by Richard Gowan | Apr 5, 2011 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific, Global system, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia
My post earlier today about whether or not rising powers like Brazil, India and China might help mount a UN peace operation in post-Gaddafi Libya has drawn some interesting, if robustly negative, responses. “Pragmatic Desi”, an Indian expert who had dismissed my idea out-of-hand, argued that I overestimate the readiness of the BRICs: “India (& even China) still consider themselves to be consumers of geo-political stability, not providers of it.” David Bosco of FP concurs:
I very much doubt that BRIC countries do feel the obligation [to push for peace in Libya] that [Gowan] describes; after all, the Security Council calls on people to do all sorts of things all the time without asking or expecting Council members to provide resources to ensure that they happen (though I do agree that Council members should feel a much greater sense of obligation to give meaning to the body’s entreaties). More broadly, my sense is that the BRICs view the entire response to Libya (including Resolution 1970, which they supported) as Western-driven and are not particularly invested in a particular outcome.
But let’s say the BRICS were willing to provide military observers to police a political transition. Would the West feel comfortable handing off what was essentially a war for human rights to countries that have a very different take on that concept?
David has consistently argued – since at least 25 February – that the emerging powers have decided to take a “you bomb if you want to, we’ll just watch” sort of approach to the Libyan crisis. After the BRICs abstained on Security Council Resolution 1973 – the basis for bombing – he offered this explanation for their ambivalence:
First, they didn’t care all that much and they didn’t want to use up diplomatic capital resisting strong Western pressure for intervention. Second, and more deviously, they may have liked the idea of the West spending time and resources in Libya. They knew the West wouldn’t intervene absent a Council resolution and so they abstained in order to induce an intervention they calculated would drain resources and open up the West to the very kind of criticism they’re now happily dishing out.
I suspect there’s more than a grain of truth in this analysis. But if so, I’d suggest that politicians and planners in Delhi and Beijing in particular are failing to grasp the full meaning of events in the Middle East for them. Back in early March I made the following argument in a piece for Abu Dhabi’s The National:
China and India are both significant customers for Libyan oil and gas, and roughly 30,000 Chinese citizens and 20,000 Indians lived in Libya before the troubles began. Last month, New Delhi ordered warships to the Mediterranean to rescue its nationals, while Beijing organised similar evacuations.
Historians may come to see the Libyan crisis as a pivotal moment in China and India’s rise as global powers. There has recently been copious commentary about the new Asian economic superpowers’ investments in Africa and the Middle East – and criticism of their ties to unstable leaders such as Sudan’s Omar al Bashir and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. They have rarely paid a political price for these risky relationships.
Yet Libya’s implosion has shown how India and China’s expanding economic presence makes them vulnerable to the fall-out from far-away events. Ten years ago, a conflict in the southern Mediterranean would have been dismissed as something for the US and Europeans to resolve. But as the fighting in Libya threatens economic recovery elsewhere, it quickly became a global problem. The Asian powers’ reliance on Middle Eastern oil meant that they had to be involved in stemming the crisis.
David may be right that China and India (not to mention Brazil and Russia) are failing to address the Libyan crises on these terms. But even if this may keep them out of trouble for the time being, it may be a strategic mistake in the longer term. By failing to get involved in crisis resolution at this stage, the BRICS are arguably missing the chance to gain a stronger strategic foothold in the Middle East. My guess is that, if China and India had rushed forward to help out over Libya, cash-strapped Western powers would have welcomed their support. Are the BRICS wasting a good crisis?
by Richard Gowan | Apr 5, 2011 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, Middle East and North Africa
Yesterday, I published a piece on “securing a peaceful resolution to the Libyan crisis” for World Politics Review. It starts from some pretty uncontroversial propositions:
The ebb and flow of the Libyan civil war has led most American and European commentators to draw two conclusions. First, the conflict will end with a negotiated settlement. Second, international peacekeepers may be required to make any deal work.
What sort of peacekeepers might be required and where might they come from? I argue that, in spite the intensity of recent violence, Libya may not be a case for “heavy” peacekeeping (i.e. the full panoply of helicopters and infantry brigades deployed in places like Liberia). Instead, a fairly light contingent of military observers – possibly with protection units – could monitor a peace deal. Why go for a light option? The Libyan rebels do not seem to want a heavy outside military presence on their soil, and Gaddafi loyalists (and Al Qaeda) could paint a large force as an occupation.
Where could the observers come from? Here are my thoughts:
Early in the war, I argued that the European Union might deploy soldiers to oversee the peace. This no longer looks possible. Having faced repeated NATO bombardments, Gaddafi’s forces are unlikely to welcome Western officers, even if under an EU banner.
A U.N.-flagged mission is the most likely option. It might make sense for countries that have not joined or endorsed the campaign against Gaddafi, such as Brazil and India, to offer relatively impartial observers. Germany, having abstained on the U.N. resolution authorizing airstrikes, could provide air and sea logistics for a rapid deployment. All these countries would probably want to work alongside some sort of Arab presence too.
I hadn’t expected those particular paragraphs to stir much controversy. I was wrong. Here’s David Bosco’s reaction over at Foreign Policy:
India is already a mainstay of U.N. peacekeeping operations. Brazil contributes significant forces, and China participates much more actively than it used to, so it’s not implausible that they would offer up forces. But I doubt they want to be associated so directly with an intervention they didn’t support.
And if you won’t take David’s word fot it, here’s a pretty straightforward tweet from the wonderfully pithy and pseudonymous Indian security expert “Pragmatic Desi”:
No, Richard Gowan, No. BRICS are not the new UN. They won’t send military observers to Libya.
To which I can only reply: why the devil not? If I had called for the BRICs to deploy large-scale peacekeeping forces to mop up after NATO’s air campaign, then I’d fully understand a negative response. But in military terms, I’m only talking about a small force – somewhere in the low hundreds – of observers to help secure an initial peace deal in Libya. And, as my original article clarifies, I only see this is as a short-term expedient to consolidate the deal, not an open-ended military presence.
Meanwhile, I’d argue that the BRICS have both (i) a potential political advantage as observers; and (ii) a certain responsibility to play this role. The potential advantage is pretty clear: Brazilian and Indian personnel have a far higher chance of being accepted as impartial observers than, say, Brits or Italians.
The responsibility part is probably more controversial: as members of the Security Council, all the Brazil, Russia, India and China voted in favor of UN Resolution 1970 of 26 February, calling on the Libyan authorities to protect civilians and demanding an “immediate end to violence.” While they abstained on last month’s Resolution 1973, which authorized force, the BRICs are on the record as supporting a peaceful resolution to this crisis. That doesn’t legally obligate them to send a single officer. But I’d argue that they have a certain political responsibility to help out.
Update: I respond to follow-up comments by David and Pragamtic Desi here.
by Mark Weston | Apr 5, 2011 | Africa, Conflict and security
This piece from yesterday’s Africa Review contains much that is spurious. That coalition forces are ‘taking their lead from the US,’ that Libya will become ‘a basket country’ after Gaddafi goes, that African leaders see Gaddafi as a ‘benevolent godfather,’ and that in the Ivory Coast there is ‘little difference’ between Gbagbo and Ouattara are all at the very least arguable.
But these claims pale into insignificance compared with the article’s overarching point, which is that the West wants to remove Gaddafi because he is a ‘dangerous African likely to cause a united front against neo-colonialism in Africa.’ According to the Africa Review, the kindly dictator ‘identified himself with sub-Saharan Africa, championing a united Africa and showing the continent how if they formulated a collective vision, they would be able to stand on their own feet.’
The basis for this claim is unclear, for when one thinks of Gaddafi and sub-Saharan Africa, unity and self-reliance are very far from the first things that spring to mind. Was Gaddafi championing a united Africa when he armed Charles Taylor in Liberia and Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone, enabling them to kill tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans and maim, rape and torture many more (even Taylor’s defence lawyer at the Hague has asked why Gaddafi is not in the dock)? Was he formulating a collective vision when he sent Libyan troops to help the mad cannibal Idi Amin crush a popular uprising, or when he gave Amin arms to massacre sub-Saharan Africans in northern Uganda? Was he helping Africans stand on their own feet when he sent weapons to a rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo who is now on trial for war crimes? The list goes on and on; with friends like these, as sub-Saharan Africans reading the Africa Review must surely be asking themselves as they splutter over this morning’s cornflakes, who needs enemies?
by Richard Gowan | Apr 4, 2011 | Africa, Conflict and security
Peacekeeping-watchers are aflutter over the news that UN peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire have decided to take offensive actions against Laurent Gbagbo and his goons:
Helicopters from the United Nations mission in Ivory Coast have opened fire on strongman Laurent Gbagbo’s residence and presidential palace, the UN spokesman has told AFP. UN helicopters have also fired on the Akouedo military camp of troops loyal to Gbagbo, witnesses say.
Meanwhile, the French government says French and UN soldiers are engaged in operations in Abidjan to “neutralise” weapons used against civilians by fighters for Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo. Under the auspices of UN Security Council resolution 1975, the troops “have engaged in actions aimed at neutralising heavy arms used against civilians and UN personnel in Abidjan”, France said in a statement on Monday.
This comes after a four-month standoff during which UN forces have frequently appeared scared of taking on Gbagbo’s forces. Colum Lynch published an excellent piece on this just last Friday over on his blog “Turtle Bay”:
In recent months Gbagbo has provided the U.N. with a painful lesson in how to prevent a U.N. peacekeeping force from doing its job. Forces loyal to Gbagbo have unleashed a systematic campaign of harassment that has severely diminished the U.N. mission’s capacity to protect civilians in this West African country, according to internal U.N. documents obtained by Turtle Bay. An assortment of pro-Gbagbo regular army forces, youth militia, foreign mercenaries and special forces have blocked U.N. food and fuel deliveries, torched vehicles, heaved Molotov cocktails at U.N. installations, shot and kidnapped UN peacekeepers.
In private, UN officials and diplomats have been scathing about the peacekeepers’ performance in Côte d’Ivoire. While their new-found willingness to get tough is welcome, it raises some uncomfortable questions.
- Why were the UN and France not prepared to act more robustly early in the crisis, when decisive action might have prevented the predictably bloody events now playing out in Côte d’Ivoire? In retrospect, will the UN’s tough action now be written off as the outcome of earlier political failures?
- Has the UN considered the potential implications of attacking Gbagbo’s forces after troops loyal to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, have been accused of carrying out a large-scale massacre in the west of the country? Will the UN end up being accused of complicity with human right violators and murderers, whatever its intentions?
- What responsibility will the UN have if the battle for Abidjan proves prolonged and bloody, potentially involving further massacres by both Gbagbo and Ouattara supporters? It’s surely right to argue that Laurent Gbagbo has primary culpability for this awful mess, having consistently refused to stand aside, but could the UN be blamed for fueling violence? Do Gbagbo’s supporters have the potential to turn Abidjan into the blue helmets’ quagmire?
We must hope that the UN’s use of force is well-calibrated and based on a clear assessment of its likely impact on the Ouattara-Gbagbo battle. Even if Gbagbo now falls, however, my first question stands: was there really no way for the UN, France and the African Union to avert this crisis before it escalated so far? I am in favor of peacekeepers using force where necessary – although I’ve also written about the risks involved – but I think that this was an avoidable crisis.
by David Steven | Apr 3, 2011 | Global system
Sometimes an argument is simply so powerful that, at one stroke, it slays a hundred years of delusion and misperception.
That is what happened earlier today, on Twitter, when Toby Harnden, the US editor of the Telegraph, finally put to rest the idea that there is, or can be, any ‘community’ between nations.
Sadly, of course, the vestiges of our failed attempts to construct such a system will have to be dismantled on Monday morning, with the United Nations, World Bank, WTO etc. to be closed by the end of the week, and thousands of parasitic academics on the dole from the end of the semester. That’ll be a drag on the global economy, which fortunately also doesn’t exist.
