by Charlie Edwards | Apr 30, 2008 | Conflict and security
Asks William Saletan over on Slate. Actually he raises a number of questions about whether suicide bombings are increasing around the world, why they might be and if so what can we do about it. The stats are revealing. According to
an article by Robin Wright of the Washington Post last week:
Suicide bombers conducted 658 attacks around the world last year … more than double the number in any of the past 25 years … More than four-fifths of the suicide bombings over that period have occurred in the past seven years, the data show. The bombings have spread to dozens of countries on five continents, killed more than 21,350 people and injured about 50,000 since 1983 … [S]ince 1983, bombers in more than 50 groups from Argentina to Algeria, Croatia to China and India to Indonesia have adapted car bombs to make explosive belts, vests, toys, motorcycles, bikes, boats, backpacks and false-pregnancy stomachs. Of 1,840 incidents in the past 25 years, more than 86 percent have occurred since 2001, and the highest annual numbers have occurred in the past four years.
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by Daniel Korski | Apr 29, 2008 | Conflict and security, Economics and development, UK
Despite having practically invented modern counter-insurgency, today Britain is woefully ill-equipped for this kind of complex, mosaic-style warfare. The Times, echoing David’s post from a few days ago, has picked up on the problems Britain has in spending money in places like Afghanistan.
As readers will know, even though the Labour government sought to overcome the problems of “departmentalism” in 1997 with the promotion of “joined-up” government and the creation of cross-departmental funding mechanisms, through the Global Conflict Pools, one of its main innovations – the creation of a stand-alone Department for International Development – militated against the kind of close civil-military cooperation necessary in post-conflict operations.
This stands in sharp contrast to the U.S, which – led by David Petraeus and his band of “neo-coins” – has revamped its approach entirely.
How to solve the problem in Britain is contentious issue, which I debated on the Guardian website a few weeks ago (see here and here).
The only way to resolve it is to rewrite the International Development Act. Yes, I know that the Act itself does not prevent DfiD from spending funds, but it creates a cultural ethos inside the department, which militates again the necessary kind of flexibility and cooperative links with the military.
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by Daniel Korski | Apr 26, 2008 | Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks
For three weeks, Europe’s “big men” have been polishing off their CVs in the hope of getting one of the new top EU jobs to be created if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force. They all want to be at the other end of the phone when the U.S wants speak to Europe, as Henry Kissinger said he wanted to.There’s the new permanent President of the European Council, the old job heading up the European Commission, the new EU Foreign Minister (alright, “High Representative”) and the lesser-know slot of Mr. Euro i.e. the chair of ECOFIN. Add to this the President of the European Parliament, the head of the ECB and – outside the EU – NATO secretary-general, which also comes up in 2009.Not all the jobs are connected. Some, like the EU Foreign Minister, have to be decided on in January. Others, like the President of the European Parliament and the Commission President, will depend on the 2009 parliamentary elections held later in 2009. Jean Claude Trichet, the French banker in charge of the ECB, is going nowhere. But having a Frenchman in the post will make it more difficult for Paris to get other slots.
You still with me? Then there’s the politics. EU elections in late 2009 will be key, as the European Parliament has a say on some of the slots. Right now, the centre-right EPP holds power and last time pushed to install current European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in 2005. But a swing to the left, will impact choices.
Politics in the EU-27 also matters. Right now, the return of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi would seem to favour centre-right candidates, yet Poland’s new centre-left government may counterbalance this. But the centre/left divide is not always a useful guide; right-wing Nicola Sarkozy has publicly backed New Labour’s Tony Blair. In the EU context, the federal/intergovernmental is important.
Have I lost you? Good. So with all this, who’s in the running?
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by Alex Evans | Apr 26, 2008 | Global system, Off topic
David Miliband writes:
My visit this week to Pakistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq was punctuated with people describing their links to Britain. One conversation particularly sticks in the memory.
I was told by someone that they had great affection for British education. “I studied at Eton, Oxford, Nottingham and London universities”. I congratulated him and said I would not hold his Eton past against him.
He replied: “Why, did you go to Harrow?”.
by Daniel Korski | Apr 25, 2008 | Conflict and security, North America
Yesterday, Congress heard testimony from James Locher III – the head of the Project on National Security Reform and the organisational genius behind the 1986 Goldwater-Nichol defence reforms that put the “joint” into the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later the Cohen-Nunn Amendment, which created the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Bringing together an impressive array of experts from inside government and from both parties, PNSR is trying nothing less than to redesign the U.S national security system.
Speaking with Joseph Nye (Mr. Soft Power), and Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s muscle-clad former deputy, Locher laid out the case for reform:
Since the beginning of the 21st Century, the United States has suffered a number of painful setbacks: the terrorist attacks of September 11, troubled stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina.
These setbacks are not coincidental; they are evidence of a system failure. Our national security system is not capable of handling the threats and challenges or exploiting the opportunities that confront us in today’s complex, fast-paced, information-age world.
These deficiencies are not about the lack of talent or commitment by our national security professionals in all departments and agencies. They are working incredibly hard and with unsurpassed dedication. In many cases, they are being crushed by their workload. The problem is that much of their hard work is wasted by a dysfunctional system.
What to do about it? The U.S needs “a 21st Century government for 21st Century challenges.” In Locher’s mind that means three sets of reforms. First, new presidential directives governing the operation of the national security system will be required. The second, a new national security act, replacing many provisions of the 1947 Act. And third, amendments to Senate and House rules to bring about necessary congressional reforms and the creation of Select Committees on Interagency Affairs in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Look out for Locher’s interim report produced on July 1 and his final report on September 1, as required in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2008.
