The green shoots of reform?

by | Jul 7, 2009 | UK

Following on from Alex’s post on DFID’s new white paper , the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that it will be kicking off a root and branch review of Britain’s defence policy. The whizzo idea is to publish an interim Green Paper early in 2010.

Since November 2007 think tanks have been arguing for a review of defence policy. The latest think tank to join the bandwagon – IPPR – has, it seems, finally tipped the balance. But before everyone congratulates themselves on this first tentative step – bear in mind that the power now rests with the MoD.

With the announcement of a green paper they can now start to ask searching questions of those individuals and organisations who have been calling for a defence review. To aid them in this task the MoD should, at the very least, hold seminars with each of the think tanks that have focused on this issue – to date: Chatham House , Demos , IPPR (Global Change Team) and RUSI .Perhaps even do a roadshow across the UK?

At the moment the terms of the debate aren’t clear – nor is the fundamental question a green paper would seek to answer – perhaps a good starting place might be: What is defence for in the twenty first century?

As will become increasingly apparent there are no straightforward answers to this question – not least because this is really a debate about Britain’s place in the world… and that’s a different story.

DFID: the department for conflict prevention?

by | Jul 7, 2009 | Conflict and security, Global Dashboard

Time was when any suggestion that conflict prevention might be central to development would be met by blank (if not outright hostile) stares at DFID’s headquarters – but DFID’s latest White Paper, published yesterday, certainly puts that attitude to rest for good.

Fully half of new UK bilateral aid will focus on conflict-affected and fragile states; there will be an intensive focus on job creation in five at-risk countries (Yemen, Nepal, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Afghanistan); security is for the first time defined as an essential service, like health or education; there’s lots of additional focus on SSAJ (safety, security and access to justice); and there’s plenty more besides.

Now, sharp-eyed conflict watchers among you will already be wondering: does all this mean that the cuts to UK conflict prevention spending announced by David Miliband in March this year are effectively reversed?

(The problem, readers will recall, was that while peacekeeping missions were mushrooming – MONUC, UNMIS and the AU mission in Somalia in particular – the pound was collapsing against the dollar and the euro, the currencies in which peacekeeping bills are denominated. This was driving a coach and horses through the planned cross-governmental conflict prevention budget of £556 billion – comprised of £109m for the Conflict Prevention Pool, £73m for the Stabilisation Aid Fund and £374m for peacekeeping missions. The peacekeeping bit would now have to rise £456 million. So even after DFID and MOD had lobbed in an extra £71 million, it was clear that tough cuts would have to be made – a point made with anguish in a letter to the FT in March from foreign policy luminaries including Lords Ashdown, Hannay, Howe, Jay, Kerr, Robertson and Wallace. Now read on..)

Well, now that DFID’s Secretary of State Douglas Alexander is promising that the UK will spend £1 billion a year in post-conflict countries, it’s clear that much of the money that was cut in March will effectively be available again – though you’ll have a fight on your hands to get DFID to admit this to be the case, since it’s shy of creating any impression that it’s there to bail out other departments when the full, epic sweep of spending cuts becomes clear after the election.

But we’re nonetheless in a new situation, rather than back to the status quo ante, in at least three important ways. (more…)

Ban Ki-moon: subject of a Jewish plot? (No.)

by | Jul 6, 2009 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific

Last month, I gave a quick overview of media coverage of Ban Ki-moon as he reached the half-way point in his term at the UN.  There’ve been positive pieces and negative ones, but the prize for least constructive criticism still goes to Jacob Heilbrunn’s FP piece on Ban as the “world’s most dangerous Korean”.  That’s silly, however you view the SG.  It has sparked an even sillier response from Moon Chung-in, a Korean prof:

Why is Heilbrunn targeting Secretary-General Ban? It is difficult to think of any reason, besides the fact that Heilbrunn is a well-known Jewish neoconservative. During the situation in Gaza last January, Ban was the first foreign leader to visit the scene. While denouncing Israel’s barbaric actions and expressing the position that those responsible needed to be found and punished legally, he requested an immediate unilateral cease-fire from the Israeli government. The world, and Arabs in particular, sent an unprecedented message of praise to the Secretary-General. Ban also visited the U.S. Congress in March and criticized the nation as a “deadbeat donor,” for not having submitted its 1 billion dollars in UN dues. This kind of behavior would be enough to generate objections from a neoconservative like Heilbrunn who regards the benefits of Israel as paramount and argues that the UN is useless.

This must not shake us. The people should be unstinting in their support and encouragement for Secretary-General Ban, who is working to speak for those without power and without voices to stand on their side in creating a better world.

Oh dear. This is not merely name-calling with anti-Semitic overtones. It is also wrong. As Robert Koehler – who has followed Korean reactions to Ban impressively closely – notes Heilbrunn is best known as a critic of the neocons.  Ban has responded to the last month’s criticism with dignity.  He doesn’t need this sort of help.