Winning on wicked issues

by | Jan 30, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks, UK

I’ve got an article in this month’s World Today, Chatham House’s monthly magazine. It’s about the UK’s approach to national security. Here’s a taster:

British Governments have rarely taken a strategic approach to national security, preferring instead to focus separately on issues of defence, foreign affairs,development and intelligence. Invariably, this has led to narrow strategies, which have centred on individual Whitehall departments, or created new agencies and units to meet emerging security challenges.

In the wake of September 11 2001 for instance, the Security Service MI5 moved away from managing a portfolio of risks, which included organised crime, to focus almost entirely on the threat from international terrorism. Nearly all the service’s work on organised crime was passed to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, an amalgamation of a number of different organisations including the National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service, which was established by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill of 2005.

Current operations, policy decisions and legislation also prevent the government from taking a strategic approach. At present most of the Ministry of Defence’s time and resources are devoted to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, while the new Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, based in the Home Office, focuses on counter terrorism, rather than wider security issues, as originally envisaged by the former Home Secretary John Reid.

Most important of all, an institutional bias is alive and well in Westminster, Whitehall and beyond. Instead of discussing the global risks to Britain, recent debate on national security has focused on the roles of government institutions rather than the problems that need to be solved. Some commentators have lamented the decline of the Foreign Office, while others have questioned the increase in spending on development aid at a time when savings have to be found in the defence budget. It is a depressing cycle of claim and counter claim which smacks of short-termism and a lack of leadership across government.

It’s all pointless

by | Jan 30, 2008 | North America

Kurt Andersen of New York nicely sums up the growing sense that the last nine months of American politics may actually have been a farrago of nonsense:

Giuliani can never win; he’s the huge favorite; he’s nearly a goner. McCain’s the front-runner; he’s imploded; he’s the presumptive nominee. Obama is exciting; he has no traction; he’s unstoppable; he’s in tough shape. Huckabee’s a joke; he’s caught fire; he’s out of it. Clinton is inevitable; she’s over; she’s inevitable. And so on. Each of these statements has been the conventional wisdom, serially uttered with conviction. But is the status quo ante now finally and irrevocably reasserting itself? A year ago, McCain polled between 25 and 30 percent among Republicans, and was considered the likely nominee—but Romney also had a chance. Today, McCain is polling between 25 and 30 percent and is considered the likely nominee—but Romney may have a chance. A year ago, Clinton was the Democratic front-runner, polling as high as 41 percent—although Obama had a shot. Today, once again, she’s the favorite, with poll numbers averaging 41.7 percent—although Obama still has a shot. All the twists and turns notwithstanding, it seems that we’re in a closed loop, where at the end we find ourselves exactly where we started.

That’s probably not much comfort to the last man to endorse Rudy Giuliani.

Police reform in Fallujah

by | Jan 30, 2008 | Conflict and security, Middle East and North Africa

Michael Totten‘s still pottering around Iraq and the Middle East, blogging as he goes.  This week he’s in Fallujah, looking at police reform:

I sat down with Captain Stewart Glenn and his executive officer Lieutenant Chuck Miller at India Company’s train station FOB.

“The Marines were the catalyst for providing security,” Captain Glenn said. “But without guys like Colonel Faisal, Captain Jamal, and some of the leaders of the Iraqi Police, this never would have happened. The Marines had the idea of hiring a neighborhood watch, professionalizing the Iraqi Police, providing barriers so they have actual precincts which they can police. Instead of having a centralized station that goes out, they have small precincts now, which is also pretty common in the States. The idea came from the Marines, but the Iraqi Police took it, ran with it, and made it work.”

Fallujah’s current policing model did come from the Marines, and it’s based loosely on the American idea of community policing. Mayor Tom Potter — of my hometown Portland, Oregon — is credited by many for coming up with this method when he was our chief of police. When police officers live and work in their own neighborhoods, have relationships with key neighbors, and patrol small beats on foot as well as anonymously in police cars, trust and community cooperation with law enforcement increases.