by Alex Evans | Oct 24, 2008 | Economics and development, North America
Think an Obama Administration would spell an upwards march on the US aid budget? Think again.
The Obama / Biden campaign platform is formally committed to a doubling of US foreign assistance to $50 billion (which by my calculations works out at 0.36% of US gross national income – still a way off from the 0.7 target, but hey).
But now, it looks as though that commitment got dropped – in a little-noticed part of the Vice-Presidential debate between Biden and Palin on October 3. The debate chair asked:
“What promises — given the events of the week, the bailout plan, all of this, what promises have you and your campaigns made to the American people that you’re not going to be able to keep?”
And the very first thing that Joe Biden said in his reply was this:
“Well, the one thing we might have to slow down is a commitment we made to double foreign assistance. We’ll probably have to slow that down.”
And that was it; no explanation, no regrets, just a bald statement – a blunt demonstration of the relative weakness of the development lobby in the US.
by Charlie Edwards | Oct 23, 2008 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, UK
The UK defence budget is tight. Defence spending plans are tighter still. While Alex has posted on what the credit crunch will mean for development and multilateralism I want to offer a quick thought or two on how the credit crunch may offer an opportunity to explore new missions for each of the three services. While the UK Government is committed to a replacement for Trident and two new aircraft carriers, both are likely to have an impact on the MoD’s procurement options in the future, unless… the three services adapt their missions and in doing so share the burden more between services and across Whitehall. Given the rapidly changing security environment is the Royal Navy’s future more likely to be in helicopters, hospitals and responding to hijacking on the high seas? Look at what’s happening over the pond.
Exhibit A:
The US Navy is trying to set a new course, embracing a shift in strategy that focuses heavily on administering humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and other forms of so-called soft power to woo allies to help the United States fight global terrorism. The Navy’s new maritime strategy, unveiled this fall and shared by the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, is a shift in tone that reflects a broader change in the Pentagon’s approach as it organizes itself for what many military officials refer to as a “generational conflict” against extremism. It’s a move away from the go-it-alone stance of the Bush White House and toward a new emphasis on building partnerships abroad and finding common interests. While the Navy says it will maintain its ability to use the “hard power” for which it’s known, the new focus represents an important change – the first major rewrite of strategy in more than 20 years. It puts greater emphasis on humanitarian aid, disaster relief, “partnering” with foreign navies also working to combat piracy, terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Exhibit B:
Hospital ships are, by design, multi-use vehicles that are capable of serving in command and control, educational outreach, or as virtual sea bases. A future hospital ship should be tied into some sort of modularized container system that may mirror the modules used by the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship. A ship that might be charged with high-tempo combat trauma care will need a flat deck that is able to withstand the heat and weight of large helicopters. A well deck also would be recommended, although it could be passed over if the ship is able to dock or maintains an organic docking system. Under a two-tier system, smaller, cheaper ambulance-like platforms could work in tandem with a larger, more expensive command-and-control “trauma” platform or aid ship tenders where the crew of a smaller, low-endurance craft can take a breather or swap out crews.
Exhibit C
Piracy Map 2008
From the BBC: France has launched two operations already this year to free French ships and crew seized by Somali pirates. Pirates are still holding the Ukrainian ship, the MV Faina, and its cargo of tanks and military hardware, off the Somali coast. They demand $20m (£12m). The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said on Thursday that 63 of 199 incidents of piracy worldwide recorded in the first nine months of this year had taken place off east Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. This was double the 36 attacks blamed on Somali pirates out of 198 worldwide in the same period last year, the bureau added.
by Charlie Edwards | Oct 22, 2008 | Conflict and security
William S Lind suggests that beyond Afghanistan, the Fourth Generation future belongs neither to al Qaeda nor to the Taliban but to two more sophisticated models, Hezbollah and the Latin American drug gangs (I would add other criminal networks and piracy too). He writes:
Both can fight, but fighting is not primarily what they are about. Rather, both are about benefiting their members with money, services, community, identity, and, strange as it may sound, what passes locally for good government. Even the drug gangs’ governance is often less corrupt than that of the local state. Both of these 4GW models can fall into the fatal error of alienating the local population, but the tendency is not inherent. While Hezbollah is religiously defined, it seems to appeal well beyond the Puritans, which means it can give orders Puritans will not obey. The drug gangs’ principal faith is in making money, and few faiths are more broadly latitudinarian. In Iraq as elsewhere, the fading of the al Qaeda model is being balanced not by the rise of a new state but by the adoption of other models of 4GW. So far, as best I can determine, no foreign intervention in a Fourth Generation conflict has succeeded is re-creating a real state (you can add Ethiopia in Somalia to the long list of failures).
With that in mind it is depressing to read that the newly appointed commander of Nato’s anti-piracy patrol off the coast of Somalia says it will be difficult to defend ships from pirate attacks. This at a time when Nato is sending seven frigates to support US navy vessels already there, and India and several European countries have said they will also mount anti-piracy patrols.
“The time that a pirate unveils himself to the time that he’s onboard ship is such a short period of time,” says Admiral Mark Fitzgerald
Cynics might suggest that this is a careful piece of expectations management (think about the failure of SOCA as another example of how a Government over promises/ but under delivers), but it’s no wonder that NSAs (non state actors) are able to leverage considerable influence in proportion to their size and capabilities when the bureaucracies are not necessarily constrained by current laws/rules but by process of implementing them. The rules of engagement are still being debated by Nato – and if I were a betting man I would suggest that such rules are unlikely to be in place before the NATO task force has to respond to its first attack.
In his interview with the BBC Admiral Mark Fitzgerald also raises a rather more worrying issue*. Given how busy the sea lanes are, he asks: How do you prove a guy’s a pirate before he actually attacks a ship?
Some possible suggestions below:
*TiC
by Alex Evans | Oct 22, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks
If you haven’t read it already, World Bank President Bob Zoellick’s speech on multilateral reform earlier this month is definitely worth a read. One of best nuggets in it is his call for “a Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy” – the rationale for which goes like this:
The G-7 is not working. We need a better group for a different time. The G-20, though valuable, is too unwieldy in moving from discussion to action. We need a core group of Finance Ministers who will assume responsibility for anticipating issues, sharing information and insights, exploring mutual interests, mobilizing efforts to solve problems, and at least managing differences.
For financial and economic cooperation, we should consider a new Steering Group including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the current G-7. Such a Steering Group would bring together over 70 percent of the world’s GDP, 56 percent of world population, 62 percent of its energy production, the major carbon emitters, the principal development donors, large regional actors, and the primary players in global capital, commodity, and exchange rate markets.
But this Steering Group would not be a G-14. We will not create a new world simply by remaking the old. It should be numberless, flexible, and over time, it could evolve. Others may be added, especially if their rising influence is matched by a willingness to help shoulder responsibilities.
This new Steering Group should meet and videoconference regularly to foster group responsibility. The Deputies should have frequent and informal discussions. An active network of bilateral consultations within and beyond the group will support it. We need a Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy.
It’s a timely reminder that there’s no hard and fast rule to say that multilateral cooperation has to revolve around formal multilateral organisations – and especially refreshing to hear this coming from the head of the World Bank. (And yes, he does have a Facebook page, since you wonder.)
Responses to the financial crisis over the last few weeks seem to bear out Zoellick’s point. Although multilateral cooperation has been central, multilateral organisations haven’t been: the IMF, for example, has been largely absent from the main action, and while the EU managed in the end to be at the forefront of marshalling a collective response, it was the Council of Ministers – not the Commission – that pulled it all together.
In this light, it’s perhaps ironic that while Gordon Brown has come to be seen as one of the main organisers of this non-organisationally-based but nevertheless fundamentally multilateral crisis response, his stated vision for multilateral reform is very organisationally focussed, what with emphasis on a new Bretton Woods, an enhanced early warning role for the IMF and so on.
by Charlie Edwards | Oct 22, 2008 | Influence and networks
1. You arrive at a meeting and hear several other people in the room say they have the same title and/or role as you.
2. You land a new job with a clear purpose, but there is no single boss, no hierarchy, no subordinates (as such) and no specific office.
3. You are constantly giving and receiving feedback.
4. You rely on partners outside your organisation to inform or provide services to your customers.
5. The tempo of work and the rate you are working has increased – nothing is simple anymore.
6. You and colleagues no longer focus on single policy areas but on the relationships and interconnections between them.
7. The majority of the people you work with and the resources needed to support them lie outside of your immediate control.
(Feel free to add more…)
