Copyright

Global Politics After 9/11:

Failed Wars, Political Fragmentation and the Rise of Authoritarianism

David Held

Published by Global Policy Journal at Kindle Direct Publishing

Copyright 2016 Global Policy Journal jointly owned by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (Company no. 641132), whose registered office and principal place of business is at The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK and The University of Durham (established under Royal Charter with Company Number RC000650) whose registered address is The Palatine Centre, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE (together “the Owners”). Wiley-Blackwell is a trading name of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part I: The 9/11 Wars and the Arab Spring

1 Violence and Justice in a Global Age 2 Return to the state of nature 3 The End of the American Century: 9/11 Ten Years On 4 The Arab 1989? 5 The Arab 1989 Revisited 6 Wars of Decline: Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya 7 The Arab Spring and the Changing Balance of Global Power 8 Democracy, Syria and the western way of war 9 Red lines and dangerous incoherence: Syria and the international community 10 9/11 Wars: A Reckoning 11 The Vicious Cycle of Pitiless Violence 12 Reflections on Intervention in the 21st Century

Part II: The Failure of Western Politics

13 Global Challenges: Accountability and Effectiveness 14 The Decline of the West? The Future of Global Governance in the Face of the Rise of Asia 15 Gridlock: The Growing Breakdown of Global Cooperation 16 Global Financial Cooperation Buckling under the Weight of Previous Success 17 Global Financial Governance: Principles of Reform 18 Is the WTO deal good news for multilateralism? 19 The Syrian Crisis and Gridlock of Global Security Governance 20 European and Global Gridlock: Parallel Barriers to Effective Governance 21 Climate Change, Migration and the Cosmopolitan Dilemma 22 Climate Leadership in the Developing World 23 Europe, the European Union and European Identity 24 To be, or not to be: Europe Under Siege 25 The Brexit Dead End 26 Britain, Riding the Tectonic Plates

Afterword: Can Western Politics be Revitalised?

27 Path to Authoritarianism: The Collapse of the Politics of Accommodation 28 Gold Plated Populism: Trump and the End of the Liberal Order 29 The Changing Face of Global Governance 30 Stepping Stones to a Cosmopolitan Order

Acknowledgements

About Global Policy

Preface

This volume is made up a series of occasional pieces which I have written since 9/11. They explore the impact of this calamitous event on global politics and the many ramifications it has had over time. They try to understand how these developments intersect, and sometime collide, with other events and trends, such as the global financial crisis and the Arab Spring, and they ask what sense we can and should make of them.

The chapters that follow were first published in a variety of social media outlets, including openDemocracy, Social Europe and Global Policy, among others. While the essays are of varying lengths, they are reflections on the critical global events and trends of the last 15 years. Each contribution can be read on its own but, together, they provide a coherent and critical guide to global politics since the turn of the millennium. As the Introduction shows, they explore a set of key themes which have been a preoccupation since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the violent aftermath that followed.

Many of these short articles were co-authored with friends and close colleagues. When this is the case, they are mentioned on the first page of each essay, as is the date of their first publication. In this connection, I am deeply indebted to Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Tom Hale, Kevin Young, Charles Roger and Kyle McNally. Each one of them has been much more than a co-author; they are interlocutors who have helped shape my thinking and writing over these past years. Without Kristian my writing on the Arab world since 9/11 would lack deep and specific knowledge; without Tom and Kevin the work on gridlock would never have been elaborated systematically; without Charlie I would not have pursued detailed thinking on climate change, and without Kyle, who has worked with me on many projects, many of the most recent pieces would never have been completed. In working together, we have developed the strongest bonds.

I have collaborated with three editors who have encouraged my interventions: Rosemary Bechler of openDemocracy; Henning Meyer of Social Europe; and Eva-Maria Nag of Global Policy. I am indebted to them all for their critical reflections and advice. I would also like to thank Eva-Maria Nag, Tom Kirk, and Mark Shaw for their editorial support in the publication of this e-book.

David Held Durham (UK), September, 2016

Introduction

The essays in this book were all written under the shadow of 9/11 and the calamitous wars fought afterwards. There is no doubt that 9/11 was both a crime against the United States and a crime against humanity. Terrorism fuses the roles of judge, jury and executioner in the merciless pursuit of self-proclaimed causes. Faced with 9/11, the US and its allies could have come together to defend what was under outrageous attack: citizens from across the world, democracy, justice, and the rule of law. But they did not. The war in Iraq in particular undermined international law, weakened international institutions, and, along with the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, eroded stability and peace throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.

The first essay in the volume, written just after 9/11, anticipates these themes, which are explored in much further depth in the essays that follow in Part I of the book (see Ch. 1). They examine not just the gross misjudgements in Western foreign policy that shaped the post-9/11 period, but also the misconceived and naïve expectations that the Western foreign policy establishment held (see Chs. 2, 5, 6, and 7). The post 9/11 wars were led by people that had no understanding of the countries they were fighting in, no grasp of the culture or language, no sense of the politics and the peoples, no account of local interests and divisions, and no plan for once the fighting had stopped. These wars were led by men who, at best, were gripped by the belief they had the ability to reshape other countries in their own image. In going to war in Afghanistan against Al-Qaeda, in Iraq against Saddam Hussein, in Libya against Colonel Gaddafi, and in Syria against Bashar al-Assad, the US and its allies entered protracted conflicts, different as these have been, which disorganised states, created vacuums, and opened up the spaces for armed groups and fanatical extremists to thrive among the chaos. Despite each war failing, one after another, the US and its allies appear to have learnt few lessons, and entered each war as if nothing had been grasped about previous conflicts (see Chs. 10, 11, and 12).

Of course, there was a great deal to deplore about the autocratic regimes in these countries and the systematic abuse of human rights that was all too typical in each one of them. This is well known and amply documented. But outrage against these regimes is not enough to create informed judgements about how to change such states and societies. The transformation of countries is a very complex and difficult process. War is a blunt and weak instrument to change regimes, and it rarely works (see Ch. 8). The exceptional conditions which shaped the Second World War and after, which allowed the allies to occupy Germany and Japan and begin a process of reform, enabled the long-term reconstruction of these states and their democratic transformation. In contemporary circumstances, where democratic societies are hesitant to commit troops and are highly sensitive to the loss of national lives, on the one hand, and where globalisation links people across the world, highlighting the costs and sacrifices involved in engagements of all kinds, on the other, these conditions are simply absent.

The creation of democratic states is, moreover, a long and arduous historical process, fraught with risk and uncertainty. The history of the West alone highlights the difficulties of nation-building, and of cultural change. Democracy took over three hundred years to reach its modern form in Europe, and even then it was nearly derailed by the rise of Nazism and fascism in the mid-twentieth century. The shift in people’s identities from subjects to citizens, with equal rights and obligations in a political community, and where victory or defeat at the polls are prospects that have to be accepted, rests on intricate cultural processes. Separating individual identity as a member of a group, tribe, ethnic unit, or religious order from the culture and demands of citizenship involves an arduous and historically difficult set of transformations. The values and requirements of citizenship in a democracy come to trump those of other forms of social and cultural identification, such that being a member of a tribe or ethnic group is secondary to the rule of law and constitutional demands. These delicate processes of change cannot be short-circuited if democratic public life is to develop and prosper. And, yet, this is exactly what the post-9/11 wars sought to do, and failed to do. The most elementary understanding of democratic history would have warned Western political leaders and foreign policy makers against taking such a stance.

Minimum wisdom has shaped the post-9/11 era with all the consequences we live with today. Broken states across the Middle East, mass migration from and through warzones, the constant threat of terrorism, the rise of xenophobia and nationalism, and the mounting socio-economic challenges facing Western states constitute the current period. The one thing that all this should not be considered is a surprise. The essays in this book explain why all these difficult and challenging problems were the inevitable result of misconceived wars, and they plot the complex ramifications that have followed. One of the latter has been damage to the idea of democracy. How could democracy be a universal political ideal if it was used as one of the principle justifications of the disastrous post 9/11 wars? How much damage was done to democracy by the violent efforts to depose the Middle East autocrats in the name of democracy, and by all the death and destruction that followed? Even if it is true, of course, that the actual motives for the post 9/11 wars were mixed, including the pursuit of terrorists in Afghanistan, oil in Iraq and Libya and domestic electoral advantage in Libya and Syria, the idea of democracy and the pursuit of human rights became embroiled in the war makers’ rhetoric.

Some of the consequences of this can be traced throughout the Arab Spring, a topic of some of the chapters toward the end of Part 1 (see Chs. 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9). The uprisings that swept across the Middle East in 2011 promised a political transformation as significant as that of 1989—the velvet revolution that brought down the Soviet Union and its satellite states. The economic stagnation of the region, the failures of corrupt and repressive regimes, conjoined with a disenchanted youthful population wired together as never before, triggered a political struggle few anticipated. Yet, almost from the outset, there was a lack of a common vision for the transformation of the political regimes and the wider the Middle East. The initial peaceful demonstrations in Tunis and Cairo quickly gave way to a messy and uncertain pathway of transition. A few years on the contagious revolutionary fervour faded as successor regimes failed to deliver quick or lasting improvements in living standards, the quality of life and governance. Moreover, the brutal civil war in Syria, the radicalisation of militia groups in Libya, and discrediting of the Muslim Brotherhood as a governing alternative in Egypt all strengthened the forces resisting change throughout the region (see Ch. 10). The removal of Mohammed Morsi from the Egyptian Presidency in July 2013 and consequent reinstatement of military-led rule encapsulated the stunning reversion to the status quo ante in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

In 1989 the movements of Central and Eastern Europe by and large shared an ambition to topple their governments and replace them with Western European forms of democracy, the entrenchment of human rights and the benefits of consumer-led economic growth. As the direction of travel was in western interests, governments in Europe and North America wholeheartedly welcomed them. By contrast, the signifier ‘democracy’ carried much more complex meaning in the Arab world in 2011. This was because the West had propped up most of the Arab autocrats, seemed to switch sides to support the peoples seeking change only in the cynical last minutes, led a war against terrorism largely in the Arab world, which was perceived by young Arabs across the Middle East as imperialism in yet another manifestation. Against this background, democracy appeared all too readily as a veil masking the shifting tide of western geopolitical interests, propping up authoritarian leaders in the name of ‘stability,’ commercial and oil concerns, and support for Israel’s security.

The factors underpinning the weakening of the Arab Spring and its subsequent usurpation by anti-revolutionary forces from within and outside the Middle East were complex and various, as the essays that follow explain (see Chs. 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10). But the tainting of democracy by the post 9/11 wars was certainly one of the disorganizing and disorienting forces of the movements for change. Who gets what, when and why are no longer questions confined to particular state silos, democratic or otherwise. The era we live in today is one of both colossal promise and uncertainty. Why? One of the primary reasons is globalization, which has unsettled established political relations, altered labour market conditions, created dense webs of global economic interconnectedness, shifted the costs and benefits of established social and economic policy, and formed new patterns of winners and losers.

Globalization is not a new phenomenon; various forms of globalization have developed over time from the spread of world religions and the rise of empires to the rebuilding of the world economy after the Second World War. The extensity, density and velocity of global interconnections today, however, were given an enormous impetus by the digital revolution and the advent of satellite communication. The epiphenomenon of these global shifts is the instantaneous movement of information, which has made social media a feature of everyday life across the world. But deeper shifts have occurred in the very way the world economy is organized making possible 24 hour trading in world financial markets, the stretching of the economic division of labour across the world, and the rapid movements of goods and services. In short, we have entered a world of overlapping communities of fate, where the fate and fortunes of countries have become increasingly intertwined in all aspects of life, from the economy to security and the environment.

Globalization today creates a world of remarkable opportunity and risk. Opportunity because a global division of labour, world trade patterns, global communication infrastructures, a rule based institutional order and a growing sense that action is needed now on global challenges creates unparalleled prospects for prosperity, development and peaceful coexistence. Risk because never before have human communities been so densely connected allowing a crisis in one place, whether economic or security driven, to ricochet across the world in seconds. Hence, the era is one of significant promise and colossal challenges. At the same time, the knowledge humankind has developed is no longer just an elite privilege; diffused and available on the internet (accessible to over a third of the world’s population), the cognitive resources of science and culture can be explored and exploited by a diversity of actors, with benign or regressive intent.

The global challenges we face today cross many sectors of human life. But by and large they are indicative of three core types of problems – those concerned with sharing our planet (climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, water deficits), sustaining our life chances (poverty, conflict prevention, global infectious diseases) and managing our rulebooks (nuclear proliferation, toxic waste disposal, intellectual property rights, genetic research rules, trade rules, finance and tax rules). In our increasingly interconnected world, these global problems cannot be solved by any one nation-state acting alone. They call for collective and collaborative action – something that the nations of the world have not been good at, and which they need to be better at if these pressing issues are to be adequately tackled.

Part II of this book contains essays that explore these challenges as well as the governance capacity to resolve them. Until recently, the West has, by and large, determined the rules of the game on the global stage. During the last century, Western countries presided over a shift in world power – from control via territory to control via the creation of governance structures created in the post 1945 era. From the United Nations and the formation of the Bretton-Woods institutions to the Rio Declaration on the environment and the creation of the World Trade Organisation, international agreements have invariably served to entrench a well-established international power structure. The division of the globe into powerful nation-states, with distinctive sets of geopolitical interests, and reflecting the international power structure as it was understood in 1945, is still embedded in the articles and statutes of leading intergovernmental organizations, such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. Voting rights are distributed largely in relation to individual financial contributions, and geo- economic strength is embedded and integrated into decision-making procedures.

The result has been susceptibility of the major international governmental organizations (IGOs) to the agendas of the most powerful states, partiality in enforcement operations (or lack of them altogether), their continued dependency on financial support from a few major states, and weaknesses in the policing of global collective action problems. This was dominance based on a ‘club’ model of global governance and legitimacy. Policy at the international level was decided by a core set of powerful countries, above all the G1, G5 and G7, with the rest largely excluded from the decision-making process.

Today, however, that picture is changing. The trajectory of Western dominance has come to a clear halt with the shortcomings and failures of dominant elements of western economic and security policy over the last three decades. The West can no longer rule through power or example alone (see Ch. 14). At the same time, Asia is on the ascent. Over the last half- century, East and Southeast Asia has more than doubled its share of world GDP and increased per capita income at an average growth rate almost 2½ times that in the rest of the world. In the last two decades alone, emerging Asian economies have experienced an average growth rate of almost eight per cent – three times the rate in the rich world. In the 1980s, the Asian tigers – South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore - put themselves on the global economic map; from the 1990s onwards, India and China began to grow at unprecedented speed until, of course, China became the largest economy in the world (measured by Purchasing Power Parity) and the second largest (in nominal terms). This extraordinary development was a significant impetus to the shift in the centre of economic gravity toward the East. In the nineteenth century, the world’s centre of economic gravity lay somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. It is now shifting rapidly eastwards, and by 2050 is predicted on current trends to fall between India and China.

The trajectory of change is towards a multipolar world, where the West no longer holds a premium on geopolitical or economic power (see Chs 13, 14, and 15). Moreover, different discourses and concepts of governance have emerged to challenge the old Western orthodoxy of multilateralism and the post-war order. At the same time, complex global processes, from the ecological to the financial, connect the fate of communities to each other across the world in new ways, requiring effective, accountable and inclusive problem- solving capacity. How this capacity can be ensured is an altogether different matter.

While large parts of the world were in ruins after the Second World War, the US and its allies were able to create a new institutional architecture to help produce a form of ‘governed globalization’. The UN system, the Bretton Woods institutions, and many more agencies, despite being shaped by American interests above all, put in place a rule-based international system that was sufficiently peaceful, open, and liberal to allow the world economy to take off once again. What is striking about this system is that, over time, it allowed new entrants to the world economy, not just on liberal terms, but on their own. India and China, along with other BRICS countries, are often understood to have been successful because they adopted the liberal rule structures of the post-war international economy. The mantra of the so-called Washington Consensus was that market liberalization and global market integration are the key to prosperity, and many economists have understood India and China’s success in these terms. But the truth is that they managed their entrance into the world economy, only liberalizing sectors once they were strong, only lowering tariffs selectively, keeping hold of core investment decisions and maintaining managed currencies.

Of course, the post-war liberal order was far from peaceful for everyone. The US and the Soviet Union fought proxy wars across the world for nearly 50 years, and sought to carve out their own distinctive spheres of political economic influence. Nonetheless, the post-war institutional structures kept the Great Powers talking to each other and, along with the threat of mutually-assured destruction (MAD), created the conditions for a deepening of interdependence between them and their allies. The nuclear stand-off of the Cold War paradoxically drew world powers closer together as a way to mitigate the threat and ensure that military posturing did not escalate into all-out nuclear confrontation. Thus, despite all its complexities and risks, the post-Second World War era of ‘governed globalisation’ contributed to relative peace and prosperity around the world over several decades. While the economic record of the post-war varies by countries and region, many experienced significant growth, and living standards rose rapidly across several parts of the world.

The post-war institutions created conditions under which a multitude of actors could benefit from forming corporations, investing abroad, developing global production chains, and engaging with a plethora of other social and economic processes associated with globalization. This is not to say that they were the only cause of the dynamic form of globalization experienced over the last few decades. Changes in the nature of global capitalism, including breakthroughs in transportation and information technology, are obviously critical drivers of interdependence. Nonetheless, all of these changes were allowed to thrive and develop because they took place in a relatively open, peaceful, liberal, institutionalized world order. By preventing World War Three and another Great Depression, the multilateral order arguably did just as much for interdependence as digital communication, satellite technology, and email.

These developments, however, have now progressed to the point where it has altered our ability to engage in further global cooperation. That is, economic and political shifts in large part attributable to the successes of the post-war rule-based order are now amongst the factors grinding that system into gridlock. As a result of the remarkable success of global cooperation in the post-war order, human interconnectedness weighs much more heavily on politics than it did in 1945, and the need for international cooperation is marked. Yet the “supply” side of the equation, institutionalized multilateral cooperation, is stalling. In areas such as nuclear proliferation, the explosion of small arms sales, terrorism, failed states, global economic imbalances, financial market instability, global poverty and inequality, biodiversity losses, water deficits and climate change, multilateral and transnational cooperation is now increasingly ineffective or threadbare. Gridlock is not unique to one issue domain, but appears to be becoming a general feature of global governance: cooperation seems to be increasingly difficult and deficient at precisely the time when it is extremely urgent (see chs. 15, 19, 20, and 27).

Several of the essays in Part II explore four reasons for this blockage, or four pathways to gridlock as they are called: rising multipolarity, institutional inertia, harder problems, and institutional fragmentation (see Ch. 14). Each pathway can be thought of as a growing trend that embodies a specific mix of causal mechanisms. First, reaching agreement in complex international negotiations is hampered by the rise of new powers like India, China and Brazil, which means that a more diverse array of interests have to be hammered into agreement for any global deal to be made (see Ch. 15). On the one hand, multipolarity is a positive sign of development; on the other hand, it can easily bring both more voices and interests to the table that are hard to weave into coherent outcomes. Second, the institutions created 70 years ago have proven difficult to change as established interests cling to outmoded decision-making rules that fail to reflect current conditions. Third, the problems we are facing on a global scale have grown more complex, penetrating deep into domestic policies and are often extremely difficult to resolve (see Ch. 13). Fourth, in many areas international institutions have proliferated with overlapping and contradictory mandates, creating a confusing fragmentation of authority.

These trends combine in many sectors to make successful cooperation at the global level extremely difficult to achieve. The risks that follow from this are all too obvious. To manage the global economy, prevent runaway environmental destruction, reign in nuclear proliferation, or confront other global challenges, we must cooperate. But many of our tools for global policy making are breaking down or inadequate – chiefly, state-to-state negotiations over treaties and international institutions – at a time when our fate and fortunes are acutely interwoven (see Ch. 20). Signs of this today are everywhere: climate change is still threatening all life as we know it, conflicts such as Syria continue to run out of control, small arms sales proliferate despite all efforts to contain them, migration has increased rapidly and is destabilising many societies, and inequality threatens the fabric of social life across the world (see Ch. 19). While it is far from gloom and doom in all respects, these are dangerous trends stemming from governance structures that are no longer fit for purpose.

We are at a crossroads. One road points to authoritarianism, while another opens up a more hopeful cosmopolitan future (see Ch. 27, 28, 29 and 30). The path to authoritarianism could be created by the dangerous drift in the world order, and a search for decisive solutions from ‘strong man’ leaders faced with a world that is seemingly out of control and where a retreat to the familiar (and away from the Other) offers a tempting way forward. Of course, we have been here before. The 1930s saw the rise of xenophobia and nationalism in the context of prolonged and protracted economic strife, the lingering impact of World War I, weak international institutions and a desperate search for scapegoats. The 2010s has notable parallels: the protracted fallout of the global financial crisis, ineffective regional and international institutions, and a growing xenophobic discourse that places virtually all blame for every problem on some form of Other.

But there are alternative routes. To begin with, we have the option of recalling where the pursuit of authoritarianism leads. The routes chosen in the 1930s all led to calamity and destruction, and the rediscovery in the 1940s onwards of the dangers of simply putting up the shutters, pursuing protectionism and denying the equal dignity of each and all (see Ch. 27). The architects of the post-war era, who put in place a re-invigorated law of war and the human rights regime, set down elements of a universal constitutional order in which the principles of the equal moral standing of each and every person, and the equal rights and duties of each and all, became the bedrock of peace and stability.

Moreover, a cosmopolitan model of politics and regulation can be found in some of the most important achievements of law and institution building in the twentieth century. These developments set down a conception of rightful authority tied to human rights and democratic values which can be entrenched in wide-ranging settings. In this perspective, political power is legitimate, if and only if, it is democratic and upholds human rights. In addition, the link between territory, sovereignty and rightful authority is, in principle, broken since rightful authority can be exercised in many spheres and at many levels, local, subnational, national and supranational. Accordingly, citizenship can be envisaged, as it is already in the European Union, as equal membership in the diverse, overlapping political communities which uphold common civic and political values and standards. Citizenship, thus conceived, is built not on an exclusive membership of a single community but on a set of principles and legal arrangements which link people together in the diverse communities which significantly affect them. Accordingly, patriotism would be misunderstood if it meant, as it all too often has done, ‘my country right or wrong’. Rather, it comes to mean loyalty to the standards and values of rightful authority – to common civic and political principles, appropriately embedded.

Suitably developed, this conception of global politics envisages a multilayered and multilevel polity, from cities to global associations, bound by common framework of law, a framework of law anchored in democratic principles and human rights (see Ch. 30). The state does not wither away in this conception; rather, it becomes one element in the protection and maintenance of political authority, democracy and human rights in the dense web of global forces and processes that already shape our lives. Perhaps more importantly still, it points to a political order no longer exclusively anchored in raison d’état and hegemonic state projects but in principles of global cooperation and cosmopolitan association.

The European Union today articulates some of these complex and contradictory trends. At its core the EU can be characterized as a Kantian project: an attempt to create a peaceful union of European states from the wreckage of the Second World War and the orgy of violence that left Europe broken and exhausted, cooperating on all transregional issues. This ideal remains fundamental to the European project even though the reality is fraught with the compromises of geopolitics. The EU has been through turbulent cycles of deepening and broadening – first the core states, then Spain, Portugal, Greece, then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, membership was extended to central and eastern European states. But behind all the turbulent transitions, European leaders like Chancellor Kohl were eager to move forward the European ideal through the policy and practice of extending and entrenching the Union as a multilevel polity combining elements of supranational, national, regional and local governance.

However, this ideal is increasingly compromised by a series of regional and global challenges. The lingering impact of the global financial crisis on European economic growth, the collapse of the Greek economy and its aftermath, the unsettling impact of mass migration across Europe’s southern and eastern borders, and terrorism which has struck in Paris, Nice and Brussels, are, among other problems, testing the governance capacities of the Union itself. The governance capacity of the Union has typically been well adapted to a world of rising prosperity, which could accommodate key interests and allow all boats to rise together. Moreover, the European Union was strongly bound together in the post-war years because of two crucial social and symbolic experiences. The first of these was the Second World War and its legacy. The second was the Cold War which gave Europe a marked sense of negative integration. But when the Cold War came to an end and the threat of the Soviet Union was over, the question arose: what would bind Europe in the future? In the 1990s and early 2000s, faced with mounting economic and social difficulties, the EU needed positive ideals and norms of integration, such as commitments to social justice, sustainability and well-being, which were too often either latent or absent (see Ch. 24). Perhaps the British decision to support Brexit is the most obvious expression of this set of profound weaknesses and difficulties (see Chs. 24 and 25).

Under these circumstances, identity and distributional struggles typically intensify; mutual gain gives way to zero-sum, and the social order risks fragmentation and sectional struggle (see Ch. 23). It is not a surprise, accordingly, that the rise of the far right is a sustained and troubling trend. From Nigel Farage and UKIP in the United Kingdom, to Le Pen and the National Front in France, to Golden Dawn in Greece, to Norbert Hofer in Austria, and to the Danish People’s Party in Denmark, this trend is manifest across Europe. The retreat to nationalism and militant identity politics is counter to the process of national accommodation that has underpinned European peace since the end of the Second World War. It is as if all that was learnt in the wake of Second World War and the Holocaust and Gulag risks being undone. And yet, it would be false to assign all responsibility for the erosion of accommodation to right wing politics. Exclusionary politics can, and does, come from all sides of the political spectrum and has clear manifestations on the far-left in Britain, France and Germany to name a few.

The years since 9/11 have cast a dark shadow over global politics in many respects. The wars and crises of this period have put at risk the wisdom and achievements of the architects of the post Second World War era: of the founders of the UN and EU, of those who established and advanced the human rights regime, of the many actors and agencies that have tried to mitigate climate change and other environmental threats, and of those who have struggled to address poverty and inequality across the world, among many other pressing issues. But while these wars and crises have put this all at risk, the achievements of the post-1945 era have not yet been undermined or damaged to the point of no return. The future is still in our hands. Our forebears created stepping stones to a universal constitutional order, and we can still walk across them and build on them further. This remains a future worth struggling for.

At the same time, we have to remember at all stages the lessons of the post-9/11 years, lessons which are as pragmatic as they are normative. The approach to politics and social transformation must, in all respects, be the opposite of the era of minimum wisdom, minimum understanding of history and development, and the shoot from the hip attempts to impose single models of government on different peoples and cultures. It is still important to be ambitious for change, yet it is equally important to modest in the means deployed. The use of force must always and everywhere be a last resort and can only be a means to protect people if embedded in a transformative plan that builds on the needs and aspirations of those who have been subjected to brutal regimes, and who will have to live with the consequences of intervention, soft or hard. We need to learn the languages of others, by not simply grasping their words, but by understanding the deep structure of meaning that is rooted in their traditions and ways of living. And we need to be informed by an understanding of what is possible, that culture changes according to its own rhythm and typically very slowly, and that people’s identities are embedded in long traditions of cultural development and only shift with the passage of time.

The other side of the cosmopolitan commitment to the equal moral worth of every human being, and to the equal freedom of each and all, is an acceptance of the plurality of ways of living and a tolerance of this diversity in all its richness, with one qualification – that pluralism does not undermine the boundaries of moral and political equality. With this understanding, we can move out of the dark shadow of 9/11 and its aftermath and consolidate a global order that serves the many, and not the few. Part I: The 9/11 Wars and the Arab Spring

1

Violence and Justice in a Global Age 14 September 2001

The greatest Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant, wrote over two hundred years ago that we are ‘unavoidably side by side’. A violent abrogation of law and justice in one place has consequences for many other places and can be experienced everywhere. While he dwelt on these matters and their implications at length, he could not have known how profound and immediate his concerns would become.

Since Kant, our mutual interconnectedness and vulnerability have grown rapidly. We no longer live, if we ever did, in a world of discrete national communities which have the power and capacity alone to determine the fate of those within them. Instead, we live in a world of overlapping communities of fate. The trajectories and futures of nation-states are now heavily enmeshed with each other. In our world, it is not only the violent exception that links people together across borders, the very nature of everyday problems and processes joins people in multiple ways. From the movement of ideas and cultural artefacts to the fundamental issues raised by genetic engineering, from the conditions of financial stability to environmental degradation, the fate and fortunes of each of us are thoroughly intertwined.

The story of our increasingly global order is not a singular one. There are many myths about globalisation and one in particular is pernicious; that is, that the age is increasingly defined by global markets, economic processes and social forces which necessarily escape the control of states and politicians. The spread of markets for goods, services and finance has, indeed, altered the political terrain. But the story of globalisation is not just one of the expansion of markets, neoliberal deregulation and the abdication of politics; for it is also one of growing aspirations for international law and justice. From the UN system to the EU, from changes to the law of war to the entrenchment of human rights, from the emergence of international environmental regimes to the foundation of the International Criminal Court, there is also another narrative being told – the narrative which seeks to reframe human activity and entrench it in law, rights and responsibilities.

This is why the 11 September is a defining moment for humankind. The terrorist violence was an atrocity of extraordinary proportions; it was a crime against America and against humanity; it was an outrage that ranks amongst the world’s most heinous crimes; and it was, make no mistake about it, an attack on the fundamental principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and justice.

Fundamental global principles

These principles are not just western principles. Elements of them had their origins in the early modern period in the West, but their validity extends much further than this. For these principles are the basis of a fair, humane and decent society, of whatever religion or cultural tradition. To paraphrase the American legal theorist Bruce Ackerman, there is no nation without a woman who yearns for equal rights, no society without a man who denies the need for deference and no developing country without a person who does not wish for the minimum means of subsistence so that they may go about their everyday lives. The principles of freedom, democracy and justice are the basis for articulating and entrenching the equal liberty of all human beings, wherever they were born or brought up.

The intensity of the range of responses to the atrocities of 11 September is fully understandable from any perspective. There cannot be many people in the world (despite media images of celebrations in some quarters) who did not experience shock, revulsion, horror, disbelief, anger and a desire for vengeance. This emotional range is perfectly natural within the context of the immediate events. But it cannot be the basis for a more considered and wise response.

The founding principles of our society, the very principles under attack on 11 September, dictate that we pause for reflection; that we do not overgeneralise our response from one moment and one set of events; that we do not jump to conclusions based on concerns that emerge in one particular country; and that we do not re-write and re-work history from one place.

The fight against terror must be put on a new footing. There can be no going back to the haphazard and complacent approach to terrorism of 10th September. Terrorists must be bought to heel and those who protect and nurture them must be bought to account. Zero tolerance is fully justified in these circumstances. Terrorism negates our most cherished principles and ambitions.

But any defensible, justifiable and sustainable response to the 11 September must be consistent with our founding principles and the aspirations of international society for security, law, and the impartial administration of justice – aspirations painfully articulated after the Holocaust and the Second World War. If the means deployed to fight terrorism contradict these principles, then the emotion of the moment might be satisfied, but our mutual vulnerability will be deepened. We will be set on yet another step backwards from a more secure and just world order. This could easily involve the growth of intolerance of all attempts to protest over and change political circumstances, even if they are law abiding and peaceful in their orientations.

The other alternative

War and bombing are one option for the immediate future; but another is an International Commission on global terrorism which might be modelled on the Nuremberg and Tokyo war tribunals, working under the authority of a reenergised and revitalised United Nations. Such a commission could be empowered to investigate those responsible for the new mass terrorism and to bring them to justice. Backed by the capacity to impose economic, political and military sanctions – and supported by UN and Nato military capacities, among others – it might be the basis of an investigation and system of punishment which commands global support. It could be the basis not only for the strengthening of existing legal and multilateral arrangements, but the basis for helping to define a new just, accountable and democratic order. The means would be consistent with the defence of the principles under threat. Terrorism must be criminalised on an international basis, not eradicated through arbitrary violent action.

I am not a pacifist. The motivation for these recommendations is not the avoidance of the use of coercive force under all circumstances. Rather, it is anchored on the wish to build on the more humane and just elements of our global order which have been set down in the last several decades, and to entrench them in such a way that could command the respect and loyalty of all peoples, everywhere.

But to borrow a phrase, we must be tough not just on crime but on the causes of crime. Whoever the perpetrators were of the terrorism of 11th September, we know that there will always be volunteers for suicide missions, suicide bombings, and for terrorist groupings if we do not concern ourselves with the wider issues of peace and social justice in the global community. In our global age shaped by the flickering images of television and new information systems, the gross inequalities of life chances found in many of the world’s regions feed a frenzy of anger, hostility and resentment. Without a just peace in the Middle East and without an attempt to anchor globalisation in meaningful principles of social justice, there can be no durable solution to the kind of crimes we have just seen.

Of course, such crimes may often be the work of the simply deranged and the fanatic and so there can be no guarantee that a more just world will be a more peaceful one in all respects. But if we turn our back on these challenges altogether, there is no hope of ameliorating the social basis of disadvantage often experienced in the poorest and most dislocated countries. Gross injustices, linked to a sense of hopelessness born of generations of neglect, feed anger and hostility. Popular support against terrorism depends upon convincing people that there is a legal and pacific way of addressing their grievances.

Kant was right; the violent abrogation of law and justice in one place ricochets across the world. We cannot accept the burden of putting justice right in one dimension of life – security – without at the same time seeking to put it right everywhere.

2

Return to the state of nature 20 March 2003

Wrong war. Wrong reasoning. Wrong priorities. Wrong timing.

The war against Iraq is worse than reaching a dead end in geopolitical affairs; it is in danger of dragging us back to a pre-legal order and a deeply uncivil international society.

Why?

After the outrage of 9/11, the US and its allies could have decided that the most important things to do were to strengthen international law in the face of global terrorist threats, and to build up the role of multilateral institutions.

They could have decided it was important that no power should act as judge, jury and executioner. They could have decided that global hotspots such as the Middle East, which feed global terrorism, should be the core priority. They could have decided that the growing separation between economic globalisation and social justice needed more urgent attention. They could have decided to be tough on terrorism and tough on the conditions which lead people to imagine that al-Qaida are agents of justice in the modern world.

But they have systematically failed to decide any of these things. In general, the world is now more polarised and international law is weaker.

Wrong war

Enter the war against Iraq – the wrong war. The wrong war, even if it is a success in military terms.

It is the wrong war because the war against terrorism – which must be a war both to defeat terrorism and to displace the attraction of terrorism in the hearts and minds of millions – is far from won.

Afghanistan remains weak and divided. Islam has been further radicalised in many sensitive areas, exacerbating conflicts in Kashmir and the Indo–Pakistani border, Israel and the occupied territories, the Philippines, Indonesia and Chechnya.

Key al-Qaida leaders are still free. Its terrorist networks and perhaps copycat ones appear to have spread, attracting more young men to the allure of violence. Al-Qaida terrorists have been ridiculously and dangerously romanticised as the Robin Hoods of the modern world. But festering impoverished conditions, often linked to decades of geopolitical stalemate, feed their ranks. International institutions are suffering a crisis of legitimacy. Their capacity for impartiality has been called into question. They appear to speak for the powerful – or are cast aside by these very same forces if they fail to fall into line with the will of the most strong.

Wrong reasoning

The reasoning behind the war is all wrong because the maintenance of international law – the rule of law, the impartial administration of law, and the forceful defence of law – all require institution-building and respect for due procedure.

Of course, international legal and multilateral institutions need reform and development. The United Nations (UN) Charter structure is deeply flawed, splicing together, as it does, a commitment to cosmopolitan principles and values with a narrow defence of state sovereignty.

Yet for all its difficulties, this structure builds on the wisdom gained from the post-Holocaust world, wisdom that needs to be protected and nurtured – not weakened and disregarded.

Moreover, the rush to war against Iraq gives priority to a narrow security agenda which is at the heart of the new American security doctrine of unilateral and pre-emptive war. This agenda contradicts most of the core tenets of international agreements and international politics since 1945. It throws out of the window a respect for open political negotiations amongst states (liberal multilateralism), as it does the core doctrine of deterrence and stable relations among major powers (the balance of power).

As an agenda focused on a narrow (American right-wing republican) conception of security, it displaces a much more urgent focus on human security and the essential conditions for human development, which alone could build greater legitimacy for our global institutions in a global age. The Clausewitzean dictum, that in matters of war and peace “the mistakes which come from kindness are among the very worst”, is actively affirmed.

A massive effort might have been undertaken to create new forms of global political legitimacy, confronting the reasons why the developed west is so often seen as self- interested, partial and one-sided. There has been no such effort, and the war against Iraq compounds a world already divided, vulnerable and open to new forms of violence and anger.

Wrong priorities

If a massive effort to underpin political legitimacy had been pursued it would have involved the condemnation of all human rights violations wherever they occur, renewed peace efforts in the Middle East, talks between Israel and Palestine, and a rethinking of western policy towards Iran, and certainly a tough-minded reassessment of policy towards tyrannical states, including Iraq.

No such overall effort happened. Such a policy can never be equated with occasional one-off efforts to create a new momentum for peace and the protection of human rights. It has to be part of a continuous emphasis in foreign policy, year in, year out.

In order to convince the world that the west’s interests in security and human rights are not simply a reflection of just short-term geopolitical or geo-economic interests, the powerful have to work through international institutions which recognise their economic and political strengths while placing limits on their interests – limits which, after all, have been struggled for in every liberal and democratic polity as part of a price which the powerful have to pay for winning legitimacy and consent to wider political concerns.

The US-led coalition, in pursuing first and foremost a military response to 9/11, and a war against Iraq, has chosen not to prioritise the development of international law and UN institutional arrangements; and not to emphasise the urgency of building institutional bridges between its geo-economic and geopolitical interests and the priorities of political and social justice.

Peace in areas such as the Middle East has been singled out occasionally as a priority, illustrated by the sudden rush to publish a ‘road map’ for peace as part of the effort to shore up support for the war from the Arab world. But there is little sign that this is part of a broader rethinking of foreign policy, and of the role of the west in international affairs more generally. These are political choices and, like all choices, they carry a heavy burden of possibility and lost opportunity.

The strategy of war against Iraq, in the context of the Bush administration’s doctrine of a pre-emptive war, compounds anxieties of a world order suffering the breakdown of the rule of law, respect for political autonomy and human rights.

After Iraq, North Korea? And after North Korea, where?

And if pre-emptive war is justified for the US, why not for all other powers? Why not for Pakistan? Why not for India? Or Russia? Or China?

We see what this situation looks like already in daily life in the Middle East today. The increasingly intense pattern of extra-judicial outlaw killings (organised, targeted murders) on both sides of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict returns that world to Hobbes’s state of nature: the “warre of every one against every one” – life as “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”.

The conflict against Iraq makes a tragedy out of a crisis, it weakens international institutions, distracts from the war on terrorism and the conditions which feed it, and collapses a concern with human security into a narrow security agenda.

Wrong timing

Why Iraq now? Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has committed massive, continuous crimes against the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples, and countries close by. But Iraq was contained. It was no longer perceived as a threat to its immediate neighbours. The evidence of a link between Iraq and global terrorist networks was weak, if not highly embarrassing to both George W. Bush and Tony Blair. The UN was in, and the inspectors doing their job. Disarmament was occurring, albeit slowly and haltingly. More time could have been given – more time to save precious lives on all sides, to strengthen the international consensus, to nurture international law and to protect multilateral institutions.

Even at one minute to midnight, there was a possible compromise. The US/UK could have offered more time to the UN Security Council in exchange for France, Germany and other countries helping to fund and staff the military presence in the Gulf. This would have sustained military pressure on Iraq, given the UN inspectors more opportunity, and produced a sustainable consensus on the Security Council.

The Bush/Blair strategy blows all this out of the water. Their war is not driven out of necessity, but out of choice. And within the context of the UN Charter, it is illegitimate and unlawful.

It could have been different. After 9/11, Blair was right to say that Britain stood shoulder-to- shoulder with Bush and the American people. But his support for the US should have been based on principle, and conditional upon the US championing international law, multilateral institutions, and a deepening commitment to the pursuit of justice in the world. This, after all, was the vision he set out in his speech to the British Labour Party conference in 2001.

Unfortunately, his support for the US was unconditional. It needn’t have been so devoid of principled exit options. US public opinion is sensitive to international opinion, and if Blair had held out against Bush, this may well have provided serious pause for thought throughout the US polity.

Hobbes versus Kant

Some American commentators, notably Robert Kagan, have reflected on the US as a Hobbesian sovereign, providing security and protection to a world in need of conflict management and conflict resolution.

These commentators also see the European Union (EU) as a ‘Kantian’ haven of peace and economic exchange, albeit parasitic upon the Hobbesian protector.

In fact, US strategy is best perceived as pre-Hobbesian because it is a return to the state of nature.

Hobbes conceived of sovereign power as justified in so far as it delivers security, safety and a ‘commodious’ life to its people. The US strategy does none of these things, endangering its citizens (especially abroad), further dividing and polarising international affairs, and weakening the international institutions of peace and justice.

On the other hand, it needs to be asked: is the French-led resistance to US policy any more satisfactory? Is it coherent as it is currently formulated?

I welcome Chirac’s role and those who support him. But the French position does not pursue the alternative human security agenda sketched above. It is a position of luxury parasitic upon American power, which knows that someone else is threatening force and, piggybacking on this, demands more.

Bush and Chirac: a plague on both your houses.

For a new international settlement

For those who, like myself, are not pacifists, it is urgent to recognise the questions which arise when coercive power must be wielded. The history of the 20th century confirmed that there are tyrannical threats to cosmopolitan values and democratic life.

Three issues must be confronted: under what conditions should legitimate coercive power be wielded, to what ends, and by whom?

In the destructive climate of the current global order, there seem to be only a few plausible answers to these questions. If one objects to the Bush-led answers, then one looks either to alternative powers and institutional structures for solutions or altogether elsewhere. As things stand, the EU has no credible defence and strategic capacity, and the UN certainly lacks any such ability.

So what other options are there?

After all other forms of negotiation and sanction have been exhausted, the remaining option is to link directly the use of force to the necessity of defence in the face of clear attacks on international humanitarian law (the law of war and human rights law), attacks by tyrannical regimes on stable and pacific international relations, and immediate threats posed by disintegrating states to global affairs.

Such a link ties the use of force to conflicts to restore the international rule of law, the role of multilateralism and a pacific order. Moreover, such a link must be served by the independent authority and capabilities of international institutions – capabilities which could be bolstered, for example, if a proportion of a nation-state’s military were permanently seconded to a UN peacemaking force or if international enforcement capabilities were increased by creating a permanent independent force recruited directly from among individuals who volunteer from all countries.

There is no shortage of possibilities.

For a new settlement to be forged between the three elements of coercive power, accountability and justice, the UN system would have to be overhauled and reformed. The geopolitical settlement of 1945 would have to be replaced by a Security Council and a set of assemblies that reflect the changing balance of nations in the 21st century, and the new forms of power engendered by globalisation. International law and the security of nations would have to be connected to a wider agenda of ensuring human well-being.

Furthermore, the legitimacy of international institutions would have to be addressed by not only taking seriously the 4,000 lives lost on 9/11, but also the 30,000 children under 5 who die every day of preventable diseases. There is much that is open to discussion and debate. But we need broader discussion and wider debate, both now and in the future. We cannot afford to let these pressing matters be resolved by hegemonic states, rogue powers and the princes and princesses of the modern world.

Now that the war has started we can only hope it will be swift, with the minimum loss of life on all sides. But the impoverished politics it articulates cannot be allowed to continue.

There is an alternative to the strategy for dealing with 9/11 and the war in Iraq – an alternative strategy for a rule-based and justice-oriented, democratic multilateral order.

It is temporarily lost from view. We must fight to regain it.

3

The End of the American Century: 9/11 Ten Years On 9 September 2011

9/11 was a crime against the United States and a crime against humanity. Yet in treating the criminals who perpetrated it as soldiers at war with the US and the west, it elevated their status and standing, and began the “war on terror”. The war was as ill-formulated as it was executed. The result: Kabul is an island protected by Nato, with much of the rest of Afghanistan in the hands of warlords and the Taliban; Iraq has been turned from an authoritarian state into a failed state, fragmented into regions. The cost in lives has been horrendous: hundreds of thousands have died, and millions have been displaced.

What the “war on terror” has disclosed is that the world’s mightiest power cannot conquer and pacify even relatively weak and divided countries. Initial victory proves illusory in the face of hostility to the victors and contested ideologies. The bombast of the US and the west has been disclosed. The rhetoric of the “coalition of the willing” about bringing democracy and peace to Afghanistan and Iraq is shattered by the reality of car-bombs and anti- personnel landmines. The killing goes on.

As “the American century” has dissolved in a decade, it has become clear that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq symbolise the steady decline of western power: that is, the ability of the US and its allies to shape the world in their own image and according to their interests and rules.

A messier world

After the dust settles, the field shows a more multipolar world, with the centre of economic gravity shifting to the east. The west no longer holds a premium on geopolitical or geo- economic power. Different discourses or concepts of governance have become more commonplace and challenge the old western orthodoxy which informed the post-1945 consensus.

At the multilateral level, the emergence of gridlock marks many of the world’s most pressing international negotiations. Why? Decision-making has stalled in most of the key international decision-making forums, affecting climate change, trade rules, financial market reforms and nuclear proliferation. The west can no longer write the rules as it once could. The emerging powers of the east and the south can veto the deals the west puts on the table even if they cannot yet write the new agenda. The “war on terror” weakened the United Nations system, marginalised the Security Council in the face of great geopolitical tensions and reasserted power-politics in an age when such politics alone cannot resolve many of the key global challenges and risks attendant on living in a global age. Fighting “the other” misses a deep and more fundamental point - that on many of the most pressing issues of our time, “the other” is now collective problems and shared threats. Reasserting our identities as Americans, British, French, Chinese or Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu will not generate the means to address or resolve these issues.

Ten years on from 9/11, it is clear that the “end of ideology” - the much-heralded victory of democracy and markets - was as naive as it was misleading. Instead, we live in a much more complex mosaic of languages and discourses, of ideas and interests, and of identities and political associations.

This is a much messier world than was understood by the architects of “the new American century”. It is a world that does not easily bow down to the destructive power of bombs and missiles. Consent and reconciliation cannot be carved by armoured vehicles and drones. The complexities of difference, culture, identity and human associations can be changed only by creating spaces for voice and self-determination, spaces free of domination, whether this is the domination of conquering powers, fanatical religions or authoritarian rulers.

A fate beyond borders

This messier world is the terrain once again of politics, where politics matters just as much as ever. Yet unlike in previous eras, the nature of our politics needs to be worked out at many levels, from the local to the global. We live in an era where the fate and fortunes of countries are increasingly intertwined. I call this a world of “overlapping communities of fate”. Whether the focus is on economics, security, the movement of people, communications or culture, there is now a global dimension to the forces, processes and outcomes that bind human societies together. This creates both huge opportunities for development and prosperity as well as greater risks and challenges.

Throughout modern history, from the late 16th century to the present period, the business of politics and the decisions of public life largely unfolded within the borders of states, unless these were pierced by violence. States and governments, autocratic or democratic, took decisions in and for those in bounded territorial spaces. Yet today, most of the challenges we face are problems that spill over borders. Preoccupations with state interests, or the welfare of particular people above all others cannot alone unlock the proper nature and form of politics in a global age.

To put the point another way, state-first politics, realism or hegemonic raison d’être are inadequate and insufficient ways of pursuing politics in dense webs of connections between peoples and communities. The alternative is a politics based on mutual recognition, the singular importance of each and every human being and public decision-making that is transparent and accountable to all significantly affected by its impacts irrespective of borders. In sum, realism is dead, and cosmopolitanism maps the way ahead.

4

The Arab 1989? David Held and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen 11 February 2011

An extraordinary wave of upheaval is beginning to sweep across the Arab world, with the potential to transform the political order in the Middle East. Mohamed Bouazizi’s desperate act of self-immolation galvanised a generation of marginalised youth to demand political freedom, economic opportunity and above all a sense of human dignity. Millions participated in massive demonstrations that ousted the Ben Ali kleptocracy in Tunisia and heralded the end of the Mubarak regime in Egypt. This turn of events has inspired people to mobilise against repressive autocracies across the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, the protests directly contradict the myths long spun by these regimes that their secular strong-men are both the guarantors of stability and the only bulwark against a fanatical Islamist takeover. Men, women and children from all backgrounds, classes and levels of education cooperated in non-violent calls for change. The resulting outcome could be transformative in its impact on a regional order that has, for decades, elevated regime and western stability above the democratic and participatory desires of its inhabitants.

Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December after his street stall was confiscated and he was humiliated by local authorities in his hometown of Sidi Bouzid. His plight resonated heavily with young Tunisians facing similar despair with their economic situation and lack of prospects for a better future. Protests began in conservative and rural regions of Tunisia and gradually spread to the cities where they intersected with rising social tensions and anger at the escalating cost of food and basic services. New media and social networking websites acted as powerful transmitters enabling activists, bloggers and journalists to bypass the security services’ repressive crackdown. The gradual convergence of socio-economic and political dissent widened the scope of the protestors’ demands to include the tackling of corruption and granting of political freedoms. Ben Ali responded with incremental concessions that culminated in a pledge not to seek re-election as President in 2014. When the Tunisian military refused to intervene and suppress the protests, Ben Ali was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia on 14 January, and was replaced by a transitional unity government ahead of planned elections.

Demonstrations in Egypt started on 25 January with the organisation of a ‘Day of Anger’ in major cities. As in Tunisia, a trigger (in this instance the ousting of Ben Ali) ignited popular frustration with the Mubarak regime’s perceived inability to address deep social and economic problems. The protests escalated into a ‘Day of Rage’ when thousands of demonstrators overpowered the police and security services and burned symbols of the regime across the country. Previously fragmented opposition groups coalesced behind Mohamed El-Baradei (the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of the National Association of Change) and demanded immediate political change. A remarkable feature of the crowds was their commitment to non-violence and ad hoc organisation of relief and other basic services to ensure orderly protests. Muslims and Christians stood side by side in unity and prayer and notably sported Egyptian flags rather than religious symbols. The military acknowledged the protests’ legitimacy and Mubarak was forced into conceding ever-greater checks on his power. These culminated in his announcement to stand down as President following the ‘March of the Millions’ on 1 February, when two million demonstrated in Cairo and several million more throughout Egypt demanded an immediate political transition. In response, pro-Mubarak thugs carried out indiscriminate attacks inflicting more than 1200 casualties and contrasting starkly with the peaceful non-violent nature of the anti-Mubarak demonstrations. This was a desperate act of a beleaguered autocrat and belatedly led the international community to abandon its support for Mubarak.

The political contagion has spread throughout the Arab world although it is strongest in countries where authoritarian regimes have limited fiscal and monetary revenues to defuse popular frustration. In Jordan, rising inflation and high unemployment and poverty levels were causing significant hardship and anti-government feeling long before the outbreak of overtly political protests. These squeezed hardest the middle- and lower-income groups that formed the core of the Arab world’s wave of mobilisation. Jordan’s lively media and social networking sphere also differed markedly from the conservative and tribal composition of the parliament returned in elections boycotted by secular and Islamist opposition groups in November 2010. A generational clash emerged between young activists spanning the religious and ideological spectrum and the monarchy seeking to deflect their frustration onto the parliament. King Abdullah fired the government of Samir Al-Rifai and appointed an ex-army general in his place. This was a strategic move to de-link potential political opposition to the monarchy from economic discontent by channelling the blame for rising socio-economic unrest onto the technocrats. The monarchy also benefits from the split within Jordan between East Bank tribes and formerly-West Bank Palestinians, which represents a safety valve insulating it from a mass popular uprising on the Tunisian or Egyptian scale.

In Yemen, protests initially focused on rampant unemployment and especially bleak economic conditions in a country wracked by internal conflict and fast running out of oil and water. Opposition anger was also directed toward President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s controversial constitutional amendment in January 2011. This removed the two-term presidential limit and cleared the way for him to run for re-election in 2013. In this context, the protestors’ success in extracting a pledge that he would neither seek re-election nor attempt to transfer power to his son was significant. Saleh has twice before broken promises to step down and it remains to be seen whether he will act differently on this occasion. Notably, however, his concession failed to take the sting out of the demonstrations, which instead became more emboldened as events unfolded in Egypt. Saleh lacks the political legitimacy to placate the broad-based opposition to his increasingly repressive 32-year rule, but has thus far taken advantage of opposition disunity to prevent a serious challenge to his rule. Pressure is nevertheless building up in a context in which the regime already faces armed contestation to its rule, and in which nobody seriously believes it will follow-through on meaningful reform.

Popular demand for change is spreading across the Middle East. Throughout the region a fault-line has opened up between young populations exposed to global modernising forces through the internet and satellite television and ossified, oppressive regimes unable to provide opportunities or the reality of a better life. 65% of the population of the Middle East is under the age of 30 and are increasingly technology-savvy and adept at using new forms of communication to bypass state controls and mobilise around common issues or grievances. Bloggers in Egypt and Tunisia were instrumental in publicising and spreading accounts of torture and human rights violations by the security services. They emboldened people everywhere to band together and confront the regimes that had ruled with an iron fist. A decisive threshold has been crossed and, once opened, this Pandora’s Box will be almost impossible to re-seal. Nor, in the age of Twitter and Al-Jazeera providing live- streaming of events across the globe, is it possible for regimes to seal themselves off from the outside world while they take retribution on their opponents, as when the Syrian regime massacred thousands of its domestic opponents in Hama in 1982. Caught between the spotlight of instant global media and an energised and youthful social movement, these police states are being exposed as anachronistic, brittle and incapable of meeting the requirements of modern societies.

This is the storm moving through the Middle East and radically reshaping the nature of state-society relations. Crucially, the uprisings are popular movements emerging organically from below in response to local socio-economic and political conditions. They therefore differ fundamentally from the military-led revolutions from above that swept away the colonial regimes in the 1950s and 1960s and entrenched in power praetorian leaderships built around the military and security apparatus. In addition they are unconnected either to the US-led democratising agenda or the opposing forces in the ‘war on terror.’ They thus have great popular legitimacy in a region that has witnessed numerous recent examples of external interventions that have tarnished local perceptions of ‘democracy.’ Moreover, the sight of regimes and leaders long denounced by Osama bin Laden being toppled through peaceful and largely-secular mass protests demonstrates just how marginalised Al-Qaeda and jihadist ideology really is. Notably, demonstrators chanting in Cairo called for ‘tanmiyya’ (development) and ‘hurriya’ (freedom), often drowning out more overtly religious slogans. It is this realisation that so threatens the confluence of western and regime interests around the fallacy that democracy cannot be a stable alternative to embedded authoritarian regimes.

What caused this cascade of popular rejection of a status quo that for so long appeared set in stone? Moments of revolutionary change often occur when specific triggers interact with slower but no less significant changes gradually taking place. The seemingly random act of Bouazizi’s self-immolation was the catalyst for popular revulsion at the marked inequities and indignities they encountered on a daily basis. Just as the assassin’s bullet that felled Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 set in motion the train of events that led to the outbreak of the First World War, the mushrooming anger following Bouazizi’s death engineered the convergence of socio-economic hardship with political grievances. In both instances, a constellation of internal and external events exacerbated existing schisms and reconfigured the dynamics and interaction of longer-term processes. The result is that while discontent in these authoritarian regimes is not new, it is the speed with which they have threatened to bring several of them to the brink of collapse that is qualitatively different.

Different dynamics have driven the specific course of the protests from country to country. In some, the possession of substantial oil and gas revenues provide a degree of insulation to regimes able to pre-empt or defuse protest by increasing the redistribution of wealth. Kuwait’s gift of free food rations for 14 months and a one-off payment of 1000 Kuwaiti dinars (approximately $3500) to every citizen is the most blatant such example. Similar outlets exist in most of the other Gulf States (with the notable exception of Bahrain, which sees its own ‘Day of Rage’ on 14 February), blunting though not preventing dissatisfaction with socio-economic stagnation. In Libya, more pronounced tribalism has drawn larger circles of people into the regime’s orbit and given them a stake in its survival. Memories of the decade of civil conflict that killed more than 150,000 people in Algeria in the 1990s make Algerians understandably wary of sudden change, while, as with Libya, its hydrocarbon and foreign exchange reserves give the regime greater manoeuvrability when addressing rising living costs. Meanwhile in Morocco the religious legitimacy that the King derives from being a direct descendant of the Prophet insulates the institution of the monarchy from direct criticism.

These differences aside, all the above countries have also seen protests spreading beyond the normally carefully-defined parameters of opposition. Several threads link the character of the social movement redrawing the regional political landscape. Their commonality heightens the infectious overspill as each individual extraction of concessions energises the movement elsewhere. Deep underlying socio-economic issues run through the region and constitute the Achilles heel in the ‘ruling bargain’ between autocratic rulers and their impoverished citizenry. Sclerotic labour markets are unable to generate anything like the sufficient number of jobs to absorb the large numbers of young people coming of age. Youth unemployment in Saudi Arabia, for example, is an estimated 43% for 20-24 year olds, and figures exceeding 30% are replicated across the Middle East. The result is dashed expectations for a generation of youth that are better educated and more aware of alternative pathways than ever. Regimes are endangered by the interlinking of socio- economic frustrations with a widespread belief that advancement under current conditions is impossible. One chant in Cairo’s Tahrir Square encapsulated the feelings of utter helplessness at the status quo: ‘We are prepared to die because we are already dead.’

Anger at regimes’ perceived inability to address economic stagnation has also targeted issues of corruption and inequalities in social mobility. This was a lightning-rod of dissent in the rapid escalation of the demonstrations against Ben Ali in Tunisia. The popular outpouring of rage directed against the President and his wife’s family was succinctly (if inadvertently) summarised in a leaked US diplomatic cable as a ‘What’s yours is mine’ culture of avarice. Rising prices of food, fuel and basic everyday services sharpened anger at corrupt officials and the states they represented, as their opulent lifestyles and ostentatious wealth clashed with lower and middle-income groups whose margin of subsistence had been eroded by inflationary pressures. From Morocco to the Gulf, the internet and tools of new media opened up discussions about the enormous and widening gap between social classes and the disparities in wealth and incomes between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ They resonate most strongly among youthful populations, whose greater exposure to non-state controlled viewpoints coexists with their exclusion from economic opportunities by corruption and other barriers to meritocracy.

New media and advances in communications technologies are transforming the terms of the debates between rulers and ruled. Regimes’ control over the flow of information has rapidly eroded under the pressures of globalisation. In Egypt, the government cut off the country’s internet service providers and tried to prevent Al-Jazeera from broadcasting. These were desperate measures that backfired as the protests continued, and they inflicted enormous damage to the regime’s international and economic credibility. Nevertheless it demonstrated the intense vulnerability of autocracies to new methods of holding them to account publicly. Blogging, social networking, and encrypted communications technologies such as Skype and BlackBerry enable suppressed and marginalised voices to make themselves heard to wide audiences both locally and around the world. This undermines governments’ tried-and-tested stifling of dissent and opposition narratives.

The synthesis of new media and younger populations is therefore dismantling the system of controls and filters carefully constructed and maintained by ministries of information and government media. Together they are shining a light into murky authoritarian depths and providing new forms of private, public and virtual space in which activists can mobilise, organise and channel participatory demands. Al-Jazeera’s online streaming of the popular revolution in Egypt saw its viewing figures all over the world increase by 2500%. Similarly, they represent new forums for debate and coordination of activities that stretch across national boundaries and overcome barriers of time and space. These trends are reconfiguring the composition of opposition movements and facilitating the linking of social and economic grievances to demands for political reform. The resulting realignments are transformative in their broad dissemination of messages that far exceed – and bring together –hitherto narrowly-based oppositional groups in (temporary) coalitions of sustained protest.

Conflicts and moments of rupture often are sparked by the convergence of external pressures and internal fissures. Rising food and commodity prices exacerbated schisms within societies and widened existing fault-lines between authoritarian regimes and their citizens. The role of new media in documenting and transmitting the feelings of shame and humiliation that drove Bouazizi to his death also hit a very deep nerve in people across the region. This intersection of a lost generation bereft of hope for a better life with the hyper- modernising forces of the internet and satellite television hits the tired, elderly regimes at their weakest point. It exposes their manifest failure to govern freely or even fairly and their instinctive reaction to suppress, rather than engage, an increasingly organised and vocal opposition. The Egyptian government’s attempt to cut off global communications revealed it to be naïve, anachronistic and completely out of touch with the modern world. It will be harder, now, for regimes to repress and torture dissenters into submission without being held to public (if not yet judicial) account for their actions. This reality is radically eroding the ability of authoritarian leaderships to intimidate domestic opponents, and revealing the fragility of their narrow social base of support after decades of ruling through coercion rather than consent.

Can the upheaval in the Arab world be compared to the revolutions that swept Eastern Europe in 1989? Is this indeed the ‘Arab 1989’? While comparisons of events across time and place can be misleading, examining what was distinctive about the events of 1989 can provide some clues to the significance of current events. The political transformation of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania were sweeping, dramatic and unexpected. They constituted a revolutionary situation that decisively overturned seemingly immovable regimes in a matter of months. However they were also linked to slow yet significant processes and changes that gathered momentum over the preceding decade. Thus the trajectories that culminated so visibly in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in 1989-90 had roots stretching at least to the early 1980s.

Significant political changes were underway in Eastern Europe in the early 1980s. In Poland, the Solidarity trade union movement began in 1980 and spearheaded a mass movement for freedom and self-determination. It survived the regime’s attempted repressive crackdown in 1981 and gradually created an independent civil society sphere by fostering independent networks of information, cultural exchange and social relations. Meanwhile the late-1980s also witnessed important shifts in political emphasis in the Soviet Union itself, linked to the perestroika reform process initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev. A profound shift in strategic thinking occurred, from the Brezhnev Doctrine (protecting the ‘achievements of socialism’ by force if necessary, as in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in 1981) to the Sinatra Doctrine (tolerating nationally chosen paths – ‘Do it your way’). This had decisive consequences for the Soviet bloc as the removal of the threat of coercion and Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe accelerated centrifugal forces and eroded regimes’ ability to suppress opposition by force.

Emerging schisms also reflected the impact of long-term pressures on the Soviet economy. Soviet economic stagnation stemmed in part from its lack of integration into the world economy, which provided short-term protection from competitive productivity elsewhere but left it weak and uncompetitive in the longer-term. Rigid and relatively inflexible centrally administered structures were put under additional strain by the renewed arms race following the intensification of the Cold War in the early-1980s. This placed a much greater (relative) burden on economic and human resources in the Soviet Union and the crumbling infrastructure of the Soviet economy. The declining economic situation and the move toward toleration of distinctive national pathways to reform constituted a deep ‘legitimation crisis’ of state socialist societies, and represented a proximate cause of the revolutions in 1989.

How do these events compare or contrast to the unfolding developments in the Arab world? Four common elements and one contrast may be discerned. Economic stagnation in authoritarian Arab economies is rooted in similarly uncompetitive and knowledge-deficient economic structures. With the partial exception of the oil- and gas-producing states, regional economies are falling further behind at a time of accelerating innovation and knowledge-intensity in the global economy. Many Arab economies have largely been bypassed by processes of globalisation analogous to the Soviet bloc’s marginalisation in the world economy in the last century. This initially shielded Arab economies from competitive pressures and from the direct impact of the global financial crisis of 2007-9. However, its deeper significance lies in the general failure of Arab regimes, despite some patchy programmes of ‘infitah’, to develop sustainable economic structures independent of state support and capable of competing in global markets.

This links to the second commonality, which is the failure of authoritarian regimes to present a viable alternative model for meeting the socio-economic challenges they confront. Structural problems of rampant un- and under-employment, inflexible and stratified labour markets, and profound imbalances between overbearing public and weak private sectors coexist alongside emerging problems posed by rising food and commodity prices, periodic lapses in flows of remittances from expatriate labourers, and volatile revenue streams from external ‘rents’, whether oil and gas prices or income from tourism. Regimes’ inability to offer the prospect of a better quality of life-chances to their increasingly-youthful citizens compounds the difficulties of managing an orderly transition to a new political generation with its own distinctive social and cultural background and differing perceptions and priorities. This occurred in the Soviet bloc in the mid- to late-1980s with the rise to power of Gorbachev. Arab regimes today face the task of reconciling the clash between the old guard and a generation of youth they fail to represent or understand.

Heightened awareness of alternative political and economic pathways to development are a third characteristic common both to 1989 and 2011. Just as the growth of Solidarity in Poland throughout the 1980s, civic activism and reform movements in Hungary and mass petitions and anti-Communist demonstrations in Czechoslovakia in 1988-89 raised expectations of change, so the current revolutionary wave is opening the prospect of a political reordering in the Arab world. As in 1989, previously-solid assumptions regarding the possibility of regime change are being overturned as long-entrenched leaders fall from power, initiate timetables for hitherto-unthinkable political handovers, and are forced into making substantial concessions limiting their authority. The role of new media in facilitating and transforming the shift in the terms of debate and discourse is quantitatively, but not qualitatively, different from the 1980s, when improvements to communications and changing forms of media also bypassed state controls to penetrate largely-closed societies.

The fourth commonality is the role of religion in providing a mobilising counterforce to stagnating autocratic rule. In Eastern Europe, the Catholic Church played a powerful role in organising and shaping dissent in Poland, while it organised a mass petition in Czechoslovakia in 1987 in support of religious freedom. At the time it represented the largest opposition petition in Eastern Europe and demonstrated the Church’s function as a strong opposition group. Islam, too, shares a capacity to organise different voices behind questions of social (as well as religious) justice. Public attention in the west is (wrongly) fixated upon the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam in allegedly directing the anti-regime protests, but it is undeniably the case that mosques and Friday prayers do provide significant spaces to raise core issues of social and political organisation that regimes would much rather leave untouched.

Nevertheless these four issues are counterbalanced by the very different role of the west and the international community, and by the clarity of the alternative to authoritarianism. People in Eastern Europe in 1989 called for open societies, market forces, public accountability and consumer choice. The alternative to communism was very clear and involved the breaking up of old centrally-organised structures, integration with the west and the international arena, and the creation of democratic governments with market economies. Demonstrators and opposition leaders had a wholly positive view of the United States and the west, which in turn welcomed and embraced the revolutions as they unfolded. The alignment of interests between Eastern Europe and the west facilitated the political transition toward democratisation and their eventual integration into NATO and the European Union.

No such smooth conformity exists in the interactions between the advocates of change in the Arab world and the west. Relations have been strained by the events of 9/11 and their aftermath. The ‘war on terror’ involved two western military interventions into Arab and Islamic states and unleashed chaos and bloodshed in the name of stability and democracy. The crusading zeal of the George W. Bush administration and its British ally polarised feelings in the Arab world and fuelled the militant and extremist ideologies opposing them. Meanwhile the twin spectres of terrorism and the rise of political Islam have complicated the relationship between the Arab world and the international community, as well as the potential role that the west might play in supporting processes of change in the Middle East.

Additional uncertainty stems from the fragmentation of opposition movements. It is not yet clear whether their coalescing behind calls for political change will survive beyond the revolutionary moment. The difficulty of sustaining momentum beyond this point has been amply demonstrated in the messy and incomplete aftermath of the Rose and Orange revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003-4. Neither do the opposition groups share any great degree of broad agreement about the direction of possible alternatives to autocratic rule. Fundamental differences of opinion exist around critical issues such as attitudes toward western models and the role of religion in society. Although the cross-unity of purpose between Islamists and secularists has been strikingly prevalent in the demonstrations across the region, these divisions will come to the surface in any transition. Opposition movements are also vulnerable to regime attempts to manipulate and widen these divisions in a continuation of longstanding policies of divide and rule through selective co-optation of groups and demands. Importantly, no Arab equivalent of Gorbachev has emerged as a figurehead for reform within, and eventually beyond, the authoritarian system.

The present is a moment of great promise, opportunity and uncertainty. The Arab world stands at the brink of transformative changes to ossified political regimes and, in increasing numbers, ordinary people are willing to risk their lives to force a break with the past. Demands for reform have shaken the tottering autocrats and brutally exposed their repressive nature in the face of mass calls for political freedom, democracy and human rights. Neither will the taste of freedom of expression and assembly enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators be easily contained or re-sealed. Meanwhile the impact of the internet and new media on burgeoning youth populations will only grow over time, making any attempts to cling to the status quo all the more unsustainable. These trajectories will have profound domestic repercussions that will play out over years and decades. On the other hand, western (and Israeli) nervousness at the weakening of their regional partners may also translate into support for partial reforms that jettison unpopular leaders but sustain underlying authoritarian structures. The choices that will be made in coming weeks and months will largely determine whether the groundswell of demonstrations in the Arab world yield meaningful transitions from autocracy to substantive democratisation, or whether the west continues to prioritise stability over democracy even in the face of such affirmation of universal values by so many people throughout the Arab world. 5

The Arab 1989 Revisited David Held and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen 27 September 2011

In our previous article in openDemocracy, published on the day of Mubarak’s fall in February, we argued that the emerging Arab Spring overlapped with 1989 in important ways. We wrote that the uprisings sweeping across the Middle East portended a political transformation as significant as 1989 in Eastern Europe, and that economic stagnation and the failures of corrupt and repressive autocratic regimes intersected with a disenchanted youthful population wired together as never before. Yet we also identified a number of significant differences between developments in 1989 and 2011, in particular the lack of a common vision for the transformation of the Middle East. Assessing the situation seven months later, as the initial peaceful demonstrations in Tunis and Cairo have given way to a messy and uncertain pathway of transition, civil conflict in Libya, Yemen and Syria and a totalitarian crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain, does our earlier argument hold, or is it in need of revision?

In this new article, we will review the course of the Arab Spring in three steps: 1) looking at the key country developments; 2) comparing and contrasting these developments and looking for common patterns and differences; 3) returning to the big themes of revolution and transformation. The course of events since the dramatic ousting of Presidents Ben Ali and Mubarak from power in Tunisia and Egypt, and subsequently Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, suggest that we may be witnessing a transition of elites rather than a democratic revolution. Elsewhere, autocratic regimes are fighting hard for their survival and Saudi Arabia is spearheading a counter-revolutionary pushback in the Gulf States while attempting to manage the direction of change elsewhere. Moreover issues of social justice and the redistribution of wealth away from embedded networks of patronage and ‘crony capitalists’ remain largely untouched. Thus, as spring and summer turn to autumn, the progression of the Arab Spring appears very uneven and likely to produce highly differentiated outcomes, but should nevertheless be seen as a transformative first step in a long-term process of change.

Although the trajectory (and outcome) of protest differs in each country, reflecting diverging regime-types and levels of resource endowment that condition how polities absorb the pressures for change, four broad categories emerge. These are: countries where largely non-violent transitions have already taken place (Tunisia and Egypt), others where persistent protests may yet lead to greater degrees of constitutional rule and political plurality (Jordan and Morocco), states marked by sustained violence as regimes fight for their survival (Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria), and the resource-rich countries of the Gulf that are leading an authoritarian counter-charge against the Arab Spring (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

The defining feature of the remarkable ousting of longstanding autocratic rulers in Tunisia and Egypt was the military’s refusal (for the most part) to open fire and crush the protestors. Faced with a choice of backing a beleaguered autocrat or attempting to violently repress the demonstrations, military elites eventually opted for the latter, giving the Presidents no option but to step down. In both countries, the former ruling parties (the RCD in Tunisia and the NDP in Egypt) have been dissolved, but the path toward constitutional and political reform has been controversial and strewn with obstacles. Initial controversy in Tunisia centred upon the timing of elections to a Constitutional Assembly, originally scheduled for 24 July but subsequently postponed until 23 October. Heated debates between the twelve main parties of the transition commission over the length of the move to democracy eventually resulted in agreement on 15 September for a one-year period for writing a constitution and holding parliamentary elections. Tunisia’s relatively small and well-educated population means it is perhaps the best-placed state affected by the Arab Spring to undertake a successful (and gradualist) shift to democratic rule.

There is greater pessimism about Egypt’s political transition, where the military leadership under Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi have been attempting to discredit the pro-democracy movement by accusing them of accepting foreign donations, following a ‘foreign agenda,’ and delaying a return to normalcy following the February revolution. Outbursts of great violence have further marred a fraught and fractious move into the post-Mubarak era. On 29 June, more than 1000 demonstrators in Tahrir Square were injured in clashes with police while, on 9 September, a further 1000-plus protestors were injured while attempting to besiege and storm the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. The two episodes highlighted, firstly, public anger at the grip of the ruling military council on the speed and direction of reform, and secondly, the potential unravelling of the geopolitical settlement bequeathed by the Mubarak regime to a restless population.

On the first point, governing power passed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in February, and it suspended the Constitution, dissolved parliament, and announced a six-month period of military rule until elections could be organised. On 19 March a constitutional referendum gained 77% approval for a package of reforms and democratic safeguards. They included presidential term-limits, judicial supervision of the electoral process, and restrictions on the ability of the president to declare emergency rule. However, the reforms were criticised by substantial elements of the political and popular opposition as neither going far nor fast enough toward ending military rule. Parliamentary elections originally slated for September were postponed until 21 November, and SCAF angered activists by barring international monitors from the vote. Democracy campaigners express concern for the vulnerability of the democratic process and point out that the real revolution – covering issues of social justice and redistribution of wealth - will require stripping away the ‘crony capitalists’ and vested interests that mostly survived the ousting of the old regime.

The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel represented the cornerstone of regional geopolitics since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978. Successive Egyptian presidents (Sadat and Mubarak) cooperated with Israeli security demands, in part through the controversial sealing of Egypt’s border with Gaza. This alienated much Egyptian opinion which regarded the Mubarak regime as complicit in the blockade of Gaza and the suffering of the Palestinian people. Following the removal of the Mubarak ‘safety valve’, tensions flared with a series of attacks on the Egypt-Israel gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula. They escalated further on 18 August, when gunmen from Sinai infiltrated southern Israel and killed eight Israeli soldiers, leading to reprisals that killed six Palestinians allegedly linked to the attack and three Egyptian security officers. In the aftermath of the 9 September demonstrations, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting and stopped new satellite television permits. Officially justified as combating ‘media unruliness,’ the moves reflected SCAF concern at the damaging perception of the image of Egyptian police resorting to violence to protect Israeli interests from Egyptian demonstrators.

A second category of states inhabit a ‘halfway house’ whereby persistent levels of protests have neither ended nor escalated into civil uprisings. In Jordan, almost weekly protests have occurred in Amman and other major cities that occasionally have led to small-scale confrontations with the security services. King Abdullah reacted by dismissing the government on 1 February, and its successor rapidly unveiled a package of measures that included salary increases for civil servants and the military, and reductions in the price of food, fuel and staple goods. This notwithstanding, protestors continued to call for greater political freedoms and accelerated moves toward a constitutional monarchy. Moreover, Jordan’s request to join the Gulf Cooperation Council in May suggests a desire to strengthen the monarchical bulwark against the participatory demands of the Arab Spring.

The successful deflection of discontent in Jordan (at least for the time being) contrasted with an accelerating pace of protest in Morocco. Tens of thousands of demonstrators expressed dissatisfaction with King Mohammed’s 9 March promise of comprehensive constitutional reform. Instead, they called for greater political changes, including legislative elections, an independent judiciary, and an end to corruption. Troublingly, the security services adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward pro-democracy and pro-reform demonstrations, with escalating street clashes and rising police violence in May and June. These peaked with demonstrations of more than 60,000 people in Rabat and Casablanca on 5 June against police brutality. The King responded by speeding up constitutional reforms that were approved by a hastily-arranged referendum on 1 July, giving the prime minister and parliament more executive authority and calling for parliamentary elections in November 2011 instead of September 2012.

These measures seemed to avert a tipping-point whereby the demonstrations adopted a momentum and trajectory of their own. There is nevertheless a danger that stop-gap or partial measures leave unresolved the basic divergence of expectations between authoritarian regimes bent on limiting concessions and opposition movements advocating deep and meaningful shifts in the source and distribution of power. Tellingly, the reforms implemented by the King fell short of the protestors’ demands in March, and illustrated the gulf between top-down and bottom-up visions of reform. In both Jordan and Morocco, it remains to be seen whether (and how) these differing viewpoints can be reconciled into a consensual settlement for political reform.

In the third category of cases this threshold has already been crossed. Opposition in Libya rapidly escalated into a nationwide uprising against Colonel Gaddafi’s 42-year rule. The regime’s brutal response demonstrated one of the lessons absorbed by dictators from the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings – that mercenary military personnel have fewer qualms about shooting at civilian demonstrators (this also was a feature of the Bahrain Defence Force’s crushing of protests). Gaddafi’s past record as an international pariah, and the concern that government forces might commit appalling massacres in rebel-held areas to regain control, led to the mobilisation of an international coalition to provide humanitarian protection to the rebels. NATO-led air strikes began on 19 March while a National Transitional Council (NTC) formed in Benghazi to provide a political voice to the rebels. Although the 17-member NATO coalition encountered stubborn resistance that lasted longer than anticipated, the regime finally imploded on 20-22 August, leaving pro-Gaddafi forces dug-in but isolated in one or two remaining towns.

External military intervention of a very different sort also occurred in Bahrain. Initial pro- democracy demonstrations brought together Sunni and Shiite protestors demanding political reform and an end to social and economic inequalities. This burgeoning social movement panicked the ruling Al-Khalifa family whose grip depended on the sectarian politics of divide-and-rule. Faced with the possible downfall of a ruling family, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened militarily to save the Al-Khalifa from their own population on 14 March. This was followed by a brutal crackdown as the Bahraini regime mercilessly closed down all avenues of dissent, going so far as to arrest doctors and lawyers for treating or representing detainees. Although the state of emergency rule was lifted on 1 June, an inconclusive National Dialogue and flawed Independent Commission of Inquiry merely widened the divisions within a society polarised between an enraged opposition and implacably repressive government.

Saudi nervousness over the instability in Bahrain stemmed partly from its determination to prevent a fellow ruling family from falling, but also because of the unfolding crisis on its southern border with Yemen. There, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the great survivor of Middle East politics, suffered a steady loss of support from the military and tribal pillars that underpinned his 33-year rule. Despite recurring hints that he would step down, Saleh clung to power even as his base of support narrowed to little more than the presidential palace in Sana’a. Key allies, such as General Ali Mohsin Al-Ahmar and the powerful Hashid and Bakil tribal confederations, abandoned Saleh, while Saudi and US support ebbed away. Street fighting for Sana’a and other cities in late-May was followed by the attack on the presidential palace on 3 June that caused Saleh’s medical evacuation to Saudi Arabia. His son Ahmed Ali remained in the palace in Sana’a backed by the Special Security Forces and National Security Bureau controlled by cousins Yahya and Ammar, while the fragile opposition bloc fragments. Flashpoints of violence, such as the sniper attacks by forces loyal to Yahya Saleh on protestors in Sana’a on 18 September which killed 26 people and injured more than 300, continue, as the flailing regime clings to power. Saleh's surprise return to Yemen on September 23 is unlikely to alter the balance of forces, with further protest and violence inevitable.

The final example of violent confrontation is Syria, where the regime of President Bashar Al- Assad has bloodily suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations but failed to extinguish them altogether. This has given way to a stalemate whereby neither the state security forces nor the opposition can muster sufficient strength to settle the issue. As is the case in Libya and Yemen, the Syrian security forces have shown a willingness to inflict mass killing to put down demonstrators. This has stimulated memories of the 1982 massacre of up to 20,000 people in Hama ordered by Assad’s father, as the cities of Baniyas, Homs and Dera’a have been besieged by government forces. The overwhelming violence used against demands for political reforms and civil rights isolated Syria within the regional and international community. It led the US to impose sanctions on Assad and senior Syrian officials in May, while in August Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah forcefully called for regime change. The powerful Saudi-owned pan-Arab media outlets have vehemently opposed Assad’s crackdown, particularly following the ‘Ramadan Massacre’ on 31 July.

Quite distinct from the three categories above is the condition of the resource-rich Gulf States. While not immune from pressures for political reform, oil and gas reserves have shielded the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait from the Arab Spring. Officials have largely sought to pre-empt any unrest by lavishing their citizens with cash handouts and economic inducements. A case in point is Saudi Arabia’s announcement of a massive $130 billion welfare package unveiled in two decrees in February and March, involving the creation of 60,000 new jobs in the (already-bloated) Ministry of Interior, the setting of a minimum wage in the public sector, a one-off bonus for civil servants, and the construction of 500,000 new houses for disadvantaged Saudi youth. These measures may dampen calls for change, but are not fiscally sustainable, and they directly undermine strategies of economic diversification and productivity enhancement. They also put off the day of reckoning when even these states will have to implement sensitive political and painful economic reforms.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE also emerged as the leaders of a counter-revolutionary resistance group against change. They clamped down hard on domestic dissent, arrested prominent activists and closed down what political space and civil society existed. This has damaged the reputation of the UAE in particular, owing to its high-profile global ‘branding’ partnerships with leading western cultural and educational institutions. Meanwhile they spearheaded the mooted expansion of the Gulf Cooperation Council to include Jordan and Morocco, reinforcing sceptics’ views of the organisation as a club of (Sunni Arab) monarchs battling against the tide of history, and leading one former US official to remark that GCC stood for the Global Counterrevolution Club.

What patterns of commonality or difference explain the various trajectories and outcomes of protest described above? Across the region, a number of underlying dynamics of discontent lay behind the outbreak and rapid spread of the Arab Spring. These included the intersection of a better-educated youth population with highly-developed social networking skills and widely shared perceptions that authoritarian governments simply could not address deep-rooted social and economic stagnation. Eroding regime legitimacy among the young – for whom older post-colonial discourse meant little in the face of daily struggle to find employment and make ends meet - facilitated the fusion of political and economic discontent. A profound intergenerational gap opened up between the youth and the gerontocracies unable to comprehend the nature and scale of contemporary challenges in a networked world connecting people and ideas as never before. Above all, the revolutionary mobilisation occurred around universal concepts of personal and political freedom, justice, dignity and self-respect, rather than around Arabism or Islamism.

A qualitative difference between the Arab Spring and previous bouts of political unrest was its largely leaderless nature. This reflected the power and utilisation of social networking and other online and communicative technologies. Sites and drivers of protest moved decisively beyond the careful parameters of official opposition constructed by ruling elites to maintain a veneer of participatory pluralism. Its ‘headless’ character was critical both to the mass mobilisation around the universal values of freedom, justice, dignity and human rights in Tunisia and Egypt, and to the emergence of large-scale opposition in the face of intense regime suppression in Libya and Syria. Aside from demolishing simplistic western stereotypes reducing political appeal to a binary choice between concepts of Arabism and Islamism, the indigenous, bottom-up nature of the protests gave them powerful local legitimacy.

Another game-changing legacy of the Arab Spring is its shattering of the legitimacy of authoritarian rule. The latter has been the mantra of almost every post-colonial regime in the Middle East and North Africa and looks set to endure for the foreseeable future in Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf States. However, its popular rejection (and support for alternatives) in Middle East countries means that one-party rule based on brute force alone is no longer sustainable, even if embattled regimes are prepared to fight for its survival in the short-run. Instead, successor (or reformed) governments will need to construct new sources of legitimacy based on the principles of consent rather than coercion. This will be particularly important as they grapple with the potentially-disruptive challenges of institutional restructuring and confront the enormous economic and demographic problems at hand. It will not be easy to address the immense socio-economic challenges of rampant unemployment, corruption, and perceived economic marginalisation. Successor regimes will be vulnerable to the heightened expectations of a public eager for betterment, and to the inevitable disappointment and disillusionment should material circumstances fail to significantly or rapidly improve.

In the countries that have undergone a change of leadership, two major divisions have emerged. The first is divisions between the elites and the street. This is most evident in Yemen. Former allies of Saleh only abandoned him after the momentum created by the massive demonstrations in February and March. The highest-profile defector, Ali Mohsen, had previously been feared even more than Saleh himself in his capacity as Yemen’s top- ranking military commander. Although Yemen’s political factions coalesced into the Joint Meeting Parties coalition, they coexisted uneasily alongside the demonstrators, who accused the parties of attempting to seize control and shape the protests in their interest. The same bifurcation between the demonstrators and the elites – many still embedded in the ousted regime’s networks of power and patronage – underlies the tensions between SCAF and the Tahrir protestors outlined in the previous section. In the run-up to the November election, a succession of planned large-scale labour strikes will test the potency and depth of the gap between the people and the (new) regime.

The second division is that within the elites as they grapple over the succession. This is also evident in the intra-elite machinations in Yemen but it is most pronounced in Libya. Tensions simmered between members of the NTC who had served in senior positions within Gaddafi’s Libya (including its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, and military head, Abdul Fatah Younis) and longstanding opponents of any engagement with the regime, between rival rebel brigades in Benghazi, Misrata and the Nafusa Mountains in western Libya, and between the NTC and an influential Islamist faction headed by Abdul Hakim Belhaj. Younis’ assassination on 28 July and Belhaj’s call (as military commander in Tripoli) for Jibril’s resignation in early September visibly articulated the fissures in the rebel movement, threatening its cohesion and suggesting that the battle for control in post-Gaddafi Libya may only be just beginning. Difficulties in forming a post- revolutionary cabinet incorporating NTC and Islamist figures are a portent of the splits that lie ahead. Both instances listed above illustrate some of the challenges and obstacles to democratic transition. The largely leaderless nature of the initial demonstrations insulated them from party weaknesses and constraints in the struggle to oust their leaders. However, this initial strength will likely become a liability if it prohibits the formation of political parties or organisations that can counter and dilute the influence of the powerful vested interests bent on maintaining the status quo. The fact that the transformative change originated outside the formal political organisations means demonstrators and activists risk playing a reduced and more confused role compared to previous examples of democratic transition. Hence, the leaderless weapon that proved so effective in overcoming the authoritarian legacy of segmented societies may become the Achilles Heel in the attempts to embed and take further the initial gains.

Set against this backdrop, new authoritarian networks are mobilising and collaborating in a bid to contain the revolutionary fervour and shape it in acceptable directions. This in part reflects the fact that it is easier to rally around a common theme of opposition to a dictatorial leader than to articulate an alternative vision that appeals to all ideological strands and participants. Complex – and divisive – core issues concerning political orientation, approaches to development, minority rights and, not least, the balance between state and religion, were temporarily put aside in the mass gatherings in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Change Square in Sana’a, and the Pearl Roundabout in Manama. The question of what next – the ‘day after’ conundrum – has illustrated the durability of authoritarian legacies in the face of contested identity and religious and ideological fragmentation. Indeed, the successful example of a regime blunting and destroying a putative revolution (in Bahrain,) saw the Al-Khalifa adopt selectively violent and highly sectarian tactics that divided the opposition, exacerbated ethnic and religious tensions, and made horizontal mobilisation virtually impossible.

On a region-wide basis, a form of counter-revolutionary pushback has been projected by Saudi Arabia. Saudi policy has been more nuanced that a simple opposition to any form of change, evidenced by official (if belated) support for a change of leadership in Yemen, Libya and Syria. Instead, policy-makers in the Kingdom have sought to channel the contours of unrest in ways that support their regional interests. This has been especially the case in their southern neighbour, Yemen, but elsewhere, pronouncements that Gaddafi and Assad had forfeited their ruling legitimacy by resorting to mass violence represented an attempt to distance the Kingdom from the tyrannical maintenance of power through coercion alone. Such pronouncements also divert regional and international attention from Saudi Arabia’s military intervention to crush the uprising in Bahrain, and provision of multi-billion dollar economic incentives to Egypt, Jordan and Oman.

The high-profile role of Qatar and (to a lesser extent) the UAE in enabling the Libyan rebels to topple Gaddafi constituted a further example of the Gulf States attempting to channel revolutionary fervour in their interest. Their activist Libya policy provided them a welcome breathing space from the pressures generated by the Arab Spring that had been erupting uncomfortably close to home. It allowed the GCC states to position themselves against a repressive regime and make a high-profile stand against tyranny. Qatar, especially, aligned its support for the protection of human rights and democratic expression with the (western- led) international community. With the UAE having intervened in Bahrain in support of authoritarian rule, and in Libya in support of opposition to authoritarian rule, it underscored how the same concept of intervention can mean very different things in different contexts.

The course of events since February indicates elements of consensus and division in three constituencies – within the countries affected directly by the Arab Spring, within the west, and within the international community as a whole. It is still far from clear, and also too early to tell, if the Arab revolution will transition toward democratisation and the consolidation of its institutions and values. Significant obstacles remain unresolved in states weakened by the legacies of authoritarian rule, lacking autonomous civil society organisations and freely independent political parties, and unsure of the relationship between the citizen and the state inherent in concepts of citizenship.

Reading the situation in terms of a narrowly procedural definition of democracy provides a misleadingly optimistic snapshot. In September alone, three of the most autocratic Gulf States are holding elections, to municipal councils in Saudi Arabia, to a toothless Federal National Council (lacking legislative power and featuring a limited and hand-picked electorate by the rulers) in the UAE, and in parliamentary by-elections to replace the opposition MPs who resigned in protest at the crackdown in Bahrain. But these elections do not mean that the Gulf is democratic, nor do they signify that the ruling families are prepared to cede or redistribute any meaningful power and decision-making authority. The elections in Tunisia and Egypt later in the autumn will provide a more legitimate test of the strength of participatory mechanisms and direction of public opinion in the post- revolutionary moment.

Democratic transition is about much more than the mere conduct of elections, important though these are. They are about internalising and embedding concepts of social justice, inclusion and cohesion as a starting-point for reformulating the relationship between the state and its citizens. The development of a substantive democratic culture and the maturation of the political system will inevitably be a long process, as it has been elsewhere in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Multiple transitions need to occur on political, economic and social levels. The broad swathes of Arab societies that came out in support for the ending of authoritarian rule will need to maintain their commitment to reform in the face of lingering political violence by regime and non-state actors alike. The evidence from the ‘colour revolutions’ in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004 illustrates how revolutionary activists can become co-opted into the networks of elite-controlled political and economic power they sought to overthrow. This brings us to the crux of the issue – is the Arab Spring shaping up to be a true revolutionary moment or merely a change of elites that simply reproduces the inherited structures of power? Beyond the removal of the person of the dictator and his immediately family (most notably his sons), can the broader regime of ‘crony capitalists’ and networks of patronage be removed? Is the military a part of the ‘old regime’ and can it be trusted to oversee the move toward democracy, as, for example, in Egypt? Can a counter-elite emerge to challenge the existing elite, as has happened (democratically and without a revolution) in Turkey after 2002? How will the successor regimes cope with the massive socio-economic challenges, such as unemployment and economic exclusion, and with the inevitable disillusionment when people’s material situation fails to improve overnight? And will the international community support all countries in transition, rather than cherry-picking support where it is in their interests (such as Libya) and condoning state-repression where it is not (such as Bahrain)?

These issues will only become clearer in the longue duree. What has happened so far in the Arab Spring should be read cautiously but should not be analysed too negatively, notwithstanding the challenges listed above. For the establishment and deepening of a democratic culture is a long-term project and is intergenerational. The events of 2011 across the Middle East and North Africa represent a powerful first step. The fall of autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and possibly Yemen and Syria is a key element of a larger process of transformation.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, is this the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? A definitive guide will only become apparent in the years to come, and it is the case that what began as a popular revolution in January and February now looks increasingly like a case of elite transition. However, the genie has been let out of the bottle, and the transformative impact of new media and methods of communication is enabling citizens across the Arab world to reclaim the public sphere and shape public discourse around notions of accountability, justice, and freedom. These are powerful forces that have decisively shattered the barriers of fear that propped up tired and elderly autocrats for years and decades. Here, the participatory pressures and demands for political and economic freedom and reform are essential building blocks in the enabling environment that will sustain any eventual democratic transition. The galvanising effect of the outpouring of popular power and fury with the status quo means there is at least no going back to what went before; the exact nature of the structures that replace it remains to be seen

. 6

Wars of Decline: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya David Held and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen 12 December 2011

Ten years have passed since the explosion of violence in the heartlands of the west on 11 September 2001. The attacks of 9/11 posed fundamental questions about the principles, rules and means by which we live, conduct foreign policy, and manage relations with others. The disastrously-conceived ‘War on Terror’ presaged upon the use of military instruments of power has wrought enormous death and destruction across the broader Middle East. The intervening decade has seen the rise of a new pattern of warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq and, now, Libya. These wars have weakened the very structures of international law and multilateral institutions that underpin international society. Yet the stretching of the United Nations mandate authorising the NATO-led intervention in Libya also demonstrates the continuing inability of international rules to limit or constrain the use of coercive power.

This article assesses the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya in terms of their legality, their consequences - local, regional and global - and their impact. It describes the growing impotence of western powers in reshaping global politics by force. In addition to straining western relationships with the Arab and Islamic world, they have given added impetus to the shift in the global order. A new balance of power is emerging that the west simply did not foresee a decade ago, as China and other emerging economies engage in commerce, economic assistance and the projection of soft power across the world. In just ten years, the flawed application of organised violence as a tool in the defence and projection of western power has dissolved the grandiose project of the ‘American century.’

What follows is a three-stage analysis of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Each case- study begins with the political pretext and legal positions for going to war. We then examine the nature and trajectory of the military operations. Finally, we reflect on their results, both in terms of the massive loss of life and material destruction as well as their wider geopolitical consequences. Each of the conflicts was highly distinct, yet left a common legacy of failing states and fractured societies. We end with a section that considers the larger themes of where this leaves international society, the rule of law, and a multipolar world order - in a state of flux, transition and uncertainty.

9/11 and its aftermath

The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC were acts of atrocity directed against the United States and the whole of humanity in their utter disregard for the sanctity of life and violation of all international norms.1 They demonstrated the negative challenges posed by the contemporary nature and form of globalisation as providing new channels for mobilisation and political action.2 The form of international terrorism unleashed by Al- Qaeda (beginning in 1998 and continuing after 9/11) was facilitated by the freer movement of people, money, and ideologies in a world more densely interconnected than ever before. Al-Qaeda was part of a wave of violent non-state actors conducting asymmetric operations across traditional state boundaries, and taking advantage of the global spread of ideas and technologies to maximise its visual impact in the twenty-four hour global news cycle.3

This rise of violent non-state armed groups introduced a destabilising new dimension into world politics as they operated beyond the rules-based international system established to regulate relations between states. Intense globalising processes also challenged existing security paradigms as they reconstituted notions of time and space and intersected localised patterns of violence with global processes and events.4 9/11 was the transformative moment that should have set in motion a genuinely new approach to the security implications of globalisation. Yet, as Cronin noted as early as 2004, the George W. Bush administration sought to explain the new threats to international security from transnational non-state actors in familiar state-centric strategic terms.5

The primacy of ‘national security’ responses to 9/11 highlighted the emerging paradox between the growing complexity of collective ‘global’ issues and the weak (and resolutely still state-centric) means for addressing them.6 In the United States, the George W. Bush presidential administration securitised the threat from international terrorism to justify its adoption of ‘extra-ordinary’ measures resting on a particular interpretation of events, rather than established international law.7 Framing the ‘War on Terror’ in this way rested on assumptions of US world leadership, primacy, and a deeply unilateral view of the world. Yet, Tony Blair’s premiership aside, this viewpoint was not widely shared in the international community, with significant consequences for the legitimacy and acceptability of the US as a world leader.8

The underpinnings of the ‘War on Terror’ were laid out in President Bush’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress on 20 September 2001. Bush declared that, “we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism…Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists… any nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”9 This set out a framework for attacking a country (Afghanistan) accused of sheltering terrorists (Al-Qaeda) that was one of the twin pillars of the ‘War on Terror.’ The other was the notion of pre-emptive war, as laid out in the September 2002 National Security Strategy. Together, they became the ‘Bush Doctrine,’ as the bellicose president stated that “In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action.”10

The Bush Doctrine was controversial from the outset. Critics focused on its disregard for international norms and its ambiguously vague and potentially overarching content. Eminent military historian (and founder of the International Institute for Strategic Studies) Sir Michael Howard argued bluntly that, “the USA claimed a hunter’s license to use force anywhere in the world and the right to dispense with all the restraints of international law that they had done so much to create.”11 Another leading military and strategic thinker, Hew Strachan, questioned whether freedom could ever be a strategy in itself, and warned that “the conflation of words like ‘war’ and ‘terror,’ and of ‘strategy’ and ‘policy’…contributes to the incoherence of the response’ that followed 9/11.12 More polemically, the leading French analyst of political Islam, Olivier Roy, has suggested provocatively that, “with American public opinion whipped up to a frenzy,” the USA was “determined to punish the guilty…and people were prepared to pay the price, whatever the human and financial cost.”13 With the USA breaking with the constraints of international law, a dangerous signal was also sent to other powers. For it cannot be coherently argued that all states bar one must be bound to the rules and established practices of the postwar multilateral system.

Afghanistan

The Bush administration reacted to 9/11 with immediate military action. Military operations in Afghanistan commenced on 7 October 2001, four weeks after 9/11. To begin with, they enjoyed popular domestic support and broad international sympathy as the Taliban regime harboured Osama bin Laden while he planned and orchestrated the atrocities of 9/11. A lightning campaign by the US-led international coalition and the Northern Alliance routed Taliban forces and seized control of the major cities of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar in less than two months. Prominent Afghans came together in Bonn in December 2001 to agree on a pathway to political transition, and established the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA). In Tokyo in January 2002, an International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan pledged over $4.5 billion for reconstruction, as the international community vowed not to ‘forget’ the country, as had happened at the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989.14

Separately from Operation Enduring Freedom, on 20 December 2001 UN Security Council Resolution 1386 established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). This had an initial six-month mandate to assist the AIA develop its national security structures and forces. NATO assumed authority for the ISAF mission in August 2003, and expanded its geographical remit far beyond the initial focus on Kabul. NATO took overall responsibility for security in Afghanistan in October 2006, although significant numbers of US troops for counter-insurgency operations remained – and continue to remain - outside its chain of command.15

These early gains were significant. By early 2002, the threat from the Taliban had been significantly reduced, although acts of terrorism by Al-Qaeda affiliates continued in Bali, North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. But the situation in Afghanistan began to unravel as US attention shifted inexorably toward effecting regime change in Iraq. Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech in January 2002 accused Iraq, Iran and North Korea of supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction.16 In 2002, the administration focused increasingly on defining the concept of pre-emptive war, and, in 2003, on conducting the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It looked away at precisely the formative period when sustained engagement in peace-building and post-conflict recovery was needed to embed and expand the initial achievements in Afghanistan.

Beginning in 2002, the outlines of a guerrilla resistance against the US presence in Afghanistan emerged as the 10,000 US and ISAF troops and nascent Afghan National Army failed to secure the countryside beyond Kabul.17 This occurred, in part, as US troops were diverted to Iraq, just as fighters that had melted away in 2001 began to reorganise in smaller insurgent networks and groups, and as state and sub-state networks in Pakistan lent their support to spoilers and insurgents in Afghanistan. In addition, it occurred as a result of the inability of the Afghan government and security forces in Kabul (and their US and NATO partners) to do anything to prevent these developments; and, not least, in local and regional reactions to abuses of governance, rampant corruption and the escalating drugs-based shadow economy at the heart of the government of President Hamid Karzai. All these factors added up to a damaging erosion of local legitimacy and support for a government increasingly perceived as propped up by international military backing.18

Nowhere was this more understood than in the south-eastern province of Helmand, to which a brigade of 3,300 British soldiers were deployed in March 2006. A small contingent of American special forces had been based in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gar since 2002. It had not attracted much attention and had sustained almost no casualties over the four years to 2006. By contrast, the British immediately ran into stiff local resistance as they acted as a magnet for Taliban troops.19 Lacking local awareness or knowledge (symbolised by then-Defence Secretary John Reid’s infamous statement in April 2006 that, “we would be perfectly happy to leave again in three years' time without firing one shot"20) and broken up into operationally indefensible ‘platoon houses’ across Helmand, British forces barely held off the waves of Taliban attacks on their positions. Their position was further complicated by the explosion of the narcotic economy as Helmand became the opium production and smuggling hub producing up to two-thirds of the poppies of Afghanistan.21

A nexus of insecurity developed from the activities of traffickers, drug warlords, Taliban commanders and organised corruption, eroding (in increasingly wider circles) the Afghan government’s legitimacy and ability to govern. Its scale also undermined local perceptions of British motives in Helmand, as further infusions of troops and civilian personnel stubbornly failed to reverse the rising levels of violence and criminality. By 2011, the number of British troops in Helmand had risen from 3300 to more than 9000 at a cost of nearly £5 billion in war-related expenditure. Writing about his experiences of serving in the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Helmand between 2007 and 2009, British Intelligence Officer Frank Ledwidge concluded that, “the British had found themselves out of their depth and without the numbers to deal with the absolute necessity of bringing about the security that (arguably) their activities had so damaged.”22 The Ministry of Defence did, however, find time to arrest an officer accused of ‘leaking’ civilian casualty figures and charge him with breaching the Official Secrets Act; doubtless these were deemed too embarrassing and sensitive to reveal to a suspicious public.23 No such figures have been publicly released, but estimates range upwards from the tens of thousands for the ten years since 2001.

After a decade of war in Afghanistan, the situation today is bleaker than ever before. By mid-2011, ISAF had swollen to more than 130,000 troops and suffered nearly 2800 fatalities, with each year since 2003 being bloodier than the one before.24 Indeed, the International Crisis Group (ICG) summarises how “security has deteriorated across the country, with the highest civilian casualty rates since 2001, and the insurgency is spreading to areas previously considered relatively safe, including the provinces around the capital Kabul.” It notes that war-related civilian deaths in the first half of 2011 were 15% higher than in 2010, and that the Taliban has expanded beyond its traditional Pashtun base to establish shadow governments in central and eastern Afghanistan as well. With “a central government crippled by corruption and deeply dependent on a corrosive war economy” and Afghan security forces (even after ten years of funding and international assistance) “unable to enforce the law, counter the insurgency or even secure the regions where the transition has already begun,” the ICG concluded pessimistically that there was virtually no prospect of stabilising the country before the end of the planned US and NATO withdrawal and handover of security duties to the Afghan government by December 2014.25 The recent stoning to death of a woman and her daughter just 300 metres from the governor’s office in Ghazni city – scheduled for imminent transfer to Afghan security control – provided a grisly example of the extreme limitations of functioning authority after ten years of western intervention.26

Iraq

Military operations had commenced in Afghanistan in 2001 with broad international support. This provided the campaign with initial legitimacy that was enshrined through United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1378, 1383, 1386, 1401. They stood in direct contrast to the pre-emptive, legally dubious and globally controversial US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Years of rising tensions between the Saddam Hussein regime and the international community over Iraqi disarmament culminated in Resolution 1441 on 8 November 2002. Adopted unanimously, it stated that Iraq was in material breach of its 1991 Gulf War ceasefire obligations relating to the possession of weapons of mass destruction. However, it fell short of permitting direct military action in the event of Iraqi non- compliance. Instead, UN weapons inspectors, led by Hans Blix, returned to Iraq and reported increased (though far from complete) Iraqi cooperation and disclosure of information. Yet Bush and Tony Blair rejected Blix’s findings and, despite failing to secure a second UN resolution authorising the use of force, launched military operations on 20 March.

The invasion of Iraq thus began without UN Security Council authorisation and occurred against the backdrop of unprecedented global protests and mass opposition. Yet in a meaningful sense this did not matter, for the invasion was about the Bush administration demonstrating (to domestic constituents and international observers alike) its determination to deploy overwhelming and (mostly) unilateral military force in response to the new form of asymmetrical warfare that struck US soil on 9/11. The Independent’s Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn argued that, “They were heady times in Washington in 2002, as the final decisions were being taken to invade Iraq. It was the high tide of imperial self-confidence.”27 As previously mentioned, the 2002 National Security Strategy bundled together the issues of international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction with the notion of rogue states operating at the periphery of the international system. These ideas meshed with Bush’s rhetoric about the ‘Axis of Evil’ and the neoconservative dream about the possibilities of ‘remaking’ the Middle East, starting with regime change and radical transition to a free-market utopia in Iraq.28 Moreover, the State Department, which, alone in the administration had looked into post-Saddam scenarios through its Future of Iraq project set up in 2002, found itself bypassed and marginalised by the Pentagon, which had done very little post-war planning itself.29

Such post-conflict ideas as there were rested on little knowledge of – or interest in – the Iraqi political and social order, by the Bush administration and its ally in London. To the extent they reflected anything at all it was the overpowering ‘group-think’ of a closed circle of Beltway insiders and their contacts with exiled Iraqi politicians.30 In November 2002, six leading UK-based academics familiar with Iraq were invited to Downing Street to brief Tony Blair and then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. One of those attending, Charles Tripp, recalled in 2007 how “Straw thought post-Saddam Iraq would be much like post-Soviet Russia and could thus be easily pigeonholed as that strange creature, a ‘transitional society’,” while “Blair seemed wholly uninterested in Iraq as a complex and puzzling political society, wanting confirmation merely that deposing Saddam Hussein would remove ‘evil’ from the country.”31

Official ignorance reinforced a lack of strategic vision and planning for post-war scenarios that afflicted British policy-making, just as in the US. This failing covered both the military (which issued a divisional plan for post-conflict operations 15 days before Basra fell on 6 April 2003) and the Foreign Office (whose unit for post-war planning was set up just three weeks before the invasion of Iraq commenced).32 They were not helped by the late change in British war plans as their initial intention to invade northern Iraq fell through, following Turkey’s decision to deny its territory as a platform for the invasion. This caused a hurried switch in the objectives of Operation Telic to invade from Kuwait and take control of Iraq’s southern provinces instead.33 Yet British officials remained uncertain as to their legal responsibilities in their areas of occupation even after they entered Iraq, and were totally unaware of how poor initial conditions in Basra had become over decades of neglect, persistent conflict since 1980, and international sanctions after 1991.34

The successful invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in less than three weeks quickly soured. Initial plans for a short occupation and rapid transition to Iraqi authority were reversed when the Coalition Provisional Authority under L. Paul Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army and enacted a sweeping de-Ba’athification law. Acts of atrocity, such as the killing of seventeen civilian demonstrators by American soldiers in Fallujah in April 2003 and the arbitrary arrest and detention of thousands of Iraqis further disabused any notions of ‘liberation.’ What little international legitimacy remained was stripped away following the United Nations’ withdrawal after the death of its Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello in August 2003.

All these factors provided fertile ground for the beginnings of an insurgency against what was turning into a brutal and prolonged occupation. In his bookThe War Within, veteran investigative journalist Bob Woodward cites General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, stating that President Bush reflected the “radical wing of the Republican Party that kept saying, ‘Kill the bastards! Kill the bastards! And you’ll succeed.’ ”35 The disastrous reliance on overwhelming force resulted in operations that little distinguished between enemy combatants and innocent civilians. Iraqi casualties rose massively, but General Tommy Franks’ infamous comment that “We don’t do body counts” reinforced perceptions that ‘collateral damage’ simply didn’t register or matter.36 This perception was reinforced when a US judge dismissed all charges (citing inadmissible evidence) against Blackwater military contractors who had indiscriminately shot to death seventeen Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007 while clearing a path for a convoy.37

Against this backdrop of poor and confused leadership, post-occupation Iraq remained a zone of conflict and multiple insecurities as political and militia groups filled the vacuum created by the fragmentation of state structures and political authority.38 In part, developments followed the logic of ethno-sectarian divisions enshrined in the post-Saddam political settlement laid down by the occupying powers in 2005. The coalition also adopted a deeply-flawed counter-insurgency plan reliant for transitioning responsibility on an Iraqi government penetrated by sectarian interests and far from a politically neutral ‘honest broker’ capable of governing in the interests of all Iraqis. As David Kilcullen has noted, this focus on transition before stabilisation worsened the sectarian violence by increasing the state’s capacity to project power (and violence), as protection and predation became two sides of the same coin depending on ethnicity or sect.39 In conditions of state fragmentation and the hollowing out of its administrative and (legitimate) coercive functions, the Iraqi government effectively ceased to function as a viable entity in control of the sum of its territory between 2005 and 2007. The results for the Iraqi people have been catastrophic. Civilian deaths remain a matter of dispute owing to official uninterest in keeping figures. They range from an Iraq Body Count figure of 103,819 by December 2009 to a contentious survey published in The Lancet that suggested a much higher number of 654,965 excess deaths by June 2006 alone.40 These measures of human insecurity were magnified by the displacement of more than four million Iraqis as a result of ethnic and sectarian cleansing. By the middle of 2007, the International Organization of Migration reported that approximately two million Iraqis had fled to neighbouring countries, primarily Syria and Jordan, and a further 2.2 million were internally displaced within Iraq. This represented the largest displacement of peoples since the expulsion of Palestinians from the newly-created state of Israel in 1948.41

Although levels of violence have dropped substantially since the sectarian slaughter peaked between 2005 and 2007, Iraq remains today one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with levels of daily violence that would be unacceptable in almost any other context. And what have been the consequences of the huge loss of life and material destruction that have arisen from the decision to go to war on false grounds? Iraqi state structures collapsed in 2003 and the country remains a failed state eight years later. Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki has shown no sign of relinquishing power voluntarily, and political decisions remain vulnerable to predatory instincts. Following the humiliating (to London) expulsion of British combat forces in 2009, US combat troops are set to leave – against their will – on 31 December, yet the Iraqi security services lack the capability to replace them.

The geopolitical consequences have also been as profound as they were unanticipated to American and British eyes. Iran has been the big winner as it has carved out areas of strategic depth in neighbouring Iraq. This should not have been unforeseeable; as early as February 2003, before the invasion, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al- Faisal, warned Bush that he would be “solving one problem and creating five more” if Saddam Hussein was removed by force. Two years later, in 2005, he was blunter still, as he complained that the United States was “handing the whole country over to Iran without reason.”42 Turkey, too, has made significant economic and commercial gains, and positioned itself to make a (not entirely uncontroversial) return as a major regional actor. In the Gulf, the west’s close strategic and commercial allies view the empowerment of a Shiite-led Iraq with deep suspicion, and have responded by ramping up sectarian tensions in defence of their own (Sunni-dominated) regional interests. By any calculation, and whatever one thinks of the legality or otherwise of the invasion, Iraq is decidedly MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED.

Libya

Any political benefits that might have accrued for the US and UK from their withdrawal from Iraq were offset by the intensifying military operations in Afghanistan. Belated recognition that the campaign was failing to meet any of its political or military objectives led to the plan to transition to Afghan control by 2014. Yet within months of this decision, NATO found itself embroiled in yet another civil conflict, in Libya in March 2011. The resulting seven- month conflict reopened old divisions in the international community about the applicability and deployment of the use of force. It also raised troubling questions about the legal interpretation of Security Council mandates, and about the motivations guiding western policy-makers and their local and regional allies in bringing about regime change in Libya.

Libyans in its second city Benghazi rose up against the 42-year regime of Colonel Gaddafi on 15 February 2011. Their uprising spread rapidly across Libya but met fierce and determined resistance by government security forces. International condemnation of the attempts to put down the rebellion mounted rapidly as Gaddafi reverted to the international pariah he had been prior to renouncing his weapons of mass destruction in 2003. In mid-March, reports that the regime was on the point of retaking Benghazi led to urgent calls by sections of the international community – led by France, the UK and Qatar - for intervention to forestall a feared retributive massacre of its civilian population. On 17 March, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 demanding an immediate ceasefire and authorising the international community to establish a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians from the regime.43

Resolution 1973 passed with five abstentions in the Security Council. Five regional powers and emerging economies all abstained – Germany, Brazil, India and permanent representatives Russia and China. This reflected deep misgivings at the haste with which advocates of the resolution were making the case for intervention on the basis of unproven and unclear allegations. Nor were they alone, as the internationally respected International Crisis Group (ICG) noted in a report in June that, “Much remains to come to light about the way in which the anti-Qaddafi rising began…much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the resistance movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators…”44

On numerous occasions the international media whipped itself into a frenzy about the supposed atrocities being committed by the regime. However, evidence for their having taken place is proving rather harder to substantiate in many cases. The ICG’s North Africa Project director Hugh Roberts spent months investigating a story on Al Jazeera on 21 February (quickly picked up by news outlets around the world) that the Gaddafi regime was using its air force against peaceful demonstrators in Tripoli and elsewhere. After finding no documentary evidence or eyewitness accounts to corroborate it, he concluded that, “The story was untrue, just as the story that went round the world in August 1990 that Iraqi troops were slaughtering Kuwaiti babies by turning off their incubators was untrue and the claims in the sexed-up dossier on Saddam’s WMD were untrue.”45 Similarly, Amnesty International failed to find evidence for claims of mass rape and other human rights violations allegedly conducted by the regime, contradicting both US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno- Ocampo.46

The Libyan intervention is unsettling in other ways. The initial UN mandate for a No-Fly Zone with its limited justification for the use of force to protect the civilian population in Benghazi was far exceeded by NATO. Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, wrote recently that the limited mandate from the UN was disregarded almost from the outset, and that, “NATO forces were obviously far less committed to their supposed protective role than to ensuring that the balance of forces within Libya would be tipped in the direction of the insurrectionary challenge.” He makes the important points that Russia and China would almost certainly not have merely abstained had the true intent of NATO objectives been disclosed at the time of the Security Council vote, and that it is “extremely disturbing that a restricted UN mandate to use force should be totally ignored and then no action taken by the Security Council” to censure NATO “for unilaterally expanding the scope and nature of its military role.”47

Professor Li Weijian, Director of the Department of West Asian and African Studies at Shanghai Institute for International Studies, alluded to the problematic nature of the intervention in an interview with the leading Arab political magazine Al Majalla. An expert on China’s relationship with the Middle East, he criticized “the unparalleled degree of chaos and destruction which is mainly due to the fact that transition of power from the Qadhafi regime to the NTC was not natural. It was rather achieved by outside intervention and the use of force and thus today’s instability throughout Libya as well as the inhumane treatment of the Libyan dictator should not be surprising to observers.”48 These comments tap into deeper Chinese apprehension about ‘western norms’ supposedly driving concepts such as humanitarian interventionism, and such as the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ initiative. An article written on Chinese perspectives on global governance back in 2008 contains a phrase that eerily summarises (and anticipates) China’s scepticism about the potential misuse of such actions: “interventions must be authorised by the Security Council and must not be unilaterally hijacked by great powers, notably the US.”49

The practical consequences may be far-reaching if concepts such as Responsibility to Protect become discredited or associated with militaristic western-centric approaches. Events in Libya have, to a certain extent, crystallised and confirmed many of the concerns expressed by non-western policy-makers about these supposedly ‘universal’ norms. The impunity with which certain NATO members stretched, manipulated and ignored the UN mandate in Libya certainly makes it more difficult to organise international consensus for humanitarian missions in the future. Qatar’s high-profile role in rallying Arab support must now be reassessed as its involvement in arming and funding a plethora of militia groups in the country becomes murkily apparent. Already these sub-state (and unregulated) networks are undermining the National Transitional Council, prompting its oil and finance minister to state that, “It's time we publicly declare that anyone who wants to come to our house has to knock on our front door first.”50

Nor is Libya to date much safer than under the stifling dictatorial rule of Colonel Gaddafi. Western military intervention has once again turned a dysfunctional and repressive autocracy into a violent polity teetering on the brink of a failed state. The civil conflict built upon and magnified existing territorial and tribal tensions and created potent new flashpoints. These include flashpoints between groups that deserted the regime early on in the uprising and others that only did so once the outcome of the struggle became clearer, between opposition figures who fought in Libya and others in the diaspora who have since returned to Libya, and between territorially-based groups of fighters, notably competing (and clashing) groups of fighters in Benghazi, Misrata and the Nafusa Mountains. In addition, revenge attacks on groups and individuals seen as having supported the Gaddafi regime have escalated and, in some previously-loyalist areas such as Sirte, new militias have unleashed a “reign of terror” against them. A report drawn up by Ban Ki-Moon for the Security Council and leaked to The Independent reportedly claimed that more than 7000 new “enemies of the state” had been arbitrarily detained by rebel groups across Libya, with many being tortured in private jails outside the control of the new government.51

More than 300 militias currently operate in Libya, and the country is awash with weaponry, much of it taken from unregulated arms dumps. To this is added a fractious and unresolved political situation and lack of national consensus on crucial issues such as the formation of a national army or reintegration of former regime supporters.52 Tensions between the militias and the easy availability of guns means that disputes are far more likely to be resolved through force, creating further bad blood and grievance. A gun battle between two competing militias on a highway near Tripoli over the weekend of 11-12 November killed up to fifteen people and may be a harbinger of things to come.53 The arrest of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi on 19 November also reveals the uncertainties of power in Libya: whether the group that holds him will hand him over to a newly-forming Libyan government, and under what conditions, is far from clear. Parallels with the lethal and overlapping low-intensity urban conflicts in Iraq for access to and control over localised resources and the spoils of power are becoming more apparent by the week.

The decade of decline

In the space of a decade the project of the American Century has dissolved. The shock of 9/11 has been magnified by the subsequent western military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The Obama administration is less stridently ideological and less fixated upon the crude projection of raw power than its predecessor, and professes a greater regard for multilateralism and the rule of law. Nevertheless, the recent developments in Libya demonstrate the continuing attraction to western policy-makers of the use of force to manage international problems. Yet two of the three interventions of the past decade have been resounding failures that have not achieved their political, far less military, objectives - and Libya looks as if it is heading in the same direction. The past decade has shown how western powers, led by the US and the UK, are largely impotent forces in reshaping global politics. This stands in direct contrast to the multi-dimensional deployment of power and influence by emerging economies, which have presaged a global power shift wholly unanticipated in western policy circles a decade ago.

The wars of decline have exposed the shortcomings in the US’s predominance in a multipolar world with multiple layers of political authority and centres of economic gravity. Furthermore, the asymmetric warfare characteristic of the opposition to western intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq has revealed their vulnerabilities to more ‘primitive’ forms of combat. This modifies the grandiose projections made after the initial victory over the Taliban and before the invasion of Iraq by advocates of the ‘Revolution in Military Affairs,’ and it reveals the limitations of technology alone to reshape military operations.54 Pakistan’s furious reaction to NATO’s cross-border air strike which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on 26 November also demonstrates how the mistaken use of force can undermine and harm regional relationships that have taken years to construct.55 In both Iraq and Afghanistan the quick and easy attainment of conventional military success gave way to prolonged civil conflict and violent local resistance. Libya is showing signs of going down the same road, but still policy-makers in western capitals appear to believe that they can influence or even determine the political and economic choices of leaders they think they control.

Yet their conceit ignores the shift away from the west of the balance of global economic power. Recent academic research on the ‘world economic centre of gravity’ has tracked its shift 4800 kilometres to the east since 1980 and set out empirical evidence about a rebalancing global order.56 The rising economic power of China, India and the other emerging economies inevitably translates into greater political leverage as well. The success of non-western oil companies in securing oil and gas contracts in Iraq’s license bidding rounds in 2009 and 2010 is one indicator of this. So are China’s $4 billion copper mining contract and the Indian mining companies lining up to make deals to tap Afghanistan’s reputed $ 1 trillion of mineral resources.57 Yet another is the unseemly reaction of former US Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan (and close Bush confidante) Zalmay Khalilzad when a client of his private investment firm, Gryphon Capital Partners, lost out to the China National Petroleum Corporation in a competitive tender for oilfields in northern Afghanistan. Khalilzad had lobbied intensively for the deal, and in response his son accused the Pentagon of betraying US interests by not advising the Afghan government to favour companies from coalition partners in Afghanistan.58

The bigger picture is completed by the manifest failures of the Washington Consensus and the Washington security doctrine to prevent economic and financial meltdown and military quagmire. Western economies remain mired in deep-rooted difficulties while emerging economies lead the way out of the global recession of 2007-9. This is measured through evolving changes to global structures of production, trade and finance, the rise of the BRICS, and flows of investment from oil-producing nations to help ‘bail out’ beleaguered companies and institutions in the west. All these developments are rapidly turning the status quo on its head and will have far-reaching consequences for the balance of global power. It is, however, far from clear that western leaders have grasped and assimilated this transformative shift, as the rush to intervene in Libya even after the debacles of Afghanistan and Iraq shows. Yet history warns us that empires in decline are dangerously prone to flailing out as they attempt to retain the status quo and reverse their decline.

The huge costs of these wars, in addition, creates immense new pressures on the domestic politics of the countries involved, The costofwar.com website claims that the total amount of money spent by the United States on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan currently stands at $804 billion and $478 billion respectively, making a total $1.28 trillion.59 An alternative figure has been provided by the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who calculated that the war in Iraq alone had cost $3 trillion in the five years to 2008. He came to this figure, which far exceeded the Bush administration’s then-appropriation of $600 billion for operations in Iraq, by taking into account future obligations (accrual accounting) such as the provision of health care and disability pensions to returning veterans.60 In Britain, the Helmand operations are costing an estimated £4 billion each year, and by 2010 the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeded £20 billion. Moreover, a House of Commons defence committee report accused the Ministry of Defence of trying to disguise the real figures, and added that the government had significantly underestimated the cost of the Libyan intervention when it requested parliamentary authorisation in March.61

Ill-conceived foreign policy comes back to haunt the exchequer of many western countries struggling now with excess debt and low growth. The opportunity costs of these wars in the context of the current turmoil in the global economy seems excessive by any standard. The sums involved could have created vital reserves to help shore up vulnerable economies. It is regrettable to recall that the weakening and disruption of western economies formed part of Al Qaeda’s varied agenda.

After 9/11 the United States and its principal allies could have grounded their response in the rule of international law and multilateral institutions. They could have used the powerful international solidarity to go after the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity to, in the words of President Obama, “dismantle, disrupt and defeat Al Qaeda.” Yet they did not.62 In choosing to invade Iraq the Bush administration and Bush’s British ally rode roughshod over considerations of international peace and security, and disregarded the United Nations and the post-war international architecture. NATO continues to bomb Afghanistan even after the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, which also hosts a resurgent Taliban that is once again destroying Afghanistan while destabilising the fragile nuclear-armed Pakistani state. The intervention in Libya exceeded its UN mandate as NATO wilfully misrepresented the nature and intent of its actions to tip the balance of power against Gaddafi. It is difficult to see Libya avoiding the sort of lengthy civil strife that has resulted from the external interventions and acts of imposed regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq. The terrible irony is that the attempts to resist terrorist violence in the decade after 9/11 have ended up weakening the very structures of law and constraints on the use of force that have formed the cornerstone of the international system and bedrock of global security since 1945.

Notes

1 David Held, Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), p.11.

2 Andrew Hurrell, ‘One World? Many Worlds? The Place of Regions in the Study of International Society,’ International Affairs, 83(1), 2007, p.135.

3 Klejda Mulaj, ‘Violent Non-State Actors: Exploring their State Relations, Legitimation, and Operationality,’ in Klejda Mulaj (ed.), Violent Non-State Actors in World Politics (London: Hurst & Co., 2010), p.2.

4 Damian Grenfell & Paul James, ‘Debating Insecurity in a Globalizing World: An introduction,’ in Damian Grenfell & Paul James (eds.), Rethinking Insecurity, War and Violence (London, Routledge, 2009), p.7.

5 Audrey Kurth Cronin, ‘Behind the Curve: Globalisation and International Terrorism,’ in Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Sean M. Lynn-Jones & Steven E. Miller (eds.), New Global Dangers: Changing Dimensions of International Security (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), p.448.

6 David Held, ‘Global Challenges: Accountability and Effectiveness,’ Open Democracy, January 17, 2008.

7 Morten Kelstrup, ‘Globalisation and Societal Insecurity: The Securitisation of Terrorism and Competing Strategies for Global Governance,’ in Stefano Guzzini & Dietrich Jung (eds.), Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research (London: Routledge, 2004), pp.112.

8 Barry Buzan, ‘Will the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ be the New Cold War?’ International Affairs, 82(6), 2006, p.1102.

9 ‘Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,’ September 20, 2001, http://georgewbush- whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/print/20010920-8.html(accessed November 7, 2011).

10 Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p.147.

11 Michael Howard, Captain Professor: A Life in War and Peace (London: Continuum Books, 2006), p.219.

12 Hew Strachan, ‘The Lost Meaning of Strategy,’ Survival, 47(3), 2005, p.52.

13 Olivier Roy, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East (London: Hurst & Co., 2007), p.1.

14 http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/middle_e/afghanistan/min0201/summary.pdf(accessed November 9, 2011). 15 Cyrus Hodes & Mark Sedra, The Search for Security in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies Adelphi Paper 391, 2007), p.45.

16 President Delivers State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002,http://georgewbush- whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/print/20020129-11.html(accessed November 9, 2011).

17 See, for example, Paul Rogers, ‘Afghanistan: The Evolving War,’ Open Democracy, November 3, 2002; ‘Afghanistan Still Burning,’ Open Democracy, February 13, 2003; and ‘Afghanistan and Iraq: Regroupment or Insurgency?’ Open Democracy, June 11, 2003.

18 Antonio Giustozzi, ‘Afghanistan: The Patrimonial Trap and the Dream of Institution-Building,’ in Denisa Kostovicova & Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic (eds.), Persistent State Weakness in the Global Age (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), p.79.

19 Hodes & Sedra, Search for Security, pp.45-46.

20 ‘Half-a-decade in Helmand,’ UK Ministry of Defence, June 3, 2011,http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/HalfadecadeInHelmand.htm(acc essed November 10, 2011).

21 ‘Heroin Production in Afghanistan: Helmand, Nangarhar and Badakhshan,’ United States Naval Postgraduate School: Culture and Conflict Studies, April 14, 2009, p.3.

22 Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), pp.94-95.

23 ‘British Army Officer Arrested Over Military Secrets Leak,’ The Daily Telegraph, February 4, 2009.

24 http://icasualties.org (accessed November 11, 2011).

25 International Crisis Group, FAQ Security in Afghanistan, last updated August 23, 2011, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/key-issues/security-in-afghanistan.aspx (accessed November 10, 2011).

26 ‘Afghanistan Mother and Daughter Stoned and Shot Dead,’ BBC News, November 11, 2011.

27 Patrick Cockburn, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (London: Verso, 2006), p.2.

28 Toby Dodge, Iraq’s Future: The Aftermath of Regime Change (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies Adelphi Paper.372, 2005), pp.5-7.

29 Greg Muttitt, Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq (London: Bodley Head, 2011), pp.53-54.

30 Cockburn, The Occupation, pp.26-30.

31 Charles Tripp, ‘Militias, Vigilantes, Death Squads: The Grammar of Violence in Iraq,’ London Review of Books, Vol.29 No.2, January 25, 2007, p.30.

32 David H. Ucko, ‘Lessons from Basra: The Future of British Counter-Insurgency,’ Survival, 52(4), 2010, p.133.

33 Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars, p.18. 34 Testimony of Dr Nemat Shafik (Permanent Secretary, Department for International Development, 2008-9) to the Iraq Inquiry, London, January 13, 2010, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45193/20100113-shafik- final.pdf(accessed November 13, 2011).

35 Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (London: Simon & Schuster, 2008), p.4.

36 ‘Counting the Civilian Cost in Iraq,’ BBC News, June 6, 2005.

37 ‘US Judge Dismisses Charges in Blackwater Iraq Killings,’ BBC News, December 31, 2009.

38 Toby Dodge, ‘The Causes of US Failure in Iraq,’ Survival, 49(1), 2007, p.88.

39 David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (London: Hurst & Co., 2009), p.126.

40 http://www.iraqbodycount.org/; Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doacy and Les Roberts, ‘Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,’ The Lancet, October 11, 2006.

41 Patricia Weiss Fagan, ‘Iraqi Refugees: Seeking Stability in Syria and Jordan.’ Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Occasional Paper 1, 2009, p.2.

42 Quoted in Nawaf Obaidi, ‘Stepping into Iraq: Saudi Arabia will Protect Sunnis if the US Leaves,’ Washington Post, November 29, 2006.

43 ‘As U.N. Backs Military Action in Libya, U.S. Role is Unclear,’ New York Times, March 17, 2011.

44 ‘Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (V): Making Sense of Libya,’ International Crisis Group MENA Report No.107, June 6, 2011, pp.3-4.

45 Hugh Roberts, ‘Who Said Gaddafi Had to Go?’ London Review of Books, Vol.33 No.22, November 17, 2011, p.17.

46 ‘Amnesty Questions Claim that Gaddafi Ordered Rape as Weapon of War,’ The Independent, June 24, 2011.

47 ‘Libya after Gaddafi: A Dangerous Precedent,’ Al Jazeera Opinion, October 22, 2011.

48 http://www.majalla.com/eng/2011/10/article55227243 (accessed November 15, 2011).

49 Lai-Ha Chan, Pak K. Lee & Gerald Chan, ‘Rethinking Global Governance: A China Model in the Making?’ Contemporary Politics, 14(1), 2008, p.9.

50 ‘Minister in Tripoli Blasts Qatari Aid to Militia Groups,’ The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2011; ‘Tiny Kingdom’s Huge Role in Libya Draws Concern,’ The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2011.

51 ‘Leaked UN Report Reveals Torture, Lynching and Abuse in Post-Gaddafi Libya,’ The Independent, November 24, 2011.

52 ‘Reining in Militias Priority for Libya’s Prime Minister,’ Sydney Morning Herald, November 2, 2011.

53 ‘At Least Six Are Killed as Libyan Militias Clash on Coastal Highway Near Tripoli,’ New York Times, November 13, 2011. 54 David Calleo, ‘Unipolar Illusions,’ Survival, 49(3), 2007, p.74.

55 ‘Pakistan Ordes US to Leave Airbase in Row Over Deadly NATO Assault,’ The Guardian, November 27, 2011.

56 Danny Quah, ‘The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity,’ Global Policy, 2(1), 2011, p.9.

57 ‘Indian Firms May Land Iron Ore Mining Contract in Afghanistan,’ The Times of India, October 31, 2011.

58 ‘War-Forfeiteering,’ National Review Online, October 5, 2011.

59 http://costofwar.com/en/ (accessed November 24, 2011).

60 Joseph E. Stiglitz & Linda J. Bilmes, ‘The $3 Trillion War,’ Vanity Fair, April 2008, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/stiglitz200804(accessed November 24, 2011).

61 ‘Britain Spent $18 Billion on War in Afghanistan, Figures Show,’ The Daily Telegraph, July 28, 2011.

62 See David Held, Cosmopolitanism: Ideals and Realities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), ch.4.

7

The Arab Spring and the Changing Balance of Global Power David Held and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen 26 February 2014

More than three years have passed since Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid and inadvertently lit the spark of regional upheaval. The resulting conflagration caught regimes by surprise and led to the rapid toppling of ‘Presidents-for-life’ in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and the grisly demise of Libya’s dictator of 42 years, Muammar Gaddafi.

However, three years on the contagious revolutionary fervour has faded as successor regimes across North Africa failed to deliver quick or lasting improvements in living standards, the quality of life and governance. Moreover, the brutal civil war in Syria, the radicalisation of militia groups in Libya, and discrediting of the Muslim Brotherhood as a governing alternative in Egypt have all strengthened the forces of status quo throughout the region. The removal of Mohammed Morsi from the Egyptian Presidency in July 2013 and consequent reinstatement of military-led rule encapsulated the stunning reversion to the status quo ante in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

In an essay published in openDemocracy on the day of Mubarak’s fall in February 2011, we drew connections between the unfolding protests and the cascading social movements that swept away authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989. We drew attention to political transformations triggered by the intersection of economic stagnation, the failures of corrupt and repressive regimes, and a disenchanted population linked together through dense communication networks. In addition, we emphasised how the outburst of revolutionary fervour was connected to slow yet significant processes and changes that had gathered momentum over many years. Nevertheless, we cautioned that 1989 was not an entirely clear point of reference, in part because ‘the pull of the west, so marked in 1989, is weaker and more complex,’ and we concluded that the path ahead for the brave, inspiring, movements was thus more uncertain.

In 1989, the movements of central and Eastern Europe by and large shared an ambition to topple their governments and replace them with Western European forms of democracy, the entrenchment of human rights and the benefits of consumer-led economic growth. As the direction of travel was in western interests, governments in Europe and North America wholeheartedly welcomed them. By contrast, the signifier ‘democracy’ carried much more complex meaning in the Arab world in 2011. This was because the west had propped up most of the Arab autocrats, the US had led a war against terrorism largely in the Arab world and young Arabs across the Middle East had often protested against western imperialism, as it was understood. Against this background, democracy appeared all too readily as a veil masking the shifting tide of western geopolitical interests, propping up authoritarian leaders in the name of ‘stability,’ commercial and energy concerns, and support for Israel’s security.

In this new article, we address three overarching issues. We begin in the first section by arguing that the Arab Spring was from the beginning quite different from 1989. Whereas in Eastern Europe the ideological lines were relatively clear, this was never as true in the Arab Spring. Western media, moreover, misread the latter through the rose-tinted glasses of liberalism, democracy, and the new age of social media.

The second section examines how shifts in geopolitical power and influence have blunted the reach of hegemons in a much more complicated and fragmented regional order. In place of the Cold War bipolarity is a growing diversity of national and transnational interests and voices, which make negotiated or imposed solutions much more difficult. This can be seen most clearly in Syria’s tragic civil conflict, where the long tentacles of regional actors can be felt in different ways, with ramifications in Iraq and elsewhere.

In the third section we note how the clustering of the Arab Spring into a number of different country trajectories now looks ever more uncertain in the wake of the Gulf counter- revolutionary influence and the fragmentation of opposition movements on the ground. The result is a regional geopolitical picture of deep division and antagonism in which the splits and movements of people are producing a most uncertain future. In this context, the rule of law looks profoundly fragile and the hope for widespread more responsive accountable government seems to have faded.

The following analysis represents an attempt to understand, from an empirical-analytical point of view, what has happened in the Middle East and North Africa since Mohammed Bouazizi died. We say this in order to emphasize that this is not an opinion piece seeking to advocate one normative position over another. It is, rather, an assessment of the underlying factors which have put pressure on the aspiration for justice and political reform launched by the Arab Spring.

Post-colonial leadership and the democratic alternative?

The uprisings that swept across North Africa in the spring of 2011 were rooted in mass demands, among them political freedoms, social justice, and human dignity. These universal norms appeared to take precedence over narrower forms of identity politics in the narratives of protest that gripped the public imagination. After the extraordinary scenes in Tahrir Square and the fall of Mubarak, the unrest swept across swathes of the Middle East and North Africa in a cascading wave that – for a few weeks at least in February-March 2011 – seemed to be unstoppable. From Morocco to Iraq, underlying socio-economic discontent converged with pent-up feelings of deep political frustration with the authoritarian status quo, to generate powerful calls for greater levels of freedom, social justice, and, above all, self-determination. The entire region quickly became engulfed in protests which shattered the hitherto ‘safe’ assumptions about the durability of authoritarian control and the sanctity of ‘red lines’ of permissible opposition.

Amid growing international recognition that the suffocating grip of autocratic leaders had failed the peoples of the Arab world, a space opened up for advocates of a new approach to regional engagement. Ten years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan had laid bare the failure of western-led attempts to reshape regional and international politics at the barrel of a gun. Moreover, with the wider events of 2011, encompassing mass protests against austerity in southern Europe and Israel as well as the birth of Occupy in North America, fundamental questions were being asked both about Washington’s economic direction (the Washington Consensus) and Washington’s security strategy. The economic and financial meltdown of 2008-9 with its long-lasting impact on global public finance, and the military quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan, illuminated a shift in distribution of global power, politics, and policy- making. These crises simultaneously exacerbated the decline of US and European dominance in the global order, and hastened the appearance of a more multipolar world, which in the Middle East signalled a growing role for regional powers.

The popular revolts across the Arab world which initially enjoyed international support found that this support was by no means as clear and unambiguous as it had been for their predecessors in Central and Eastern Europe. Powerful geostrategic and commercial interests meant that western governments were loath to jettison entirely the authoritarian rulers that had for so long underpinned their interests and an uneasy equilibrium across the region. Unsure how to respond to the appearance of new political actors and popular forces, the United States and the European Union belatedly withdrew their support from some authoritarian rulers but not from others in an increasingly incoherent pattern that won few friends or admirers within the region. The clash between ‘values’ and ‘interests’ became clear just ten days after the fall of Mubarak as David Cameron visited Cairo to congratulate the revolutionaries of Tahrir before embarking on a trade mission to the Gulf States accompanied by eight British defence companies.

Western stock was already at a low ebb as a result of decades of support for the postcolonial dictators and the post 9/11 wars. This legacy left a profound stain on its reputation among many young Arabs, and left them with a distrustful and often angry view of the west. The deeply flawed imposition of regime change in Iraq in 2003 tainted the idea of democracy and put it on the side of military interveners and conquest. This echoed and distilled the memory of postcolonial intervention as self-interested and destructive of local societies and cultures. The abrupt cooling of western enthusiasm for democratic processes, after the Palestinian elections of January 2006 resulted in victory for Hamas, caused further damage to US and EU credibility. Subsequent international acquiescence in the partition of the Palestinian territories and Israel’s suffocating blockade of Gaza cemented the perception among many in the Middle East that western support for democracy was wholly conditional on outcomes favourable to western interests.

By the start of the Arab Spring, the US and European leaders were on the defensive, switching sides almost overnight in Egypt and Libya but turning a blind eye to the violent suppression of protests in Bahrain and other Gulf States. It is hard to underestimate the incoherence and moral bankruptcy of these policies as countries which had supported Mubarak and Gaddafi ditched them in an effort to stay on side with the protesters and retain influence on the fast changing circumstances; and did so while, at one and the same time, continuing to support the autocrats of the Gulf monarchies.

This resulted in a chaotic response by the international community to the upheavals, intervening in Libya but not in Syria and with the shadow of Iraq looming overhead throughout. The failure to acknowledge the scale of the political earthquake shaking the Arab world further eroded confidence in the ability of western actors to adapt to or even comprehend the evolving regional dynamics. Initial attempts to highlight the role of social media and online networking in facilitating the spread of revolutionary messages masked a more complex reality, and failed to explain why mass upheaval occurred in Yemen, a country with a tiny internet penetration, but not in countries such as the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia, which boast some of the highest smart-phone usage rates in the world. Deeply ambivalent about the direction (or even the desirability) of change from the outset, the relationship between ‘the West’ and the Arab Spring was far more contentious than it had been for the peoples of Eastern Europe after 1989.

Geopolitical shifts and regional transformations

The declining appeal of the west is part of a broader transformation in the global order that is reconfiguring pathways of politics and development. Big geopolitical shifts, including the rise of Asia and the growing influence of the Gulf countries, are blunting the reach of traditional ‘great powers’ and making it harder to reach consensus on critical global challenges. Power and influence are increasingly diffuse, and distributed among a wider variety of often-competing state and non-state actors. This has contributed to a profound disjuncture between the intensely transnational nature of contemporary political and socio- economic problems and the breakdown in global cooperation necessary to address them. The results can be seen across a wide array of issues in the Middle East.

No longer can superpowers organise a comprehensive international conference as the United States and the USSR did in Madrid in 1991 to discuss the Middle East Peace Process. The achievements and impact of Madrid stand in contrast to the faltering attempts, a little over two decades on, by the US and Russia to convene the meeting of Syrian regime and opposition groups in Geneva and persuade all warring parties and regional actors of the utility of joining in and reaching a negotiated settlement. In part, this reflects the multidimensional character of the contemporary global system, in which power is more intangible and refracted through overlapping layers of national, regional, and international interactions. Thus, the Syrian conflict encompasses a state that has lost control over much of its territory and arguably over elements of the military chain of command, myriad local groups loosely aligned into a national opposition coalition, and jihadist cells linked to cross- border movements of men, weapons, and ideology, all in receipt of declared and undeclared support from various regional states, from Qatar to Turkey and Iran.

Decisions affecting conditions in Syria are as likely to be taken in Teheran, Istanbul, Riyadh, or Doha as they are in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, or Hama. In addition to the longstanding support given by the Iranian state (and its paramilitary and regional offshoots, including Hezbollah) to the Assad regime, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have played key roles in channelling political and military assistance to rebel groups. Meanwhile, Kuwait has emerged as a fundraising hub for both the government and the opposition (and their respective sectarian backers). But while these connections have added a degree of strategic depth to the competing rebel movements that has enabled them to fight the regime (and each other) to a stalemate, they also have imparted great unpredictability to the course of events within Syria itself. For example, it is doubtful that Kuwaiti, Qatari, or Saudi backers exercise any real leverage over the fighters they support, or even whether they are fully aware of which groups on the ground are benefiting from their aid.

This multiplicity of voices makes any consensual political settlement on Syria – or any other Arab Spring or international issue – very difficult to achieve. Solutions can no longer be imposed on recalcitrant societies by a dominant external player, as the Bush administration tried (and failed) in Iraq. Instead, the range of participants capable of exerting an influence on events is exacerbating the fragmentation of the international response to states in crisis or societies in transition. Post-Mubarak Egypt offers a prime example of the tangled and frequently competing agendas at play. After Qatar bankrolled the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi to the tune of up to $7.5 billion in 2012-2013, the neighbouring Gulf States of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates stepped in to buttress the reinstated military-led government with pledges of more than $12 billion in direct cash transfers, petroleum products, and investment.

Gulf provision of aid and development financing (in all its guises) prevented the total collapse of the Egyptian economy amid three years of near-constant political turmoil and steep falls in vital economic sectors, such as tourism. However, seen from an international governance perspective, the aid is more problematic in terms of the policy choices that it enabled Egyptian officials to make or, just as importantly, to avoid. In addition to reducing pressure on the government to seek a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF (as Morsi had been doing), Gulf support allowed the Egyptian finance minister, Ahmed Galal, to avoid having to raise taxes or cut public spending by utilizing the incoming monies to meet the cost of its burgeoning budget deficit.

Just weeks after the announcement of the financial aid packages from the Gulf States, he stated in August 2013 that the best way for Egypt to avoid unpopular austerity measures was by “counting on friends who can provide us with some injection of funds from outside.”i In other words, it provided some temporary respite to financial pressures without incentivising the Egyptian government to come to terms with the underlying economic collapse and political trade-offs that urgently need to be addressed. It also risks turning Egypt into a new type of ‘rentier economy’ dependent upon external support to keep it afloat – a position that is neither sustainable nor practical in anything but the short-term.

Changing trajectories across the Middle East

Our second article on the Arab Spring, published in September 2011, identified four broad trends across the region. These were 1) countries where non-violent transitions had already taken place (Tunisia and Egypt), 2) others where persistent protests might lead to greater degrees of constitutional rule and political plurality (Jordan and Morocco), 3) states marked by sustained violence as regimes fought for survival (Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria), and 4) the resource-rich countries of the Gulf that were leading an authoritarian counter-charge against the Arab Spring (Saudi Arabia and the UAE). At that point, it still was possible to discern the diverse trajectories and potentially different outcomes of the uprisings. Some two years on, however, the distinctions between the first, second, and third categories have largely dissolved as the uprisings have stalled and initial gains been rolled back.

While there are still notable differences in post-Arab Spring developments across the Middle East and North Africa, the distinctive trajectories of 2011 have largely converged around the reassertion of authoritarian control. The early and widespread calls for political reform and greater participation in governing systems have yet to really translate into democratization and greater pluralism.

Elections have been held in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia but the democratic transition in Egypt was bitterly contested and forcefully reversed in 2013, while the Libyan election produced a government that has been unable to generate political authority or exercise power beyond the gates of its ministerial compounds. Even Tunisia’s transition, which was rooted in a long history of constitutionalism and stronger social and political forces, and marked by greater diversity in the sharing of political power, has operated in fits and starts, with democratic gains punctuated by surging popular anger at the perceived majoritarian rule by the Ennahda party. Significantly, however, the Ennahda leadership was ultimately more willing to make political compromises than counterparts in other transition states, leading to the enactment of a new constitution and the instalment of a caretaker government in January 2014. Of course, with continuing and regular outbursts of violence, the trajectory of Tunisia is far from clear, although there are stronger countervailing pressures capable of resisting the return of authoritarian rule.

In other country-examples, the return to authoritarianism is starker still. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis mobilised to oust Ali Abdullah Saleh from power only for his vice- president to be chosen as his successor in a Gulf-backed transition plan and then ‘elected’ president in a stage-managed vote in which he was the only candidate. Similarly, the vibrant spectacle of tens of thousands of Bahrainis demanding their political rights was extinguished by the arrival of forces from Saudi Arabia and the UAE that provided cover as the Bahraini security services systematically put an end to the protests. Even the more hopeful scenarios of negotiated change in Morocco and Jordan have not made them more open, or meaningfully altered the structure or balance of political or economic power.

A common casualty of the past three years has been the right to freedom of expression. The threshold of regimes’ tolerance of dissent has been lowered dramatically while the cost of holding or articulating opposing viewpoints has soared. Scores of activists, scholars and students, human rights practitioners, social media users, and people merely taking an interest in public affairs have been harassed, detained, imprisoned, or subjected to travel bans or the denial of entry throughout the region. Worse still has been the assassination of political opponents, with events in Egypt following the July 2013 toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood the most extreme instance of bloodletting by a re-empowered security state determined not to lose control for a second time.

More than six hundred people were shot dead by the police in a square in Cairo in August 2013 as they protested in support of ousted president Mohammed Morsi. This incident was one of a series of violent clashes that has tipped Egypt closer to civil war as Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi prepares to run for President himself.

Therefore, in place of the revolutionary fervour and the popular mobilisation of 2011, we see today the reassertion of authoritarian control underpinned in large part by formidable resources from the Gulf. While Qatar reaffirmed its role as the region’s maverick by throwing its support behind the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its offshoots elsewhere, and Oman maintained its own reputation as an outlier among the Gulf monarchies by opposing a closer Gulf union and mediating between the US and Iran, the other Gulf States cracked down on any possible dissent domestically before spreading their influence regionally. Moreover, after being caught by surprise when Ben Ali and Mubarak fell in quick succession, the Gulf regimes became far more proactive in developing foreign policies designed to assert control over the processes of change. The impact of Gulf support was most evident in Yemen. A nationwide outpouring of hundreds of thousands of people who demanded the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh culminated in his stepping down in November 2011. This was the centrepiece of a carefully stage-managed transition put together by Yemen’s Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) neighbours. Far from involving the leaders of the protest movements, including the fresh Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman, in an inclusive process, the GCC plan saw power pass to Saleh’s vice-president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi via a presidential ‘election’ in which Hadi was the sole candidate. Although a National Dialogue was set up in February 2013, it was marred by political wrangling and rising tensions among participants, grinding the process to a halt even as the economy continued to spiral downwards and fighting flared in many provinces of southern, central, and northern Yemen.

The fragmentation of the opposition groups that forced Saleh out of power in Yemen has been repeated across the board. The leaderless and often joyful crowds that mobilised in 2011 undoubtedly was a strength that enabled protestors to take regimes completely by surprise and render ineffectual the subsequent responses of security forces. Yet, their amorphous nature complicated the transition of protest movements into political coalitions with recognisable leaders. It made it harder to convert protests into consolidated institutional change.

Furthermore, it made the opposition groups more susceptible to regime attempts to fracture them in crude policies of divide-and-rule. Such strategies of survival largely involved the manipulation of sectarian, tribal, or regional identities and have been used to great effect in the Gulf States, whether to crush the uprising, as in Bahrain, or to prevent dissenters from gaining momentum, as in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait. Moreover, the long arm of Gulf support has exacerbated sectarian tensions from Syria and Egypt to Yemen with incalculable consequences for social cohesion and consensual political authority as a ‘zero-sum mentality’ has increasingly taken root and defined people as either ‘in’ or ‘out’ on the basis of their identity and background.

As the uprisings of 2011 have lost their inclusive character, they have become more narrowly identified with particular interests or groups. This portends a desperately gloomy outlook for the wider geopolitical picture in the region, which is one of deepening division and antagonism.

The Gulf forces in support of the status quo ante are holding, but the splits and movements of people in many other Middle Eastern countries are producing a most uncertain future. Syria is in the direst condition as the civil war continues to rage with no clear resolution or political settlement in sight. Its conflict has ramified across the region inflaming the Kurds and greatly increasing sectarian violence in Iraq. Libya is at risk of being torn apart by militia groups competing for localized power if it is not there already. Political freedom in Tunisia was for a time under threat from political assassinations and mass protests against the majoritarian style of rule of the elected Muslim Brotherhood-led government.

Meanwhile in Egypt, however much many people may dislike the Muslim Brotherhood and criticize its flawed exercise in attempting to consolidate power and authority, they had a democratic mandate as a result of parliamentary and presidential election victories and two referenda on constitutional change. To rip away an elected government with military power after one year in office has consequences which are hard to check. Egypt is now more divided than ever as a society, the military are as entrenched as they ever were, and the economy is spiralling out of control.

Just as the uprising that ousted Mubarak from power galvanized demonstrators across the region, so the reinstatement of military rule in Egypt sends a clear message about the embedded power of counter-revolutionary forces to resist the pressures that swept the region in 2011.

Both the United States and the European Union have been behind the curve from the very beginning and frequently find themselves in an increasingly incoherent position which wins few friends or admirers within the region. Having intervened in Libya and not in Syria and, with the shadow of Iraq still looming large, confidence in their capacity to adapt to or even comprehend the rapidly-changing regional dynamics is surely at an all-time low in the Middle East. The ebbing of ‘western’ political and economic influence places great strain on the military and security dimensions of relationships that have for so long underpinned the structure and balance of regional power. Hard choices lie ahead in Washington, DC and other capitals about the prioritization of interests in a Middle East once again torn between seemingly-competing notions of the nation, democracy and stability.

Sovereign power and lawlessness

There is another casualty in the region, the rule of law, which we explored in a third essay written in 2011: Wars of Decline.

Of course, the rule of law imposed by post-colonial leaders was always a rule that ultimately sought to underpin their power. But there is a profound sense in which parts of the Middle East today are either lawless, in deep turmoil or subject to the ruthless imposition of the Gulf’s counter-revolution. Wars of Decline sought to understand the way in which the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya had not only failed in geopolitical terms, but also profoundly destabilized the regions in which these wars were waged. These failures are to be understood as both part of the declining reach of western hegemony as well as contributing to an acceleration of that decline. In a world where militias roam free (Libya, Mali), where opposition lines are fragmented and at war with each other (Syria), where democracy in its nascent stages has been sacrificed to authoritarian and military reassertion (Egypt and to some extent Yemen), where some countries are making tentative progress but suffering fallout from the rest of the region (Jordan) and where the autocratic reach of the Gulf Monarchies is extended - the absence of the rule of law, linked and bound to minimum human rights standards and values, is a profound concern.

These trends are exacerbated by the haphazard and inconsistent recourse to law by the global and regional powers whose interests are often at logger heads in the Middle East. Resolution 1973 justified a no-fly-zone in Libya but not regime change. The UN has floundered in the face of Syrian violence, with Russia and China vetoing attempts to set down new resolutions guiding humanitarian action. While international coordination on Syrian chemical weapons is a significant advance, it has done nothing to stem the flow of small and medium sized arms all across the region, and the conflict rages unabated. Gulf countries have acted to silence opposition, often resorting to means which would be hard to justify on liberal or democratic grounds; means often provided by western liberal democracies (e.g. US arms provision to Bahrain). And, following the failures of the 9/11 wars, the US has resorted to actions tantamount to acting like an outlaw cowboy, firing missiles from drones into several countries and killing not only targeted individuals but also large numbers of civilians.

Against this background, the struggle for the rule of law and human rights across the Middle East looks profoundly difficult. Parallels might be drawn with the European year of revolutions in 1848 and the reassertion of authoritarian control following the political upheaval that surged so rapidly across the continent. And yet if one left the matter here it would be as if the Arab Spring had not happened.

The struggle for self-determination, transparent government and human rights remains evident across the Middle East, albeit in multiple forms and patterns. Hegel writes in the Philosophy of Right that, “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” In other words, we cannot know whether these struggles will yield a democratic future at this point in time. We can only know when we look back in time.

But we do know that the struggle for democracy in and across Europe took centuries, as did the cultural shift which allowed the separation of identities based on local and/or religious affiliations from identities based on equal citizenship, with its distinctive rights and duties. In a wired age, parts of this formation process may well be cut short. But there is every reason to expect that conflict and struggle are the norm in the brokerage of a new political order.

Empire gave way to post-colonial controls and lifelong presidencies. The struggle for self- determination and human rights has begun in the Middle East and North Africa, but we cannot be sure how the struggle will unfold. All we can be sure about is the direction of desired travel, and the formidable state-based assets, regional and western, seeking to divert or crush these changes.

8

Democracy, Syria and the Western way of war David Held and Kyle McNally 17 September 2013

Obama’s request to postpone a Congressional vote on military action in Syria was a bow to the inevitable; all indicators predicted his defeat. His retreat from Congress, following on from the vote in the UK Parliament, raises powerful questions about the role of democracy in checking and limiting executive power. PM Cameron’s quick acceptance of Parliament’s rejection of the option of a military strike against Syria was a milestone in British political history. Obama understood that, without UN approval, he would at least have to go to Congress for a semblance of legitimacy to support intervention in Syria.

Have we reached a tipping point in democracy’s capacity to bring to a halt the trajectory of war since 9/11? What might this mean for democratic public life both within the borders of states and in the wider global order?

Democracy in context

To go back a step, democracy was the result of the triumph of people over autocrats and political domination. In the US, democracy was born against the backdrop of British Empire. In Europe, democracy was born against the background of absolutism and the power of monarchy. Rule-making and law enforcement become justified and appropriate when they are ‘democratic’. In this way, democracy legitimates modern political life.

Yet, a spectre haunts contemporary democracy. Has this triumph of the people over autocracy been reduced to a struggle among elites, a clash of personalities, celebrity politics, sound-bite ‘debates’, and the naked pursuit of party and/or self-interest? Elites too often drive politics by trying to second guess their electorates, and by shaping the preferences of publics through mass media, focus group research, managed messages and selective information.

Against this, there are those who seek to revive the idea of democracy by moving it towards a deliberative ideal. In this model, a premium is placed on shifting politics away from an elite driven activity toward a politics of reflective debate and preference formation. What is at issue is an enlightened process of political will formation, one that meets three criteria (Offe and Preuss, 1991). A deliberative democracy is one that is:

1. fact regarding, as opposed to ignorant or doctrinaire; 2. other regarding, as opposed to merely self-interested and selfish; and 3. future regarding, as opposed to short term and myopic.

The manner in which the Syrian crisis has been addressed by western polities signals a shift, at least for now, in how acts of war are deliberated by those governments considering military intervention.

Could we have reached a stage in the western way of war where there has been a tipping point toward a more deliberative moment? A moment whereby the accumulation of evidence about the calamities of war from Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya no longer makes it possible to believe in the efficacy of yet another military strike; a moment where the publics of the UK and US prevent their governments from launching military strikes that will inevitably result in civilian casualties and unpredictable collateral damage; a moment wherein the world seeks lasting solutions to acute crisis in lieu of simply sending a message in a narrow and limited manner? How does the ostensible shift in popular opinion stack up against these three criteria?

It would appear that there is both some good and bad news in this regard. It is encouraging to see the level of discourse, at both the national and international level, pay greater service to the existence and credibility of evidence and what would be gained by a military strike in terms of resolving the Syrian conflict. It would appear that the world, at least for now, remembers well the disaster of WMD intelligence in Iraq in 2003 and is demanding a greater degree of transparency and proof before such decisions are made; and that wide ranging populations recognize that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya did not yield their intended results. The catastrophic loss of life in these countries, along with the on-going instability and violence, has given pause to a series of military engagements led by the US and its allies.

However, while there was considerable evidence that the debate was fact regarding, the extent to which it was other and future regarding is unclear. For example, the public opposition to military strikes is often more self-serving than benevolent; focuses more on not getting involved rather than humanitarian or justice-related questions. And as for thinking about how to resolve the Syrian conflict the issue appears most often as “it’s not my problem”. Recent opinion polls show that a majority of Americans are opposed to military strikes (51%, with 36% supporting some form of action). Within the group of respondents that were opposed, however, only 7% explained their opposition as one of moral concern, whereas 24% of those who opposed did so on the grounds that “it is not our war”, or “it’s none of our business”. Interestingly, there was a strong contingency of respondents, 19%, that explained their opposition as based on the fact that America is already involved in too many conflicts and that the US should not be policing the world. This latter category might fit the deliberative criteria to some degree, but the general trend observed in the polls is that those who are opposed are so on self-interested grounds.

Obama’s embarrassment

The same day that the US House of Representatives went back into session and opened debate on military action in Syria, President Obama launched an aggressive media and public relations operation in order to make the case for war to the American public, members of Congress and would be global partners.

Despite his justification for military action he was unable to persuade the world at virtually all levels. Public opinion polls in the US only shifted marginally and support for a military strike, as noted above, remains low. Congressional leaders – following their constituents – were unconvinced, just as the majority of the G20 delegation was the week before. Even though Obama’s efforts failed, they do reveal Obama’s recognition that he cannot easily act, and maintain his reputation, without some broad-based legitimacy – domestic and international. This may seem like an obvious point: however, domestic and international legitimacy have not been prominent features in US foreign and counter terrorism policies heretofore. Before it was enough that a President acted despite domestic and international opinion – no more.

Yet, there was something quite paradoxical about Obama’s efforts. Both he and Sec. Kerry reaffirmed their support of the UN, in principle, but made it very clear that seeking UN approval was not a viable option because of Russian and Chinese obstructionism in the form of Security Council vetoes. In fact, it is the US that practices this form of obstructionism far more often than any of the other veto-wielding countries (excepting only the Soviet Union in the first 10 years of the United Nations). At the G20 gathering in St. Petersburg Obama sought support from the international community; when he received only limited and highly qualified support for military action he pressed on with the plans regardless.

His decision to consult Congress was significant and, as discussed above, might have been a triumphant moment for a more deliberative democracy. However, whilst his administration lobbied Congress, they also qualified the need for Congressional approval in the first place. Thus, the world witnessed this odd diplomatic dance wherein Obama was seeking domestic and international legitimacy but making sure to tell the world and even the US public that their permission is not actually necessary. This may count as courtesy, but it falls far short of accountable leadership. It also falls far short of a credible respect for both the democratic process and international law.

Less than a week after the US Congress opened debate on the issue, the request for a vote was withdrawn, faced with a new Russian proposal to disarm Assad of chemical weapons. There is discussion as to the exact origin of the proposal; however, the result is clear. In the context of a sceptical global public, a cautious US population and a hesitant Congress, Obama took his finger off the trigger – for now.

Meanwhile, the war rages on

Yet, the whole debate about Syria and chemical weapons leaves open the question of what next in Syria.

A general consensus recognizes that there are no good options but that something must be done. The deadlock in global governance bodies, particularly the UN Security Council, has thus far relegated the existing institutions useless when it comes to developing a strategy and plan.

In the longer term, the institutional malaise of global governance must be addressed; the debates on efficacy and equitable representation of peoples and countries must be taken seriously, and these must drive reform, if the world is to have a legitimate system of international institutions. In the short term, however, moving towards reform in the global arena will do very little to address the Syrian crisis. There are a range of options when it comes to the short term response to Syria, but not a lot of hope in most of them. One can see how in many cases the feasibility of a potential solution inversely relates to the legitimacy of that option. That is to say, for many options, the more likely the potential solution is to be implemented, the less legitimate it is, in global terms. Such a model could be conceived in the figure below:

Figure 1. Feasibility-Legitimacy Dimensions: Some Examples

Take, for instance, the example of US military strikes. The option to utilize the American military is certainly feasible. Should Obama decide to launch missiles into Syria, however, he will face widespread condemnation from the world community; such an action, it has been argued, would be a violation of international law and would undermine the credibility of the United Nations system. In short, it lacks legitimacy and could be placed in the lower- right quadrant in the figure above. Moving down the feasibility spectrum, there is the possibility for an alliance such as NATO to act. This might have some legitimacy, but is less likely given the opposition to military strikes among key NATO members; this option might be placed in the lower-left quadrant.

At the other end of the spectrum there are options such as the creation of a safe zone for humanitarian aid delivery, peacekeeping forces on the ground, a political/diplomatic resolution to the crisis and a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration campaign to transition the country back into stability; these solutions could plausibly be placed in the upper left quadrant. This would necessarily have to be a project initiated and implemented by the United Nations, so right away it passes the legitimacy test, but falls to a low point on the feasibility spectrum.

The challenge, therefore, is to find an option that does not fit this trend; an approach that does not compromise legitimacy for feasibility – one that would fit into the upper-right quadrant of the figure provided here. Perhaps by clever diplomacy or perhaps by a ‘rhetorical’ stumble, one such option may have presented itself last week, when the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov, capitalized on what appeared to be a flippant remark made by John Kerry only hours earlier. Kerry, with a tone of sarcasm, said that the Assad regime could avoid military strikes if they surrendered their stockpile of chemical weapons. The US State Department quickly tried to back off this position and explained it as a ‘rhetorical argument’; however, the wheels of diplomacy were already in motion. Russia quickly presented this to the Syrian government, who have since accepted the deal in principle. With US-Russia agreement on the basic terms of the deal, the world now waits to see if Assad will cooperate and abide by the requirements they have set out.

Questions linger as to how this deal will be brokered into implementation; principally, questions over the use of force if Assad does not comply, and what role the UN Security Council will play in the end. As of now, this approach to the chemical weapons crisis appears to deviate from the trend explained above; it enjoys the legitimacy of the international community and in fact strengthens international law, and at least for the time being looks as though it might even be feasible. If the deal falls apart, then this option too will slip back into line with the feasibility-legitimacy hypothesis outlined here.

Beyond this, the civil war will continue to rage and the options here look more dire. The truism that there is only a solution through politics remains. Perhaps with the doors open to Moscow and Tehran, there is scope for more political manoeuvring, manoeuvring that might lead to a transformation of the Syrian regime and the ultimate removal of Assad. But this would still leave a war-torn country bitterly divided with factions and jihadists still at war with each other, and more extensively armed than ever before. Introducing democracy in such a context, while desirable in principle, is improbable and can even be dangerous; without the grassroots development of a culture of citizenship, democracy can simply magnify identity politics.

If a deal on Syria was to occur, and peace was achieved, the conditions might be created for freedom to begin to flourish. Infrastructures of freedom, embedding freedom of the press, association and expression, could begin to be built. Civil society associations might be entrenched and activists encouraged to create links across sectarian divides on the many common issues all such people share: the need for security, subsistence, schooling, jobs and so on. With such institutions in place a culture of politics might begin to flourish which separates ethnic and religious identities from constitutional structures and autonomous political processes. The separation of both rulers and ruled from the state – a critical condition of modern political structures which imposes the rule of law on all – could begin to be set in place. But we are a long way from here.

If the latest Russian-American deal on Assad’s chemical weapons sticks, diplomatic circles across the world may well celebrate this as a great victory. Putin’s Russia will be emboldened in the international system and politicians will deliver polite speeches trying to take credit for the success. Meanwhile, the killing fields remain undisturbed and in desperate search of an alternative politics – one that is both feasible and legitimate.

9

Red lines and dangerous incoherence: Syria and the international community David Held and Kyle McNally 1 September 2013

British hesitation and the military option

The debate and votes in the British Parliament on Thursday, August 29 were momentous by any standard, wherein the House of Commons rejected a government motion that would have left open the door for military action against Syria.

This was the first time since 1782 that a Prime Minister lost a vote of this kind. Many MPs afterwards were in a state of shock. Few predicted that both the Labour and government motions would fall with the extraordinary outcome that the Prime Minister would declare ‘the government will act accordingly’. The reverberations from this statement have been felt across the world, and especially across the Atlantic. This was evident from a 20-minute statement given by US Secretary of State John Kerry the following day, when he did not even mention Britain once. This silence was made only louder by the subtle but significant endorsement of France as the US’ ‘oldest ally’. Whilst it would be premature to say the special relationship between the UK and the US has been undermined, it is certainly under some pressure.

The special relationship has typically meant that the UK would walk in-step with key elements of US foreign policy. This deference to the US has, for now, halted. The logic of war since 9/11 – act irrespective of compelling and comprehensive evidence from UN weapons inspectors, and other impartial sources – has broken down. A much more cautious House of Commons rightly asked for sound procedures before any decision regarding acts of war are made – sound procedures with respect to evidence collection (ensuring enough time for the UN chemical weapons inspectors to do their work), allowing enough time for the UN Security Council to debate and come to a considered view, and demanding overall that these procedures are respected and adhered to. In sum, they took the view: no war without publicly justifiable evidence, an affirmative vote by the House of Commons, and legitimacy in international law via UN Security Council resolution.

Although a rush to war has been averted in the British Parliament, elsewhere weapons are being readied. Last year President Obama drew a ‘red line’ in the sand on the deployment of chemical weapons, warning that their use would constitute a grave violation of inviolable international norms. As he has recently insisted, ‘we cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale’. He has consulted his military brass about a wide range of options and indicated that ‘a limited, narrow act’ of military force is being closely considered. While he is clear that he has not made any final military decision, he is equally clear that he ‘meant what (he) said’. His position will now be tested by Congress, a bold move Obama initiated on Saturday, August 31. Assuming Congress approves the President’s view, the US will be poised to act. Meanwhile, President Hollande of France has insisted that ‘France will be part of it. France is ready.’ And a number of other countries have signalled their support (Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia as well as other Gulf Monarchies).

While some form of military action against Assad appears imminent, it is striking that Obama and his allies acknowledge that any action must be circumscribed and avoid at all costs ‘boots on the ground’ or a ‘long term campaign’. The Obama administration is well aware of the political and human costs of the post-9/11 wars. It appreciates that the geopolitical results were far from what was intended or expected, and that domestic support for military conflict is minimal. Kerry put the point bluntly when he stated that any operation in Syria would ‘bear no resemblance to Afghanistan, Iraq or even Libya’, that the US would not ‘assume responsibility for a civil war that is already well under way’.

Which red line?

Evidence provided by a summary intelligence report from the US outlines the case against Assad, and illustrates the regime’s responsibility for the chemical weapons attack. The veracity of such intelligence will never be completely certain and verifiable, however, the US and its allies are making decisions as if it were – and this is what matters most in a call to action. The red line has been crossed and there must be consequences. The world’s despots must learn that this norm cannot be violated without repercussions. But this begs the question, why this red line? With over a hundred thousand dead, over five million people displaced by civil war, and atrocities of diverse kinds, why focus on chemical weapons? Is it that deaths by chemical weapons are somehow more appalling and outrageous? Why is it that a death toll greater than 5,000, 10,000 or 100,000 does not cross a red line, but the deaths from chemical weapons do?

In the US Administration’s account, the justification is that a sacred international norm has been violated, and the use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburbs affects their national interests – interests which can only be protected in an international arena free of weapons of mass destruction. An important element of this is that Israeli security requires the region to be free of weapons of mass destruction (and this, despite the fact that Israel holds an arsenal of nuclear weapons). But in an age of drones, cruise missiles, stealth bombers and hugely powerful conventional weapons, and over a decade of appalling loss of life in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, we need to ask about the coherence of an acceptable and legitimate ‘red line’. There is no question the use of chemical weapons is abhorrent and breaks a fundamental international law; indeed there is a stark qualitative difference in casualties resulting from chemical weapons and conventional weapons. But the scope and scale of civilian deaths resulting from conventional weapons far exceeds those from chemical weapons to date in Syria. This poses an important question about what constitutes a red line, or a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate warfare. What global security means, and how we achieve it, is deeply puzzling in this context.

Dangerous incoherence

The international community has failed from the outset to address the calamity of Syria in a manner that would provide protection to civilians or bring the conflict to a close. This was apparent during the recent G8 conference at Lough Erne, Ireland earlier this summer. All parties agreed on a banal reference to the desirability of a political solution (paragraph 7), but set out few practical ways to achieve it. Russia blocked any mention of Assad in the official communiqué and obstructed any action taken against him. The reductio ad absurdum came when the communiqué called for Syrian authorities ‘to commit to destroying and expelling from Syria all organizations and individuals affiliated to Al Qaeda, and any other non-state actors linked to terrorism’ (paragraph 87). Surely Assad would have been delighted to read this.

Up until the current crisis, the UN Security Council had deliberated and voted on three separate resolutions pertaining to the conflict. Each one has been vetoed in turn by Russia and China. When it comes to Syria, the international community is, for all intents and purposes, gridlocked (see Hale, Held and Young, 2013). The institution tasked with maintaining global peace and security – the United Nations – has failed in remarkable ways to respond to the Syrian crisis.

In the absence of any coherent international approach, different countries have taken a range of responses and positions in relation to the crisis. There are those of course that back Assad, including Russia and Iran. There are those who strongly support particular factions within the rebel forces. Among these are the US, the EU and some of the Gulf Monarchies. Yet, while they have given their support to parts of the opposition these countries remain far from united on the matter of military intervention with Britain and Germany parting ways from the US and France. Meanwhile, Iran is threatening retaliation against Israel if Assad is attacked, and Israel is preparing its own military options. On top of all of this, even those in favour of military action against Assad are, at one and the same time, seemingly hesitant to take decisive action on behalf of any one party. For example, Obama and Kerry have made it clear that the US has no intention of conducting anything more than a limited military operation, without a continuing engagement in the civil war. Against this background, the Syrian crisis continues to deepen and civilians continue to bear the brunt of a devastating and tragic conflict.

The responsibility to protect and its limits

The international community has attempted to offer a framework for managing crises in which states no longer can or will provide security to their citizens, but these attempts have been fatally flawed. In 2001 The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty set out the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine; a doctrine justifying and even calling for international action when a state cannot or will not protect its own citizens. The UN adopted this doctrine in 2005 at the World Summit. Since then it has been evoked in the justification of intervention in Libya and it undergirds the current discussion surrounding action in Syria. However, the manner in which it is invoked is at best myopic and, at worst, self-serving. What is meant to be a three-fold responsibility to prevent, to react, and to re- build, has been narrowed to reaction alone and only in select instances.

A deeper problem concerning the responsibility to protect doctrine is the question of who decides when to apply the doctrine and under what criteria and evidence. As things stand, the doctrine is operationalized only on the decision of a select few. The alternative would be the creation of new rules and procedures which would weigh evidence that peoples around the world could find compelling and acceptable – ways independent of the particular interests and concerns of any one or set of nation state(s), whether powerful or humble. The Security Council at the centre of such deliberations could not be the Security Council that prevails today, for this one is constituted by the geopolitical settlement of 1945, which embedded privileges and select interests into its very structure.

Given the current organisation of the Security Council, leading states will continue to impose solutions on an ad hoc and, at times, unilateral basis. In this context, leading states play out a diversity of positions geared as much toward domestic politics as wider international considerations. This is far from an international community that is evidence- based, coherent, impartial and effective.

The (lack of a) way forward

The Obama administration continues to build a coalition that supports, either in principle or in action, a military operation against Assad and the Syrian army. It stresses how any military strike would be limited and narrow.

Yet, even a more restrained operation is fraught with unpredictable and potentially unintended consequences. The continuing violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the intensity of identity politics in each of these countries, and the weakness of political institutions throughout the region provide ample warning that any military operation, regardless of how narrow it might be, could go horribly wrong.

At the start of the Syrian civil war there may have been an opportunity to create safe havens for vulnerable populations and humanitarian corridors for individuals fleeing violence. A no- fly-zone across these areas may even have been possible. However, the military capacity held by the United States, and the political will they draw upon, is not suited for such activities. The US military and its appetite for action continue to be guided by the logic of large scale interstate war; wars fought with naval destroyers, cruise missiles, f-16 fighter jets and unmanned drones.

Moreover, pacific and democratic societies can take centuries to establish, whatever the declared objectives of those who seek to build new representative state institutions. European democracies were formed over hundreds of years and then nearly imploded in the first half of the twentieth century. Without a separation of ethnic and religious identities from the political sphere, without the establishment of a culture of citizenship, without the creation of a polity separate from the interests and entitlements of particular groups, democratic institutions are very difficult to create and sustain, if they can be at all. Western intervention since 9/11 has demonstrated, although this lesson hardly needed repeating, that there is a world of difference between winning a conflict and creating peace, between violent intrusion and institution building, between interventions and a political solution based on justice.

Of course, Obama’s position could be undermined if Congress, following the House of Commons, does not endorse military action. As unlikely as it seems, such a move by Congress would be a huge stepping stone to undoing the US and western way of war since 9/11. Let us hope. In the meantime, one can only look on with a hesitation and despair as Syria disintegrates, human suffering abounds, and the region slips further into instability.

10

9/11 Wars: A Reckoning David Held and Kyle McNally 9 March 2015

9/11 was a crime against the US and a crime against humanity. The trauma of the planes crashing into the World Trade Towers will remain an image of lasting profanity. Since then, wars have been fought to keep terrorism offshore and to eradicate extremism and despotism at their source.

Recently, there is much press commentary about the consequences of failed post-9/11 wars and intervention, renewed by the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Commentators note with alarm the spread of IS across Northern Syria, large swathes of Iraq, parts of Libya and other countries with copycat armed groups. The beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya and 45 people burned to death in Iraq inevitably raise the loudest possible alarm; the grotesqueness of the events only matched by the brazenness of the executioners’ celebrations. There is a call, again, to arms.

Some blame the failure to stabilise Afghanistan after 2001 on the start of the war in Iraq in 2003. Some blame the failure of the war in Iraq on a lack of adequate planning and a failure to follow through. Some blame the failure of intervention in Libya on reluctance to put “boots on the ground” due to the widespread war fatigue that followed Afghanistan and Iraq. Some people blame the chaos in Syria on the ad hoc arming of rebel groups and an unwillingness to intervene more directly. The point being that all these wars might have succeeded if only the tactics had been better, the strategy sharper, and post-conflict reconstruction more clearly defined.

The truth is, however, that these wars were misconceived from the outset and have created a calamitous geopolitical failure from which very few lessons have been learned. The wars have also created a vast power vacuum as postcolonial regimes were toppled with no viable strategy for what comes next. Into this vacuum stepped armed groups who have sought to shore up power like postmodern medieval warlords and warring barons. The result has been a calamitous orgy of violence linked to social media for the widest possible impact in the search for territory, resources and control. The claims to religious justification cannot disguise the barbaric cruelty of the actions. The 9/11 wars were governed by a belief that despots could be toppled and replaced by democratic regimes as a result of short demonstrations of awesome American military power, with some allies in-tow. The wars were led by people that had no understanding of the countries they were fighting in, no grasp of the culture or language, no sense of the politics and the peoples, no account of local interests and divisions, and no plan for once the fighting had begun. These wars were led by men who, at best, were gripped by the belief they had the ability to reshape other countries in their own image.

Such a mind-set might be conceived as a benign deployment of a colonial imaginary put to the service of reconstructing other societies through armed conflict in the interest of repressed peoples. But there is a less benign interpretation, of course, that such a position veils the prosecution of war fought out for resources, revenge, and, at times, for a Christian god. This is less a benevolent colonial imaginary than a crusading mind-set.

While some may claim that the wars rolled back Al-Qaeda, prevented a massacre in Benghazi and rid Assad of chemical weapons, we have to ask at what cost? The advances have not been sustained: terrorism continues to flourish, arms abound, open markets for slaves have developed, and massacres are widespread. The scale of the death toll and displacements of people have become difficult to grasp, and the destruction of infrastructure evokes images of Armageddon. By this standard, war after war has failed.

If western political leaders go to war promising security and resolution, the defeat of armed aggressors and their replacement with benign institutions and, if none of these promises are kept, surely it is the moment to seek accountability and justice. The International Criminal Court is rigged to ensure that no western leaders can be tried for crimes of war without a referral from their own states, the Security Council, or through the prosecutor’s office. Leading states have ensured that none of these routes will be followed.

The 9/11 wars were conceived against the tide of history. There are only few historical instances of democracies being borne out of war (e.g. Italy, Germany, Austria and Japan in the aftermath of WWII). But this should hardly be a surprise. Democracies depend on the most subtle cultural conditions in which people can separate the values of citizenship from sectarian, ethnic, tribal and other forms of identity politics. This shift took centuries in the West and came about through centuries of struggle, debate and the slow entrenchment of that most universal of ideas – citizenship, as a trump for other forms of particular political claims.

The 9/11 wars sought to circumscribe these processes and, instead of democracy, produced the vacuum into which sectarian and tribal identities could flourish. This was a negation of history and a negation of all that should have been learnt about how liberal and democratic cultures evolve in delicate and slow trajectories. Given the current crises in the Middle East and North Africa (and of course, one might add Ukraine), we must ask if lessons have been learnt from the series of post-9/11 failures. In Europe David Cameron still speaks of the war in Libya as necessary and justified, while clearly acting in a more cautious manner. Obama is more explicitly reticent on the prospect of direct military engagement on the scale deployed in Libya, instead emphasising long term strategies to combat terrorism – in the form of development and self-determination (supported, in part, by arming and training local actors such as the Kurds), while using airstrikes to slow down the advance of groups like IS. At the same time, he is aware of what one might call the dilemma of violence whereby a military operation may be urgently needed, but runs the risk of, in aggregate, reinforcing the cycle of violence – a challenge seen clearly in the current consideration of whether, and how, to retake Mosul.

But these lessons have been learnt too late and at too high a price. Presumption against war and intervention must be the starting point. We have overwhelming evidence of the failure of war as a contemporary vehicle for democracy promotion: freedom cannot be achieved through war and organised violence, and a lasting peace can only be won through the consent and act of participation of the many.

Just as there must be a presumption against war, there must a presumption in favour of nurturing sites of citizenship values with a commitment to building intermediate institutions like universities, publishing houses and the press, as well as nurturing civil society, with the aim to lay down the roots of a culture of self-determination and curtailment of the use of arbitrary power.

There remain many unresolved issues about how to proceed faced with IS, Boko Haram, or despotic and repressive States, with civilians frequently caught in the crossfire. In the short- term, they must be checked by cutting off economic resources that feed their activity in tough sanctions; by stemming their access to arms; and by holding them to account as criminals, not conventional military adversaries, for their violent crimes within a framework of law and law enforcement. In the current period, this can only be done by a mixture of national and regional military arrangements. But herein lies a difficulty.

A robust law enforcement process that upholds impartial norms would need to draw on military and policing assets that serve as enforcers of law, not as agents of geopolitical interests. An enforcement capacity of this kind only exists today in embryo and in an uneven manner, and there are no institutions that can impartially apply frameworks like the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. Snared by geopolitical interests post-9/11 interventions have too easily been captured by leading states. Building a robust law enforcement process is a long-term process and, yet, it is paradoxically a requirement of legitimate and effective short-term solutions. In the meantime, one way to bridge the 9/11 wars to a framework of law and impartial norms would be to ensure the accountability of political leaders for their failed wars. If such leaders were formally judged by the veracity of their claims to armed intervention, as well as by the result, they might pause before pursuing the kind of disastrous 9/11 wars that have blighted contemporary history. In the absence of such mechanisms, there is a role for domestic inquiries examining the causes and consequences of war. Such inquiries have been undertaken with respect to Iraq by the Chilcot Inquiry (UK) and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report (US). However, when a review process is wholly domestic it is optimistic – perhaps naïve – to expect the degree of impartiality envisioned here.

Without such accountability, there is a great danger that whatever lessons have been learned will be short-lived and that offshore conflict might return to haunt the capitals of those powers claiming to create peace and eradicate terrorism, when all they have achieved is heinous levels of death, destruction and exacerbation of violence.

11

The Vicious Cycle of Pitiless Violence 24 November 2015

There has been carnage over the last few days in Beirut, Baghdad, Paris and Bamako and, of course, there have been numerous such attacks before these and, no doubt, numerous more to come. To understand something of why, it is important to start with the terrorist atrocities on 9/11, when hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Centre and into one side of the Pentagon.

On Sunday, September 23, 2001, 12 days after 9/11, the novelist Barbara Kingsolver wrote something remarkable in The Los Angeles Times, a passage I have come back to many times:

‘It’s the worst thing that’s happened, but only this week. Two years ago, an earthquake in Turkey killed 17,000 people in a day, babies and mothers and businessmen…. The November before that, a hurricane hit Honduras and Nicaragua and killed even more…. Which end of the world shall we talk about? Sixty years ago, Japanese airplanes bombed Navy boys who were sleeping on ships in gentle Pacific waters. Three and a half years later, American planes bombed a plaza in Japan where men and women were going to work, where schoolchildren were playing, and more humans died at once than anyone thought possible. Seventy thousand in a minute. Imagine….

There are no worst days, it seems. Ten years ago, early on a January morning, bombs rained down from the sky and caused great buildings in the city of Baghdad to fall down – hotels, hospitals, palaces, buildings with mothers and soldiers inside – and here in the place I want to love best, I had to watch people cheering about it. In Baghdad, survivors shook their fists at the sky and said the word “evil”. When many lives are lost all at once, people gather together and say words like “heinous” and “honor” and “revenge”…. They raise up their compatriots’ lives to a sacred place – we do this, all of us who are human – thinking our own citizens to be more worthy of grief and less willingly risked than lives on other soil.’ (2001)

This is an unsettling and challenging passage. When I first read it, I felt angered and unsympathetic to its call to think systematically about 9/11 in the context of other disasters, acts of aggression and wars. It makes uncomfortable reading precisely because it invites the reader to step outside of the maelstrom of 9/11 and other terrorist atrocities and put those events in a wider historical and evaluative framework. Uncomfortable as this request is, we have to accept it if we are to find a satisfactory way of making sense of them.

If 9/11 was not a defining moment in human history, it certainly was for today’s generations. The terrorist violence was an atrocity of extraordinary proportions. It was a crime against America and against humanity; a massive breach of many of the core codes of international law; and an attack on the fundamental principles of freedom, democracy, justice and humanity itself, i.e. those principles which affirm the sanctity of life, the importance of self-determination and of equal rights and liberty.

After 9/11, the US and its allies could have decided that the most important things to do were to strengthen international law in the face of global terrorist threats, and to enhance the role of multilateral institutions. They could have decided it was important that no single group or power should act as judge, jury and executioner. They could have decided that global hotspots like the Middle East which feed global terrorism should be the core priority, and that all key parties need to be involved in a sustained dialogue (including Russia, Iran and other regional players). They could have decided that the disjuncture between economic globalization and social justice needed more urgent attention, and they could have decided to be tough on terrorism and tough on the conditions which lead some people to imagine that Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other similar groups are agents of justice in the modern world. But they have systematically failed to pursue any of these things. In general, the world after 9/11 has become more polarized and international law, weaker.

Failure: a vicious cycle

Enter the war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq again. We are in a vicious cycle of violence. President Hollande’s statement, following the Paris atrocities that “we are going to lead a pitiless war” could have been applied to any one of these post-9/11 conflicts. He calls for, what is in effect, an extension of previous policies that have failed in almost every one of their objectives.

In recent weeks, there has been much commentary, in the press and social media, about the consequences of the failed post-9/11 wars and military interventions, renewed by the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Commentators note with alarm the spread of ISIS across Northern Syria, large swathes of Iraq, parts of Libya and other countries with copycat armed groups. The beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya and 45 people burned to death in Iraq, for example, inevitably raise the loudest possible alarm; the grotesqueness of the events only matched by the brazenness of the executioners’ celebrations. There is a call again, and again, to arms. The events in Paris, and Hollande’s response, can be placed in this context.

Some blame the failure to stabilise Afghanistan after 2001 on the start of the war in Iraq in 2003. Some blame the failure of the war in Iraq on a lack of adequate planning and a failure to follow through. Some blame the failure of intervention in Libya on reluctance to put “boots on the ground” due to the widespread war fatigue that followed Afghanistan and Iraq. Some people blame the chaos in Syria on the ad hoc arming of rebel groups and an unwillingness (at least up until now) to intervene more directly. The point being that all these wars might have succeeded if only the tactics had been better, the strategy sharper, and post-conflict reconstruction more clearly defined.

The truth is, however, that these wars were misconceived from the outset and have created a calamitous geopolitical failure from which very few lessons have been learned. The wars have also created a vast power vacuum as postcolonial regimes were toppled with no viable strategy for what comes next.

Into this vacuum stepped armed groups who have sought to shore up power like postmodern medieval warlords and warring barons. The result has been a calamitous orgy of violence linked to social media for the widest possible impact in the search for territory, resources and power. The claims to religious justification cannot disguise the barbaric cruelty of the actions.

At what cost?

The 9/11 wars were governed by a belief that despots could be toppled and replaced by accountable or, better still, democratic regimes as a result of short demonstrations of awesome American military power, with some allies in-tow. The wars were led by people that had no understanding of the countries they were fighting in, no grasp of the culture or language, no sense of the politics and the peoples, no account of local interests and divisions, and no plan for once the fighting had begun. These wars were led by men who, at best, were gripped by the belief they had the ability to reshape other countries in their own image.

Such a mind-set might be conceived as a benign deployment of a colonial imaginary put to the service of reconstructing other societies through armed conflict in the interest of repressed peoples. But there is a less benign interpretation, of course, that such a position veils the prosecution of war fought out for resources (oil), revenge, and, at times, for a Christian god. This is less a benevolent colonial imaginary than, perhaps, the return of a crusading mind-set.

While some may claim that the 9/11 wars rolled back Al-Qaeda, prevented a massacre in Benghazi and rid Assad of chemical weapons, at what cost? The advances have not been sustained: terrorism continues to flourish, arms abound, open markets for slaves have developed, and massacres are widespread. The scale of the death toll and displacements of people have become difficult to grasp, and the destruction of infrastructure evokes images of Armageddon. By this standard, war after war has failed.

The evolution of citizenship

The 9/11 wars were conceived against the tide of history. There are only few historical instances of democracies being borne out of war (e.g. Italy, Germany, Austria and Japan in the aftermath of WWII). But this should hardly be a surprise. Democracies depend on the most subtle cultural conditions in which people can separate the values of citizenship from sectarian, ethnic, tribal and other forms of identity politics. This shift took centuries in the west and came about through centuries of struggle, debate and the slow entrenchment of that most universal of ideas – citizenship, as a trump for other forms of particular political claims.

The 9/11 wars sought to circumscribe these processes and, instead of democracy, produced the vacuum into which sectarian and tribal identities could flourish. This was a negation of history and a negation of all that should have been learnt about how liberal and democratic cultures evolve in delicate and slow trajectories.

Given the current crises in the Middle East and North Africa (and of course, one might add Ukraine), we must ask if lessons have been learnt from the series of post-9/11 failures. In Europe David Cameron still speaks of the war in Libya as necessary and justified, and now of the necessity and justification of extending a bombing campaign to Syria. Obama is more explicitly reticent on the prospect of direct military engagement on the scale deployed in Libya, instead emphasising long term strategies to combat terrorism – in the form of development and self-determination (supported, in part, by arming and training local actors such as the Kurds), while using airstrikes to slow down the advance of groups like ISIS. At the same time, he is aware of what one might call the dilemma of violence whereby a military operation may be urgently needed, but runs the risk, in aggregate, of reinforcing the cycle of violence.

But these lessons have been learnt too late and at too high a price. Presumption against war and intervention must be the starting point. We have overwhelming evidence of the failure of war as a contemporary vehicle for the promotion of good governance: freedom cannot be achieved through war and organised violence, and a lasting peace can only be won through the consent and act of participation of the many. Just as there must be a presumption against war, there must a presumption in favour of nurturing sites of citizenship values, with a commitment to building intermediate institutions such as a free press and access to social media, as well as nurturing civil society, with the aim to lay down the roots of a culture of self-determination and curtailment of the use of arbitrary power.

Unresolved issues

There remain many unresolved issues about how to proceed faced with ISIS, Boko Haram, or despotic and repressive states, with civilians frequently caught in the crossfire.

After the Mumbai attacks of 2008, which left 164 people dead, the government in India did not rush to war. As Vijay Prashad has aptly noted, the Indian government opened an “investigation into the attack and unravelled the plot and its execution. Diplomatic discussions opened with Pakistan, which is accused by India of harbouring the planners of the attack. The file remains open. Patience is the order of the day. No hasty missile strike could make up for the attack in Mumbai. It would only have escalated the conflict further and drawn India and Pakistan into an intolerable war. It is far better to pursue the case prudently.”

Today, we all know the challenge of ISIS and other such groups does not have straightforward solutions. In the short-term, ISIS must be checked by cutting off economic resources that feed their activity via tough sanctions; by confronting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies whose funds have supported and enhanced these violent networks; by stemming their access to arms from many of the same countries (as well as from captured US supplies to moderate Muslim groups); by putting pressure on Turkey’s rulers to put aside domestic considerations and to stop attacking the Kurds; by involving all leading global and regional powers in strategic conversations about how to curb and stop ISIS, and to create a foundation for a new political settlement in the region; and by holding ISIS fighters to account as criminals, not conventional military adversaries, for their violent crimes within a framework of law and law enforcement. In the current period, this can only be done by a mixture of national and regional military arrangements. But herein lies a difficulty.

A robust law enforcement process that upholds impartial norms would need to draw on military and policing assets that serve as enforcers of law, not as agents of geopolitical interests. An enforcement capacity of this kind only exists today in embryo and in an uneven manner, and there are no institutions that can impartially apply frameworks like the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. Snared by geopolitical interests, post-9/11 interventions have too easily been captured by leading states. Building a robust law enforcement process is a long-term process and, yet, it is paradoxically a requirement of legitimate and effective short-term solutions.

The new resolution at the UN (resolution 2249) goes some way towards creating a legal framework for intervention against ISIS. Yet it falls short in crucial respects. While it calls on all nations to redouble and coordinate their efforts by “all necessary means” to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed by ISIS, it does not specify what these means are, and leaves the scale and scope of military action unspecified and in question. It also falls well short of generating a robust law and law enforcement framework which would allow the pursuit of criminal terrorists and the capacities to bring them to account. Instead, it provides an impetus for the intensification of conflict yet again.

Few lessons seem to have been learnt from the failures of the post-9/11 wars to date.

The intensity of the range of responses to the atrocities of 9/11, Beirut and Paris is fully understandable. There cannot be many people in the world who do not experience shock, revulsion, horror, anger and a desire for vengeance, as the Kingsolver passage acknowledges. This emotional range is perfectly natural within the context of the immediate events. But it cannot be the basis for a more considered and wise response.

The fight against terror must be put on a new footing. Terrorists must be bought to heel and those who protect and nurture them must be bought to account. Zero tolerance is fully justified in these circumstances. Terrorism does negate our most elementary and cherished principles and values. But any defensible, justifiable and sustainable response to terrorism must be consistent with our founding principles and the aspirations of international society for security, law, and the impartial administration of justice – aspirations painfully articulated after the Holocaust and the Second World War – and embedded, albeit imperfectly, in regional and global law and the institutions of global governance.

The framers of these institutional arrangements affirmed the importance of universal principles, human rights, and the rule of law when there were strong temptations to simply put up the shutters and defend the decision of some nations and countries only. The response to terrorism could follow in the footsteps of these achievements and strengthen our multilateral institutions and international legal arrangements; or, it could take us further away from the fragile gains towards a world of further antagonisms and divisions – a distinctively uncivil world. At the time of writing the signs are not good, but we have not yet run out of choices.

12

Reflections on Intervention in the 21st Century David Held and Kyle McNally 18 December 2014

Drones, controlled remotely from many miles away, routinely circle the skies above large swathes of Iraq. This is the latest iteration of intervention in the region—now targeting the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). Such operations have become the embodiment of US ‘counter-terrorism’ policy but the landscape of this intervention, like all others, is unique.

Over the last seven months IS has waged a war of brutality and repression across Syria and large parts of Iraq. The group also pursues a propaganda campaign unabashedly celebrating and promoting the war crimes it commits. The international response was slow from the start, remains limited and is decidedly tentative about troop deployments. Meanwhile, the atrocities continue.

The debate today about military intervention, humanitarian or otherwise, is at least as acute and urgent as at any time in recent decades. But this debate is highly complex and wrought with competing understandings of core concepts.

Legality

The legality of intervention is a crucial concern. It is typically understood as specified by chapters I (article 2) and VII (article 51) of the Charter of the United Nations, which firmly defend the sovereign equality of member states, while sanctioning war only in the respective cases of self-defence and threats to international peace and security. Additionally, intervention may be initiated by a regional organisation under chapter VIII, and can be considered legal so long as subsequent Security Council authorisation is obtained. Gareth Evans strongly argues that the UN Charter “is the only possible source of authority” for any and all interventions.

Yet broader interpretations of legal intervention, relying on customary law, have sometimes been proffered. Current actions against IS, as with Kosovo in 1999, may well fall into this category—humanitarian need is undeniable and crimes against humanity evident. Given the state of affairs in the Middle East and prevailing intervention strategies under the Obama administration, the customary-law justification appears to be the most common for action outside of the UN Charter framework. While this may avoid the pitfalls of a gridlocked Security Council, it runs the risk of creating more confusion in the realm of legality— particularly when the case for intervention is shrouded in controversy. In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), chaired by Evans, developed the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) doctrine, attempting to recast sovereignty as contingent upon a state’s willingness and ability to protect its citizens—to uphold their fundamental human rights. The doctrine posits that when states fail to meet this obligation the responsibility to protect individuals falls on the international community.

R2P has gradually transformed the discourse surrounding intervention and is seen by some as providing clear-cut guidance on when military force may be utilised in pressing humanitarian situations. R2P principles were adopted by the General Assembly in 2005 but the doctrine remains non-binding and does not confer legal rights; nor does it impose binding restrictions pertaining to intervention. Notably, R2P does not amend the criteria for intervention in the UN Charter—it supplements them by filling a hole and providing a further justification for intervention (still under the charter).

Thomas Weiss suggests that we ought to call the UN’s endorsement of the doctrine “R2P lite” because, unlike the original ICISS recommendations, the September 2005 summit made Security Council approval a sine qua non rather than merely highly desirable. Its invocation in Security Council resolutions has brought controversy and mounting criticism.

Charles Kupchan analyses this in relation to the NATO intervention in Libya, arguing that the operation “initially enjoyed legitimacy and legality” but, because of NATO’s over- stretching of the mandate and perceived mission overreach, it “ended up on contested ground”. As long as R2P intersects with the geopolitical interests of powerful states, the question of whether it can ever be applied systematically and impartially remains in doubt.

That R2P has been endorsed in the General Assembly, invoked by the Security Council and become ubiquitous in debates about intervention may signal a significant change in the understanding of legality and the legitimate grounds for mobilising military forces, so long as issues of impartiality can be resolved in the further articulation and entrenchment of the doctrine. This would require a more coherent and substantive account of who can and should take decisions to implement R2P, under what conditions, with what means and with what appropriate assurances of accountability. That remains some way off.

Legitimacy

A second dominant theme in debates about intervention is the issue of legitimacy. Whilst legal authorisation may create legitimacy in some instances, the two are not synonymous. Rather, legitimacy connotes whether an intervention is regarded as acceptable and/or ‘right’—be it morally or otherwise justified. Legitimacy is perhaps the most difficult concept to make sense of, yet it carries significant weight in the way one understands global order. This is a judgment that can be made by both those in positions of power and also by the many people who are affected by an intervention, ranging from the citizens of intervening states who fund intervention (in)directly to the citizens of states where interventions are made, affecting in profound ways their life chances.

Thomas Risse offers a very interesting contribution to the discussion by distinguishing between two forms of legitimacy: normative legitimacy, which addresses the “question of whether or not a particular political action can be considered legitimate according to some moral or ethical standard”; but also empirical legitimacy, which is the “factual belief by those being ruled (or being intervened in this case) that the ruling authorities (or the interveners) are justified to claim followership”. Pointedly, he argues that there is “a clear relationship between the support of external interveners by local rulers and/or populations, on the one hand, and the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of keeping or restoring the peace on the ground, on the other hand”.

This is a crucial contribution to the debate about both legitimacy and feasibility. Simply put, Risse contends that “successful” intervention requires empirical legitimacy. Yet, such arguments by no means command agreement. In this regard, Anne Orford makes an interesting point. She argues that the “turn to legitimacy” is part of an attack on legalism that can be used by powerful states to carve out space needed for interventions, whilst also maintaining a status quo in the international order. Thus, legitimacy can be hijacked by powerful interests to claim the rightful nature of an action, even if it is blatantly illegal under international law.

Legitimacy is a concept we cannot do without, yet it remains contested at its core. If one considers legitimacy in isolation from questions of legality and feasibility, an approach such as Risse’s might draw the debate closer to a common understanding. In particular, the benefit of employing an ‘empirical’ account of legitimacy is that it comes close to introducing some kind of objective measure that interventions can be considered against. However, as Orford points out, the matter is more complex when considered in relation to legality and global power structures. In this instance, legitimacy, and its pursuit, may sometimes serve to undermine the international legal code.

Feasibility

A third dimension is feasibility. While this may seem a straightforward concept it remains deeply problematic, especially in the context of the complex patterns of conflict and intervention in the 21st century.

Feasibility is, at its core, about judging the means required to achieve a particular end: the protection of civilians, the eradication of a despotic regime, providing relief to populations under severe threat. Is the use of force effective? Does it generate ‘collateral damage’ which undermines the core mission? Does it leave a legacy of violence as the norm of managing conflictual relationships? Does it undermine human-rights standards and the capacity for self-determination? Do the means destroy the end? Michael Doyle and Camille Strauss-Kahn identify one of the many drivers of liberal interventionism as the push for democracy—and argue that the results have not been promising. Apart from the very different circumstances of the aftermath of the second world war, few Western-led interventions have issued in stable democracies.

Indeed, a strong case can be made that many have made things worse—much worse—in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (see Held and Ulrichsen). The reach of the Afghanistan government has been virtually reduced to Kabul plus a few metres on either side of major highways. Iraq is in further turmoil, creating a vacuum in which armed groups can expand. And Libya has become a failed state in practically every sense.

Feasibility is not only about the effectiveness of an action. Will it be implemented at all? And, if so, how, by whom and for how long? Strong UN mandates are increasingly sparse and rarely associated with the capacity to deliver successful intervention. Action can be blocked by permanent members of the Security Council, as when China has vetoed resolutions aimed at putting more pressure on Sudan on Darfur or, more recently, Russia and China have vetoed intervention in the Syrian civil war amid acute human suffering.

Anne-Marie Slaughter argues that while agreement on political and military feasibility may be difficult to reach within government, “it is magnified ten or a hundred fold” when the only way to put together a legal intervention is to involve 14 other governments, “each of which has their own political, military, and humanitarian calculations”. In short, the more state and non-state actors involved in an intervention, the more it is likely to show strains generated by multipolarity and complexity (see Hale, Held and Young, 2013).

Feasibility should not be considered in isolation from the other factors in this debate. Legality and legitimacy may be directly related to it—but in an inverse way. Exploring Yemen, Steven Zyck argues that it is those “projects which operate in a legal grey zone” that are the most feasible, as they face fewer obstacles to implementation and regulation. So feasibility may increase with the weakness of states and the ambiguity of legal context— which is not encouraging, of course, for a rule-based global order.

Conclusion

The diversity of views on these three core aspects of intervention suggests that scholars, politicians and practitioners may be talking past one another—each bringing their own idea of what legality, legitimacy or feasibility may mean. This may be inevitable to some degree but it does make coherent debate difficult to achieve. And how to proceed remains in many cases unresolved: vis-à-vis IS, Boko Haram, despotic and repressive states, as well as a multitude of militias which reign in whatever capacity they can, with civilians frequently caught in the crossfire. These uncertainties are clearly manifest in the struggles by the US president, Barack Obama, to address IS. There appears a clear legal mandate under chapter VIII for intervention, if the UNSC were to give backing beyond the limited sanctions and condemnations set out this year. IS is clearly committing crimes against humanity: rape, pillage, slaughter, torture and so on.

On legitimacy, the terrain is complex—straightforward, perhaps, for Western advocates of intervention or affected Shia populations but certainly not for certain Sunni communities throughout Syria and Iraq. Feasibility is wrought with even greater complexity. Obama has sought a two-pronged strategy of drone warfare and arming local resistance. This is a long way from the tank columns of the ‘coalition of the willing’ landing in Basra and pushing up towards Baghdad.

So far the results, however, seem unfortunately similar. Finding answers to these questions is as difficult as it is necessary.

Andrew Linklater highlights the underlying tension between the ostensibly benevolent motives driving decisions to intervene and the moral and practical complexities of interventions themselves. On one hand, intervention can be shaped by a quest for realistic understandings of war-torn societies and pragmatic approaches. On the other, discourses of intervention can be found to be interpolated with “colonial imaginaries”, a hierarchy of societies constituted on racist assumptions.

The future of intervention is likely to reflect these complex forces, all too often evoking positions on legality, legitimacy and feasibility to suit the geopolitical interests of the time. Yet these concepts are not infinitely malleable, and they carry clear institutional and philosophical content which needs to be understood.

The weight of failure in many recent cases of intervention, with overwhelming death and destruction, makes this debate of paramount significance. Without clarity on these core issues politicians are likely to continue launching violent interventions which cause more harm than good, while undermining a rule-based global order.

Part II: The Failure of Western Politics

13

Global Challenges: Accountability and Effectiveness 17 January 2008

The paradox of our times can be stated simply: the collective issues we must grapple with are of growing extensity and intensity, yet the means for addressing these are weak and incomplete. Three pressing global issues highlight the urgency of finding a way forward.

First, insufficient progress has been made in creating a sustainable framework for the management of climate change, illustrating the serious problems facing the multilateral order.

Second, progress towards achieving the millennium development goals has been slow and in many places lamentably so. Underlying this fact, is, of course, the material vulnerability of over half the world's population. Each year, some 18 million die prematurely from poverty- related causes. This is one third of all human deaths - 50,000 every day, including 29,000 children under the age of 5. And, yet, the gap between rich and poor countries continues to rise and there is evidence that the bottom 10% of the world's population has become even poorer since the beginning of the 1990s.

Third, the threat of nuclear catastrophe may seem to have diminished, as a result of the end of the cold war, but it is only in abeyance. Huge nuclear stockpiles remain, nuclear proliferation among states is continuing, new generations of tactical and nuclear weapons are being built and nuclear terrorism is a serious threat.

These global challenges are indicative of three core sets of problems we face - those concerned with sharing our planet (global warming, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, water deficits); sustaining our life-chances (poverty, conflict prevention, global infectious diseases); and managing our rulebooks (nuclear proliferation, toxic waste disposal, intellectual property rights, genetic research rules, trade rules, finance and tax rules) (cf. Jean-Francois Rischard, High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, Basic Books, 2002). In our increasingly interconnected world, these global problems cannot be solved by any one nation-state. They call for collective and collaborative action - something that the nations of the world have not been good at, and which they need to be better at if these pressing issues are to be adequately tackled. The roots of dysfunction

While complex global processes, from the financial to the ecological, connect the fate of communities to each other across the world, global governance capacity is under pressure. Significant governance innovations have been made in recent decades, but the global- governance system remains too often weak and/or fragmented. Moreover, there has been a complex "unbundling" of sovereignty, territoriality and political forces. This unbundling involves a plurality of actors, a variety of political processes, and diverse levels of co- ordination and operation. Specifically, it includes:

▪ Different forms of intergovernmental arrangements embodying various levels of legalisation, types of instruments utilised and responsiveness to stakeholders;

▪ An increasing number of public agencies - e.g . central bankers - maintaining links with similar agencies in other countries and, thus, forming transgovernmental networks for the management of various global issues;

▪ Diverse business actors - i.e. firms, their associations and organisations such as international chambers of commerce - establishing their own transnational regulatory mechanisms to manage issues of common concern.;

▪ Non-governmental organisations and transnational advocacy networks - i.e. leading actors in global civil society - playing a role in various domains of global governance and at various stages of the global public policy-making process;

▪ Public bodies, business actors and NGOs collaborating in many areas in order to provide novel approaches to social problems through multi-stakeholder networks.

There is evidence that the politicisation, bureaucratisation and capacity limits of multilateral institutions have been important factors in driving the expansion of new forms of global governance, since powerful governments have sought to avoid either expanding the remit of existing multilateral agencies or creating new ones. Another factor that has been significant has been the socio-political shift towards "self-regulation", as the private sector has sought to pre-empt or prevent international public regulation while governments have sought to share the regulatory burden with non-state actors.

Problem-solving capacities at the global and regional level are weak because of a number of structural difficulties, which compound the problems of generating and implementing urgent policy with respect to global goods and bads. These difficulties are rooted in the post-war settlement and the subsequent development of the multilateral order itself. Four deep-rooted problems need mentioning.

A first set of problems emerges as a result of the development of globalisation itself, which generates public policy problems which span the "domestic" and the "foreign", and the interstate order with its clear political boundaries and lines of responsibility. These policy problems are often insufficiently understood or acted upon. There is a fundamental lack of ownership of many of them at the global level.

A second set of difficulties relates to the inertia found in the system of international agencies, or the inability of these agencies to mount collective problem-solving solutions faced with uncertainty about lines of responsibility and frequent disagreement over objectives, means and costs. This often leads to the situation where the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of taking action.

A third set of problems arises because there is no clear division of labour among the myriad of international governmental agencies; functions often overlap, mandates frequently conflict, and aims and objectives too often get blurred.

A fourth set of difficulties relates to an accountability deficit, itself linked to two interrelated problems: the power imbalances among states and those between state and non-state actors in the shaping and making of global public policy. Multilateral bodies need to be fully representative of the states involved in them, and they rarely are.

Underlying these four difficulties is the breakdown of symmetry and congruence between decision-makers and decision-takers. The point has been well articulated recently by Inge Kaul and her associates in their work on global public goods. They speak about the "forgotten equivalence principle" (see Inge Kaul, et al., Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, Oxford University Press, 2003). At its simplest, the principle suggests that those who are significantly affected by a global good or bad should have a say in its provision or regulation, i.e ., the span of a good's benefits and costs should be matched with the span of the jurisdiction in which decisions are taken about that good. Yet, all too often, there is a breakdown of "equivalence" between decision-makers and decision-takers, between decision-makers and stakeholders, and between the inputs and outputs of the decision-making process. Among pressing examples are climate change, the impact of trade subsidies, HIV/Aids management and the question of intellectual property rights.

The ingredients of change

Thus, the challenge is to find ways to align the circles of those to be involved in decision- making with the spillover range of the good under negotiation, i.e. to address the issue of accountability gaps; to create new organisational mechanisms for policy innovation across borders; and to find new ways of financing urgent global public goods. Legitimate political authority at the global level cannot be entrenched adequately without addressing the representative, organisational and financial gaps in governance arrangements.

Surprisingly perhaps, it is an opportune moment to rethink the nature and form of global governance and the dominant policies of the last decade or so. The policy packages that have largely set the global agenda - in economics and security - are failing. The so-called Washington consensus and Washington security doctrines (otherwise market fundamentalism and unilateralism) have dug their own graves. The most successful developing countries in the world (China, India, Vietnam, Uganda, among them) are successful because they have not followed the Washington consensus agenda, and the conflicts that have most successfully been defused (the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Liberia, among others) are ones that have benefited from concentrated multilateral support and a human-security agenda. Here are clear clues as to how to proceed in the future. We need to follow these clues and learn from the mistakes of the past if the rule of law, accountability and the effectiveness of the multilateral order are to be advanced.

In addition, the political tectonic plates appear to be shifting. With the faltering of unilateralism in United States foreign policy, uncertainty over the role of the European Union in global affairs, the crisis of global trade talks, the emergence of powerful authoritarian capitalist states (Russia, China), the growing confidence of leading emerging countries in world economic forums (China, India and Brazil), and the unsettled relations between elements of Islam and the west, business as usual seems unlikely at the global level in the decades ahead. It is highly improbable that the multilateral order can survive for very much longer in its current form.

The post-1945 multilateral order is in trouble. Clear, effective and accountable decision- making is needed across a range of urgent global challenges; and, yet, the collective capacity for addressing these matters is in doubt. The dominant policy packages of the last several years have not delivered the goods and a learning opportunity beckons. There are, of course, many ways that have been proposed to deepen the accountability and effectiveness of global governance mechanisms - from proposals for global issue networks, the expansion of key "G" clusters (G8, G22, and the like), coalitions of particular nation-states acting in clubs, to the reform of the United Nations and cosmopolitan democracy.

But rather than end by making the case for any one of these, I want to finish by stressing a methodological point. It can be misleading and dangerous to over-generalise about politics or policy from the present, or from a single time period, or from the point of view of one culture, country or region. Instead, the test of deliberative generalisability needs to be built into reflections on "ways forward" in order to help ensure a focus on global solutions to global challenges - not just American, French, British, German, European Union, Chinese solutions. In other words, we require a multi-perspectival mode of forming, defending and defining political preferences - a mode that is in fact, other- and future-regarding.

14

The Decline of the West? The Future of Global Governance in the Face of the Rise of Asia 15 October 2009

Until recently, the West has, by and large, determined the rules of the game on the global stage. During the last century, Western countries presided over a shift in world power – from control via territory to control via the creation of governance structures created in the post 1945 era. From the United Nations Charter and the formation of the Bretton-Woods institutions to the Rio Declaration on the environment and the creation of the World Trade Organisation, international agreements have invariably served to entrench a well- established international power structure. The division of the globe into powerful nation- states, with distinctive sets of geopolitical interests, and reflecting the international power structure as it was understood in 1945, is still embedded in the articles and statutes of leading intergovernmental organizations, such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. Voting rights are distributed largely in relation to individual financial contributions, and geo- economic strength is integrated into decision-making procedures.

The result has been susceptibility of the major international governmental organizations (IGOs) to the agendas of the most powerful states, partiality in enforcement operations (or lack of them altogether), their continued dependency on financial support from a few major states, and weaknesses in the policing of global collective action problems. This was dominance based on a 'club' model of global governance and legitimacy. Policy at the international level was decided by a core set of powerful countries, above all the G1, G5 and G7, with the rest excluded from the decision-making process.

The rise of Asia

Today, however, that picture is changing. The trajectory of Western dominance has come to a clear halt with the failure of dominant elements of western global policy over the last few decades. The West can no longer rule through power or example alone. At the same time, Asia is on the ascent. Over the last half-century, East and Southeast Asia has more than doubled its share of world GDP and increased per capita income at an average growth rate almost 2½ times that in the rest of the world.(1) In the last two decades alone, emerging Asian economies have experienced an average growth rate of almost eight per cent – three times the rate in the rich world.(2) As a result, Asia has been both a stabilising influence on and steady contributor to world economic growth. According to the IMF, China alone accounted for around a third of global economic growth last year, more than any other nation, and its economy is the only one of the world's 10 biggest which is still expanding in the wake of the financial crisis.(3) Other Asian economies have bounced back from the financial crisis far more quickly than anyone expected. As a recent New York Times article points out, the United States has always led the way out of major global economic crises, but this time, the catalyst is coming from China and the rest of Asia.(4) They are no longer totally beholden to the US and other western countries as recipients of their exports, and this decoupling has to some extent allowed Asian economies to recover more quickly. Boosted by increased consumer spending and massive government-led investment, the region as a whole is expected to grow by more than five per cent this year - at a time when the old G-7 could contract by 3.5 per cent or more.(5) Simply put, we are seeing a fundamental rebalancing of the world economy, with the centre of gravity shifting noticeably to the East.

The trajectory of change is towards a multipolar world, where the West no longer holds a premium on geopo•litical or economic power. Moreover, different discourses and concepts of governance have emerged to challenge the old Western orthodoxy of multilateralism and the post-war order. At the same time, complex global processes, from the ecological to the financial, connect the fate of communities to each other across the world in new ways, requiring effective, accountable and inclusive problem-solving capacity. How this capacity can be ensured is another matter.

Paradox of our times

What I call the paradox of our times refers to the fact that the collective issues we must grapple with are of growing cross-border extensity and intensity, yet the means for addressing these are weak and incomplete. While there are a variety of reasons for the persistence of these problems, at the most basic level the persistence of this paradox remains a problem of governance.

We face three core sets of challenges – those concerned with sharing our planet (global warming, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, water deficits), sustaining our humanity (poverty, conflict prevention, global infectious diseases) and our rulebook (nuclear proliferation, toxic waste disposal, intellectual property rights, genetic research rules, trade rules, finance and tax rules).(6) In our increasingly interconnected world, these global challenges cannot be solved by any one nation-state acting alone. They call for collective and collaborative action – something that the nations of the world have not been good at, and which they need to be better at if these pressing issues are to be adequately tackled. Yet, the evidence is wanting that we are getting better at building appropriate governance capacity. One significant problem is that a growing number of issues span both the domestic and the international domains. The institutional fragmentation and competition between states can lead to these global issues being addressed in an ad hoc and dissonant manner. A second problem is that even when the global dimension of a problem is acknowledged, there is often no clear division of labour among the myriad of international institutions that seek to address it: their functions often overlap, their mandates conflict, and their objectives often become blurred. A third problem is that the existing system of global governance suffers from severe deficits of accountability and inclusion. This problem is especially relevant in regard to how less economically powerful states and, hence, their entire populations, are marginalized or excluded from decision making.

Tests ahead

Today, there is a newfound recognition that global challenges cannot be solved by any one nation-state acting alone, nor by states just fighting their corner in regional blocs. As demands on the state have increased, a whole series of policy problems have arisen which cannot be adequately resolved without cooperation with other states and non-state actors. There is a growing recognition that individual states are no longer the only appropriate political units for either resolving key policy problems or managing a broad range of public functions.

Moreover, the policy packages that have largely set the global agenda – in economics and security – have been discredited. The Washington Consensus and Washington security doctrines have dug their own graves. The most successful developing countries in the world are successful because they have not followed the Washington Consensus agenda, and the conflicts that have most successfully been diffused are ones that have benefited from concentrated multilateral support and a human security agenda. Here are clear clues as to how to proceed in the future. We need to follow these clues and learn from the mistakes of the past if a renewed multilateral order is to be advanced.

The financial crisis has triggered some positive changes in global governance arrangements. The emergence of the G20 as the new de-facto governance coalition of powerful states – with the US and China at the forefront of all negotiations – is one such change. The shift from the G1, G5, and G8 to the G2 and the G20 reflects the altering balance of power in the world. Whether these developments will lead to effective new institutions is another matter. There are three key tests ahead: Copenhagen and a deal on global climate change; effective global financial market reforms; an enduring re-negotiation of the nuclear non- proliferation treaty. Passing these tests would be a hugely significant indication of the ability to transform the post-1945 multilateral order to take account of the changing balance of global power, and a reflection that there has been some learning from the policy failures of the past. Failing these tests would in all likelihood lead to the fragmentation of the global order and the further weakening of global governance arrangements.

Notes

1. Danny Quah, "Post 1990s East Asian Economic Growth," unpublished, available online at http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/dquah/p/Post-1990s-eaeg-KDI-DQ.pdf, 2008

2. The Economist "An Astonishing Rebound," 13 August 2009

3. International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook: Crisis and Recovery, Washington DC, International Monetary Fund, 2009.

4. The New York Times, "Asia's Recovery Highlights China's Ascendance," August 23, 2009

5. Ibid

6. Jean-Francois Rischard, High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, New York, Basic Books, 2002

15

Gridlock: The Growing Breakdown of Global Cooperation Thomas Hale, David Held, and Kevin Young 24 May 2013

The Doha round of trade negotiations is deadlocked, despite eight successful multilateral trade rounds before it. Climate negotiators have met for two decades without finding a way to stem global emissions. The UN is paralyzed in the face of growing insecurities across the world, the latest dramatic example being Syria. Each of these phenomena could be treated as if it was independent, and an explanation sought for the peculiarities of its causes. Yet, such a perspective would fail to show what they, along with numerous other instances of breakdown in international negotiations, have in common.

Global cooperation is gridlocked across a range of issue areas. The reasons for this are not the result of any single underlying causal structure, but rather of several underlying dynamics that work together. Global cooperation today is failing not simply because it is very difficult to solve many global problems – indeed it is – but because previous phases of global cooperation have been incredibly successful, producing unintended consequences that have overwhelmed the problem-solving capacities of the very institutions that created them. It is hard to see how this situation can be unravelled, given failures of contemporary global leadership, the weaknesses of NGOs in converting popular campaigns into institutional change and reform, and the domestic political landscapes of the most powerful countries.

A golden era of governed globalization

In order to understand why gridlock has come about it is important to understand how it was that the post-Second World War era facilitated, in many respects, a successful form of ‘governed globalization’ that contributed to relative peace and prosperity across the world over several decades. This period was marked by peace between the great powers, although there were many proxy wars fought out in the global South. This relative stability created the conditions for what now can be regarded as an unprecedented period of prosperity that characterized the 1950s onward. Although it is by no means the sole cause, the UN is central to this story, helping to create conditions under which decolonization and successive waves of democratization could take root, profoundly altering world politics.

While the economic record of the postwar years varies by country, many experienced significant economic growth and living standards rose rapidly across significant parts of the world. By the late 1980s a variety of East Asian countries were beginning to grow at an unprecedented speed, and by the late 1990s countries such as China, India and Brazil had gained significant economic momentum, a process that continues to this day.

Meanwhile, the institutionalization of international cooperation proceeded at an equally impressive pace. In 1909, 37 intergovernmental organizations existed; in 2011, the number of institutions and their various off-shoots had grown to 7608 (Union of International Associations 2011). There was substantial growth in the number of international treaties in force, as well as the number of international regimes, formal and informal. At the same time, new kinds of institutional arrangements have emerged alongside formal intergovernmental bodies, including a variety of types of transnational governance arrangements such as networks of government officials, public-private partnerships, as well as exclusively private/corporate bodies.

Postwar institutions created the conditions under which a multitude of actors could benefit from forming multinational companies, investing abroad, developing global production chains, and engaging with a plethora of other social and economic processes associated with globalization. These conditions, combined with the expansionary logic of capitalism and basic technological innovation, changed the nature of the world economy, radically increasing dependence on people and countries from every corner of the world. This interdependence, in turn, created demand for further institutionalization, which states seeking the benefits of cooperation provided, beginning the cycle anew.

This is not to say that international institutions were the only cause of the dynamic form of globalization experienced over the last few decades. Changes in the nature of global capitalism, including breakthroughs in transportation and information technology, are obviously critical drivers of interdependence. However, all of these changes were allowed to thrive and develop because they took place in a relatively open, peaceful, liberal, institutionalized world order. By preventing World War Three and another Great Depression, the multilateral order arguably did just as much for interdependence as microprocessors or email (see Mueller 1990; O’Neal and Russett 1997).

Beyond the special privileges of the great powers

Self-reinforcing interdependence has now progressed to the point where it has altered our ability to engage in further global cooperation. That is, economic and political shifts in large part attributable to the successes of the post-war multilateral order are now amongst the factors grinding that system into gridlock. Because of the remarkable success of global cooperation in the postwar order, human interconnectedness weighs much more heavily on politics than it did in 1945. The need for international cooperation has never been higher. Yet the “supply” side of the equation, institutionalized multilateral cooperation, has stalled. In areas such as nuclear proliferation, the explosion of small arms sales, terrorism, failed states, global economic imbalances, financial market instability, global poverty and inequality, biodiversity losses, water deficits and climate change, multilateral and transnational cooperation is now increasingly ineffective or threadbare. Gridlock is not unique to one issue domain, but appears to be becoming a general feature of global governance: cooperation seems to be increasingly difficult and deficient at precisely the time when it is needed most.

It is possible to identify four reasons for this blockage, four pathways to gridlock: rising multipolarity, institutional inertia, harder problems, and institutional fragmentation. Each pathway can be thought of as a growing trend that embodies a specific mix of causal mechanisms. Each of these are explained briefly below.

Growing multipolarity. The absolute number of states has increased by 300 percent in the last 70 years, meaning that the most basic transaction costs of global governance have grown. More importantly, the number of states that “matter” on a given issue—that is, the states without whose cooperation a global problem cannot be adequately addressed—has expanded by similar proportions. At Bretton Woods in 1945, the rules of the world economy could essentially be written by the United States with some consultation with the UK and other European allies. In the aftermath of the 2008-2009 crisis, the G-20 has become the principal forum for global economic management, not because the established powers desired to be more inclusive, but because they could not solve the problem on their own. However, a consequence of this progress is now that many more countries, representing a diverse range of interests, must agree in order for global cooperation to occur.

Institutional inertia. The postwar order succeeded, in part, because it incentivized great power involvement in key institutions. From the UN Security Council, to the Bretton Woods institutions, to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, key pillars of the global order explicitly grant special privileges to the countries that were wealthy and powerful at the time of their creation. This hierarchy was necessary to secure the participation of the most important countries in global governance. Today, the gain from this trade-off has shrunk while the costs have grown. As power shifts from West to East, North to South, a broader range of participation is needed on nearly all global issues if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the same time, following decolonization, the end of the Cold War and economic development, the idea that some countries should hold more rights and privileges than others is increasingly (and rightly) regarded as morally bankrupt. And yet, the architects of the postwar order did not, in most cases, design institutions that would organically adjust to fluctuations in national power.

Harder problems. As independence has deepened, the types and scope of problems around which countries must cooperate has evolved. Problems are both now more extensive, implicating a broader range of countries and individuals within countries, and intensive, penetrating deep into the domestic policy space and daily life. Consider the example of trade. For much of the postwar era, trade negotiations focused on reducing tariff levels on manufactured products traded between industrialized countries. Now, however, negotiating a trade agreement requires also discussing a host of social, environmental, and cultural subjects - GMOs, intellectual property, health and environmental standards, biodiversity, labour standards—about which countries often disagree sharply. In the area of environmental change a similar set of considerations applies. To clean up industrial smog or address ozone depletion required fairly discrete actions from a small number of top polluters. By contrast, the threat of climate change and the efforts to mitigate it involve nearly all countries of the globe. Yet, the divergence of voice and interest within both the developed and developing worlds, along with the sheer complexity of the incentives needed to achieve a low carbon economy, have made a global deal, thus far, impossible (Falkner et al. 2011; Victor 2011).

Fragmentation. The institution-builders of the 1940s began with, essentially, a blank slate. But efforts to cooperate internationally today occur in a dense institutional ecosystem shaped by path dependency. The exponential rise in both multilateral and transnational organizations has created a more complex multilevel and multi-actor system of global governance. Within this dense web of institutions mandates can conflict, interventions are frequently uncoordinated, and all too typically scarce resources are subject to intense competition. In this context, the proliferation of institutions tends to lead to dysfunctional fragmentation, reducing the ability of multilateral institutions to provide public goods. When funding and political will are scarce, countries need focal points to guide policy (Keohane and Martin 1995), which can help define the nature and form of cooperation. Yet, when international regimes overlap, these positive effects are weakened. Fragmented institutions, in turn, disaggregate resources and political will, while increasing transaction costs.

In stressing four pathways to gridlock we emphasize the manner in which contemporary global governance problems build up on each other, although different pathways can carry more significance in some domains than in others. The challenges now faced by the multilateral order are substantially different from those faced by the 1945 victors in the postwar settlement. They are second-order cooperation problems arising from previous phases of success in global coordination. Together, they now block and inhibit problem solving and reform at the global level.

Climate change

Gridlock exists across a range of different areas in global governance today, from security arrangements to trade and finance. This dynamic is, arguably, most evident in the realm of climate change. The diffusion of industrial production across the world—a process enabled by economic globalization—has created a situation in which the basic consumption of each individual directly affects the life chances of every other individual on the planet, as well as the life chances of future generations.

This is a powerful and entirely new form of global interdependence. Bluntly put, the future of our civilization depends on our ability to cooperate across borders. And yet, despite twenty years of multilateral negotiations under the UN, a global deal on climate change mitigation or adaptation remains elusive, with differences between developed countries, which have caused the problem, and developing countries, which will drive future emissions, forming the core barrier to progress. Unless we overcome gridlock in climate negotiations, as in other issue areas, we will be unable to continue to enjoy the peace and prosperity we have inherited from the postwar order.

There are, of course, several forces that might work against gridlock. These include the potential of social movements to uproot existing political constraints, catalysed by IT innovation and the use of associated technology for coordination across borders; the capacity of existing institutions to adapt and accommodate factors such as emerging multipolarity (the shift from the G-5/7 to the G-20 is one example); and efforts at institutional reform which seek to alter the organizational structure of global governance (for example, proposals to reform the Security Council or to establish a financial transaction tax).

Whether there is the political will or leadership to move beyond gridlock remains a pressing question. Social movements find it difficult to convert protests into consolidated institutional change. At the same time, the political leadership of the great power blocs appears dogged by national concerns: Washington is sharply divided, Europe is preoccupied with the future of the Euro and China is absorbed by the challenge of sustaining economic growth as the prime vehicle of domestic legitimacy. Against this background, the further deepening of gridlock and the continuing failure to address global collective action problems appears likely.

In the aftermath of the Second World War the institutional breakthroughs that occurred provided the momentum for decades of sustained economic growth and geopolitical stability sufficient for the transformation of the world economy, the shift from the Cold War to a multipolar order, and the rise of new communication and network societies.

However, what worked then does not work as well now, as gridlock freezes problem solving capacity in global governance. The search for a politics beyond gridlock, in theory and in practice, is a hugely significant task – nationally and globally – if global governance is to be once again both effective and fit for purpose.

16

Global Financial Cooperation Buckling under the Weight of Previous Success 4 September 2013

The 2008-2009 financial crisis was arguably the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. Why, then, has regulatory reform in key countries and at the global level been so piecemeal?

Measures that have been agreed on, such as the Basel III banking reforms, are only coming into full effect in 2019. They will also be implemented unevenly across the globe.

The more far-reaching measures that economists believe are needed to prevent future crises have largely remained where they have always been — in the realm of ideas. These include dealing with global structural imbalances or implementing so-called “macroprudential” oversight of the financial system as a coherent whole.

Financial regulation is fundamentally a global problem. It is impossible to say where the next shock will come from — a debt crisis in China, political turmoil in the Middle East, a worsening of the Eurocrisis. All we know for sure at this stage is that when it arrives, much ink will be spilt about the new calamity. The main question will be why more aggressive action was not taken in the wake of 2008-2009 collapse.

There is no shortage of reasons. The technical complexities of the issues are as daunting as the lobbying of vested interests is formidable.

Many would also point out that international cooperation is simply hard. States are unwilling to give up some sovereignty for the collective good. What these common explanations miss, however, is a pathology developing across the international system as a whole. From climate change to international security to trade, global cooperation is in a state of gridlock.

A Systemic Crisis

While the need for global cooperation continues to grow, the ability of multilateral institutions to deliver the policy coordination we need has not kept pace. The provision of effective global governance isn’t just lacking in one area — like, say, climate change. It is systematically underperforming across a range of issues. These include the management of the global economy to human security and environmental problems. While many have pondered the many pressing global dilemmas facing the world today, there is a paradox accompanying the global situation as a whole. We are failing under the weight of our own success.

Decades of multilateral agreements, new institutions and an increasingly robust system of international law have enabled a radical increase in economic globalization, with substantial benefits for a wide range of countries. But our ability to manage all this complexity of progress has not kept pace. Our more integrated global economy demands more, and more effective, collective management. The problems that confront us now are challenges we never would have encountered without the progress made by the existing network of institutions. The various committees based in Basel, the IMF, the G20, and beyond facilitated a sharp deepening of financial interdependence.

When the crisis arrived, they proved adequate — albeit just adequate — to coordinate a minimally sufficient series of policy responses to avoid another Great Depression. Instead of an unmitigated disaster we got a mitigated one. They were of course unable to prevent the crisis from occurring in the first place and have not been able to take the measures needed to prevent the next one. Moreover, just as existing international institutions are useful vehicles for cooperation, they can also come to hinder it. International institutions like the IMF, for example, contain a vast array of resources and expertise for addressing global problems.

Yet because of their past behavior and the lock-in of US dominance that was secured over six decades ago, many countries do not trust the IMF as a global governor. Newer institutions like the G20 are a testament to successful development of countries like Brazil, India and China, who have been able to strategically engage with economic globalization in recent years. Yet, with a greater plurality of voices at the negotiation table, cooperation becomes more difficult.

Fragmentation From Cooperation

When institutions proliferate, the overall system may slide toward dysfunctional fragmentation. Our current set of institutions arose from ad hoc crisis management over the postwar period. Each crisis saw the addition of a new committee, a new joint task force or some other institutional addition.

But the sum is not greater than the parts. Indeed, the lack of coherence in global economic governance is directly responsible for a number of the challenges we now face.

For example, the reform efforts surrounding complex financial instruments like derivatives are as complex as the instruments themselves. There is not one international institution handling the reform process. Rather, there are five different organizations all handling different pieces, separate initiatives at the EU level and a panoply of different countries all acting simultaneously.

Some claim that global economic governance has utterly failed, pointing to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and a sluggish recovery. Others regard global economic governance as “good enough.” They point out that we averted an even worse disaster and — despite a global recession — didn’t collapse. In fact, both views are correct: global economic cooperation is failing under the weight of its own success. Across a range of issue areas, the remarkable success of global cooperation in the last several decades has made human interconnectedness weigh much more heavily on politics and the economy than it did in the past.

But that process of growing cooperation has now stalled, unable to manage the deep interdependence it has created.

17

Global Financial Governance: Principles of Reform David Held and Kevin Young 15 March 2009

It is now increasingly acknowledged that complex global processes, from the financial to the ecological, connect the fate of communities across the world. Yet the problem-solving capacity of the existing system of global institutions is in many areas not effective, accountable, or fast enough to resolve current global dilemmas. What has recently been called the paradox of our times refers to the fact that the collective issues we must grapple with are of growing extensity and intensity, and yet the means for addressing them are weak and incomplete.(1)

There are a variety of reasons for the persistence of these problems, but at the most basic level the persistence of this paradox remains an issue of governance. One significant problem in this regard is that a growing number of issues span both the domestic and the international domains. The institutional fragmentation and competition between states can lead to these global issues being addressed in an ad hoc and dissonant manner. A second problem is that even when the global dimension of a problem is acknowledged, there is no clear division of labour among the myriad of international institutions that seek to address them: their functions often overlap, their mandates conflict, and their objectives often become blurred. A third problem is that the existing system of global governance suffers from severe deficits of accountability and inclusion. This problem is especially relevant in regard to how less economically powerful states and, hence, their entire populations, are marginalised or excluded from decision-making.

This paper describes the current global economic crisis as intimately related to a problem of governance, and articulates simple principles by which the reform of governance can be guided. Increased accountability through participatory reform, we argue, helps to underwrite effectiveness.

Financial Turmoil and Financial Governance

The recent financial crisis has underscored profound weaknesses in the structure of global governance. The existing system of global financial governance has proved largely inadequate to predict, moderate, or contain financial instability. The need for effective global financial governance requires a shift to a better balance between the two worlds of financial globalization: private financial activity on the one hand, and public financial governance on the other. The globalization of financial markets has integrated the global economy in unprecedented ways, and yet the rules and institutions that monitor and regulate financial market activity have not kept pace.

There are many factors at play in the current global financial crisis – the buildup of the financial market bubble, the failure of central bankers to track adequately for house asset price inflation, the near universal incapacity to detect systemic risk, and the power of private sector actors to increase the riskiness of their institutions – to name but a few (see Figure 1 below for a representation of the crash in global perspective).(2) These contributing forces are highly complex, and are outside the scope of this paper to discuss. What can be said is that the existing system of global financial governance failed in a momentous way. What is more is that global economic interconnectedness has meant that the costs of governance failures are widely dispersed across extremely vulnerable segments of the world population. While those in the rich developed world are bombarded daily with news of the deepness of the economic slowdown, less prominent in the headlines are the effects of the crisis on the most vulnerable populations of the world. Recently it has been estimated that as many as 80 million more people could be forced to live in extreme poverty as the result of the recent global financial crisis; this figure is double what was previously feared.(3)

To be sure, the existing system of global financial governance has some successes to its name. Punctuated periods of international financial stability in the past have produced political demand for, and modest deliverance of, coordination between financial authorities. Like well-known institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements has been transformed over the decades to meet a variety of global public policy challenges, as have the other institutions of global financial governance – the Financial Action Task Force, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Organization of Securities and Exchange Commissions, the Joint Forum, and the Financial Stability Forum. Together these institutions have in some respects limited financial regulatory competition among states, provided emergency liquidity and coordinated monetary policies upon occasion, combated money laundering, and strengthened multilateral institutional capacity to react when problems arise.

Yet the failures of this system are even more striking. First, the existing system is predominantly com- posed of institutions which developed in response to specific problems that arose over the last three decades associated with the reemergence of global finance, and have transformed themselves since then to broader purposes. Subsequently, while these institutions can work together on occasion, there is no clearly defined division of labour among them. Compounding this problem is the fact that the governance of financial markets is an issue which spans both the domestic and the inter- national spheres, and fragmentation and competition between states has led to these global issues being addressed in partial and even erratic ways.(4)

Even when systemic problems have been identified, proportionate action has not been taken. For ex- ample, in 2007 the BIS recognized several structural problems with the international financial system, but this recognition remained at the level of research and observation, rather than action.(5) More recently, the Rome meeting of the FSF in March 2008 and its subsequent recommendations delivered to the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in April identified a number of key weaknesses underlying the financial system, and recommended provisions for some substantive reforms. The FSF ambitiously drew up provisions to strengthen prudential oversight of capital, liquidity and risk management, enhance transparency and valuation methods, revise the role and uses of credit ratings, and strengthen state capacity to respond to risks. While some of these provisions are currently being taken seriously, at the time they failed to address the systemic nature of the problems involved, and it took the urgency of a deepening crisis to have the implementation of their recommendations command real attention and debate.

Compounding these deficiencies is the fact that most institutions of financial governance have promulgated an exclusionary model for participation when it comes to dealing with problems which are, at the end of the day, quintessentially global. Despite some recent minor reforms to its voting rules, the IMF remains locked into a system that encourages strong US dominance of the institution. This does not only ensure that its policies reflect existing biases within US domestic politics at any given time, but means that the Fund has been unable to secure sufficient sources of funding to widen its capacity and scope. What incentive do states outside the G10 have to contribute more to the Fund under these circumstances? Consider another example: The Basel Committee designs the de facto banking regulatory standards for the world, and yet its composition looks increasingly arbitrary.(6)

Many countries without any formal representation in the Basel Committee have a higher concentration of capital in their banking systems than those within the Committee (See Figure 2 below). Brazilian banks have more capital than Sweden; Australia has more than Belgium; South Korea has more capital than Switzerland; and Chinese banks even have more capital than Germany by this metric. The question remains why the current composition of this Committee – largely an artefact of the state of the financial world in 1974, when the Basel Committee was founded – design banking regulations that are the de facto standards for the whole world? Not only do such member states suffer the negative consequences of the decisions and non-decisions of the Basel Committee, but so does virtually every other country in the world.(7) A similar problem plagues the Financial Stability Forum. While its membership includes a number of different kinds of institutions, effectively it has been a G7-based organization.

The recent G20 summit in Washington, D.C. saw an unprecedented attempt to engage in participatory reform by admitting countries such as China and India into the Financial Stability Forum. It does represent a significant change. But it is only a small step. Developing countries had to fight and advocate for this, and they will have to do more. No global reform process can be fully effective if it does not arise from a process that is highly inclusive of developing and developed states. As Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary General of UNCTAD has pointed out, while few developing countries have been directly exposed to securitised mortgages or failed US financial institutions, the vast majority of them will be significantly affected indirectly through reduced availability of credit, stock market panics, and the slowdown in the real economy.

If reform of the global financial architecture is ambitious enough to be truly effective, it will ultimately be a highly politicized process. The upcoming meeting of the G20 in London has encouraged a useful debate on the matter, and in the time ahead many technical proposals and visions of reformed functions will be proposed. Haunting any process of institutional design, however, is the spectre of governance. To be effective, any new institutional arrangement has to have power – and where there is power there is always the possibility for conflict, which can in turn undermine effectiveness.

With this in mind, proposals in the months ahead should be guided by the notion that participatory reform can help to underwrite effectiveness. Participatory reform within the existing institutions of financial governance could give voice to states and non-state actors that have a greater interest in protection against systemic instability, rather than a stake in risk-taking through profitable financial instruments. In this way, instead of limiting participation according to wealth, participation could be guided by a concept of a global commons – not only a shared set of resources, but a shared com- munity of fate, the very basis of contemporary globalization. As its normative core it could enshrine the principle of equivalence: that is, the principle that the span of a good’s benefits and costs should be matched with the span of the jurisdiction in which decisions are taken about that good.(8) At its root, such a principle suggests that those who are significantly affected by a global public good or bad should have some say in its provision or regulation. Such a principle of equivalence could be circumscribed by a concept of the right to protection from grievous harm. In this way, all-inclusiveness would require deliberation and engagement in policies that seriously affect life expectations and chances.(9)

Fuller participation of stakeholders is more than a means to legitimacy. It can also help to underwrite effectiveness. In areas of global governance that seek to protect or promote the provision of a global public good – such as global financial stability and soundness – there are inherent problems when that public good is protected and managed by a minority of stakeholders. This is because in such cases a minority group does not suffer the full consequences of its actions when it is ineffective in its governance.(10) When the costs of financial crisis are distributed so widely, what incentive does an in-group of governing institutions have to reform its practices? Certainly they have some – but the danger is that any response will still be too weak, too uncoordinated, and too modest for the task at hand.

Over the last few months many world leaders have called for substantial reforms the likes of which until recently only a handful of academics and activists were advocating. If any of these reform proposals are to be implemented, one element will be crucial: expanding institutional capacity. The existing institutions of global financial governance each have significant resources and expertise which could be called upon to address the diverse demands of the G20 summit and beyond. Yet any reform agenda geared to balancing the two worlds of financial globalization must simultaneously tackle the divide between the rich countries of the world that have dominated the existing system of global financial governance, and their developing country counterparts that have shared the costs, but have had little hand in shaping it. Reforms to the system of global financial governance in the years ahead will have to build on institutions already in existence to a significant extent. This is why participatory reform is so vital at the moment. Longer term solutions for effective governance will require centralized coordination and authority, especially once financial markets experience a resurgence, accompanied by a re-strengthening of private financial power.

Notes

1, See David Held, “Reframing Global Governance: Apocalypse Soon or Reform!” New Political Economy Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2006. pp. 157-176.

2, It is worth pointing out that this index is of financial institutions only, and large ones at that. It thus underestimates the fall of the current calamity, since the crisis has bled into the real economy.

3, LSE Press Office Release, “UK launches Growth Centre to tackle global effects of credit crunch”, 10 December 2008, available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2008/IGClau nch.htm

4, An example of this is the competitive bank deposit guarantees that swept across Europe in autumn 2008.

5, See Bank for International Settlements, BIS 77th Annual Report, 24 June 2007.

6, The Basel Committee is composed of participants from 13 member countries: Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom. On critiques of the legitimacy and composition of the Basel Committee from a range of perspectives, see Howard Davies, “A Review of the Review”, Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments 14:5 (December 2005), pp. 247-252; Stephany Griffith-Jones Avinash Persaud, “The Pro-Cyclical Impact of Basel II on Emerging Markets and Its Political Economy”, available at See David Held, “Reframing Global Governance: Apocalypse Soon or Reform!” New Political Economy Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2006. pp. 157-176. ; Geffrey R. D. Underhill and Xiaoke Zhang, “Setting the Rules: Private Power, Political Underpinnings, and Legitimacy in Global Monetary and Financial Governance” International A airs, 84:3 (2008), pp. 535-554. The Basel Committee has expanded the diversity and breadth of parties it consults with, but ultimately decisions are still made by the same exclusive group of countries.

7, On the unintended costs of some of the decisions of the Basel Committee, see Stijn Claessens, Geffrey R.D. Underhill, and Xiaoke Zhang “The Political Economy of Basel II: The Costs for Poor Countries” The World Economy 2008, pp. 313-345.

8, On the equivalence principle, see Inge Kaul, Pedro Conceiçao,̃ Katell Le Goulven, and Ronald U. Mendoza (Eds.), Providing Global Public Goods (Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 27-28.

9, On this notion, see David Held, “Global Governance: Apocalypse Soon or Reform!” in David Held and Anthony McGrew (Eds.), Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), pp. 252-3. 10, These problems of accountability are compounded by the fact that when there is no clear division of labour among governing institutions, the capacity for blame shifting is high, and the feedback mechanism from demonstrable failure to necessary reform does not work.

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Is the WTO deal good news for multilateralism? 18 December 2013

Last weekend the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 159 members reached a historic deal to speed up customs and port procedures, helping trade flow more efficiently. While the “Bali Package’s” concrete benefits were rightly celebrated - it could perhaps add $1 trillion to the global economy over time - the real excitement was about the emergence of a deal at all. This was the first multilateral agreement the WTO has reached in its two decades of existence, and comes after the current round of negotiations has been declared dead several times.

On the face of it, this is a good sign for multilateralism. It represents a spirit of compromise among a highly diverse world economy. While recognizing the benefits of global trade, the Bali package includes clauses for ‘special and differential treatment’ for imports from poor countries, and exemptions from agricultural subsidy rules for the first four years (the latter a concession to India, which stockpiles grain for food security reasons).

But the Bali deal is only the lowest hanging fruit on a very tall tree. Of all the complex issues facing the global trading system, trade facilitation is but one small segment. The harder issues were left off the agenda. The lesson of Bali is that it is not ‘political will’ or intelligent compromise that greases the wheels of global cooperation, but rather the lessening of ambition.

This is a bad sign for multilateral cooperation, because across a range of issue areas we need to raise ambition. For example, two weeks ago 192 countries met in Warsaw to try to negotiate a solution to climate change. In the face of an ongoing climate crisis, governments around the world were supposed to set out a roadmap toward completing a new binding global treaty, setting out commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 onward. Yet, at the nineteenth such meeting in 19 years no roadmaps were drawn, no emission cuts agreed. The only commitment the participating governments made was to allow additional time for negotiations to set targets, nominally to be reached by 2015.

Or consider Syria. International institutions have made real progress to remove chemical weapons from the country, upholding one of the key achievements of twentieth century international cooperation. But those same institutions have proven completely unable to address the underlying civil war, which has already cost the lives of over 115,000 people and displaced millions, both within and beyond Syria’s borders.

Why has global cooperation stalled? The negotiators who met at Bali and Warsaw -and their counterparts discussing financial regulation, cyber security, or other pressing matters on the global agenda - are consumed by the knotty details of their respective issues. But they in fact face a common set of underlying barriers.

First, the issues under negotiation have grown more complex, penetrating deep into domestic policies. Second, many multilateral institutions, created in the aftermath of World War II, have proven rigid and difficult to change, clinging to outmoded decision- making rules and an established set of interests that fail to reflect the current state of affairs. Third, in many areas international institutions have proliferated with overlapping and contradictory mandates, creating a confusing fragmentation of authority. And last, these trends are compounded by the rise of new powers, such as India, China and Brazil, meaning that a more diverse array of interests have to be hammered into agreement for any global deal to be made.

Gridlock, then, is not an isolated issue, unique to Geneva, Warsaw, Bali, or other arenas of global negotiations. It is a general condition of the contemporary international system, one rooted in deep historical trends.

Ironically, many of the contemporary barriers to cooperation today derive from the deepening of interdependence, a product of successful cooperation in the past. By preventing World War Three and fostering a more open and rule-based global economy, the postwar international order allowed the world to reach an unprecedented level of globalization. This shift allowed countries like China to engage in the international system, and made all countries more dependent on each other. The result has been unprecedented peace and prosperity, but also a new range of challenges that existing institutions are poorly equipped to manage.

How can we move ahead in a gridlocked world? The first step is to recognize gridlock as a general, historically contingent phenomenon, not a blockage specific to Syria, trade, climate, or any other area. Instead of simply calling for more “political will,” we need to understand the barriers we face and design strategies accordingly.

In some cases, institutional innovation may help. For example, on climate change, a global deal in which emissions targets are assigned from on high and dutifully implemented by national governments has proven infeasible. At the same, a dynamic patchwork of climate actions is emerging, including national commitments and voluntary actions by cities, regions, companies, and civil society groups. Instead of only negotiating emissions limits between countries, the UN talks could engage these “bottom up” actions to bring them to a higher level of scale and ambition. But new institutions can also lead to new problems. On trade, gridlock over hard issues in the WTO has meant that the real negotiations have shifted to the increasing number of regional and bilateral agreements. Many members of the business community see the two as substitutes. The danger, however, is that large regional agreements, such as the trans- Pacific and trans-Atlantic deals currently under discussion, entrench rules on issues of, for instance, intellectual property or investment protection that emerging economies will be unlikely to accept, making future multilateral deals harder to reach.

And for other issues, Syria for example, the way forward is to live up to the new commitments we have already made. In recent decades the international community has sought to develop and entrench norms to prevent such calamities, affirming that countries have a “responsibility to protect” their populations. But in practice such norms are often implemented in ways more conducive to the interests of the great powers than of the people at risk. To move ahead we must find a minimum consensus on the management of human security needs at the global level, as well as ways to uphold them impartially.

Resolving gridlock involves the search for a new kind of politics that builds on the many and various partial solutions to global challenges that can be found today. This requires preserving and reaffirming multilateral institutions as a space for debating issues of common interest. It also requires the scaling up and expansion of the dynamic patchwork of policy initiatives at the local and regional levels. None of this is easy: but the alternative is collective drift in the face of the global challenges of our time.

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The Syrian Crisis and Gridlock of Global Security Governance Tom Hale, David Held, Kyle McNally, and Kevin Young 28 June 2013

As the death toll in Syria reaches between 93,000 and 120,000, the refuge crisis involves more than 1 million people and the number of internally displaced escalates to over 4 million, there is no question that the world is currently witnessing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Yet, nothing but questions arise when considering the range of international responses so far, or lack thereof.

The international community has failed to address the calamity in a manner that would provide protection to civilians or bring the conflict to a close. Nowhere was this clearer than in the recent G8 conference at Lough Erne, Ireland. Russia blocked any mention of Assad in the official communiqué while all parties agreed on a banal reference to the desirability of a political solution (paragraph 7). The reductio ad absurdum came when the communiqué called for Syrian authorities ‘to commit to destroying and expelling from Syria all organizations and individuals affiliated to Al Qaeda, and any other non-state actors linked to terrorism’ (paragraph 87). Surely Assad would be delighted to read this.

The geopolitics of the G8 meeting has long standing roots. The UN Security Council has deliberated and voted on three separate resolutions pertaining to the conflict. Each one has been vetoed in turn by Russia and China. Russia, in particular, has maintained its arms trade agreements with the Syrian regime. Numerous countries are supporting factions within the rebel forces, with the Gulf monarchies, the EU and the US supporting a motley, and often disparate, set of groups. The opposition is fragmented, increasingly radicalized and supported by a wide range of state and non-state actors.

Whilst the international community is unable to agree on a coherent position, individual states have resorted to unilateral action. With fears over the diffusion of chemical and other weapons, Israel has launched attacks on select Syrian targets and facilities. This naturally exacerbates the existing tensions between Israel and its neighbors – in particular, Iran, which has also been involved in the conflict to the degree to which it continues to support the Assad regime.

In the absence of a coherent approach from the international community, the conflict increasingly takes an unpredictable course. With US marines congregating in Jordan and Obama deciding to arm some of the rebels, it is hard to see any outcome other than escalation. The arrival of Hezbollah on the scene has galvanized Assad’s forces and has brought them renewed confidence. On the other hand, the boasting of Hezbollah to be liberating Qusair from Sunni fanatics has enflamed Sunni opposition further.

When it comes to Syria, the international community is, for all intents and purposes, gridlocked. The institution tasked with maintaining global peace and security – the United Nations – has failed in remarkable ways to respond to the Syrian crisis. The reasons for this are contested. This will remain the case if the crisis is simply seen as an isolated instance of multilateral failure. Yet, it is part of a much wider pattern of breakdown in global cooperation. In a recent publication, Hale, Held and Young set out to explain the current breakdown of global cooperation across many areas, from security to the global economy and the environment. They do this by identifying four pathways to ‘gridlock’: institutional inertia, emerging multipolarity (the shifting balance of power across the world), complex (harder) problems and institutional and organizational fragmentation.

Interestingly, these drivers of gridlock have their roots in the very successes of the postwar order – that is, the creation of institutional inertia pervades the UN system. In order to foster participation in the UN, the founders embedded certain privileges for themselves in its institutional design. Almost 70 years later, the veto privilege enjoyed by the five permanent members (the ‘P-5’) appears increasingly anachronistic when set against the realities of global power today. Shifts in the balance of power have expanded both the reach and voice of emerging countries whilst the old P-5 continue to veto according to their interests alone. This has often led to gridlock in the Security Council and created incentives for countries to go it alone. The G8’s failure to develop a coherent approach to Syria inevitably reflects this context.

The nature of the Syrian civil war represents the complex character of contemporary conflicts well. The UN system was built in a time when the greatest concern was preventing great power war. The Syrian conflict does not fit this mold and the conventional military logic of inter-state war is insufficient for the current demand of security placed before the international community. It is, in every sense, a far more complex and “harder” problem than those accounted for by the UN architects.

Moreover, fragmentation can be observed in the competition of institutional mandates. This is revealed in the first instance in the clash between the principles of sovereignty and of non-intervention enshrined by the UN Charter (article II) and the humanitarian imperatives embedded in the Responsibility to Protect doctrine adopted, in principle, by UN member states. The international community’s position is hopelessly unresolved on this matter, oscillating from one position to the other in different conflicts. In the context of this uncertainty, leading states play out a diversity of positions, geared as much towards domestic politics as wider multilateral considerations. Furthermore, in the midst of this chaos, a proliferation of under-coordinated actors and civil society agents seek to pick up the pieces on the margins on a diversity of issues, ranging from delivery of humanitarian aid to the management of migration flows.

The Syrian crisis is a symptom of a deeper institutional malaise. This malaise is manifest in a general breakdown of international negotiations and coordination across many pressing transborder problems, from trade negotiations to how we regulate international financial markets and govern trade, to climate change and the environment. It is unlikely that an effective solution to any of these challenges can be found unless gridlock can be overcome. In the meantime, the situation in Syria is unlikely to improve, and the world continues to watch as Syria disintegrates.

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European and Global Gridlock: Parallel Barriers to Effective Governance Thomas Hale, David Held and Kevin Young 30 August 2013

The world has not been able to negotiate a new global trade deal for 19 years. After 21 years of climate talks, we have yet to find a way to reduce meaningfully the amount of carbon pouring into the atmosphere. And just 5 years after the worst financial crisis since the 1930s forged enormous political will to reduce the risks created by global financial flows, regulation is increasingly balkanized and, in many places, far too weak.

On a regional level, the European Union seems similarly paralyzed. While governments, aided by the European Central Bank, have been able to triage the continent’s economic crisis, few steps have been taken to address its underlying causes.

The institutions we rely on to solve global and European problems are less and less able to do so, even as the problems themselves grow worse. A common process underlies this gridlock. To see it, think about your last traffic jam.

After World War II, many countries set about building modern road networks. In the US, the interstate highway system, as the project was called, cut the time required to cross the country from weeks to days. This shift paved the way not just for cars, but for decades of economic growth, and led to fundamental changes in the nature of American society. People began moving to communities where you had to have a car, or two, to get around. Soon the existing roads became clogged, and more had to be built. But this just led to more people getting cars and moving further from urban centers, generating yet more traffic. And new kinds of problems emerged: vulnerability to gas prices, smog, sedentary lifestyles, etc. People began to spend more time sitting, gridlocked, in their cars than they spent with their kids. In other words, the postwar project to increase mobility succeeded extraordinarily, but in doing so created a new set of problems that road-building couldn’t solve.

The same paradox now afflicts other ‘interstate’ networks created after World War Two— our system of global governance through multilateral institutions. After the war the victors, led by the United States, built an extraordinary set of multilateral institutions. Bodies like the United Nations created a system of collective security, and the Bretton Woods institutions set the world on a path toward managed economic integration. Over the next decades a virtuous cycle ensued. Cooperation between countries allowed companies and individuals to forge connections across borders. These links increased mutual dependence, creating greater need for institutionalized cooperation to manage common problems. So states created more global bodies and treaties, new international organizations, international standards and regulations - thousands of which now exist, regulating most aspects of our lives. Cooperation undergirded globalization, and deepening globalization, in turn, required yet more cooperation to manage.

In Europe, the process of interdependence and integration was even more radical. An agreement to coordinate coal and steel production in France and Germany grew into the most transformative political project of the modern era. As national autonomy was qualified by regional integration, the European Union became an unprecedented multilayered and multilevel polity.

For most of the postwar period, this process of “self-reinforcing interdependence” worked extraordinarily well, at least compared to any other historical period. It worked so well that multilateral cooperation—as happened with road-building—created complex conditions that halted and even undermined its own success.

We call this phenomenon gridlock, a basket of trends that is today making international cooperation more difficult, even as deepening globalization and interdependence mean that we need global cooperation now more than ever.

At the global level, four separate dynamics have combined to produce gridlock. The problems we are facing on a global scale have grown more complex, penetrating deep into domestic policies. Second, the institutions created 70 years ago have proven difficult to change as established interests cling to outmoded decision-making rules that fail to reflect current conditions. Third, in many areas international institutions have proliferated with overlapping and contradictory mandates, creating a confusing fragmentation of authority. And last, these trends are compounded by the rise of new powers like India, China and Brazil means that a more diverse array of interests have to be hammered into agreement for any global deal to be made.

In Europe, the logic of gridlock is more specific. The decision to adopt a common currency allowed a radical increase in European economic interdependence. Some of this was planned and desired, such as the increase in intra-European trade and investment. Other elements were not foreseen. Most fatefully, European banks, buoyed by the fiction that risk had been equally distributed across the Eurozone and beyond, bought large amounts of public and private debt from their neighbors. Once the financial market realized that the situation was untenable, this interdependence in turn required deeper political integration—perhaps unfeasibly deep integration. In the short run, it requires German taxpayers to agree to guarantee the borrowing of the Greek state and other debtor countries, and it requires the debtors to borrow and spend in a way that is acceptable to German taxpayers. In the long run, it requires some sort of fiscal coordination at the EU level. For some, this implies the EU’s capacity to enforce fiscal discipline. For others, it implies the EU’s capacity for fiscal transfers. The divergence between these perspectives is regularly on display in Brussels and across the continent.

Even worse, European gridlock and global gridlock compound each other. The Eurocrisis was triggered by shocks in an unregulated terrain of financial interdependence that could not be contained. Bad home loans in the United States, in conjunction with a lack of strong global rules, precipitated the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, straining balance sheets from Iceland to Greece. At the same time, Europe’s inability to put its own house in order has deprived the world of a strong, unified voice for more effective multilateral institutions. To take just one example, at the crucial Rio+20 conference in summer 2012, a watershed moment for efforts to protect the global environment and a long-stated EU priority, European leaders were conspicuously distracted. Only Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and France sent their heads of state/government.

What can be done? Recognizing that gridlock is a general condition of global and European politics—not just an issue-specific blockage—is an important step toward designing effective solutions. But at the same time, it usefully cautions against a hope in “silver bullet” solutions. The problems facing global cooperation are long-term trends, and the solutions are likely to be equally gradual.

At the global level, several trends offer promise. First, even as traditional state-to-state international organizations stall new forms of cross-border cooperation that involve companies, networks of cities, NGOs and other types of actors are filling some of the “governance gap” gridlock creates. In most issue areas it remains to be seen how effective these new institutions can be, but they offer at least a partial solution. Second, while gridlock trends make political leadership unlikely, they do not render it impossible. Space remains for individual policymakers or broad social movements to force change. The key here may be in new actors—or coalitions of actors—forging links across issue areas. The radical increase in interconnectedness that has overwhelmed our existing institutional “technology” may yet lead us to clearer roads ahead.

In Europe, the path through gridlock is clearer but not necessarily easier. To rally European citizens behind solutions, the benefits of European integration need to be made apparent to those who profit from them—especially voters in countries who stand to foot the bill. At the same time, hard deals need to be struck to build the fiscal integration a viable Europe requires. Frustration is likely to continue in the short-term. But policymakers should take a longer view, building the cross-border consensus on fiscal cooperation that will hopefully undergird the next phase of European integration. 21

Climate Change, Migration and the Cosmopolitan Dilemma 9 February 2016

In this article I sketch something of the history of people on the move. I set out an historical understanding of migration, and then focus on Europe and, finally, current dilemmas of European migration policy. These dilemmas are acute: liberal and democratic states entrench the rights and duties of their citizens, while policing their borders to ensure these privileges are rarely available to others. In this lies their dual role as champions of the universal and the particular, creating a tension, if not contradiction, at the heart of their structure and policies – which constantly pushes and pulls them in different directions.

Core Trends

One form of globalisation is more ubiquitous than any other – human migration (see Held and McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton, 1999). At its simplest, migration refers to the movement of people and their temporary or permanent geographical relocation. People have always been on the move and they have moved over great distances. There are many impulses behind these movements: victorious armies and empires have swept across and implanted themselves into new territories; the defeated and dispossessed have fled to defensible land and safer havens; the enslaved have been torn from their homes and relocated in the lands of the enslaver; convicts and prisoners have been forcefully relocated; the unemployed and the underemployed have searched for work; the persecuted have sought asylum; and the curious and adventurous have always been travelling, drifting and exploring.

William McNeill argued that two distinctions, one geographical, one social, characterise most forms of migration in human history: central and peripheral migration, and elite and mass migrations (1976, 1978). Most often, elite migrations have taken the form of military- led conquests on the periphery of states and empires, followed by the settlement of border regions and marches by an aristocracy and their subalterns. This kind of settlement could be accompanied by elite migrations of missionaries, merchants and bureaucrats as well as by the mass migration of settling nomads and peasant agrarians moving on to new, less populated lands. Migrations to the periphery must be distinguished from flows to the centre: local elites migrate to the centres of political power and economic activity in cities and royal courts, while the rural poor and skilled head to the city in search of work. McNeill’s model is well suited to the greater part of human history in which centre and periphery, urban and rural, provide a more accurate representation of political space than one demarcated by fixed political borders. Indeed, it can be argued that it was outward migrations that helped define and extend the outer limits of political control of a state or empire rather than the crossing of immutable political boundaries.

The large-scale movement of people and peoples has an enormously long history (Fagan, 1990; Emmer, 1993; Bacci, 2012). Since the emergence of the first rudimentary states over six thousand years ago, human migrations have crossed fragile boundaries as well as extended and reshaped them. Mobile nomads have crossed continents and carved out new empires. Some older polities have acquired an internal dynamism that allowed them to push outwards from the centre. Religion and economics have propelled missionaries and merchants across continents. Here I outline some of the main lines of migration history as they have been shaped by Europe and, in turn, shape Europe.

Most migrations were, more accurately, regional rather than global in extent (though Islam’s African, European and South East Asian outposts do indicate processes of global migration). From the late sixteenth century, however, a case can be made that levels of migration significantly increased as a result of Europe’s changing economic and military dynamics. The early years of European expansion were not marked by an easy or effortless dominance but by the precariousness of Europe’s technological and military edge and the miniscule level of actual migration that followed the conquest of the New World (Fernández-Armesto, 1995). The transoceanic extent of the European invasions may have geographically exceeded most earlier processes of conquest and migration, but its intensity and durability initially remained low. However, three patterns of global migration and movement emanating from, or controlled by, European powers heralded an era of migration that came to exceed its historical predecessors both in extent and in intensity (see figure 1). These migrations were the acceleration and completion of the European conquest and population of the Americas and Oceana; the transatlantic slave trade that fuelled the economic development of the colonies; and the mass movement of Asian labour that eventually replaced the labour flows extinguished by the termination of slaving (Curtin, 1969; Fox-Genovese and Genovese, 1983).

Figure 1. Major Global Migrations, 1600 – 1915.

Source: Held and McGrew et al., 1999, adapted from Kenwood and Loughneed, 1989

For most of the long nineteenth century (1760-1914) economic forces were the primary movers of migratory flows (see Held and McGrew et al., 1999, pp.287-297). The early push of religious persecution and the pull of distant and exotic wealth in the seventeenth century gave way to the blunter realities of differential economic development and opportunities in the Americas for many Europeans. Even when the slave trade was halted in the nineteenth century the scope and scale of European and Asian migrations continued to escalate into the early twentieth century. These great waves of migration were brought to an almost complete halt by the First World War. When the smoke cleared in 1918 the situation was transformed: the demand for European, Asian and African labour in the colonies was in decline; a nationalist and exclusionary politics was on the rise in many states, and the restricted immigration policies which flowed from this slowed further the pace of the older global migrations. Economic dislocation in Europe after the First World War, combined with the global economic downturn of the 1930s, ensured that levels of global migration remained very low through the interwar period.

While the relative geographical extensity and intensity of the post-1914 and post-1945 migrations were closely balanced, there can be no doubt that the post-Second World War era saw a steady expansion in migratory flows, albeit marked by phases, relative to the interwar period. There is now almost no state or part of the world that is not exporting or importing labour (see figure 2). With the collapse of European and Soviet communism a swathe of new areas, previously sealed off, became caught up in migratory flows. These flows were not exclusively towards the OECD states, though a significant component of them was. There were also major new patterns of migration within South-East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, among other areas. All these areas became locked into both regional and global patterns of migration.

Figure 2. Major Global Migrations, 1945 – 1995.

Source: Held and McGew et al, 1999

The historical pattern of post-War migration for most European countries has been fourfold. First, there was an initial low starting point after the Second World War, temporarily raised by the shifting movement of the many displaced peoples generated by the war itself. Second, there was increasing growth in migration rates in the 1950s, accelerating in the 1960s, and peaking somewhere in the early 1970s. The impact of the oil shocks on economic performance, the falling demand for labour and the consequently bitter politics of immigration are clearly evident in the statistics of the time. Third, after the mid-1970s migration continued, if at slightly lower levels, driven more by family reunions than the push and pull of global economic factors. Fourth, in the 1980s, varying between countries, the rate of migration began to accelerate again. This intensified in the early 1990s as the economic booms in Western Europe, the post-1989 turbulence in east and central Europe and the former Yugoslavia pushed levels of immigration back up again. While war and conflict continued to generate refugee and asylum flows, the overwhelming majority of contemporary migrations remained economically driven, leaving political borders untouched.

Europe: Borders, Surveillance and Conflict

The capacity of modern European states to seal their borders has never been perfect (Castles and Miller, 1993; Pohlmann et al., 2013). Prior to the last three centuries, states were demarcated by the amorphous and permeable grey areas of frontiers and peripheries in which sovereignty gradually dissolved rather than being abruptly truncated. States have always tried to control the movement of peoples through these regions and have been concerned with patterns of peripheral settlement and population movement. In this context, European states have a long and often deeply dishonourable record of forced expulsions, of the Jews and Huguenots, for example.

Contemporary forms of border control were pioneered by the USA in the late nineteenth century. The concentration of immigrants in oceangoing ships in a few key harbours, on the east and west coasts of the USA, meant that a greater concentration of state resources could be brought to bear on migratory flows than is possible over long land borders. While the development of reception centres, passport control and immigration criteria were developed in this era, they initially served a very open immigration policy.

International air traffic has kept migration flows fairly concentrated, but illegal and legal migration are still occurring, often across land, which is expensive and geographically difficult to control. The USA in particular finds it very difficult to patrol its long Mexican border. Although new fences have been effective, many have died in the deserts, victims of harsh conditions, unscrupulous smugglers, private raiding parties, among other causes. The problem of land borders is also present in Europe, for example, the German and French long land borders: but unlike the situation with the US-Mexico border, these now fall, of course, within the European Union and are in effect open borders.

All EU countries tightened up their immigration legislation and enhanced policing powers in the 1970s and 1980s. These measures included strict sanctions on airline carriers; tighter visa requirements; denying access and the due process of law to many forcibly displaced peoples including asylum seekers; and the penalisation of undocumented aliens. Yet, none has been able to reverse the tide of rising migratory flows from illegal cross-border entry, although they have (until recently in Europe, that is) contained its growth.

Given these circumstances, states have turned to a variety of forms of internal surveillance and control of the composition of their populations. In most European countries there are legal, constitutional and political obstacles to giving the police major powers to stop and check identities on suspicion. Where those powers have been allocated they have often resulted in the abuse of civil liberties or regular and systematic discrimination against visible minorities. Accordingly, liberal democracies have often tried to control illegal migration by controlling access to the labour market. This includes an increasing tendency to penalise employers using illegal labour. However, even in the USA where this has been a fairly draconian policy, it seems to make only a marginal difference – reflecting the limits of state institutions and the resources and technologies available to them, and the failure of those agencies to win the cooperation of many socio-economic actors.

In short, the capacities of liberal democratic states to manage migratory flows have increased with the establishment of immigration agencies, the documentation of citizenship and the funnelling of migrants through check points, harbours and airports. But the ability of migrants to evade the grasp of the state has also risen as overall numbers of travellers have increased, and as the increase in tourism and student exchanges has opened more loopholes in immigration agency practice. This is one of the many sources of the evermore contentious politics of immigration.

The intensification of the migration crisis in the European Union: between 9/11 and climate change

The European Union today is at a conjuncture of significant migratory pressures. Some of these are familiar and represent recognisable past patterns, for example, the 9/11 wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, among others). But others are new. If migration can be seen as the most ubiquitous form of globalisation, climate change can be understood as one of the gravest consequences of global transformations. The anthropocene has been given enormous impetus by economic globalisation which, in turn, has created new drivers of migration. The UNFCCC (in effect from 1994) and the IPCC (formed in 1988) have been concerned about the creation of ‘climate refugees’ from the outset. While refugees are typically associated with, and often legally determined by, conflict and human rights abuses, in this context the phrase seeks to capture the way climate change now increasingly intersects with conventional security concerns.

Since the end of the Cold War, migration has taken on a new momentum as patterns of conflict have shifted and intensified with the start of the 9/11 wars. The combination of Western military interventions, ‘anti-terrorism policies’, and increased civil conflict have led to a dramatic rise of migration as a whole, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in particular – would-be refugees that simply have not yet crossed an international border. Refugees and IDPs are two sides of the same coin, some separated by border fences and some by seas. The European Union has been attempting to follow containment policies – basically seeking to prevent people from migrating. Containment policies exacerbate widespread civil insecurity stemming from failed interventions, civil conflicts, regional collapse, and the widespread threat to human life chances in many areas, particularly the Middle East and North Africa.

These new patterns have been given an additional impetus by the changing nature of environmental degradation. Environmental crises are not, of course, new. For most of human history, the main way in which environmental shocks occurred was via unintentional transportation of flora, fauna, and microbes (Crosby, 1983). The European colonisation of the New World, which shifted diverse forms of natural life across the Atlantic, within a generation all but wiped out a substantial majority of the indigenous population of the Caribbean, Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Until the mid-20th century most forms of environmental degradation, at least the degradation that could be perceived, were local or regional or, occasionally, transregional. However, since the end of Second World War, the globalisation of environmental degradation has been massively accelerated by a number of factors: 70 years of extraordinary resource-intensive growth in developed world; the industrialisation of Russia, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet states; the breakneck industrialisation of China and many parts of Asia; and the massive rise in global population.

The result is an unprecedented array of global environmental problems, including climate change, the destruction of global rainforests, the loss of biodiversity, and oceanic and riverine pollution. Of these, climate change poses the most severe existential threat. Despite 20 years of multilateral negotiations under the UN, a global deal on climate change mitigation or adaptation remains elusive, with differences between developed countries, which have caused the problem, and developing countries, which will drive future emissions, forming the core barrier to progress (see figure 3). Multilateral governance is gridlocked over climate and, in this context, it is not unreasonable to expect climate change to become an ever more powerful cause of migration (Hale, Held and Young, 2013). Climate change is wreaking havoc on the world’s diverse species, biosystems, and socio-economic fabric. Violent storms are becoming more frequent, water access is becoming a battleground, rising sea levels may well, as predicted, displace millions, the mass movement of desperate people will become more common, and death from serious diseases in the world’s poorest countries will rise rapidly (largely because bacteria will spread more quickly, causing greater contamination of food and water). The overwhelming body of scientific opinion maintains that climate change constitutes a serious threat not only in a long term, but in the here and now.

Figure 3. GHG emissions by region: Baseline, scenario 2010-2050

Note: GtCO2e = Giga tonnes of CO2 equivalent ROW = Rest of the World

Source: OECD Environmental Outlook Baseline, 2012

The term environmental refugee was coined in 1985, and was reinforced in the first 1990 IPCC report which stated that ‘the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration as millions will be displaced’ (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1990, p. 20; see also El-Hinnawi 1985). From 2009 to 2014 approximately 27 million people have been displaced annually as a result of natural disasters, such as flooding, mud-slides, droughts and violent storms (see figure 4). Without an effective policy on climate change, the projections for increasing disaster-affected displacement are dire. According to UNEP by 2060 there could be 50 million ‘environmental refugees’ in Africa alone (Brown 2008). Apocalyptically, Christian Aid in 2007 indicated that close to 1 billion people could be permanently displaced by 2050 with climate change being a key driver in forced migration (ibid).

Figure 4. Impact of extreme weather

Source: Global Call for Climate Change, 2013

The European Union and the Mediterranean migrant crisis: a case study

Migration from North Africa to Europe is certainly not new. For years the Mediterranean has been a thoroughfare for migrants trying to reach the shores of Europe. Whilst migrants have started their journeys from many African and Middle Eastern countries, they are typically bound by a common goal to find greater economic and social opportunities, escape persecution and flee conflict. However, there are notable differences in migration patterns over the last few years.

First, there has been a generalised increase of would-be-migrants attempting to reach Europe. Second, there has been a dramatic rise in the departures that travel via the Central Mediterranean route. In fact, the EU Border Agency, Frontex, estimates that between 2013 and 2014 there was a 277% increase (see figure 5). Third, and bearing in mind UNEP’s projections for environmental refugees in Africa, the push from Africa is only likely to intensify in the future.

Figure 5. Increase in migration flows, 2013-2014

Source: FRAN data in Frontex 2015a

Across the Mediterranean migration is increasing, but nowhere more dramatically than from Libya. From figures 6 and 7, one can see the apparent correlation between migration flows through the Central Mediterranean and the regional instability in North Africa. 2011 was a period of optimism and migration from Libya declined; but it has been exponentially rising since. The majority of the migrants are not Libyan per se. Rather, the greatest number of migrants to date have originated from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia, but there are significant numbers also from Nigeria, Gambia and Mali just to name a few. The instability and chaos that grips Libya has created a vacuum for armed groups, smugglers, gangsters and human traffickers to operate at will; hence, Libya has become the dominant point of departure for many.

Figure 6. Fluctuations in popularity of routes to Europe

Source: Frontex in IOM 2014

Figure 7. Recent trends in and nationalities of illegal border crossovers

Source: Frontex 2015b

The current Mediterranean migration crisis is in many respects a symptom of Western policy failures in two key respects. First, the failed intervention in Libya created the instability that led to the Central Mediterranean route becoming so popular as a passage to Europe. Second, the European countries scaled back recovery efforts just at a time when they were needed the most. From late 2013 to November/December 2014 the Italian government ran a relatively effective operation called Mare Nostrum, during which time more than 100,000 migrants were rescued at sea.

However, the operation was costly at €9 million a month, and Italy cancelled it at the end of 2014 claiming that it was unsustainable without more EU financial backing. In place of Mare Nostrum the EU launched the much-scaled back operation Triton. Under Mare Nostrum the Italian Navy carried out search and rescue operations across 27,000 miles of the Mediterranean. Under Triton, the mandate only covered border surveillance within 30 miles of the Italian coast. The EU budget for Triton was only a third of what was spent on Mare Nostrum. To those who paid attention at the time, this was a huge, bright, waving red flag. Human rights groups and migration experts warned, with virtual consensus, that this would lead to a much larger migration crisis with many more deaths in the Mediterranean.

In the face of renewed crisis (and many deaths) the EU initiated discussions about how to address the Mediterranean migrant dilemma. On the 29th of April 2015 the EU Council released its summary of their 28 country talks. The agenda moving forward can be summarised in three points: confront and prevent smugglers and human traffickers from operating; triple the financial resources for EU border operations including the increase of ships and other necessary capacity; and enhance refugee protection. For the latter, this includes implementing a ‘Common European Asylum System to ensure the same standards in all Member States, an increase of emergency aid to front-line Member States, and the deployment of support teams to help process asylum claims’ (European Council 2015).

This could have gone a long way towards mitigating the escalating tragedy in the Mediterranean. However, it would certainly be a mistake to consider the matter closed and problem solved, even if the EU were able to bring casualties to zero. Upon close inspection of the EU’s immediate response, it is clear that it was still driven primarily by an exclusionary regional interest to manage and control migration into Europe. These are policies that, whilst having a humanitarian veneer, radically exacerbate the burdens of migrants and displaced persons from and in countries like Libya, Syria, Eritrea, and Somalia. Stefan Kessler captured the underlying motive behind the EU’s new approach: ‘Keep protection-seekers far, far away from Europe so that their deaths don’t make the headlines in European media’ (in Siegfried 2015). Moreover, a conspicuous absence from this response, and on-going consideration, is the increasing concern with climate-induced displacement and migratory flows. Instead, migration continues to be conceived through a security-specific lens, deliberately missing larger parts of the picture. It is clear, however, that EU policy has failed both in its narrow objectives and in wider terms as migration flows put pressure on multiple entry points into Europe, from Macedonia to Italy, Greece to France. Some of these pressures have now become so great that these entry points are almost ungovernable. As hundreds of thousands of people pour into Europe from the South and Eastern routes, what was once known as the ‘Mediterranean Crisis’ quickly became a larger European refugee crisis which threatens to overwhelm existing EU policy structures. It remains to be seen how the interplay between state migration policy and actual migratory movements play out, with some countries, notably Germany and Sweden, currently liberalising their border policies, while others, the UK and Hungary for instance, are resisting such moves.

To be sure, these problems are difficult to resolve. The issue of refugees and displaced peoples is one of the great tests of the international humanitarian ideals of the 21st century, and of the cosmopolitan aspirations of a Europe shaped by ambition to project its soft power and good governance across the world. However, when cosmopolitanism meets state interests under economic pressure, the former is often cast aside. Europe, racked by the Euro crisis, has become a partial, and all too often sorrowful, champion of humanitarian values. There is a paradox wherein many European states are cosmopolitan when it comes to championing ideals, but remain sectarian when it comes to their implementation.

There were huge steps that Europe took in the post-war period to move from a region of bitter conflict and strife to a pacific union in which (still) the idea of war among European countries is almost inconceivable – a supraregional polity shaped by human rights, common frameworks and the rule of law. But like in so much of European history, there are rights for citizens and exclusions for others. This divide, previously noted, is constantly policed and a bridge between these poles has been hard to build.

Concluding thoughts

In a much quoted passage, Hannah Arendt referred to statelessness as the “newest mass phenomenon in contemporary history,” and stateless persons as “the most symptomatic group in contemporary politics” (1977). It could also be said that internally displaced persons or refugees highlight the difficulties of cosmopolitanism with its aspiration for global law and transnational accountability.

In an era of climate change, war and uneven development, the pressures of migration grow and could easily create an ever greater avalanche of movement. States act in a paradoxical way. On the one hand they recognise, along with all humanitarian organisations, the nature of the migration crisis and the necessity to broaden the definition of those who need urgent assistance, not just refugees but all those migrants forced to leave for reasons of violence or poverty. On the other hand, nearly every host country acts on increasingly narrow definitions of those who warrant assistance and perhaps resettlement.

The growing crisis of migration, as Pierre Hassner once wrote, “like the problem of genocide, or of the environment, or of nuclear proliferation, can be handled only by going beyond the monopoly of states toward a more universal perspective, such as that of human rights, or a more global one, such as that of a collective interest of the planet” (1998, p.281). As Hassner recognised, the question is whether “an effective synthesis of the global and the local, the universal and the particular” remains within the sphere of the possible (ibid.).

Stepping stones to a universal constitutional order, linking the global and the local, are, I have argued elsewhere, already in place, set down by some of the most important achievements of international law and institution building in the 20th century (see Held 2010). These developments generate a conception of rightful authority tied to human rights and democratic values. In this perspective, political power is legitimate if, and only if, it upholds these standards. Moreover, the link between territory, sovereignty, and rightful authority is, in principle, broken since rightful authority can be exercised in many spheres and many levels – local, subnational, national and supranational. Accordingly, citizenship can be envisaged, as it already is in the EU, as equal membership in the diverse, overlapping political communities which uphold common civic political values and standards. Citizenship, accordingly, is not built on exclusive membership in a single community, but on a set of principles and legal arrangements which link people together in diverse communities which significantly affect them.

Stepping stones, yes. But it remains another big step to extend these principles and arrangements to the stateless. Short term extensions in the EU could include: centrally funded reception centres; coordinated legal routes through which migrants can travel to seek refuge; robust asylum quotas for all member states; tackling human trafficking; and providing direct aid to refugee camps in the Middle East which are currently home to millions of displaced people. Other difficulties need to be addressed as well. One of these lies in the current conception of policy choices: either citizenship or send migrants home. Kant laid down over 200 years ago the duty to offer universal hospitality to each and all as a condition of a law bound, open global order (1970). Perhaps today the idea of universal hospitality can be rearticulated to connote not just search and rescue and/or providing temporary aid but a number of intermediate steps that might, at least in small part, fill the gap between statelessness and citizenship. Short term working visas and limited working passes are among options to ease the crises of the stateless while offering universal hospitality in an era of overlapping communities of fate. Even if this were granted (and we are a long way from this happening), the problem would only be stemmed – not resolved. Only when people live securely in a world where sustainable development is promoted in all regions, where severe inequalities between countries are tempered and reduced, and where a universal constitutional order guarantees the rights of all peoples, could this begin to be envisaged. Cosmopolitan ideals, but still, far from realities.

Note: This survey article is based on a keynote lecture I gave, by the same title, to the conference: Human Migration and the Environment, held at Durham University, UK, 28th June – 1st July 2015. I would like to thank Andrew Baldwin for his generous reflections and comments.

References

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22

Climate Leadership in the Developing World David Held and Charles Barclay Roger 14 November 2013

Climate change is a notoriously difficult problem to solve: what Garrett Hardin once called a “tragedy of the commons”. Governments must create institutions that fairly distribute the burden of abating greenhouse gases, accurately measure compliance, and can credibly mete out punishments to those who don't pull their weight. All of these tasks involve complex trade-offs, uncertainty and hard bargaining—and must be done fast.

The current round of climate change negotiations, which is presently taking place in Warsaw, Poland, aims at producing a treaty that involves all countries by 2015, and would take effect by 2020. The goal is to limit global temperatures to a 1.5-2 degree Celsius rise. But many doubt whether this can be accomplished in time. They worry that we will speed past a tragic, irreversible tipping point before consensus is reached.

There are indeed good reasons to worry. However, even without a global treaty, there are small signs of hope for the Earth. One of the most promising has been the growing number of states that have taken unilateral actions to limit their carbon emissions. One recent study in the journal Climate Policy has found that, in 2012, a total of 41 states have implemented climate change legislation, up from 34 in 2007.

The effects of such laws are potentially significant. In total, this binding legislation currently covers around 44 per cent of all emissions of greenhouse gases. Around 106 countries have also developed non-binding climate change strategies, a necessary first step towards more significant actions. These currently cover around 23 per cent of all emissions.

This growing body of climate legislation and policy, covering 67 per cent of all emissions in total, suggests a level of political dynamism at the national level that seems all but absent from global negotiations. But what is particularly interesting about this growing trend is that it appears to be strongest in the developing world.

In the past, industrialized states, especially those within the European Union, have led the global battle against climate change. Today, the frontline in that battle is shifting. According to the same Climate Policy study mentioned above, 49 per cent of all emissions from developing states were covered by climate legislation in 2012. The equivalent number for industrialized states was 39 per cent. Of course, this doesn’t tell us anything about how ambitious these pledges are. It may be that the pledges made by poor countries are relatively less stringent than those put forward by rich countries. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. Another study by the Stockholm Environment Institute, which pooled the results of several independent evaluations (by UNEP and McKinsey & Company, for example), found that there was “broad agreement” that the targets set by developing countries would do more to limit emissions than those put forward by their wealthier counterparts.

One might still argue that developing countries are less likely, on balance, to follow through on their promises. Despite ambitious legislation, governance capacity in the developing world is often weak, and implementation is uneven. This is certainly true. Although many developing states have beautifully written constitutions, for example, democratic practices can be hollow. Yet, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that many developing states are indeed becoming leaders when it comes to climate policymaking.

Our own book, Climate Governance in the Developing World (co-edited with Eva-Maria Nag), shows that a number of poorer countries are taking actions that equal some of the best efforts taken by industrialized states so far. Consider China. Over the past ten years, it has developed the largest fleet of wind turbines in the world and become a global solar energy leader. It has also turned itself into a major producer of both turbines and solar panels, and, with India, has been instrumental in making them more competitive relative to fossil fuels.

This trend looks set to continue. Currently, China plans to expand its wind capacity to 300 gigawatts by 2020, an amount roughly equivalent to the world’s entire installed wind capacity at present. It aims to expand solar energy capacity to 20 gigawatts or more. At the same time, as industrialized countries such as Japan and Germany are scaling back their use of nuclear energy, China is thrusting forward with around 30 plants under construction and more in the pipeline.

However, shifting the composition of its energy supply has only been part of the Chinese equation. Faced with skyrocketing energy demand, China has tried to improve energy efficiency as well. Under the last Five-Year Plan, the country aimed to reduce the energy intensity of its economy by 20 per cent, and it actually managed to come close to achieving that goal. The Climate Policy Initiative estimates that China managed a 19 per cent improvement in energy intensity, abating nearly 1,550 megatonnes of carbon dioxide. One scheme, the Top-1000 Enterprises Energy Conservation Programme, which created incentives for businesses to increase energy efficiency, is estimated to have avoided around 400 megatonnes alone.

Building upon these accomplishments, the country has promised to reduce the “carbon intensity” of its economy by 40-45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020. The most recent Five- Year Plan has set a mandatory target of reducing energy intensity by 16 per cent by 2015. This has been accompanied by a host of new policies and programmes at various levels of government, as well as a major expansion of the Top-1000 Enterprises programme. Seven provinces and cities are also implementing pilot carbon-trading schemes, which many expect will merge into a national programme by 2018.

Economist Hu Angang has famously referred to these developments as a “green revolution”. But China is not the only developing country where impressive changes have taken place. Brazil has become much more ambitious on climate change in recent years. For a long time, the country led the world in terms of emissions from land use change and deforestation. Between 1988 and 2004, around 18,000 km2 of Brazilian land was deforested annually, on average, an area roughly equivalent to the size of Kuwait or Slovenia. In 2004, this produced around 1,830 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, nearly three times the annual emissions of Canada and twice the annual emissions of Germany in the same year.

Now, after new legislation, new real-time satellite monitoring capabilities, and major efforts to build domestic enforcement capacity—under the leadership of Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment from 2003-2008, and Carlos Minc, who followed Silva in that role—Brazil has started to make real headway on the issue. Enforcement operations and protected areas increased, and deforestation has steadily fallen from its peak in 2004. In 2012, deforestation was 84 per cent below 2004 levels.

The impact of this change is already palpable. A recent report from the Observatorio do Clima, a network of environmental organizations, noted that Brazil’s annual emissions are now at their lowest level in 20 years. And, in 2009, with support from Brazilian voters and businesses, these accomplishments gave lawmakers in Brazil the confidence to push through legislation that commits the country to further reductions in deforestation, as well as a longer-term target of reducing total emissions by 36-29 per cent below business-as- usual by 2020.

Other developing countries have followed suit. Mexico has signed into law a 2020 target of reducing emissions by 20 per cent from business-as-usual. It is also one of the only countries—and likely the only developing country—to have legislated a long-term target of reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. Mexican lawmakers are currently debating a carbon tax as part of a set of fiscal reforms proposed by President Peña Nieto. South Korea has also committed to reduce emissions by 30 per cent from business-as-usual by 2020, and has approved a national emissions trading scheme to meet this goal that will begin operating in 2015. Perhaps most ambitiously, Costa Rica has committed to becoming the world’s first carbon neutral country.

Of course, there are well-grounded doubts about the significance of some actions. South Africa plans to lower emissions by 42 per cent below business-as-usual by 2025, and has proposed a carbon tax, but, given its new investments in coal power generation, it is unlikely to meet this goal. Indonesia has a set a climate target for 2020, but despite a billion dollar commitment from Norway to help limit deforestation and a moratorium on new concessions, the rate of deforestation remains largely unaffected. Some have also questioned whether meeting China’s carbon intensity target would represent a meaningful departure from business-as-usual, although the best attempts to estimate the impact of China’s efforts suggest that it should.

All of this raises important questions, but it does not change the fact that the locus of climate policymaking has been shifting to the developing world. This represents a major break from the past—when it was poor countries that were accused of not doing enough to limit their impact on the climate. Indeed, the shift is all the more striking given recent setbacks and foot-dragging in the industrialized world, with both Canada and Australia taking big steps backwards, ongoing troubles with the European Union's Emissions Trading System, and gridlock in Congress that limits the scope for putting a national price on carbon in the United States.

It is particularly important, too, because many developing countries are having a much greater impact upon the climate than they did in the past. Explosive economic growth has led to major increases in the production of greenhouse gases. China is by far the world’s largest emitter of carbon, and many others are in the top 20, including Brazil, India, and Indonesia. A recent study estimates that by 2020 the developing world will be responsible for over half of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. Hence, action by (at least) the largest developing and emerging economies is desperately needed.

Ultimately, while developing countries are becoming bigger players in the global race to limit emissions, their actions still fall well short of what is needed to limit global temperatures to safe levels. They must scale up their efforts, fast. This is something that can only be done through a global treaty. But such a treaty will only be possible if wealthier countries resume their leadership role on the climate. We need real, sustained actions across the industrialized world if the project of checking global warming is to succeed. If not, we might just speed past that tipping point—the problem of the commons will indeed turn to tragedy.

23

Europe, the European Union, and European Identity David Held and Kyle McNally 7 February 2014

The European Union can only be understood against the backdrop of the catastrophic history of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. The two World Wars, and the Great Depression between them, shattered any assumptions of certainty and stability that Europeans might have once had.

The rise of Nazism, fascism and Stalinism, in particular, turned the Enlightenment on its head making Europe the centre of barbarism and brutality. It was not Islamic extremists, China, or other non-western powers that had so disrupted global peace. It was, above all, Europe. And the catastrophic consequences of this went to the heart of postwar European thinking.

The European Union is, at its core, a project of Kantian peace, an attempt to create a peaceful union of European states that had been at war with each other for many centuries, but whose orgy of violence in the first half of the twentieth century left Europe exhausted. The Marshall Plan had reawakened hope for European development and the formation of the European Community in the postwar years created a vision of a European ideal that had been eclipsed by the fire and ashes of war.

This ideal remains fundamental to the European project even though the reality is fraught with the compromises of geopolitics. The EU has been through turbulent cycles of deepening and broadening – first the core states, then Spain, Portugal, Greece, then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, membership was extended to central and eastern European states. But behind all the turbulent transitions, European leaders like Chancellor Kohl were eager to move forward the European ideal through the policy and practice of extending and entrenching the Union.

The EU in its most robust form stands at the pinnacle of this vision – an integrated Europe with a single market subject to common rules and a shared framework of human rights and justice. The plurality of European nations could flourish within an overarching shared commitment to democratic rules and human rights standards. Power and authority could be remoulded upwards and downwards: cities, sub-national regions, nation states and the supra-national structure of the EU could all exist together in a cosmopolitan structure defined not by - to my nation right or wrong - but by a shared political culture of democracy, markets and social justice.

Inventing diverse nations and democracies

Of course, the idea of a people, whether national or European, is a complex social construct. By drawing lines on maps, by conquest and by other ‘top-down’ processes, elites carved out bordered spaces in which a diversity of peoples lived. The creation of national cultures was often initiated by elites to bind people into common territories. However, national cultures were never merely the result of such initiatives. Elites never invented nations on arid ground. Rather, nations were created upon deep legacies of history and culture, a sense of common rights and duties, and a shared recognition of overlapping fates.

The struggle to create democracy, moreover, was not just a struggle against the autocratic elites that has shaped European history so significantly. The idea of a democratic people, just like the idea of a national culture, was the result of interplay between elite developments and popular pressure. The demoi that emerged in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries were both catalysed by great democratic reformers and constituted through struggle to claim a democratic right of membership in community. The democratic rights that followed were often hard won in bitter struggles of labour movements and later in the conflicts surrounding the right to vote for women and marginalized minorities.

Europe’s postwar boom and bust

While Europe benefited from the postwar boom and the virtuous circle of institution building and economic growth that pervaded the postwar settlement, tensions in the European project could be put aside by the sheer evidence of success. All national boats in Europe could rise together in a European Union where common governing structures could trump national states in critical areas, and where sovereignty was pooled in significant ways.

This period of self-reinforcing European interdependence produced the noble development of the EU as a common political structure which recognized diversity and difference under a shared rubric of law and regulation. In the 1990s, the Euro-barometer showed the highest levels of European identification. It seemed that European politicians could have their cake and eat it too – a strong Europe in a land of plural states.

The build-up of economic pressures at the turn of the twenty-first century was temporarily masked by the continuing efforts of the US, the EU and China to accelerate ever more down the road of economic growth. The crash was never far behind. The collapse of Lehman Brothers was the match that lit the global financial crisis which at first could be characterised, as the Chinese did, as the North Atlantic Financial Crisis. But as time went on it was clear enough that this was too easy a characterisation and that many of the countries of the European Union were deeply implicated in the malpractices and misadventures of investment banking, subprime mortgages, excessive leveraging, and complex and volatile financial instruments. Moreover, the European Union governing structures which were once seen as a fine balance between centre and nation looked suddenly weak. The EU, although far from alone in this, had allowed a regime of light touch regulation in financial matters, and had been built on the quicksand of a single currency without wider fiscal and monetary controls.

European identity and the missing horizontal

Against this background, the question of European identity is once more raised in stark form. It is possible that this question could be once again set aside if the EU manages to stabilise the European economy and the recent evidence of renewed growth is affirmed.

However, the financial crisis has raised fundamental questions about identity and politics. European culture, like all cultures before it, cannot simply be the result of elite efforts. It has to be built on a foundation of common values and beliefs, which need nurturing over the long term.

There were opportunities to set down these roots in the postwar period but they were rarely explored. It was easier for the leaders of Germany and France, along with their allies, to shape Europe in their own image and interest. European governance was always a compromise between the interests of its leading powers and rarely, if at all, the product of wide scale horizontal communication between peoples.

The great projects of European cultural integration were above all projects of infrastructure, science and institution building. These are important, but they do not touch the fuzzy core of the complex patterns of national culture.

Today the EU is under strain. The financial crisis exacerbated underlying tensions among member states, which in turn were compounded by the weakening monetary and fiscal position of several of them. In addition, the crisis gave an enormous impetus to emerging regions, particularly China and South East Asia, which put further competitive pressure on Europe.

Against this background, signs have emerged of increasing social disintegration and a resurgence of nationalist sentiment; anti-Semitism, racism and far-right politics are re- established as the dark side of European culture never entirely addressed.

European identity was the negative construct of a Europe torn apart by World War. It was a negative outcome of an attempt to end German Europe and to forge a European identity in the Cold War, squeezed, as Europe was, by the rivalry of the USA and USSR. But negative cultural formation cannot carry the day when the driving forces – the geopolitical threats to Europe – disappear. The questions then arise: who are we Europeans? What does it mean to be European after the Cold War? Can European identity survive the global financial crisis?

Kant’s peace as a vision for today

It remains one of Europe’s greatest achievements to have created a Kantian peace where there was once only devastation and war. The attempt to create common political structures rooted in human rights and rule of law remains one of the most inspiring political projects in a global world fraught by the contradictory pressures of globalisation and nationalism.

In an era where global bads pervade – global financial instability, global economic imbalances, the risk of pandemics and epidemics, climate change and so on – coming together in large political blocs to deal with common challenges can only be the right way ahead. Yet this right way has to be built on solving common problems, enjoying common governance in the face of common threats and on the commitment to principles and procedures that alone can create peace, unity and freedom in a diverse world; that is, the principles of democracy and human rights.

European identity cannot be based on an integrated European culture. It can only survive as a way of solving problems, united by a common political culture inspired by Kant and embodied in the rule of law, multilevel democracy, and human rights. This remains a Europe worth having.

24

To be, or not to be: Europe under siege David Held and Kyle McNally 16 December 2015

It has been a tough year for Europe. Greece, mass migration and terrorism are among the many factors which have unsettled Europe in a profound way. When the EU is seen to stutter and stumble from one crisis to another, what the EU stands for, and what the EU is all about, are questions that become of great significance. Perhaps it is just an end of year reflection, but there does seem to be something profoundly cumulative about the pressures on the EU.

Empires fall, countries collapse, and regimes break when they come under multiple pressures which pile on difficulties of growing complexity. When this complexity outstrips the steering capacity of such entities they tend to crumble and give way to new historical forms. Is the EU now in this position?

Steering capacity comprises a number of different things. It requires having the governance mechanisms to resolve pressing problems, and the cultural and symbolic goods which bind a population together. In the case of the European Union, its governance mechanisms have typically been well adapted to a world of rising prosperity. The postwar boom assisted Europe’s development such that all countries could rise simultaneously.

The European community was, moreover, bound together in the postwar years because of two crucial social and symbolic experiences. The first of these was the Second World War and its catastrophic legacy. The second was the Cold War which gave Europe a strong sense of negative integration. But when the Cold War came to an end and the threat of the Soviet Union was over, what would bind Europe into the future? In the 1990s and early 2000s, faced with mounting economic and social difficulties, the EU needed positive ideals and norms of integration, such as commitments to social justice, sustainability and well-being, which were too often either latent or absent.

Relying on the negative leads to difficulties, and when things get tough and problems persist contested issues arise. Under these circumstances, distributional struggles typically intensify, mutual gain gives way to zero-sum, and the social order risks fragmentation and sectional struggle.

The EU faces a series of crises which together threaten the infrastructure of the Union itself and ask deep questions about its steering abilities. In the first instance, the global financial crisis ricocheted through Europe creating many years of economic strain, sluggish growth, overhanging debts, and unemployment. As the global financial crisis became a Eurocrisis the balance sheets of many European states became strained to breaking point.

European banks, buoyed by the fiction that risk had been equally distributed across the Eurozone and beyond, had bought large amounts of public and private debt from their neighbours and the US. As the economic crisis deepened, this debt became toxic and in many cases worthless. European states stepped in to socialise this debt and rapidly found their fiscal position in ruin. A vicious cycle of austerity and protest followed. The era of financial deregulation had come home to roost. If the crisis raised questions about the economic competence of the EU, the recent case of Greece created a watershed in EU economic and moral leadership. The Kantian project of a peaceful union of states that had been at war with each other for many centuries was premised on the Marshall plan which put resources in place for an exhausted Europe. Yet in insisting that Greece face its Versailles moment, the EU abdicated its moral vision in favour of punitive and restricting covenants. The paradox of this is that the one country that arguably benefited the most from the postwar settlement, Germany, became the country that insisted on austerity for Greece and a punitive settlement.

Against this backdrop of economic pressure ‘European society’ (which had reached its zenith in the mid-1990s according to Euro-barometer data) began to experience intensifying contestation and division along nationalistic lines. In Greece the Golden Dawn gained a footing, in the UK UKIP rose to prominence, in France the National Front captured much support, in Denmark the Danish People’s Party continues to grow; and isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric became common place throughout the region. It is against this background that politicians struggle to cope with sudden and substantial migration flows into Europe; a struggle which compounds the sense that the EU’s fragile system of social integration is under pressure.

While Chancellor Merkel’s commitment to opening the doors of Germany to refugees may be seen as a heroic stand in the tradition of humanitarian principles and human rights, this commitment is not shared by the overwhelming majority of European countries. The result is a kind of schizophrenia with respect to those who seek shelter in Europe. All EU attempts to establish an effective policy towards migration have failed, as flows continue to put pressure on multiple entry points into Europe from Spain to Italy, from Hungary to Greece. Some of these pressures have now become so great that these entry points are almost ungovernable. As hundreds of thousands of people pour into Europe from the south and east, what was previously described as the ‘Mediterranean Crisis’ quickly became a larger European refugee crisis which threatens to overwhelm existing EU policy.

A deeper paradox underpins the crisis of contemporary migration in Europe. The flow of refugees are in many respects the other side of the failed 9/11 wars and persisting instability throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Although some European countries stood against these conflicts, many did not. The utter failure of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya created vacuums in these countries into which brutal armed power has stepped. The people’s fleeing from North Africa, Iraq and now Syria come to Europe for help. Europe bears a direct responsibility for many of the catastrophic instabilities in their home countries. Yet, with the exception of, for example Germany and Sweden, the EU has buckled in the face of their suffering.

Many of the security challenges in the world as a whole are now at Europe’s doorstep. Certainly, the terrorist violence that swept through Paris signals new security dilemmas which the EU finds hard to address. There is a significant discrepancy between the military capacity that Europe possesses and relies on and the security demands facing the region in the twenty first century. No amount of fighter jets and cruise missiles can prevent a small group of armed men from storming a concert hall. And yet, we still hear the eerily familiar war drums beating once again. Hollande’s call for a “pitiless war” to be fought against ISIL is a desperate repetition of the language we have come to know in the war on terror, so frequently uttered by Blair, Sarkozy and others. The vicious cycle of violence from 9/11 to increased airstrikes in Syria establishes an ever-escalating conflict and one which becomes ever more distant from a political resolution.

But the problems go deeper. The decision to adopt a common currency in the EU allowed a radical increase in European economic interdependence. Some of this was planned and desired, such as the increase in intra-European trade and investment. Other elements were not foreseen. Most fatefully, as already noted, many large European banks began to collapse with consequences that ricocheted throughout Europe. Enhanced economic interdependence requires significant levels of political integration. The difficulty in the EU is that such integration runs into questions of political feasibility.

In the short run, it required German taxpayers to agree to guarantee the borrowing of the Greek state and other debtor countries, and it required the debtors to borrow and spend in a way that is acceptable to German taxpayers.

In the long run, greater fiscal coordination is required at the EU level. For some, this implies the EU’s capacity to enforce fiscal discipline. For others, it implies the EU’s capacity for fiscal transfers. The divergence between these perspectives is regularly on display in Brussels and across the continent.

Such challenges, and any approach to finding effective solutions to them, rest on an uncertain foundation of European governance. The bedrock of Europe is etched with fault lines which under increasing pressure can quickly become fractures between the many communities and political centres that comprise the EU. Divisions open up within and between member states and threaten the promise of a cohesive and harmonious Europe. The EU, as its critics have often asserted, was created by European elites, albeit inspired by noble ideals. As the construct of elites, the EU has only had a shallow pool of legitimacy which too often rested on EU outputs; that is, economic success and stability. In democratic terms, the EU’s thin layer of legitimacy has few roots in the political fabric of the societies of member states. On top of this, many European decisions have all too often been the result of the struggle between the most powerful political interests, and today this increasingly takes the form of the interests of a dominant Germany. For these and many other reasons, EU decision making is often seen as bureaucratic, slow and difficult to accept, and far from accountable to EU citizens. Under pressure, as the EU is today, there is a clear risk that the political foundation of the whole project could come unstuck.

European culture, like all cultures before it, cannot simply be the result of elite efforts. It has to be built on a foundation of common values and beliefs, which need to be cultivated over the long term. There were opportunities to set down these roots in the postwar period but they were rarely explored. It was easier for the leaders of Germany and France, along with their allies, to shape Europe in their own image and interest. European governance was always a compromise between the interests of its leading powers and rarely, if at all, the product of wide scale horizontal communication between peoples. The great projects of European cultural integration were above all projects of infrastructure and institution building. These are important, but they do not touch the fuzzy core of the complex patterns of national culture.

This recognition makes it difficult to maintain a vision of Europe as a Kantian pacific union, as an example of pooled sovereignty and of how democratic rule can be elevated beyond the nation state. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the EU has achieved much and, when times were good, went some way towards realising these ideals. But when faced with current difficulties the connective thread that binds the EU appears thinner and thinner. What was envisioned by the architects of the EU, and the elite celebrants of the project, was a thick and robust ideal of Europe. Whether or not the EU is at a tipping point now remains to be seen. Steering a way through the current constellation of crises is a sine qua non of salvaging the EU project. With steering capacity under pressure this will not be easy but recent EU attempts to reform and consolidate EU institutions may help.

In the short term, Europe can only survive as a way of solving common problems. This remains a Europe worth having insofar as the EU stabilises crises and protects the economic wellbeing of its citizens. In the long run, however, the EU cannot survive without its thicker ideals, because without them Europe will have neither the political nor social integration to bind it together. 25

The Brexit Dead End 9 June 2016

Brexit is a dead end for the UK. It’s a cul-de-sac, a distraction and damaging in fundamental ways. Brexit will create a much more insecure world and a more isolated and weaker UK. Brexit will set the UK economy back at least a decade. The shock will be in the order of the recent and continuing global financial crisis.

There are three reasons why this is true. The first concerns security and the prospects of global peace as well as peace in Europe itself. We like to repress the fact that Europe has been the most bloodthirsty, aggressive and violent continent in human history. From the late 16th Century, Europe exploded onto the world and in the centuries that followed it created the biggest empires ever known. Britain was at the centre of the largest of these with colonies reaching across the world. When these empires came under pressure from the late 19th century and began slowly to collapse, Europe turned inward and entered a ‘black hole’ of violence in the first half of the 20th century. Fascism across large parts of Europe, two world wars and the Holocaust are among the markers of the bloody catastrophe of European history. The Holocaust was the grotesque crown on this war-torn body, but the body itself was riddled with signs of the most heinous violence and degradation.

Was this the Europe of the Renaissance? Was this the Europe of the Enlightenment? Was this the Europe of industrial modernisation? Was this the Europe of the modern state? Indeed, in part. Europe has always had many faces as it strove throughout the 18th and 19th century to create rights and benefits for its citizens while denying these to all outsiders; outsiders within the developing European nation states, and those in the colonies. Yet, all was not lost. Europe after 1945, passed from Hobbes to Kant, and set off along the road to a new Kantian pacific union in which to this day the idea, let alone the reality, of violence between European states is almost inconceivable. Having stared in the abyss of the first half of the 20th century, political leaders from across the world gathered at the UN conference in San Francisco to try and set down a new world order. In Europe, similar processes began from the late 1940s to create a union of European states bound together by trade, investment and a common law of human rights standards. For all of its ups and downs, and weaknesses in governance, the Union has held, pooling sovereignty and creating a zone of peace. Why would we put all this in jeopardy now? Why would Britain leave the EU at this moment? Why would we turn our back on a peaceful Europe and risk a return to isolation and a more fragmented Europe? The European Union remains a great peace project and this remains its abiding significance. The European peace project created the conditions in which the European economy could flourish. It is only with relatively stable institutions that the conditions are created for economic growth and prosperity. Under relatively open, liberal, and predictable circumstances individuals and companies can take risks and build investments and economic networks across countries. The growth of intra-EU trade over the last decades has been remarkable, making all EU countries stronger. Of course, there were mistakes in economic governance and in the policies the EU put in place; the introduction of the Euro without appropriate governance allowed EU economic interdependence to accelerate without the benefit of stable fiscal and redistributive policies.

Such mistakes can be corrected with time, but Brexit can’t. Pulling the UK out of the EU would deprive the UK of its biggest trading partner, create a massive disincentive for companies around the world to invest in the UK, lead to financial and commercial exit as banks and companies seek safer economic havens within the larger market of the EU, and provide a massive boost to unemployment. These processes have, in fact, already begun as the risk of Brexit erodes business confidence. It would be reckless to go further in this direction. If there ever were a case for economic Luddism, this would be it.

If the U in the EU stands for a peaceful union, the E stands for economic wellbeing in the largest market in the world. But E stands for something else of equal significance: the environment. Seventy years of break-neck industrialisation in the West, and now in Asia and the South, have led to many serious forms of environmental externalities. The most challenging of all these is itself an existential threat. Climate change threatens human life as we know it. There can be no sustainable peace or sustainable economy without addressing the costs of climate change, and creating polices that address the challenges of mitigation and adaption. It is a very tough rough road from a high carbon to a low carbon economy but it is a road that can only be travelled by increasing border cooperation between states. The EU has led on these issues over the last 15 years. To weaken the EU now, in the face of an existential threat, would be calamitous for this and future generations. Brexit could weaken the EU’s role in addressing climate change by creating new schisms; and it would certainly marginalise the UK in future climate discussions.

Why vote remain? These are the three crucial reasons: EEU – Economy, Environment and Union. The alternative is a nostalgic Britain hankering after a lost empire and lost sovereignty, increasingly stumbling across a darker and more uncertain landscape of world economics and politics.

It remains one of Europe’s greatest achievements to have created a strong union of states where there was once devastation and war. The attempt to create common political structures rooted in human rights and rule of law remains one of the most inspiring political projects in a global world fraught by the contradictory pressures of globalisation and nationalism. In an era where global bads pervade – global financial instability, global economic imbalances, the risk of pandemics and epidemics, climate change and so on – coming together in political blocs to deal with common challenges can only be the right way ahead. This way is built on solving common problems, enjoying common governance in the face of common threats and on the commitment to principles and procedures that alone can create peace, unity and freedom in a diverse world; that is, the principles of democracy, social justice and human rights. For all of its weaknesses today and severe challenges this remains a European Union worth having. 26

Britain, Riding the Tectonic Plates 24 June 2016

The referendum was lost some time ago. At its most superficial it was lost because the EU failed to give Cameron enough to take back from the negotiating table in the form of plausible and sustainable gains for the UK in the EU. It was lost because Labour leadership catastrophically failed to join a unified platform until the last few days of the campaign and failed to communicate to its electorate a coherent and plausible narrative of the EU and its future. It was lost because of the years of austerity policies championed by Cameron and Osborne which have left people’s living standards suppressed and many marginalised.

It was lost because it became a referendum about immigration and people’s fears, the latter worked on and stirred by right wing politicians from the Conservatives and UKIP, projecting these fears into false utopias of an independent Britain, independently wealthy. And it was lost because these fears of the unknown and the other played into the voting preferences of older generations.

Underneath all of this there are deeper trends which make the referendum appear mere epiphenomena of more structural shifts. The EU has suffered a calamitous disjuncture between its political capacities and its economic and social challenges. While the Euro radically enhanced economic interdependence across Europe, this process outstripped the governing abilities of the European Union in its current form. Caught between the proclamation of Europe and the sectional interests of its leading countries, the EU has staggered from crisis to crisis revealing its deeper structural and democratic fault lines. The EU has been an elite project, with key decisions taken behind closed doors between its leading powers, and all too often at a vast distance from European peoples, who have felt aggrieved, alienated, and disconnected.

Yet, further beneath the surface there are other powerful processes. Global cities like London have become centre points of the world economy and its multiple financial and commercial interests. These cities have risen in the last 30-40 years to become hugely successful metropolises able to accommodate diversity, rapid change, and an international vision of their place in the world. Such global cities are hubs connected to other global cities which have directly benefited from globalisation in the last few decades. In these hubs all boats could rise together. But the other side of this success is that these great cities have tended to accelerate away from the land masses in which they are embedded. They have more in common with each other than many of the rural and urban areas in their hinterlands.

And this too reflects deeper shifts. The postwar era was built on an understanding of the horrors and catastrophes that could be unleashed when states go it alone in an international order without constraints. The international institutions developed in the postwar years, along with their counterpart in the European Union, in order to prevent another great war, keep European conflict at bay, and create the conditions for prosperity in a relatively open and liberal order. This postwar institutional settlement was enormously successful for many decades.

But now the very conditions that created that success are no longer sustainable as power shifts from the North to South and West to East. Global interdependence has outstripped the capacity of the postwar institutions to manage it and this is leaving a legacy of disruption, crises, and runaway global challenges, including ever wider income and wealth inequalities.

The referendum is at the centre of these shifting plates. It is the crack which can become a chasm in the postwar order. Accordingly, we enter a new era which has radical uncertainty at its centre and resembles in some respects a return to a disorderly world of states relentlessly pursuing their own interests. We know what often comes next.

Afterword: Can Western Politics be Revitalised?

27

Path to Authoritarianism: The Collapse of the Politics of Accommodation David Held and Kyle McNally 13 September 2016

Democracy is built on the values of citizenship and the equal freedom of each and every individual. The rights and duties of each citizen entail recognition of the equal standing of every member of the political community in the democratic process. Recognition of the other is built into the fabric of democratic societies even though the clash of interests, intense political debates and febrile media shapes everyday life. Democratic politics accommodates criticism, rejection and the routine removal of parties from power; it persists in the face of intense daily conflict because there is a broad commitment to the idea of fair rules that apply to each and all and that the political process is better off with these rules than without. Accommodation of difference, in one form or another, is the bedrock of democracy.

Of course, this process is compromised in liberal democracies, especially those dominated by the private funding of elections, interest group politics and lobbying, media beholden to sensationalism, click-bait and lopsided narratives, and the structurally privileged position of capital. Nonetheless, what distinguishes liberal democracies from fascism and authoritarianism is the necessity of compromise and acceptance of accommodation as the sine qua non of politics. Accommodation can be, and most often is, only very thin. This minimum settlement upon which a society rests rarely includes consensus on even a small range of issues, except the minimum rules of the game. Indeed, more often this settlement is the stage on which political contestation and ideological struggle play themselves out. This is nothing new. What appears different about many contemporary challenges facing liberal democracies is that this foundation, the bedrock of accommodation, appears not only to be thin, but cracking.

There is always a risk in times of heightened economic and political tensions that the bedrock of accommodation is challenged and, in extreme cases, weakened. Symptoms of this can include the flare up of violence and the escalation of exclusionary rhetoric. Democracies, just like other forms of states, are not strangers to such developments. Yet there is evidence of a recent intensification of violence of diverse kinds; from terrorism in

Paris, Brussels and Nice to attacks against migrants and the incitement of violence at political rallies. Terrorism is by definition the negation of the differences between judge, jury and executioner. The rule of law is collapsed into the murderous will of the terrorist or terrorist organisation. This remains true even though, of course, much of this violence stems from the delusional post-9/11 wars and failed interventions. These were wars of choice: ill- conceived armed conflicts which created a lawless postwar landscape marked by the rise of brutal sectarianism and heinous crimes against humanity. If you enter a war using the principle of cowboy politics – shoot first, ask questions later – it can hardly be a surprise that war triggers instability, lawlessness and the rise of new militant groups.

The pressures on the politics of accommodation do not just come from these diverse forms of political violence, but also from the troubled responses to them as well. Across the United States and Europe there have been extensive attempts to securitise many elements of society through, for instance, the extensive use of surveillance, the suspension of certain civil liberties, the militarization of civilian police forces, and the creation of rules which permit extended detention. Securitisation becomes the catchword for the organisation of a great deal of domestic activity. In short, the exceptional politics of armed conflict – with the necessary suspension certain citizenship rights in the interest of national security – becomes a standard feature of domestic politics. The military industrial complex, so brilliantly understood in the 1950s for the first time, becomes the entrenched feature of the Anglo- American world yielding, perversely, the most resilient institutional architecture of the 21st century. In this landscape, America stands out further as the armed camp of the Western world, whilst domestically its social welfare systems, public schools, and transportation infrastructure stumble and weaken. Not only does the US spend more on its military than the next seven largest military budgets combined, but a great number of its citizens are armed and ever-ready to shoot to kill. Headlines and media are drawn to the “mass killings” of American streets but these are only the tip of the iceberg of American gun violence. With an average of more than 35 people killed by guns every day in America, every day is a mass killing.

Yet even in this fraught and imperfect world, the idea of the politics of accommodation can still just about survive. Compromises are still made, negotiations continue, and rhetoric rises and falls with the ebb and flow of democratic politics. Barring some extreme examples, legislators from different sides of the aisle still talk and have coffee, as do households with intense differences of opinion. However, even this thin common ground is slipping away. All ideologies regard their views as right, but in politics of accommodation opposing views are at least considered valid. This no longer appears to be the case, with opponents and opposing views increasingly delegitimised and discarded, and their advocates mocked, dehumanised and threatened. The clearest examples of the collapse of politics of accommodation come from extremists who see only their views as right and valid. Enter the politics of Donald Trump on the one side, and UKIP and Brexit on the other.

Trump has seized his moment in the current US election cycle by tapping into the rage and grief of disaffected, white, working class, and typically undereducated, American men. His surrogates would, of course, point to other supporter groups but these remain at the far margins of his base. Trump propelled himself to the forefront of nationalistic agendas by initially promising that he would expel 11 million undocumented immigrants, build a wall along the Southern border and make Mexico pay for it. At the time this seemed absurd, but today it might be looked back on as one of his more mild moments. He has publicly mocked a disabled reporter, proudly offered numerous sexist and misogynist attacks on journalists and Hillary Clinton, sought (albeit inconsistently) to ban the entry of all Muslims into the US, openly criticised ‘Gold Star’ parents, suggested 2nd amendment ‘solutions’ to Hilary Clinton, refused to distance himself from an advisor repeatedly calling for Sec. Clinton’s execution, and most recently appointed Steve Bannon as his third campaign manager – the former head of a website that embraces white nationalism.

Trump has become the poster child of the alt-right movement, who now consoles his crowds with the claim that the only way he will lose is through cheating and corruption. Senior republican leaders have tried to distance themselves from Trump and his firebrand strategies, but their attempts are weak and disingenuous as best. Trump makes sense as the leader of the Republican party, because his candidacy was tailor made for him by the party over the last eight years, as they stoked xenophobia and embraced the role of grievance party in lieu of compromise and governance. Lest it be forgotten, Trump began to make a name for himself in politics as the leader of the ‘birther’ movement questioning President Obama’s nationality and religion. His rantings earned him primetime TV spots and little to no rebuke from Republican leaders.

While Trump stands out, he is far from alone. Nigel Farage stood next to him at the Republican convention espousing a slew of issues all too familiar to the British electorate. While Farage was not part of the official Brexit campaign, both stoked up fears of being overrun by migrants, of a British society diluted by the cultures of others, of a country almost overrun by a foreign enemy – Brussels – and projected fears into a false utopia of an independently wealthy Britain restored to its former imperial greatness. The EU referendum became a contest about immigration and peoples’ anxieties, particularly of white working class ‘ordinary’ men who worry about a loss of standing in the world. It stoked up xenophobia, nationalism, and mocked European politicians, creating a level of vitriolic rhetoric in which the truth was routinely sacrificed for political advantage. Both Trump and the Brexiteers have a wholly cavalier attitude to the truth, mocking all those that contradict them and ridiculing professionals and experts who might have a contrary view. The reductio ad absurdum in this spiral of deceit was the Brexit battle bus with its promise of £350 million a week to be redirected to the NHS if Britain voted leave. This brazen falsehood, even when it became glaringly apparent that it could never be realised (and accepted as such by Nigel Farage), was still referred to approvingly by figures such as Boris Johnson.

When the political system becomes indifferent to falsehood and deceit on seismic levels, and even offers promotion to those who champion lies, democracy becomes vulnerable and highly fragile. And when those who oppose this are ridiculed and cast aside, the politics of accommodation has begun to fracture. Add to this the increase in xenophobia and it is hardly a surprise that there has been a peak in hate crime.

Trump and the Brexiteers are just two of the more recent examples of this accelerating collapse of the politics of accommodation. From Le Pen and the National Front in France to Golden Dawn in Greece, to Norbert Hofer in Austria, and to the Danish People’s Party in Denmark, the rise of the far right is a sustained and troubling trend. The retreat to nationalism and militant identity politics is counter to the process of accommodation that has underpinned European peace since the end of the Second World War. It is as if all that was learnt in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust and Gulag risks being undone. And yet, it would be false to assign all responsibility for the erosion of accommodation to right wing politics. Exclusionary politics can, and does, come from all sides of the political spectrum and has clear manifestations on the far-left in Britain, France and Germany to name a few. The difference between the far-left and far/alt-right is that the former remains at the margins at the time of writing, while the latter has been galvanized and empowered in some critical respects.

A tough test for any politics of accommodation, liberal or otherwise, is how a political community addresses the issue of refugees and migration more generally. Western democracies have jealously guarded the privileges for those inside their borders from those that stand outside. This is not new. What is new is the diminished voice for an alternative, inclusive, more human rights-based treatment of all migrants. The calamitous failure of the European Union to provide an effective and humanitarian solution to the migration crisis bears adequate testimony to this as the EU, like the gated communities of American suburbs, seeks protection behind high walls and barb wired fences. There are exceptions, of course; the actions of Germany, admitting initially a million migrants in one year, being a case in point. But overall, the story of migration in Europe over the past three years has been indicative of an exclusionary disposition and a deeply hypocritical political stance – championing universal human rights whilst keeping the needy at bay. Even though the politics of accommodation rarely achieves what it sets out to do, it keeps the door open to the search for better solutions, better compromises and better policies. This search is built into the bedrock of democracy both as a foundational principle and a performative requirement; yet it is a search that seems increasingly called off.

Of course, we have been here before. The 1930s saw the rise of xenophobia and nationalism in the context of prolonged and protracted economic strife, the lingering impact of World War I, weak international institutions and a desperate search for scapegoats. The 2010s has notable parallels: the protracted fallout of the global financial crisis, ineffective regional and

international institutions, the cumulative negative impact of the failed post-9/11 wars, the intensification of transnational terrorism, and a growing xenophobic discourse that places virtually all blame for every problem on some form of Other. In the 1930’s the politics of accommodation gave way to the politics of dehumanisation, war and slaughter. In the 2010’s we are taking steps down a dangerously similar path. One question remains: will knowing this help us choose a different route?

The stakes are very high when liberal democracy is no longer played out in a confident and inclusive way but, rather, is driven by insecurity, exclusiveness and fear. At issue is whether and to what extent the equal moral standing of each and all, social and political tolerance, human rights, and the equal liberty of all persons in the democratic process continue to play a constitutive role in contemporary political life. When the politics of accommodation is under pressure, and patience for the protracted world of deliberation, negotiation and compromise runs out, the temptation is to look for short cuts, for political leaders who might impose their charismatic, albeit arbitrary, will. The dangers are all too obvious – a political system, rigged in favour in the privileged, increasingly impervious to opposition and challenge and in the hands of those who would corrupt it further. The alternative is to recover the constitutive elements of the politics of accommodation, the core ideas and concepts of democratic public life mediated by the rule of law and accountable to all citizens. But this alternative seems more insecure than at any point in the post-war years.

28

Gold Plated Populism: Trump and the End of the Liberal Order David Held and Kyle McNally

Donald Trump’s electoral victory has startled the world. It seems to usher in an era marked by the triumph of fear and anger, brazen disregard for reason and truth, the weakening hold of liberalism, the fracturing of the postwar consensus, and the rolling back of gains made from an integrated world economy. On the horizon, by contrast, is protectionism, wall building, and deeply exclusionary practices.

Yet, little of this is Trump’s invention or design. The postwar order has shown cracks for many years; regional and international institutions have been weakened steadily; nationalism and xenophobia have been on the rise; militant and intolerant discourses have spread like wildfire and authoritarian populism has emerged across many parts of the world. The roots of this are deep and extensive: the impact of the 2008 financial crisis has been brutally asymmetrical with the poor and working classes paying the overwhelming burden; globalisation has enriched great cities and the professionally mobile while leaving millions behind in de-industrialised towns and rural hinterlands; 9/11 and its legacy, which includes the calamitous failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, have not only destabilised the Middle East, but have swollen Western deficits, radically enhanced migration and raised the spectre of terrorism throughout Europe and the US; and the rise of networked societies which empower open critical discourses also intensify closed information loops where content is tailored to particular ideologies and ideologues.

One of the paradoxes of this period is that discontent and uncertainty amongst the working class has been most successfully co-opted by the right. The right has understood the extent of the fury, the fear of loss of standing, the anxiety about ‘others’, and the need to blame something or someone else. While some figures on the left such as Bernie Sanders have grasped this and tried to interpolate the anger and frustration into a progressive movement, the liberal establishment has been behind the curve and failed to offer a cathartic political vision for the future. One reason for this is that the liberal centre typically focuses on the complexity of policy issues ahead and has failed to match its policy prescriptions with political instinct and acumen; its professionals and experts want to dwell on the evidence which justifies their positions but fewer and fewer voters are in the mood to listen as the appetite for fact is replaced with emotion and a call to arms. There is wide gap between

policy and politics. The centre-left establishment has been preoccupied with governance and the specifics of policy; whilst the right has embraced protest politics too often void of substantive policy, railing against the ‘establishment’ at every turn.

The election of Donald Trump is the latest iteration of this growing trend, which we recently discussed in this space as the collapse of politics of accommodation. Trump’s election is hugely significant not only for the US but also for the world at large. For the US the implications are at least threefold: policy, politics and society. At the level of policy, the legislative achievements of Obama over the last eight years could be erased in a matter of months. With Republican control of both the House and Senate, little stands in the way (except for perhaps a legislative filibuster in the Senate) of Trump pushing his agenda through Congress. Ironically, we know little of what this policy agenda might actually be given his predilection for contradiction and ambiguity. What we do know is this – promises to repeal Obama care, to build a wall on the Southern border, to abandon climate change policies, to reverse the Iran nuclear deal, and to reshape the Supreme Court for a generation are his repeated priorities, and they are all now possible.

At the political level, the blow to the Democratic Party reveals an astounding weakness of the centre-left agenda. This loss was entirely unexpected and experts will continue the autopsy on this election for months if not years to come. Whilst the Democratic Party can reasonably expect big wins in the 2018 midterm election, the deficit that they must recover may prove too large to reverse; and 2 years of a Trump presidency may feel like an eternity in the meantime. There is no disguising the hammer blow that Trump’s victory is to the Democratic Party.

Perhaps most significantly of all, this election has enormous implications for American society. In the first instance, it has revealed some of the darkest and most disturbing aspects of American political culture; Trump has created a permission structure for overt racism and unbridled misogyny. Minority families across the country awoke on November 9th to a new America – one where hope has largely been replaced with fear. Attacks on Muslim- Americans increased by more than 70% during Trump’s candidacy and this will only be emboldened in victory. The anti-Semitic leanings of Trump’s campaign stirred deep anxieties in the Jewish community and worries that Trump’s exclusionist politics will be a license for ever more intolerance and bigotry. The hope that remains for many is that President Trump does not keep his campaign promises and that a kinder leader steps into the White House than the one who was just elected. But the grounds for this hope seem desperately thin.

The wider global implications are equally disturbing. Trump has made it clear that America first means disregarding a great deal of international law and regulation, from the Geneva conventions to the Paris agreement on climate change. Decades of attempts to reframe sovereignty and to bind leaders to the values of human rights and humane principles could

be upended. Again this is not new. George W. Bush did exactly the same when he took office in 2000 and when he used 9/11 as a lever against international infringements on American sovereignty. While Bush did much damage, Trump could weaken the international legal order to the point of collapse. A central aspect of this order is the 1945 settlement which placed international institutions and organisations at the heart of the postwar reconstruction efforts. These have suffered a crisis of efficacy over recent decades but instead of helping to rebuild them, Trump looks set to destroy them. Add to this his commitment to protectionism, trade wars where he deems necessary and the building of walls to keep out unwanted foreigners, then much of the postwar achievements are at grave risk. He is joined in his efforts by other populist leaders across the world, from Putin to Le Pen.

This US election is not an isolated event; similar developments include, for example, Brexit in the UK, the rise of the far right across Europe, razor fences lining Eastern Europe’s borders reflecting growing xenophobia and fear of the other, Hindi nationalism in Modi’s India, and the militaristic tactics of Duterte in the Philippines. Yet, despite these general populist trends, Trump stands out in some respects. Four years ago Mitt Romney lost to Obama, with many analysts pointing to Romney’s wealth, background and affluence as indications of how out of touch he was with Middle America. A leaked video of him disparaging 47% percent of the country as lazy was seen as a gaff of epic proportions, and revelations about his effective tax rate around 14% was seen as disqualifying. Four years later, Trump, the bombastic businessman twice divorced, with wealth in the billions, who all but admitted to paying zero federal taxes for almost 20 years, who has active law suits against his companies for defrauding clients, who has been recorded boasting about sexual assault, and who travels in a private plane with a gold plated bathroom has been embraced by the working class as a man of the people.

This remarkable, if not confounding, development should be seen as a sign of what is possible in the current nationalistic and populist waves of political discourse. Abrasive, arrogant and ‘strong man’ figures can set themselves up as leaders of popular discontent and promise change regardless of the damaging consequences that are likely to follow. History is replete with countless examples of failed retreats to nationalism and protectionism, and the calamitous risks involved. The 1930s should be all the warning needed about the fateful consequences of economic decline, nationalism and xenophobia.

Europe faces a series of pivotal moments in the next year, ranging from the referendum in Italy, to elections in France and Germany. Should present trends continue the liberal world order could well be threatened with extinction. These are calamitous times. And times for all those who oppose such developments to rethink, redouble their efforts and build again.

29

The Changing Face of Global Governance 8 January 2010

Until recently, the West has, by and large, determined the rules of the game on the global stage. During the last century, western countries presided over a shift in world power – from control via territory to control via the creation of governance structures created in the post-1945 era. From the United Nations Charter and the formation of the Bretton-Woods institutions to the Rio Declaration on the environment and the creation of the World Trade Organisation, international agreements have invariably served to entrench a well- established international power structure. The division of the globe into powerful nation states, with distinctive sets of geopolitical interests, and reflecting the international power structure as it was understood in 1945, is still embedded in the articles and statutes of leading intergovernmental organisations, such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. Voting rights are distributed largely in relation to individual financial contributions, and geo- economic strength is integrated into decision-making procedures.

The result has been susceptibility of the major international governmental organisations (IGOs) to the agendas of the most powerful states, partiality in enforcement operations (or lack of them altogether); their continued dependency on financial support from a few major states, and weaknesses in the policing of global collective action problems. This was dominance based on a ‘club’ model of global governance and legitimacy. Policy at the international level was decided by a core set of powerful countries, above all the G1, G5 and G7, with the rest excluded from the decision-making process.

Today, however, that picture is changing. The trajectory of western dominance has come to a clear halt with the failure of dominant elements of western global policy over the last few decades. The West can no longer rule through power or example alone. At the same time, Asia is on the ascent. Over the last half-century, East and Southeast Asia has more than doubled its share of world GDP and increased per capita income at an average growth rate almost 2½ times that in the rest of the world.1 In the last two decades alone, emerging Asian economies have experienced an average growth rate of almost eight per cent – three times the rate in the rich world.2

As a result, Asia has been both a stabilising influence on and steady contributor to world economic growth. According to the IMF, China alone accounted for around a third of global

economic growth last year, more than any other nation, and its economy is the only one of the world’s ten biggest which is still expanding in the wake of the financial crisis.3 Other Asian economies have bounced back from the financial crisis far more quickly than anyone expected. As a recent New York Times article points out, the United States has always led the way out of major global economic crises, but this time, the catalyst is coming from China and the rest of Asia.4 They are no longer totally beholden to the US and other western countries as recipients of their exports, and this decoupling has to some extent allowed Asian economies to recover more quickly. Boosted by increased consumer spending and massive government-led investment, the region as a whole is expected to grow by more than five per cent this year – at a time when the old G-7 countries could contract by 3.5 per cent or more.5 Simply put, we are seeing a fundamental rebalancing of the world economy, with the centre of gravity shifting noticeably to the East.

The trajectory of change is towards a multipolar world, where the West no longer holds a premium on geopolitical or economic power. Moreover, different discourses and concepts of governance have emerged to challenge the old western orthodoxy of multilateralism and the post-war order. At the same time, complex global processes, from the ecological to the financial, connect the fate of communities to each other across the world in new ways, requiring effective, accountable and inclusive problem-solving capacity. How this capacity can be ensured is another matter.

Paradox of our times

What I call the paradox of our times refers to the fact that the collective issues we must grapple with are of growing cross-border extensity and intensity, yet the means for addressing these are weak and incomplete. While there are a variety of reasons for the persistence of these problems, at the most basic level the persistence of this paradox remains a problem of governance.

We face three core sets of problems – those concerned with sharing our planet (global warming, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, water deficits), sustaining our humanity (poverty, conflict prevention, global infectious diseases) and our rulebook (nuclear proliferation, toxic waste disposal, intellectual property rights, genetic research rules, trade rules, finance and tax rules).6 In our increasingly interconnected world, these global problems cannot be solved by any one nation state acting alone. They call for collective and collaborative action – something that the nations of the world have not been good at, and which they need to be better at if these pressing issues are to be adequately tackled. Yet, the evidence is wanting that we are getting better at building appropriate governance capacity.

One significant problem is that a growing number of issues span both the domestic and the international domains. The institutional fragmentation and competition between states can

lead to these global issues being addressed in an ad hoc and dissonant manner. A second problem is that even when the global dimension of a problem is acknowledged, there is often no clear division of labour among the myriad of international institutions that seek to address it: their functions often overlap, their mandates conflict, and their objectives often become blurred. A third problem is that the existing system of global governance suffers from severe deficits of accountability and inclusion. This problem is especially relevant in regard to how less economically powerful states and, hence, their entire populations, are marginalised or excluded from decision-making.

Economic liberalism and international market integration

For the last two to three decades, the agenda of economic liberalisation and global market integration – or the Washington Consensus as it is sometimes called – has been the mantra of many leading economic powers and international financial institutions. The thrust of the Washington Consensus was to promote this view and to adapt the public domain – local, national and global – to market-leading institutions and processes. It thus bears a heavy burden of responsibility for the type of common political resistance or unwillingness to address significant areas of market failure, including:

• The problem of externalities, such as the environmental degradation exacerbated by current forms of economic growth;

• The inadequate development of non-market social factors, which alone can provide an effective balance between ‘competition’ and ‘cooperation’ and thus ensure an adequate supply of essential public goods, such as education, effective transportation and sound health;

• The under-employment or unemployment of productive resources in the context of the demonstrable existence of urgent and unmet need; and

• Global macro-economic imbalances and a poor regulatory framework – policies that led to the financial crisis.

Today, there are strong grounds for doubting that the standard liberal economic approach delivers on promised goods and that global market integration is the indispensable condition of development. The implementation of such policies by the World Bank, IMF and leading economic powers has often led to counter-productive results, at national and global levels. Countries that have benefited most from globalisation are those that have not played by the rules of the standard liberal market approach, including China, India and Vietnam.

Leaving markets alone to resolve problems of resource generation and allocation misses the deep roots of many economic and political difficulties, such as the vast asymmetries of life chances within and between nation states, the erosion of the economic fortune of some

countries in sectors like agriculture and textiles while these sectors enjoy protection and assistance in others, the emergence of global financial flows which can rapidly destabilise national economies, and the development of serious transnational problems involving the global commons.

The financial crisis is a case in point. High levels of consumer spending in the West, fuelled by easy access to credit, underwritten by high rates of savings in exporting countries in the East (especially China), and aided by China’s fixed exchange rate and the accumulation of reserves in sovereign wealth funds, created a global liquidity overflow. The resulting asset bubbles and excess leverage, which eventually caused the crisis, were, however, not due to these factors alone. The key fault line can be traced to a ‘light touch’ regulatory system that encouraged risk-taking and allowed money to be diverted into very specific areas: mortgage securitisation and off-balance sheet activity.7 The fallout, when it came, was devastating – and while many financial institutions have emerged relatively unscathed, the damage to western economies has been huge. The financial crisis has to be understood as part of the structural weakness of the Anglo-American model of capitalism – a model, which recently sought to reshape the post-war welfare state through privatisation, deregulation, and regressive tax and social policies in the name of promoting economic efficiency and market success.8

Security

From the period following WW2 until 1989, the nature of national security was shaped decisively by the contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. The dominance of the US and the USSR as world powers, and the operation of alliances like NATO and the Warsaw Pact Treaty constrained decision-making for many states in the post-war years. In the post-cold War world of the 1990s and the 2000s the constraints upon state security policy have not been eradicated but reconfigured. Instead of bipolarity, the global system now exhibits more of the characteristics of a multipolar distribution of political-economic power. Within this more complex structure the strategic and foreign policy options confronting an individual state are still defined by its location in the global power hierarchy.

The war against Iraq in 2003 gave priority to a narrow security agenda, which was at the heart of the post 9-11 American security doctrine of unilateral and pre-emptive war. This agenda contradicted most of the core tenets of international politics and international agreements since 1945, and had many serious implications. Among them were a return to an old realist understanding of international relations, in which states rightly pursue their national interests unencumbered by attempts to establish internationally recognised limits (such as self-defence or collective security) on their ambitions. But if this ‘freedom’ is to be granted to the USA, why not also to Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and so on? It cannot be consistently argued that all states bar one should accept limits on their self-

defined goals. The flaws of international law and multilateralism can either be addressed or taken as an excuse for the further weakening of international institutions and legal arrangements. In either event, America’s unilateralist moment proved to be short-lived – Iraq and Afghanistan have subsequently proved the dangers of such a strategy. The US and its allies generalised the wrong warfare model – the Cold War model – onto an era of fragmented, complicated conflicts, and stalled at best, lost at worse.

Most armed forces of the world – military/air/navy – are still developed on a model of nation states at war with one another, and based on the organisational principle of geopolitical state interests. And global military spending, fuelled by such preconceptions, has been on a sustained upward trend. Total global military expenditure in 2008 is estimated to have totalled $1.464 trillion, representing an increase of 4 per cent in real terms compared to 2007, and of 45 per cent over the ten-year period 1999–2008.9 To put this in perspective, it is:

– 2.4 per cent of global GDP, or $217 for every person on the planet.

– 13 times the total spent on all types of development aid.

– 700 times the total amount spent on global health programmes.

– Roughly the same as the combined total GDP of every country in Africa.

– Only the total cost of the financial crisis, 8 times as large, dwarfs it.

The United States accounts for the majority of the global increase – representing 58 per cent of the global increase over the last ten years, largely due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have cost around a trillion dollars thus far.10 However, the US is far from the only country to pursue such a determined course of militarisation. China and Russia have both nearly tripled their military expenditure, while other regional powers – such as Algeria, Brazil, India, Iran, Israel, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia – have also made substantial contributions to the total increase. Of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, only France has held its spending relatively steady, with a rise of just 3.5 per cent over the last decade. The effects of the global financial crisis – in particular, growing government budget deficits and the economic stimulus packages that are aimed at countering the crisis – seem to have had little effect on military spending, with most countries, including the US and China, remaining committed to further increases in the years ahead.

Yet, according to the 2009 SIPRI yearbook, the most comprehensive open-source account of developments in global conflicts and security, of the sixteen major armed conflicts that were active in fifteen locations around the world in 2008, not one was a major interstate conflict.11

Militaries remain organised on a national, rather than regional or multilateral basis, with vast duplication, overlap and waste of resources. In countries like the UK and the US, spending levels are now far in excess of any plausible defensive needs, and are no longer justified on such grounds. With the exception perhaps of the US and China, no country is capable of acting independently in major conflicts or to intervene against regimes that threaten global peace and security. There is something quite baroque about existing defence positions and tactics.12 Against this background, the way we conduct military spending looks increasingly anachronistic. It bears pointing out that total global spending on multilateral operations such as peacekeeping forces was $8.2 billion, or 0.56 per cent of total global military expenditures.13

Learning has been slow but now some of the world’s most senior military figures have taken up the challenge and are changing the way warfare is conceived. In a recent speech at Chatham House, the new head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, warned that traditional methods and forms of warfare are becoming redundant.14 According to Richards, globalisation is increasing the likelihood of conflict with non-state and failed state actors, and reducing the likelihood of state-on-state warfare. Despite the use of impressive amounts of traditional combat power, the US and NATO, ‘the most powerful military alliance in the history of the world’, has failed to impress or deter opponents with recourse to asymmetric tactics and technology.15 Similarly, General Stanley McChrystal, NATO’s most senior commander in Afghanistan, has warned that the West’s military strategy is failing, and that a new approach is necessary. In a recently completed review, he is reported to have said that the initiative may have been handed to the Taliban by NATO forces charging like bulls at ‘matador’ insurgents and haemorrhaging with each thrust of the sword.16

What might such an approach look like? For a start, armed forces of the future will have to deal with new types of weapons systems and methods of warfare. According to General Richards, the lexicon of today is, ‘non-kinetic effects teams, counter-IED, information dominance, counter-piracy, and cyber attack and defence’.17 Armed forces of the future will need to be relevant to emerging security challenges and the increasingly sophisticated adversaries they face. Moreover, General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command, and the man who oversaw the 2007 and 2008 ‘surge’ in Iraq has pointed out that new techniques of warfare are not enough. He stresses the importance of a more comprehensive approach to conflict. By this he means that:

‘While the traditional focus on the high ground, bridge crossings, and key infrastructure remains valid to varying degrees, especially, for example, in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, the terrain that matters most is the human terrain, the people. Clearly we have to understand the people, their culture, their social structures, and how systems to support them are supposed to work – and how they do work. And our most important tasks have to be to secure and to serve the people, as well as to respect them and to facilitate the

provision of basic services, the establishment of local governance, and the revival of local economies.’18

The impact of the global financial crisis

The financial crisis and its after-effects are a particular instance of both of the themes discussed so far – the end of the Washington Consensus and the decline of inter-state conflict. It will put further pressure on budgets, and put in sharp relief trade-offs on public expenditure. Of course, such trade-offs are nothing new. The issue is less about the contraction of available money (if anything the crisis increased the money available) as it is about a shift in public priorities. Security threats are in the process of being downgraded, and at the top of the agenda is now climate and finance, as well as ring-fenced domains such as the NHS. In short, a time is rapidly approaching when defence budgets will not only taper off as war supplementals disappear, but will also compete against ballooning mandatory spending programmes for fewer and fewer tax resources – all, of course, amidst an uncertain path to recovery in the US and Europe.

The financial crisis has also resulted in the emergence of the G20 as the new de-facto governance coalition of powerful states – with the US and China at the forefront of all negotiations. While both countries still pay lip service to the idea of multilateralism, the shift from the G1, G5, and G8 to the G2 and the G20 reflects the changing balance of power in the world.

Conclusion

Today, there is a newfound recognition that global problems cannot be solved by any one nation state acting alone, nor by states just fighting their corner in regional blocs. As demands on the state have increased, a whole series of policy problems have arisen which cannot be adequately resolved without cooperation with other states and non-state actors. There is a growing recognition that individual states are no longer the only appropriate political units for either resolving key policy problems or managing a broad range of public functions.

The policy packages that have largely set the global agenda – in economics and security – have been discredited. The Washington Consensus and Washington security doctrines have dug their own graves. The most successful developing countries in the world are successful because they have not followed the Washington Consensus agenda, and the conflicts that have most successfully been diffused are ones that have benefited from concentrated multilateral support and a human security agenda. Here are clear clues as to how to

proceed in the future. We need to follow these clues and learn from the mistakes of the past if democracy, social justice and a renewed multilateral order are to be advanced.

Or, to sum up, realism is dead, long live cosmopolitanism.

The future of organised force in countries like our own is through regional and international organisations. Cooperation between states is still important, if not more so, but what has changed is the rationale, which is now deeper and more complex. The old threat was the ‘other’; the new threat is shared problems and collective threats.

Notes

1, Quah, Danny (2008), ‘Post 1990s East Asian Economic Growth’, unpublished, available at http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/dqua/Post-1990s-eaeg-KDI-DQ.pdf.

2, The Economist (2009), ‘An Astonishing Rebound’, 13 August.

3, International Monetary Fund (2009), World Economic Outlook: Crisis and Recovery, Washington DC, International Monetary Fund.

4, The New York Times (2009), ‘Asia’s Recovery Highlights China’s Ascendance’, 23 August.

5, Ibid

6, Rischard, Jean-Francois (2002), High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, New York, Basic Books.

7, Blundell-Wignall, Adrian, Paul Atkinson, Se Hoon Lee (2008), ‘The Current Financial Crisis: Causes and Policy Issues’, OECD Financial Market Trends, Vol. 95, Issue 2.

8, Lim, Wonhyuk (2008), ‘The Demise of the Anglo-American Model of Capitalism’, Global Asia, Vol.3, No. 4.

9, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2009), SIPRI Yearbook 2009, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 179.

10, Ibid, p. 185

11, Ibid, p. 69.

12, Kaldor, Mary (1982), The Baroque Arsenal, New York, Hill & Wang, and Kaldor, Mary (2007), Old and New Wars, California, Stanford University Press.

13, SIPRI Multilateral Peace Operations Database available at http://www.sipri.org/databases/pko

14, The Guardian (2009), ‘Ships and Jets are no longer than answer – army chief’, 18 September

15, Ibid

16, The Independent (2009), ‘The West ‘is failing Afghanistan’ says Nato Commander’, 1 September

17, The Guardian (2009), ‘Ships and Jets are no longer than answer – army chief’, 18 September

18, Petraeus, David (2010), ‘Counterinsurgency Concepts: What We Learned in Iraq’, Global Policy, Vol. 1 Issue 1.

30

Stepping Stones to a Cosmopolitan Order 3 February 2015

‘The Islamic State’ is a group known across the world. The notion of the ‘war on terror’ reaches across continents. ‘Sub-prime markets’ was a concept known only by few before it became widely understood as a trigger of the 2008 global financial crisis. Weather patterns in southern Africa used to be understood as an act of God; they are now thought of as man- made – the product of climate change. The local reverberates across the world, as global events and forces reshape the local.

Individual countries can adopt the most stringent rules for the regulation of genetic research, but if other countries ignore such rules the human genome will be open to unchecked manipulation and human beings could become made to order in the years (not so far) ahead. The Doha trade round stalled on the refusal of emergent powers (in particular India) to bow down to the G2 (the US and EU), yet the rules of trade are still largely dictated by leading states and regional blocs with deadly consequences for some: the subsidization of the cotton industry in the USA or agricultural food produce in the EU, affects the life chances and life expectancy of others, for example, in the case of cotton, West African cotton farmers. The rules governing nuclear proliferation were fixed by the geopolitical victors of 1945, but is the justification of these rules still persuasive in a global order marked by shifts in the balance of power? Emergent countries and other nations might stand up and say ‘you have them, why not us’? Who makes the rules governing our genetic makeup, global habitat, resource use, economic exchange and security is a pressing matter in an age of global interdependence. Who gets what, when and why are no longer questions confined to state silos, democratic or otherwise.

The extensity, density and velocity of global interconnections today creates a world of both extraordinary opportunity and risk. Opportunity because an economic division of labour stretching across the world, world trade patterns, global communication infrastructures, a rule based multilateral order and a growing sense that action is needed now on global challenges creates unparalleled prospects for prosperity, development and peaceful coexistence. Risk because never before have human communities been so densely interwoven whereby the fortunes of each is bound together in fundamental ways; a world of overlapping communities of fate. Hence, the era is one of significant promise and colossal challenges. At the same time, the knowledge humankind has developed is no longer just an elite privilege; diffuse and available on the internet (accessible to over a quarter of the

world’s population), the cognitive resources of science and culture can be explored by a diversity of actors, with benign or regressive intent.

The vulnerability of the global system combined with the democratization of knowledge led one commentator to consider that humankind has only a 50/50 prospect of reaching the end of the century without a major setback. Take this together with the potential for conflict in global hot-spots to ricochet across the world – Israel/Palestine, increasing turmoil in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, along with transborder threats such as Ebola, climate change or biodiversity loss – then the warning does not seem out of place.

The rules of the interstate system, and sovereignty over territory, were set by those with effective power from the late 16th century: might made right. Sovereignty in the modern period could never just be about the rights of indigenous people, because colonizers sought to disregard these. Sovereignty was thus established and secured through effective power – holding a territory and displaying the flag. Up to the foundation of the UN, sovereignty trumped other values with a claim to universality. From the development of the UN onward, sovereignty was spliced together with human rights and democratic standards in an unstable amalgam. The permanent members of the Security Council (the USA, China, USSR/Russia, UK and France) could manage the global agenda (although the USA had far more influence than the rest), as less powerful states could disregard human rights in regulating and controlling their territories. Yet, with the foundation of the UN system, the development of the EU, and the beginnings of a global environmental regime, stepping stones were laid down to a universal constitutional order – stepping stones which were clearly marked, with a clear direction of travel, and yet obviously slippery.

Within this context the meaning of sovereignty shifted in international law from effective power to, in principle, rightful authority – authority that upholds democratic values and human rights standards. The law of war was complemented by human rights conventions, together setting down limits to what it is that human beings can do to each other in war and other forms of organized violence perpetrated by state or non-state actors. The principles of accountability and self-determination were enshrined in these agreements and, through the second half of the 20th century and early 21st century, became entrenched in waves of democratization, marked by such moments as the fall of the Soviet Union, the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa, the Arab Spring, and ongoing protests in Hong Kong. In Europe something equally remarkable happened: the most war-mongering and destructive continent in history turned from Hobbes to Kant and created a pacific union in which war among EU countries was banished for the first time. In addition, sovereignty was no longer regarded as unitary and absolute as authority became parcelled out at many levels and citizenship became synonymous with membership in diverse communities – cities, subnational regions, states, and supranational associations.

Of course, there were huge forces seeking to ensure that any passage across the stepping stones to a universal constitutional order – what I call a cosmopolitan order – was not just unsafe but seemingly impossible. The war on terror bypassed international law, weakened the UN system, and sought to place the US and its allies in a position to extend the era of Western hegemony. It also sought to ensure that American or British conceptions of power and rulership remain dominant in the world. Yet it was not to be. Why? Because the world since 1945 has changed fundamentally: might no longer makes right; human rights and the standards of self-determination cannot simply be trodden on; freedom cannot be achieved through war and organised violence; a lasting peace can be won only through the consent and act of participation of the many; and power is becoming more diffuse as the world becomes more multipolar.

It is against this background that one can begin to understand why realism, raison d’état and hegemonic state projects are a narrow, impoverished and counter-productive way of seeking to organize politics in a global era, and why cosmopolitanism is the new realism – a sounder framework for political activity than realpolitik. Globalization has changed the terms of reference of politics: in an interdependent era, whether in economics, politics, or security, global issues cut across the domestic creating a plethora of urgent trans-border questions. Raison d’état is too narrow a set of terms of reference for addressing and meeting the challenge of climate change, water deficits, pandemics, financial market instability and reform, or security threats with a global dimension. Moreover, the old narrow club model of the permanent members of the Security Council, or the G5, G7 and G8, or the small community of bureaucrats from regulatory agencies and central banks that have governed the rulebook of banking since the end of Bretton Woods (the Basel Committee), disclose that such clubs inevitably govern in their own interests and take decisions, with complex ramifications and risks, for jurisdictions beyond their own borders.

These difficulties of accountability and politics were compounded in the late 1970s and 1980s by the re-assertion of the standard liberal model of economics and politics, or the ‘Washington consensus’ as it is sometimes called, which promised that internal market development coupled with global market integration was the key to development and prosperity, and that all else was empty rhetoric. But the model does not adequately explain the great economic success stories of the last two decades (China, India, Vietnam, Brazil among them) or recognize the damage it created when blindly applied, for example, across many Latin American countries and emerging markets in the post-Soviet era. Furthermore, the approach deliberately weakens the place of politics – local, national and global – by emphasizing markets above all as the key to collective development and problem solving. Market externalities, environmental degradation, and the public goods required to make markets work effectively (health, education, transport infrastructures, regulation, and so on) are all neglected or down played. Rising economic and political inequalities within many

states, among states and even across the global domain are also treated as if they are natural phenomena.

An alternative model of politics and governance can be found in some of the most important achievements of law and institution building in the 20th Century, the stepping stones to a universal constitutional order, referred to earlier. These developments set down a conception of rightful authority tied to human rights and democratic values which can be entrenched in wide-ranging settings. In this perspective, political power is legitimate if, and only if, it is democratic and upholds human rights. In addition, the link between territory, sovereignty and rightful authority is, in principle, broken since rightful authority can be exercised in many spheres and at many levels, local, subnational, national and supranational. Accordingly, citizenship can be envisaged, as it is already in the EU, as equal membership in the diverse, overlapping political communities which uphold common civic and political values and standards. Citizenship, then, is built not on an exclusive membership of a single community but on a set of principles and legal arrangements which link people together in the diverse communities which significantly affect them. Thus, patriotism would be misunderstood if it meant, as it all too often has done, ‘my country right or wrong’. Rather, it comes to mean loyalty to the standards and values of rightful authority – to common civic and political principles, appropriately embedded.

Suitably developed, this conception of global politics envisages a multilayered and multilevel polity, from cities to global associations, bound by a common framework of law, a framework anchored in democratic principles and human rights. The state does not wither away in this conception; rather, it becomes one element in the protection and maintenance of political authority, democracy and human rights in the dense web of global forces and transnational processes that already shape our lives. Perhaps more importantly still, it points to a political order no longer exclusively anchored in raison d’état and hegemonic state projects but in principles of cosmopolitan association.

These principles include the principles of: the equal moral worth of each and every human being (without which the human rights regime makes no sense); active agency and self- determination (without which the unique human capacities of reasoning and moral choice cannot be recognized); and deliberation and consent (without which the democratic process would be stillborn). What makes these principles cosmopolitan is not only the universal nature of their claims, but also the rejection of the assumption that the choices, rights and duties of human beings must always be embedded in, and limited to, states, an assumption never fully justified in democratic theory in any case. In a world of overlapping communities of fate, the principles underpinning global politics must be cosmopolitan in their form, scope and manner of entrenchment.

It is sometimes argued that cosmopolitan principles are not only insensitive to cultural diversity and difference but deny them. Nothing could be further from the truth; for pluralism and cosmopolitanism are two sides of the same coin. One of the key conditions of pluralism is a set of values and arrangements that protect and nurture the possibility of cultural diversity and just difference. The set of principles that generate this possibility is one and the same as that which underpins cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan principles are the basis of human autonomy and self-determination; they are constitutive principles of living in communities that recognize the equal interest of all in moral, social and political choices, subject only to the constraints of not unwarrantedly delimiting or restraining the choices and activities of others. The principle of harm and, more broadly, justice are critical in this regard. At the same time, these principles underwrite pluralism and difference because they underpin the space of each and every person to steer a course through the interpretive frames and warring Gods of our time.

The principles of a cosmopolitan order include egalitarian individualism, mutual respect for each and every person’s equal rights and duties, and self-determination. In a world of overlapping communities of fate these can only be embedded in the cross-cutting communities of human life. Once, these were small habitats, towns and cities. Later, they comprised great territories and time spans, that is, nation-states. Today, they embrace the local, the national and the global; in other words, spaces wherever power is entrenched and exercised. The stepping stones of the 20th Century laid down a path to a cosmopolitan constitutional order. The question is: can and will we follow it?

With wars currently raging in many parts of the world and gridlock on many of the most pressing issues of our time, this does not look likely. Yet, neither great cities nor states were built in short time spans, and so it is hardly likely a cosmopolitan order will be either. The trouble is climate change, resource scarcity, global economic imbalances, financial market instability, nuclear proliferation, among other pressing issues, require our energies and imaginative solutions now. In this sense, the universal constitutional stepping stones of the 20th Century gives clues as to how and where to travel, and what the form and shape of global organizations and institutions should be, but they offer no simple blueprints. These can only be worked out in the process of travel, with fellow travel companions, in dialogue and activities shaped by, and consistent with, cosmopolitan principles.

Acknowledgements

The e-book’s editors and Global Policy team would like to thank all the authors for their contributions and patience. This volume would not be possible without their time and thoughts on an evolving and fiercely debated issue.

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