrate on combat and reducing their government’s need to recruit more troops or call up more reserves. Although the world’s most dominant military has become increasingly reliant on PMFs (the Pentagon has entered into more than 3,000 such contracts over the last decade), the industry and its clientele are not just American. Private military companies have operated in more than 50 nations, on every continent but Antarctica. For example, European militaries, which lack the means to transport and support their forces overseas, are now greatly dependent on PMFs for such functions. To get to Afghanistan, European troops relied on a Ukrainian firm that, under a contract worth more than $100 million, ferried them there in former Soviet jets. And the British military, following in the Pentagon’s footsteps, has begun to contract out its logistics to Halliburton. Nowhere has the role of PMFs been more integral—and more controversial—than in Iraq. Not only is Iraq now the site of the single largest U.S. military commitment in more than a decade; it is also the marketplace for the largest deployment of PMFs and personnel ever. More than 60 firms currently employ more than 20,000 private personnel there to carry out military functions (these figures do not include the thousands more that provide nonmilitary reconstruction and oil services)—roughly the same number as are provided by all of the United States’ coalition partners combined. President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” might thus be more aptly described as the “coalition of the billing.” These large numbers have incurred large risks. Private military contractors have suffered an estimated 175 deaths and 900 wounded so far in Iraq (precise numbers are unavailable because the Pentagon does not track nonmilitary casualties)—more than any single U.S. Army division and more than the rest of the coalition combined. More important than the raw numbers is the wide scope of critical jobs that contractors are now carrying out, far more extensive in Iraq than in past wars. In addition to war-gaming and field training U.S. troops before the invasion, private military personnel handled logistics and support during the war’s buildup. The massive U.S. complex at Camp Doha in Kuwait, which served as the launch pad for the invasion, was not only built by a PMF but also operated and guarded by one. During the invasion, contractors maintained and loaded many of the most sophisticated U.S. weapons systems, such as B-2 stealth bombers and Apache helicopters. They even helped operate combat systems such as the Army’s Patriot missile batteries and the Navy’s Aegis missile-defense system. PMFs—ranging from well-established companies such as Vinnell and mpri to startups such as the South African firm Erinys International—have played an even greater role in the postinvasion occupation and counterinsurgency effort. Halliburton’s Kellogg, Brown & Root division, the largest corporate PMF in Iraq, currently provides supplies for troops and maintenance for equipment under a contract thought to be worth as much as $13 billion. (This figure, in current dollars, is roughly two and a half times what the United States paid to fight the entire 1991 Persian Gulf War, and roughly the same as what it spent to fight the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the Spanish-American War combined.) Other PMFs are helping to train local forces, including the new Iraqi army and national police, and are playing a range of tactical military roles. An estimated 6,000 non-Iraqi private contractors currently carry out armed tactical functions in the country. These individuals are sometimes described as “security guards,” but they are a far cry from the rent-a-cops who troll the food courts of U.S. shopping malls. In Iraq, their jobs include protecting important installations, such as corporate enclaves, U.S. facilities, and the Green Zone in Baghdad; guarding key individuals (Ambassador Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, was protected by a Blackwater team that even had its own armed helicopters); and escorting convoys, a particularly dangerous task thanks to the frequency of roadside ambushes and bombings by the insurgents. PMFs, in other words, have been essential to the U.S. effort in Iraq, helping Washington make up for its troop shortage and doing jobs that U.S. forces would prefer not to. But they have also been involved in some of the most controversial aspects of the war, including alleged corporate profiteering and abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Five Obstructions The mixed record of PMFs in Iraq points to some of the underlying problems and questions related to the industry’s increasing role in U.S. policy. Five broad policy dilemmas are raised by the increasing privatization of the military. The first involves the question of profit in a military context. To put it bluntly, the incentives of a private company do not always align with its clients’ interests—or the public good. In an ideal world, this problem could be kept in check through proper management and oversight; in reality, such scrutiny is often absent. As a result, war-profiteering allegations have been thrown at several firms. For example, Halliburton—Vice President Dick Cheney’s previous employer—has been accused of a number of abuses in Iraq, ranging from overcharging for gasoline to billing for services not rendered; the disputed charges now total $1.8 billion. And Custer Battles, a startup military provider firm that was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in August 2004 has since been accused of running a fraudulent scheme of subsidiaries and false charges. Still more worrisome from a policy standpoint is the question of lost control. Even when contractors do military jobs, they remain private businesses and thus fall outside the military chain of command and justice systems. Unlike military units, PMFs retain a choice over which contracts they will take and can abandon or suspend operations for any reason, including if they become too dangerous or unprofitable; their employees, unlike soldiers, can always choose to walk off the job. Such freedom can leave the military in the lurch, as has occurred several times already in Iraq: during periods of intense violence, numerous private firms delayed, suspended, or ended their operations, placing great stress on U.S. troops. On other occasions, PMF employees endured even greater risks and dangers than their military equivalents. But military operations do not have room for such mixed results. The second general challenge with PMFs stems from the unregulated nature of what has become a global industry. There are insufficient controls over who can work for these firms and for whom these firms can work. The recruiting, screening, and hiring of individuals for public military roles is left in private hands. In Iraq, this problem was magnified by the gold-rush effect: many firms entering the market were either entirely new to the business or had rapidly expanded. To be fair, many PMF employees are extremely well qualified. A great number of retired U.S. special forces operatives have served with PMFs in Iraq, as have former members of the United Kingdom’s elite sas (Special Air Service). But the rush for profits has led some corporations to cut corners in their screening procedures. For example, U.S. Army investigators of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal found that “approximately 35 percent of the contract interrogators [hired by the firm caci] lacked formal military training as interrogators.” In other cases, investigations of contractors serving in Iraq revealed the hiring of a former British Army soldier who had been jailed for working with Irish terrorists and a former South African soldier who had admitted to firebombing the houses of more than 60 political activists during the apartheid era. Similar problems can occur with PMFs’ clientele. Although military contractors have worked for democratic governments, the UN, and even humanitarian and environmental organizations, they have also been employed by dictatorships, rebel groups, drug cartels, and, prior to September 11, 2001, at least two al Qaeda-linked jihadi groups. A recent episode in Equatorial Guinea illustrates the problems that PMFs can run into in the absence of external guidance or rules. In March 2004, Logo Logistics, a British-South African PMF, was accused of plotting to overthrow the government in Malabo; a planeload of employees was arrested in Zimbabwe, and several alleged funders in the British aristocracy (including Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of Margaret Thatcher) were soon implicated in the scandal. The plotters have been accused of trying to topple Equatorial Guinea’s government for profit motives. But their would-be victim, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, is a corrupt dictator who took power by killing his uncle and runs one of the most despicable regimes on the continent–hardly a sympathetic victim. The third concern raised by PMFs is, ironically, precisely the feature that makes them so popular with governments today: they can accomplish public ends through private means. In other words, they allow governments to carry out actions that would not otherwise be possible, such as those that would not gain legislative or public approval. Sometimes, such freedom is beneficial: it can allow countries to fill unrecognized or unpopular strategic needs. But it also disconnects the public from its foreign policy, removing certain activities from popular oversight. The increased use of private contractors by the U.S. government in Colombia is one illustration of this trend: by hiring PMFs, the Bush administration has circumvented congressional limits on the size and scope of the U.S. military’s involvement in Colombia’s civil war. The use of PMFs in Iraq is another example: by privatizing parts of the U.S. mission, the Bush administration has dramatically lowered the political price for its Iraq policies. Were it not for the more than 20,000 contractors currently operating in the country, the U.S. government would have to either deploy more of its own troops there (which would mean either expanding the regular force or calling up more National Guard members and reservists) or persuade other countries to increase their commitments—either of which would require painful political compromises. By outsourcing parts of the job instead, the Bush administration has avoided such unappealing alternatives and has also been able to shield the full costs from scrutiny: contractor casualties and kidnappings are not listed on public rolls and are rarely mentioned by the media. PMF contracts are also not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. This reduction in transparency raises deep concerns about the long-term health of American democracy. As the legal scholar Arthur S. Miller once wrote, “democratic government is responsible government—which means accountable government—and the essential problem in contracting out is that responsibility and accountability are greatly diminished.” PMFs also create legal dilemmas, the fourth sort of policy challenge they raise. On both the personal and the corporate level, there is a striking absence of regulation, oversight, and enforcement. Although private military firms and their employees are now integral parts of many military operations, they tend to fall through the cracks of current legal codes, which sharply distinguish civilians from soldiers. Contractors are not quite civilians, given that they often carry and use weapons, interrogate prisoners, load bombs, and fulfill other critical military roles. Yet they are not quite soldiers, either. One military law analyst noted, “Legally speaking, [military contractors] fall into the same grey area as the unlawful combatants detained at Guantánamo Bay.” This lack of clarity means that when contractors are captured, their adversaries get to define their status. The results of this uncertainty can be dire–as they have been for three American employees of California Microwave Systems whose plane crashed in rebel-held territory in Colombia in 2003. The three have been held prisoner ever since, afforded none of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Meanwhile, their corporate bosses and U.S. government clients seem to have washed their hands of the matter. Such difficulties also play out when contractors commit misdeeds. It is often unclear how, when, where, and which authorities are responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and punishing such crimes. Unlike soldiers, who are accountable under their nation’s military code of justice wherever they are located, contractors have a murky legal status, undefined by international law (they do not fit the formal definition of mercenaries). Normally, a civilian’s crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the country where they are committed. But PMFs typically operate in failed states; indeed, the absence of local authority usually explains their presence in the first place. Prosecuting their crimes locally can thus be difficult. Iraq, for example, still has no well-established courts, and during the formal U.S. occupation, regulations explicitly exempted contractors from local jurisdiction. Yet it is often just as difficult to prosecute contractors in their home country, since few legal systems cover crimes committed outside their territory. Some states do assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over their nationals, but they do so only for certain crimes and often lack the means to enforce their laws abroad. As a result of these gaps, not one private military contractor has been prosecuted or punished for a crime in Iraq (unlike the dozens of U.S. soldiers who have), despite the fact that more than 20,000 contractors have now spent almost two years there. Either every one of them happens to be a model citizen, or there are serious shortcomings in the legal system that governs them. The failure to properly control the behavior of PMFs took on great consequence in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse case. According to reports, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators involved were private contractors working for two firms, Titan and caci. The U.S. Army found that contractors were involved in 36 percent of the proven incidents and identified 6 employees as individually culpable. More than a year after the incidents, however, not one of these individuals has been indicted, prosecuted, or punished, even though the U.S. Army has found the time to try the enlisted soldiers involved. Nor has there been any attempt to assess corporate responsibility for the misdeeds. Indeed, the only formal inquiry into PMF wrongdoing on the corporate level was conducted by caci itself. Caci investigated caci and, unsurprisingly, found that caci had done no wrong. In the absence of legislation, some parties have already turned to litigation to address problems with PMFs—hardly the best forum for resolving issues related to human rights and the military. For example, some former Abu Ghraib prisoners have already tried to sue in U.S. courts the private firms involved with the prison. And the families of the four Blackwater employees murdered by insurgents in Fallujah have sued the company in a North Carolina court, claiming that the deceased had been sent into danger with a smaller unit than mandated in their contracts and with weapons, vehicles, and preparation that were not up to the standards promised. The final dilemma raised by the extensive use of private contractors involves the future of the military itself. The armed services have long seen themselves as engaged in a unique profession, set apart from the rest of civilian society, which they are entrusted with securing. The introduction of PMFs, and their recruiting from within the military itself, challenges that uniqueness; the military’s professional identity and monopoly on certain activities is being encroached on by the regular civilian marketplace. Most soldiers thus have a deeply ambivalent attitude toward PMFs. On the one hand, they are grateful to have someone help them bear their burden, which, thanks to military overstretch in Iraq, feels particularly onerous at the moment. Even though the job of the U.S. armed services has grown, the force has shrunk by 35 percent since its Cold War high; the British military, meanwhile, is at its smallest since the Napoleonic wars. PMFs help fill the gap as well as offer retired soldiers the potential for a second career in a field they know and love. Some in the military worry, on the other hand, that the PMF boom could endanger the health of their profession and resent the way these firms exploit skills learned at public expense for private profit. They also fear that the expanding PMF marketplace will hurt the military’s ability to retain talented soldiers. Contractors in the PMF industry can make anywhere from two to ten times what they make in the regular military; in Iraq, former special forces troops can earn as much as $1,000 a day. Certain service members, such as pilots, have always had the option of seeking work in the civilian marketplace. But the PMF industry marks a significant change, since it keeps its employees within the military, and thus the public, sphere. More important, PMFs compete directly with the government. Not only do they draw their employees from the military, they do so to play military roles, thus shrinking the military’s purview. PMFs use public funds to offer soldiers higher pay, and then charge the government at an even higher rate, all for services provided by the human capital that the military itself originally helped build. The overall process may be brilliant from a business standpoint, but it is self-defeating from the military’s perspective. This issue has become especially pointed for special forces units, which have the most skills and are thus the most marketable. Elite force commanders in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all expressed deep concern over the poaching of their numbers by PMFs. One U.S. special forces officer described the issue of retention among his most experienced troops as being “at a tipping point.” So far, the U.S. government has failed to respond adequately to this challenge. Some militaries now allow their soldiers to take a year’s leave of absence, in the hope that they will make their money quickly and then return, rather than be lost to the service forever. But Washington has failed to take even this step; it has only created a special working group to explore the issue. Caveat Emptor and—and Renter As all of these problems suggest, governments that use PMFs must learn to recognize their responsibilities as regulators—and as smart clients. Their failure to do so thus far has distorted the free market and caused a major shift in the military-industrial complex. Without change, the status quo will result in bad policy and bad business. To improve matters, it is first essential to lift the veil of secrecy that surrounds the private military industry. There must be far more openness about and public oversight of the basic numbers involved. Too little is known about the actual dollars spent on PMFs; the Pentagon does not even track the number of contractors working for it in Iraq, much less their casualties. To start changing matters, clients—namely, governments that hire PMFs—must exercise their rights and undertake a comprehensive survey to discern the full scope of what they have outsourced and what have been the results. Washington should also require that, like most other government documents, all current and future contracts involving nonclassified activities be made available to the public on request. Each contract should also include “contractor visibility” measures that list the number of employees involved and what they are to be paid, thus limiting the possibility of financial abuse. The U.S. military must also take a step back and reconsider, from a national security perspective, just what roles and functions should be kept in government hands. Outsourcing can be greatly beneficial, but only to the point where it begins to challenge core functions. According to the old military doctrine on contracting, if a function was “mission-critical” or “emergency-essential”—that is, if it could affect the very success or failure of an operation—it was kept within the military itself. The rule also held that civilians were to be armed only under extraordinary circumstances and then only for self-protection. The United States should either return to these standards or create new ones; the present ad-hoc process is yielding poor results. A third lesson is self-evident but has often been ignored: privatize something only if it will save money or raise quality. If it will not, then do not. Unfortunately, the Pentagon’s current, supposedly business-minded leadership seems to have forgotten Economics 101. All too often, it outsources first and never bothers to ask questions later. That something is done privately does not necessarily make it better, quicker, or cheaper. Rather, it is through leveraging free-market mechanisms that one potentially gets better private results. Success is likely only if a contract is competed for on the open market, if the winning firm can specialize on the job and build in redundancies, if the client is able to provide oversight and management to guard its own interests, and if the contractor is properly motivated by the fear of being fired. Forget these simple rules, as the U.S. government often does, and the result is not the best of privatization but the worst of monopolization. Tapping simple business expertise would help the government become a better client. A staggering 40 percent of Defense Department contracts are currently awarded on a noncompetitive basis, adding up to $300 billion in contracts over the last five years. In the case of caci, the firm linked to abuses at Abu Ghraib, Army investigators subsequently reported not only that a caci employee may have helped write the work order, but also that the Abu Ghraib interrogators had been hired by simply amending an existing contract from 1998–for computer services overseen by the Department of the Interior. When hiring contractors, the Defense Department must learn to better guard its own and the public’s interest. Doing so will require having sufficient eyes and ears to oversee and manage contracts. So far, the military woefully lacks this capacity. The U.S. government has only twice as many personnel overseeing contractors in Iraq, for example, as it had during the 1990s for its Balkans contracts—even though there are now 15 times more contracts and the context is much more challenging. The government should also change the nature of the contracts it signs. Too often, the “cost plus” arrangement has become the default form for all contracts. But this setup, in effect, gives companies more profit if they spend more. When combined with inadequate oversight, it creates a system ripe for inefficiency and abuse. In addition to insisting on more stringent terms, the government should start to use the power of market sanctions to shape more positive results. These days, the opposite seems to happen far more often: Halliburton and caci were both granted massive contract extensions for work in Iraq, despite being in the midst of government investigations. Finally, more must be done to ensure legal accountability. To pay contractors more than soldiers is one thing; to also give them a legal free pass (as happened with Abu Ghraib) is unconscionable. Loopholes must be filled and new laws developed to address the legal and jurisdictional dilemmas PMFs raise. Laws should be written to establish who can work for these companies, who the firms can work for, and who will investigate, prosecute, and punish any wrongdoing by contractors. Because this is a transnational industry, the solution will require international involvement. Proposals to update the international antimercenary laws and to create a UN body to sanction and regulate PMFs have already been made. But any such international effort will take years. In the meantime, every state that has any involvement with the private military industry, as a client or a home base, should update its laws. One hopes that countries will coordinate their efforts and involve regional bodies to maximize coverage. The United Kingdom, for example, could coordinate its present efforts with the rest of the European Union, and the United States should do the same with its allies. The forces that drove the growth of the private military industry seem set in place. Much like the Internet boom, the PMF bubble may burst if the current spate of work in Iraq ever ends, but the industry itself is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Governments must therefore act to meet this reality. Using private solutions for public military ends is not necessarily a bad thing. But the stakes in warfare are far higher than in the corporate realm: in this most essential public sphere, national security and people’s lives are constantly put at risk. War, as the old proverb has it, is certainly far too important to be left to the generals. The same holds true for the CEOs.
cb56eedf85bb1d4c13ba1f1fdf2120c1	https://www.brookings.edu/articles/peacekeepers-inc/	Peacekeepers, Inc.	Peacekeepers, Inc. Violence breaks out in a small African state. The local government collapses and reports emerge that civilians are being massacred by the tens of thousands. Refugees stream out in pitiable columns. As scenes reminiscent of the Rwanda genocide are played out on the world’s television screens once again, pressure mounts to do something. The U.N.’s calls for action fall on deaf ears. In the U.S., the leadership remains busy with the war on terrorism and Iraq and decides that the political risks of doing nothing are far lower than the risks of losing any American soldiers’ lives in what is essentially a mission of charity. Other nations follow its lead, and none are willing to risk their own troops. As the international community dithers, innocent men, women, and children die by the hour. It is at this point that a private company steps forward with a novel offer. Using its own hired troops, the firm will establish protected safe havens where civilians can take refuge and receive assistance from international aid agencies. Thousands of lives might be saved. All the company asks is a check for $150 million. What would the international community do when faced with such a choice? Would it allow peacekeeping to become a profit-making exercise? Or would it choose to spurn the firm’s offer, but at the risk of lives on the ground? It is certainly a fascinating dilemma, but one that sounds almost too implausible to consider seriously. It is not. A number of states are balanced precariously on the brink of a descent into chaos (Burundi, Congo, and Zimbabwe, to name just a few). And, despite a decade of swerving from crisis to crisis, the world appears in no better a position to respond if they do. The ultimate problem is that the U.N. remains a voluntary organization of states. Its peacekeeping options are thus dependent on the enthusiasm of its members to send their own troops into harm’s way. In areas outside their spheres of influence, this is ever less present, in particular among the developed states whose militaries are best prepared to do a good job. The same problem holds true for regional organizations, which are often weakest in the areas of the world where they are needed most. Sometimes, coalitions can be built to respond to crises, but they require time, cohesion, and a willingness and capability to intervene that may not always be there. Thus, when state failure or chaos occurs, often no one answers the call. Even when peacekeeping forces are available, the units are often slow and cumbersome to deploy, poorly trained, underequipped, lacking in motivation, or operating under a flawed mandate. At the same time, there is growing global trade in private military services for hire, better known as the privatized military industry. These companies range from small consulting firms, formed by retired generals, to transnational corporations that offer battalions of commandos for hire. Often operating out of public sight, such firms have been players in a number of conflicts over the past decade, ranging from Angola to what was Zaire. Even the U.S. military has become one of the prime clients of the industry, with private firms now providing the logistics of every major U.S. military deployment, maintaining such strategic weapons systems as the B-2 stealth bomber and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, and taking over the ROTC programs in over 200 American universities. Indeed, from 1994 to 2002, the U.S. Defense Department entered into over 3,000 contracts with U.S.-based military firms, estimated at a value of more than $300 billion. Their role in supporting the Iraq war will only see these numbers grow. As a result, over the past several years, many have begun to call for a twenty-first-century business solution to the world’s twenty-first-century security problems. If everything from prisons to welfare has been privatized, why not try turning peacekeeping over to the private market? Proponents of exploring this idea obviously include the companies who stand to profit from it. But they have also expanded well beyond, to include not only the British government, which just issued a “Green Paper” exploring the issue, but also many traditional supporters of U.N. peacekeeping, including even former U.N. Under Secretary Sir Brian Urquhart, who is considered the founding father of peacekeeping. As a U.N. officer summed up his feelings on the firms in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen (April 6, 1998), “In a perfect world we don’t need them or want them. But the world isn’t perfect.” Privatized peacekeeping offers both promise and peril, and the time has come for the international community to face up to some hard choices—before the next disaster forces an even worse dilemma. The privatized military industry Given the fact that few have even heard of it, the privatized military industry is a surprisingly big business. It has several hundred companies, operating in over 100 countries on six continents, and over $100 billion in annual global revenue. In fact, with the recent purchase of MPRI (a Virginia-based military advisory company) by the Fortune 500 firm L-3, many Americans already own slices of the industry in their 401(k)s. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the industry was one of the few to rise in stock valuation rather than plummet. The reason is that the attacks essentially lodged a “security tax” on the economy, from which the private military industry stands to benefit. The industry began its boom roughly a decade ago. The opening of a market for private military services was the result of a synergy between three powerful forces. The immediate catalyst was a massive disruption in the supply and demand of capable military forces since the end of the Cold War. Not only did global military downsizing create a new labor pool of over 6 million recently retired soldiers, but at the same time there was an increase in violent, but less strategically significant, conflicts around the world. With the great powers less willing to intervene or prop up local allies, the outcome was a gap in the market of security, which private firms found themselves able to fill. At the same time, massive transformations are underway in the nature of warfare. While small-arms simplification and proliferation has increased the ability of minor warring groups to disrupt entire societies, creating even greater demand, warfare has also become more technological at its highest levels. As the vast array of military contractor support in the Iraq war illustrated, the most modern forces are more reliant than ever on civilian specialists to run increasingly sophisticated military systems. Finally, the past few decades have been characterized by a normative shift towards the marketization of the former public sphere. The successes of privatization programs and outsourcing strategies have given the market-based solution not only the stamp of legitimacy, but also the push to privatize any function that can be done outside government. The past decade, for example, was marked by the cumulative externalization of a number of functions that were once among the nation-state’s defining characteristics, including schools, welfare programs, prisons, and defense manufacturers. In fact, the parallel to military service outsourcing is already manifest in the domestic security market, where in states as diverse as Britain, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, and the United States, the number of private security forces and the size of their budgets greatly exceed those of public law-enforcement agencies. In short, this newest outsourcing industry drew precedents, models, and justifications from the wider “privatization revolution.” In a parallel to the wider outsourcing industry, there are three primary business sectors in the privatized military industry, with the firms distinguished by the range of services that they offer. Military provider firms, also known as private military companies or PMCs, offer services at the forefront of the battlespace. That is, their employees engage in actual fighting. Military consultant firms provide combat and strategic advisory and training services. Military support firms, akin to supply chain management firms, provide rear-echelon services, such as logistics, technical support, and transportation. The industry’s growth means that almost any military capability can now be hired off the global market. After they receive contracts from clients, who range from state governments and multinational corporations to humanitarian aid groups and even some suspected terrorist groups, the firms recruit military specialists to fill them. They find their employees through formal job announcements in trade journals and through informal alumni networks of elite units. The vast majority are recently retired, meaning that the cost of training is borne elsewhere, an added savings. Where once the creation of a military force required huge investments in both time and resources, today the entire spectrum of conventional forces can be obtained in a matter of weeks, if not days. The barriers to acquiring military strength are thus lowered, making power more fungible than ever. In other words, clients can undertake operations, which they would not be able to do otherwise, simply by writing a check. This is not just a flight of fancy, but has actually already come to fruition in a number of cases. For instance, the armies in the West African ECOWAS organization all lack certain specializations, such as air support and logistics, that are critical for effective intervention operations. Nonetheless, due to the facilitation of firms such as International Charters, Inc. (ICI) of Oregon, the organization’s forces were able to intervene in the Liberian war in the early 1990s. Using a mix of former U.S. special forces and Soviet Red Army veterans, the firm provided the assault and transport helicopters that supplied the regional force and deployed it into combat. In fact, when the capital, Monrovia, was overrun by rebels and the firm’s helicopters were destroyed at the airport base, ICI’s personnel retreated to the American embassy and helped defend it from being burned down. Similarly, in 1998, Ethiopia leased a wing of the latest Su-27 jet fighters (roughly equivalent to F-15s) from the Russian firm Sukhoi—along with the pilots to fly them, the technicians to maintain them, and the mission planners to direct them. This private air force helped Ethiopia win its war with neighboring Eritrea. Peacekeeping possibilities Within the peacekeeping sphere, the military consulting and support industry sectors have already made inroads (one example being firms providing certain national contingents in the East Timor operation with logistics support). However, the idea of military provider firms replacing blue helmet troops on the ground is one of the most controversial proposals to emerge from the industry’s growth. Proponents believe that such outsourcing of peacekeeping will increase both the effectiveness and efficiency of peace operations. In contrast to the U.N.’s tin-cup dependence on whatever forces its members choose to donate, private firms could target their recruiting at more capable personnel and scour the markets for the best equipment. The firms also would lack the procedural hang-ups that hamper international organizations; they are less threatened by the internal tensions that plague multinational forces and can take quicker and more decisive action. In short, private companies might be able to do peacekeeping faster, better, and cheaper. The contrasting experiences in Sierra Leone between the military provider firm Executive Outcomes and the U.N.’s peacekeeping operation are the most often cited example of privatization’s promise. In 1995, the Sierra Leone government was near defeat from the ruf, a nefarious rebel group whose habit of chopping off the arms of civilians as a terror tactic made it one of the most truly evil groups of the late twentieth century. Supported by multinational mining interests, the government hired the private military firm, made up of veterans from the South African apartheid regime’s elite forces, to help rescue it. Deploying a battalion-sized unit of assault infantry (numbering in the low hundreds), who were supported by firm-manned combat helicopters, light artillery, and a few armored vehicles, Executive Outcomes was able to defeat the RUF in a span of weeks. Its victory brought enough stability to allow Sierra Leone to hold its first election in over a decade. After its contract termination, however, the war restarted. In 1999 the U.N. was sent in. Despite having a budget and personnel size nearly 20 times that of the private firm, the U.N. force took several years of operations, and a rescue by the British military, to come close to the same results. There are three potential scenarios for the privatization of peacekeeping forces. The first is privatized protection. The problem of security for relief operations is widespread and pervasive. In fact, more Red Cross workers were killed in action in the 1990s than U.S. Army personnel. Thus, while the ability of humanitarian actors to create a consensual environment themselves is severely limited, military provider firms might be able to provide site and convoy protection to aid groups. This would allow much more effective aid actions in areas where the local government has collapsed. Besides the direct benefit to the workers on the ground, better protection might also prevent local insurgents from gaining control of supplies and lessen the pressure on outside governments to become involved in messy situations, including scenarios like the 1992 Somalia operation. Humanitarian organizations still operating in dangerous places such as Mogadishu already contract for protection with local warlords, so the more formal business alternative might be preferable. In fact, this scenario is not all that unlikely, given that several U.N. agencies already use such firms to provide security for their own offices. The second possibility is hired units constituted as a “Rapid Reaction Force” within an overall peacekeeping operation. Whenever recalcitrant local parties break peace agreements or threaten the operation, military firms would be hired to offer the muscle that blue helmets are unable or unwilling to provide. The quick insertion of a more combat-minded force, even a relatively small private one, could be critical in deterring local adversaries and stiffening the back of the overall peace operation. Paid firms might thus provide the short-term coercion necessary at critical junctures in the operation. The final, and most contentious, scenario is the complete outsourcing of the operation. When a genocide or humanitarian crisis occurs and no state is willing to step forward to send its own troops, the intervention itself might be turned over to private firms. Upon their hire (by the U.N. or anyone else willing to pay), the firm would deploy to a new area, defeat any local opposition, set up infrastructures for protecting and supporting refugees, and then, once the situation was stabilized, potentially hand over control to regular troops. This idea may sound quite incredible but actually was an option considered by policymakers behind closed doors during the refugee crisis that took place in eastern Zaire in 1996. Both the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping and the U.S. National Security Council discussed the idea that, in lieu of U.N. peacekeepers, a private firm be hired to create a secure humanitarian corridor. The plan was dismissed when the question of who would actually foot the bill was raised. The scenarios illustrate how the concept of the private sector taking over peace operations could radically transform the very nature of peacekeeping, opening up all sorts of new possibilities. For example, firm executives have proposed that they could be paid to take back cities such as Mogadishu, which have been lost to warlords and lawlessness. The firms would stabilize them and then turn the cities over to local or U.N. administration, thus perhaps allowing failed states to rejoin the international system. Similarly, the aforementioned Executive Outcomes performed a business exploration of whether it would have had the capacity to intervene in Rwanda in 1994. Internal plans claim that the company could have had armed troops on the ground within 14 days of its hire and been fully deployed with over 1,500 of its own soldiers, along with air and fire support (roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Marine force that first deployed into Afghanistan), within six weeks. The cost for a six-month operation to provide protected safe havens from the genocide was estimated at $150 million (around $600,000 a day). This private option compares quite favorably with the eventual U.N. relief operation, which deployed only after the killings. The U.N. operation ended up costing $3 million a day (and did nothing to save hundreds of thousands of lives). More recently, a consortium of military firms, interestingly entitled the “International Peace Operations Association,” has proposed that it be hired to work on behalf of the largely ineffectual MONUC peacekeeping operations in the Eastern Congo. The private military firms, which range from aerial surveillance operators to a company of Gurkha veterans, have offered to create a “Security Curtain” (50 km demilitarized zone) in one of the most lawless areas on the African continent. The IPOA’s charge would be between $100-200 million, dependent on the scale of the operation. So far, it has found no takers, but the level of violence in the area continues to escalate. Privatization’s perils Obviously, such proposals hold great promise, which explains the enthusiasm for them. But before the international community leaps into the privatization revolution, it would do well also to consider its perils. A perfect market exists only in theory, and marketizing public services therefore carries both advantages and disadvantages. To put it in economic terms, privatization of any type always carries positive and negative externalities. This is never more true than in the military sphere, where profit motives further cloud the fog of war. While experience has shown that these private military businesses may be able to operate more efficiently and effectively than the forces of public organizations, their hire also has often raised an array of worrisome issues. These challenges are certainly better resolved before peacekeeping is turned over to the private market. The first issue is the contractual dilemmas that arise with privatization. There are obvious market incentives for firms to act in their clients’ interests. Any company that does otherwise risks not being hired again. The problem is that market constraints are always imperfect and tend to work only over the long term. In actuality, the security goals of clients are often in tension with the firms’ aim of profit maximization. The result is that considerations of the good of the private company are not always identical with the public good. For privatized peacekeeping, the ensuing dangers include all the problems one has in standard contracting and business outsourcing. The hired firms have incentives to overcharge, pad their personnel lists, hide failures, not perform to their peak capacity, and so on. The worry, though, is that these are all now transferred into the security realm, where people’s lives are at stake. The most worrisome contractual dilemma, however, is that outsourcing also entails turning over control of the actual provision of service. For peacekeeping, this means the troops in the field are not part of national armies, but private citizens hired off the market, working for private firms. Security is now at the mercy of any change in market costs and incentives. One example of the resulting danger derives from the nasty habit humanitarian interventions have of becoming more complex over time. A firm hired to establish a safe haven might later find the situation more difficult than it originally expected. The operation might become unprofitable or, due to any increase in local opposition, more dangerous than anticipated. Thus, the company could find it in its corporate interest to pull out. Or, even if the company is kept in line by market constraints, its employees might decide that the personal risks they face in sticking it out in an operation are too high relative to their pay. Not bound by military law, they can simply break their contracts without fear of punishment and find safer, better paying work elsewhere. In either case, the result is the same: the abandonment of those who were dependent on private protection without consideration for the political costs or the client’s ability to quickly replace them. Second, privatization also raises certain risks stemming from problems of adverse selection and a lessening of accountability. Military provider firms are not always looking for the most congenial workforce, but instead, understandably enough, recruit those known for their effectiveness. For example, many former members of the most notorious and ruthless units of the Soviet and apartheid regimes have found employment in the industry. These individuals acted without concern for human rights in the past and certainly could do so again. In either case, the industry cannot be described as imbued with a culture of peacekeeping. Even if the firms are scrupulous in screening their hires (which is hard to accomplish, given that few prospective employees would think to include an “atrocities committed” section on their resumes), it is still difficult for them to monitor their troops in the field. Furthermore, if employees do commit violations, there is little incentive for a firm to turn them over to any local authorities. To do so risks scaring off both clients and other prospective employees. This turned out to be the case recently in the Balkans. Employees of Dyncorp, who had been contracted to perform police duties for the U.N. and aircraft maintenance for the U.S. Army, were later implicated in child prostitution rings. Dyncorp’s Bosnia site supervisor even filmed himself raping two women. These employees were transferred out of the country, and none were ever criminally prosecuted. Industry executives counter that U.N. peacekeepers have certainly been involved in crimes of their own in the past, so the risks of human rights violations occurring during peace operations are nothing new. The difference with privatization, though, is that while soldiers in U.N. missions are ultimately held responsible under their national military code of justice, contracted peacekeepers are subject only to the laws of the market. Current international law has been found inapplicable to the actions of the industry, as the firms fall outside of the outdated legal conventions that deal only with individual mercenaries. The only possible regulation must then come either from the law of the state in which the operation is taking place or the law of the state in which the firm is based. Since the collapse of the rule of law is what tends to create the conditions for hiring firms in the first place, the first alternative is almost never an option. The transnational nature of the industry makes the second option of home-state regulation difficult as well. Besides the fact that extraterritorial monitoring (i.e., of firms operating outside national boundaries) is very difficult, any time a firm finds the regulation too onerous, it can simply transfer to more friendly environs. Moreover, even among firms that stay based in the few countries with the ability and will to regulate, the jurisdiction is still problematic. For example, U.S. criminal law does not apply outside of U.S. territorial and special maritime jurisdictions, so that if an employee of an American military firm commits an offense abroad, the likelihood of prosecution is extremely low. Consequently, other than nonrenewal of contract, there are no real checks and balances on military firms that will ensure full accountability. The third challenge of privatization is its long-term implications for local parties. The key to any durable peace is the restoration of legitimacy. In particular, this requires the return of control over organized violence to public authorities. Unfortunately, if peacekeeping is privatized, the companies may become a temporary mechanism for preserving peace but still do little to address the underlying causes of unrest and violence. In the view of many, most importantly the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping (which may have a vested bureaucratic interest in opposing the privatization of forces), the act of becoming a peacekeeper is about more than just changing the color of one’s helmet or beret. Peacekeepers’ roles and responsibilities differ markedly from regular military operations. They require an entirely new cultural outlook focused on humanitarian concerns, which at times can duel with or shackle normal military instincts. Not only must peacekeepers operate under very different rules of engagement, but the most important directive is a guiding ethic of neutrality, the act of not taking sides. Thus, the most successful peacekeeping operations (such as experiences in Mozambique, Namibia, and Guatemala) are not simply about placing third-party troops on the ground. Instead, they include a wide variety of “peacebuilding” activities designed to restore torn social fabrics and foster cooperation among local parties. These range from cease-fire monitoring and troop disarmament and demobilization to reconstruction and election monitoring. Thus, U.N. operations are often so unwieldy for the very reason that they must also carry on these essential activities. Private military firms, untrained or uninterested in the culture of peacekeeping, might be ill-equipped to handle them. Moreover, reliance on an outside private force does little to reestablish the local social contract. Instead, it appears more likely to reinforce the idea that power belongs only to those with the ability to afford it. Finally, the nitty-gritty details of implementation often bedevil privatization’s promise in regular government contracting and general industry; they likely will do so with peacekeeping as well. For example, there is no clear answer to the question of who should have the power to hire private military firms. The first scenario of contracted protection not only challenges norms of aid group neutrality, but also perhaps hazardously expands the powers of these outside organizations, which are responsible only to their donors. The presence of such protection forces entails a further multiplication of armed forces on the ground, hardly the best thing in the midst of a complex operation. Likewise, if the power to hire military firms for peacekeeping is restricted to the U.N., it is still unclear what body of the institution should decide. The decision-making process of the General Assembly is certainly unwieldy and also biased against certain states. Limiting authority to the Security Council, however, leaves the developing world—the very place where the privatized deployments are likely to occur—underrepresented. The result is that many of the same arguments that have been made against the U.N.’s having its own standing army also apply to it having its own contracted force. Similar concerns also occur at the operational level. In the rapid reaction force scenario, for example, there will likely be difficulties of integrating a better-paid private force within a larger U.N. peacekeeping force. The probable resentment between the two forces could jeopardize operational cohesion. Likewise, it is difficult to determine who should be in operational command. Few military firms are willing to accept outside commanders of their units, particularly from the U.N., while clients would obviously prefer to have their own people at the top. In lieu of this, some firms have expressed a willingness to allow outside observers to be present during their operations. The exact powers of these observers, though, are also unsettled. For example, who will provide them and ensure their independence? Will they be like rapporteurs, just providing independent reporting on the operations, or like referees, with the ability to veto certain actions or suspend operations in mid-course? Hard choices The international community must face up to the fact that its own weaknesses have presented it with a hard choice. It is only a matter of time before the next humanitarian crisis occurs in an area that falls outside the interests of the leading states. Whenever it happens, there is a strong possibility that the U.N. will either have to stomach its concerns about the unseemliness of privatized peacekeeping or face the prospect of watching thousands of men, women, and children die when the market could have saved them. The onus is to deal with these issues now, before the next crisis brings this quandary to the fore. This requires action on two fronts. The ills of U.N. peacekeeping have been known for over a decade. As pithy as it sounds, it would be in the interest not only of the institution, but also of its primary donors finally to do something about them. A good starting point would be full support for the implementation of the Brahimi Report, a statement of recommendations on peacekeeping reform written last year by an international body of experts. Prime among these proposals is to raise the bar for the recruiting and vetting of international peacekeeper units. The U.N. should also seriously explore the possibility of using the private market to get a better bang for its buck out of existing peacekeeping units. Military support firms already provide the transport, communications, and logistics of operations for many militaries from well-off states. For example, Brown & Root Services provides such support to U.S. forces deployed in the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Gulf. Units from the developing world, which make up the majority of U.N. forces, are glaringly weak in performing these functions. By outsourcing these services and standardizing them over the whole U.N. peacekeeping system, a synergy of public troops and private support might become possible. Similarly, military consultant firms might be able to provide training and assistance that would improve U.N. operational output. The second front is perhaps even more difficult than U.N. reform. The decision to watch genocide and do nothing not only is morally unacceptable, but also is likely untenable in a world of ever-present media attention. So, if the international community is unwilling to pay the costs of providing its own capable peacekeeping forces, then it is better that it now begin finding ways to mitigate the underlying concerns with contracting out humanitarian intervention. This is preferable to an ad hoc response at the point of crisis. The U.N. is currently ill-prepared to enter the business environment that privatization entails. If the decision is made to turn down this path, it will have to make institutional adjustments to protect both its own and public interests. A good starting point is the creation of standardized monitoring and contracting processes. Other priorities include the establishment of clear contractual standards and incentives programs, systems for outside vetting of personnel, and the creation of independent observer teams (with powers not only to monitor, but also to control the delivery of payment in order to establish their authority over the firm). Most important, however, is that military firms be brought under the control of the law, just like any other industry. This will require both the extension of the International Court of Justice to their activities and clear contract provisos that military firm personnel fall under the jurisdiction of international tribunals. From passenger planes serving as cruise missiles to private companies trading in armies, we live in a time of immense flux in the international security environment. A mere 10 years ago, the notion of private firms taking over the responsibilities of peacekeeping would have been absurd. It is now a real prospect. These firms, however, are not altruistic by any measure, meaning that peacekeeping would best be left to the real generals. But if the public sector is unwilling to get its own house in order, the private sector offers a new way to protect those who would otherwise be defenseless.