by Richard Gowan | Jul 18, 2008 | Global system, Influence and networks, North America
People who like Global Dashboard also tend to like proposals to streamline foreign ministries and sort out national security systems. Most probably rather like Barack Obama too. But is Barack a streamlining sort of guy? Maybe not, judging by a piece on his 300-strong corps of foreign policy advisers in today’s New York Times:
“It is unwieldy, no question,” said Denis McDonough, 38, Mr. Obama’s top foreign policy aide, speaking of an infrastructure that has been divided into 20 teams based on regions and issues, and that has recently absorbed, with some tensions, the top foreign policy advisers from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. “But an administration is unwieldy, too. We also know that it’s messier when you don’t get as much information as you can.”
That sounds like commendable fatalism to me: administrations are tangled and clunky machines, and Obama’s probably won’t be any different. Sorry.
It’s worth remembering that the candidate is a product of perhaps the single greatest hub of machine politics ever: the city of Chicago. That’s the theme of the main article in the edition of the New Yorker that has got into so much trouble with its satirical “Terrorist Obama” cover. The cover is a frippery and, I suspect, a non-event. “Making It” by Ryan Lizza, which charts Obama’s rise through Chicago politics is by contrast a magnificent piece of political writing – a reminder that, as Gideon Rachman recently pointed out in the FT, top-flight American journalism is still as good as it gets anywhere. Lizza’s piece is too involved for me to excerpt it here. You have to read the whole thing. Do so this weekend.
by Daniel Korski | Jul 16, 2008 | Conflict and security
Bush, Obama and McCain have in the last few days all talked about Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In my view all three shirk the need for 1) a new political settlement in Afghanistan, including through negotiations with “pragmatic” Taliban elements, 2) a new trans-Atlantic push on Pakistan and the region (and not only a CT-focused approach), and 3) the need to invest in the Afghan National Police.
Here is what they have said:
(more…)
by Mark Weston | Jul 8, 2008 | Middle East and North Africa
I have just spent two weeks holed up in a sleepy Turkish fishing village in the far eastern corner of the Mediterranean. Even there, one cannot escape the storms raging in the west of the country.
The culture wars are hotting up: the industrialist Rahmi Koc, one of Turkey’s richest men, has banned his companies from employing anyone with a mustache or beard. As well as ruling out pretty much any man over the age of about 45, this can only inflame radical and also many moderate Muslims, who are already smarting over the reaffirmation of the ban on headscarves in universities. Koc’s move was criticised by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo?an, who is the subject of a new book which accuses him and his wife of being “Moses’s Children” (in other words, Jews). The book has become a bestseller and the topic of heated and righteous conversation among the same desperate secularists who a few minutes later, straightfaced, will tell you Erdo?an wants to turn their country into a new Iran (which wants to exterminate the Jewish race). Confused? Me too.
Further arrests of retired generals in the Ergenekon case have raised the stakes in the battle between secular fundamentalists and the moderately Islamic governing AK Party. The army and media are now arguing that the case is a revenge attack by the government in response to the imminent ban on its activities – a suggestion undermined by the fact that the first Ergenekon arrests came months before the case against the government was launched. If enough newspapers peddle this story, however, Turks start believing it – few ask whether in fact the prosecution of the government may be an attempt to protect the generals.
Meanwhile, on an overnight coach journey to Istanbul, we are stopped at a checkpoint. It is 3am. A young gendermarie officer marches through the bus collecting ID cards. He strikes lucky. A few minutes later, he comes back onto the bus and calls out a name. A young male passenger stands up, and is led off into a waiting car. After half an hour, he is brought back on to collect his bags, and then spirited away, face full of fear, into the vast Anatolian night. Speculation among the remaining passengers is rife that he may have been linked to the Kurdish-separatist PKK group (we began our journey near the Syrian border), but the coach driver later tells me that the man had dodged military service; the army’s grip on the country, as Daniel noted last week, remains vicelike.
by Charlie Edwards | Jul 2, 2008 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia
I’m in Vienna for a project on European security, drivers, and trends. You can read about Foresec’s aims and objectives here. One of the more animated discussions we had last night was on Europe’s military ambitions and whether Sarkozy’s current rhetoric would translate into some realistic goals. As one Brit said – would Sarkozy’s ideas be accepted by Ministers and mandarins in ‘blanchall’ (Whitehall)?
We needn’t fret too much. The diminutive President has an ally in the shape of the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. In a speech today he will say:
“What strikes me about the French priorities for their presidency is how closely they tie with our own ambitions for the EU, as set out in our global Europe policy statement last autumn whether on energy and climate change, migration, near neighbourhood policy and the next steps on European defence.”
Not very exciting – but the next bit of his speech is much better.
As the Balkans wars in the 1990s demonstrated, unless Europe can develop its own capabilities, it will be consigned always to wait impotently until the US and Nato are ready and able to intervene. That means a genuine role for the EU in conflict prevention and crisis management whether it is providing the civilian experts – the police trainers, judges, civil servants and aid workers – that are needed alongside the military, or deploying soldiers from national armies in roles where Nato is not engaged… the countries of Europe need to be better at using their hard power.
To seasoned watchers of European defence, many with sceptic printed across their foreheads (let’s hope the tattooist in question remembered both c’s), the ideas behind Anglo-French agreements on defence issues have always been pretty solid but have tended to fizzle out with the slightest whiff of realpolitik. Will it be any different this time. Let’s hope not . Sarkozy is on to something.
by Daniel Korski | Jul 1, 2008 | Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa
Crisis is nothing new to the European Union. In fact, crises have made the EU’s foreign policy what it is, filling most of Javier Solana’s office hours. But the bloc is about to face a particularly serious crisis over the likely ouster of Turkey’s democratic government by the Turkish military.
Turkey’s military views itself as the guardian of the secular principles of the Turkish state, and has carried out three coups since 1960. In 1997 it led a campaign to force from power Turkey’s first Islamist-led government. It is now gearing up to conduct another one, this time using judicial processes rather than tanks and troops.
In July, Turkey’s top court is likely to outlaw the country’s ruling party and bar its president and prime minister from politics. The AK Party is accused of trying to undermine Turkey’s secular constitution and establish an Iran-style Islamic state. The leaked diary of Turkey’s navy chief has detailed how the military have pressurized the country’s court so as to get the results they want.
This would be disastrous for Turkey. Since capturing an outright majority in the Turkish Grand National Assembly in late 2002, and after wining again in 2004, AK has undertaken an impressive array of reforms. After ramming reform packages through the legislature, the European Commission determined in October 2004 that Turkey had met all the legal requirements to begin accession talks.
Sure there have been bumps on the road. On a number of occasions the European Commission has had to warn the government. But a military coup would not only halt reforms; it would encourage a radical response from the AK Party’s supporters, who, for the second time, will be denied their democratic right. What comes after the AK may be the very thing that military says it fears: a radicalized Islamic movement that shuns compromise and democratic politics in favor of the violent destruction of Turkey’s secular state.
This can be in nobody’s interest. Turkey is not only an important strategic partner, able to assist Iraq’s reconstruction and key for stability in the Black Sea and Caspian littoral. Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the government has shown a willingness help solve the long-standing dispute over Cyprus, support reconstruction in the Balkans and assist peace-making in the Arab-Israeli conflict. By being on the (admittedly slow) path towards European integration, Turkey also puts paid to the idea of clash of civilizations.
The EU needs to join forces with the outgoing Bush administration and communicate in clear terms that a military coup, however dressed-up, would be unacceptable and damage Turkey’s European integration. More, the White House needs to work with Congress to send a signal that a new administration – whether run by John McCain or Barack Obama – would be equally unhappy with a military take-over.
If a coup does happen, the EU should suspend – although not entirely stop – Turkey’s European integration and present a new government with a clear set of conditions for the resumption of EU-Turkey relations. NATO also needs to consider how to deal with a military-run Turkey. Having forced new members to adhere to democratic standards it cannot just accept the overthrow of Turkey’s democratic government.
Longer-term, civilian oversight over the military must be front and centre of the EU’s demands. Of the democratic reforms that Turkey has undertaken, none is more important and controversial than those related to the Turkish military’s power. For example, in December 2003, the legislature terminated the military’s exclusive control over a discretionary pool of funds that was generally used for weapons procurement. But this has clearly not been enough. A specially-created audit board should investigate all the military’s expenditures and report to parliament.
In exchange for such demands, the EU needs to re-examine what it can offer Turkey. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for a special relationship between the EU and Turkey will have played no small part in the military’s calculations. Though Prime Minister Erdogan has pursued pro-EU policies, he has become increasingly disillusioned with the entry negotiations. The military – while weary of EU integration, which can curtail their power in ways NATO membership cannot – will seek to play on Turkish disillusionment with the EU. Countering such propaganda will require tangible promises to a new civilian government.
