NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is promising that there will be 7,000 additional troops from 25 countries to support Obama's extended surge. Interestingly, one of the reasons he gave was the multilateralism of the US:
If we are to make Afghanistan more stable, and ourselves more secure, we must all do more. The US has pursued a multilateral approach to this operation. We must now demonstrate that multilateralism delivers concrete results.
Several commentators have recently hinted that Obama should act more unilaterally, as George W. Bush did (in his first term and a half). Calling for abandoning the multilateral approach is premature. The way multilateralism is described by its fans and opponents alike is also too romantic. The fact is that the US is still getting things done by excercising pressure on individual countries -- but it's doing so behind the scenes rather than through grandstanding. If Rasmussen is able to deliver his 7,000, it should show that the Obama administration's approach to diplomacy has worked.
Whether it really is as multilateral as it is said to be or not...
A few weeks ago, Poland's defense minister made the following appeal, reported in the Telegraph:
Radek Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, said he was alarmed by recent military exercises conducted by the Russian army in Belarus, a country that borders Poland, and wanted the US military as a counterweight.
"We would like to see US troops stationed in Poland to serve as a shield against Russian aggression," he said.
"If you can still afford it, we need some strategic reassurance."
It is hard to see why Sikorski would be so deeply worried by a military exercise featuring 900 tanks when Poland itself has more than that at hand. In an interview for Czech television, Zbigniew Brzezinski told East Europeans to grow up:
East Europeans should stop behave like small children, start to deal with their own problems by themselves and not to go to the United States complaining about Russian aggressiveness, for instance, Zbigniew Brzezinski said in in interview for the public Czech Television
Countries like Poland and the Czech Republic should be able to take care of their own - conventional - defence concerns to a large extent. Especially if they cooperate. They are both richer than Russia per head, they're not too small, and they have access to superior conventional technology. Meanwhile, the SIPRI database shows that Poland spent 2% of its GDP per year on defence in 2007, and the Czech Republic 1.4%. This compares to 3.5% for Russia and 4% for the United States.
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
European Issues on Friday, November 20. 2009
The New York Times writes about the two new (or upgraded) posts that were filled in for the European Union yesterday:
Leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union on Thursday night chose Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, as the European Union’s first president, and Catherine Ashton of Britain, currently the bloc’s trade commissioner, as its high representative for foreign policy. The vote was unanimous.
Both officials are highly respected but little known outside their own countries. After the European Union’s eight-year battle to rewrite its internal rules and to pass the Lisbon Treaty that created these two new jobs, the selection of such low-profile figures seemed to highlight Europe’s problems instead of its readiness to take a more united and forceful place in world affairs.
The eurosceptic British newspaper The Telegraph noted the following press reactions:
Spain's El Pais said the EU will be "led by two dull and low-profile figures."
Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau claimed the 27-nation bloc will be represented by "leaders with no sparkle, without a vision and even without experience in the required fields".
France's Liberation newspaper noted that EU leaders had rejected candidates from the bloc's newest members in eastern Europe but had at least chosen a woman to fill one of the posts.
Neither the American nor the British press have much grasp of what these posts entail or how the EU works in general. To be fair, it can be complicated. But the British media have vastly exaggerated the importance of the President of the European Council, and to a lesser extent, also of the High Representative. The way these posts are written down in the Treaties mean they are little more than a chairman and a souped-up envoy for the Member States. So what we have is European Union in choosing competent, low-key people for senior posts shocker.
An agreement negotiated between the US and the EU on sharing bank data in the context of antiterrorism has just been blocked by Germany, France, Finland and Austria. This shift in German policy signals general political changes that will continue to impact transatlantic relations.
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, German Minister of Justice, has a strong socially liberal profile. She had the same post in a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition in the '90s and resigned when her party agreed to far-reaching surveillance measures, eventually turning to bring a case before Germany's constitutional court that overturned much of the legislation.
This move has happened in the EU at the ambassador level of the Council, in anticipation of a decision that would have been taken on November 30th. That is, one day ahead of the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which will give the European Parliament the power to vote on this matter. The European Parliament, which wants to add significant protections or indefinitely shelve this agreement, was outraged by these plans. This procedural concern was also noted by Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
Changes in Germany's coalition following the victory of the CDU/CSU and FDP have resulted in a more liberal profile on internal security matters.
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
German Politics on Friday, October 30. 2009
Guido Westerwelle, new German Minister of Foreign Affairs, is a paradoxical figure. In his current positions, which also include being party leader of the FDP and Vice-Chancellor, he's followed in the footsteps of FDP legend Hans-Dietrich Genscher. But foreign policy is not his strength, and the future of the FDP as well as Westerwelle may depend upon him keeping a clear profile on domestic politics.
Westerwelle had something of a false start into his new role when a BBC correspondent asked him a question in English:
Another YouTube video showing Westerwelle as he tries to speak English has since attracted over one million views, and the social media hilarity has increased with a Twitter channel called 'WesterWave' in which the new German 'outside minister' posts regular updates in a kind of English only people who speak German will understand.
The upshot of this is that it is now normal for young educated Germans to be able to speak English fluently and they expect this from their Minister of Foreign Affairs as well. Young educated Germans are a tiny electoral minority, though, and Westerwelle should just stick to German, and translators.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future.
Even if Obama's efforts may be remarkable, they're efforts. Not results. Similarly, while giving hope for a better future is a form of progress in itself and shouldn't be discounted, it's not as satisfying as actually delivering substantial progress. Now, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has jumped the shark a few times before and has still continued to stay prominent in the global imagination. So they will likely get over whatever controversy this generates. But this is one prematurely awarded prize.
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
European Issues on Sunday, October 4. 2009
Now that Ireland has approved of the Lisbon Treaty by referendum and will soon have ratified, the immediate attention is going to be on the presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic. However, even eurosceptic blogger and UK Indepence Party spokesperson Gawain Towler does not see a prospect of the treaty being delayed long enough for a future Tory government to put it to a referendum.
This does not necessarily mean that independence has become impossible under the new European 'superstate' - as the sceptics would characterise the amended institutional structure. Our commenter John in Michigan points out that the treaty arranges for a procedure to let Member States exit the Union. There was no previous arrangement for such matters, which does not mean that leaving the Union was impossible, just that it would have to be sorted out under the very unclear rules of customary international law.
European defence policy and European foreign policy should be the main fields that benefit from Lisbon. In European defence policy, it will become possible to go ahead with integration in a smaller group if some states do not want to go along. The foreign policy of the European Union has previously been largely reducible to 'enlargement'. One thing the EU lacked was a professional diplomatic service. Another problem was the continuing wide divergence of perceived interests between Member States. Given that foreign policy will continue to be conducted by unanimity, the question whether a coherent policy will emerge - and how soon and for which reasons - will be a nice test of foreign policy doctrines.
Over a year after the fact, that is the central conclusion of a report commissioned by the Council of the European Union, which was released today. To a fair amount of international attention. The BBC has a write-up, including a pdf of the report. And even the Wall Street Journal, which has published a fair amount of columns by the Georgian President Saakashvili, had a headline that reads 'Report: Georgia Triggered War With Russia' (via Jerome).
The report itself is readable, and contains a useful timeline of the events. It is also critical of Russia, which is found to have reacted disproportionally to the attacks. In fact, no one comes away well from the report. It even ventures into some muted criticism of the support for the buildup of the Georgian army by the United States, which it calls a 'sensitive issue', while calling for such military support to 'stay within the boundaries set by common sense and due diligence'.
But, wait a second, no one? Well, there is one French President...
After five days of fighting, a ceasefire agreement was negotiated on 12 August 2008 between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the latter acting on behalf of the European Union. An implementation agreement followed on 8 September 2008, again largely due to the persistent efforts of the French President. This successful political action stood in contrast to the failure of the international community, including the UN Security Council, to act swiftly and resolutely enough in order to control the ever-mounting tensions prior the outbreak of armed conflict.
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
US Foreign Policy on Tuesday, July 28. 2009
That is what the Russians must be wondering these days. Let's recap.
Three weeks ago, President Obama goes to Moscow and holds a speech saying that he recognizes "the future benefit that will come from a strong and vibrant Russia", talks about Russia's "rightful place as a great power", and states: "The pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game". He offers a few words about the right of Russia's neighbours to set their own foreign policy, but follows up by saying that NATO seeks "collaboration, not confrontation" with Russia.
To the ever-suspicious Russians, this should have sounded like an actual attempt to improve relations.
Cue Joe Biden. The VP was sent on a quick tour to Ukraine and Georgia to assuage fears that the US would change its stance on their possible future membership of NATO. Biden did that part of the job well enough, giving some combative language that the US would "stand by" Georgia, but also making it clear that there was no military way for the country to regain control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However, Biden then decided to give an interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he managed to insult just about everyone - even the Georgians - but most of all the Russians. The WSJ headline 'Biden Says Weakened Russia Will Bend To US' is hardly an exaggeration.
When Biden recently made some silly remarks about Israel striking Iran, Mickey Kaus pointed out that this might be a useful form of strategic ambiguity. You might want that kind of thing with regard to Iran, but don't think strategic ambiguity would be useful with regard to Russia, especially in the context of trying to improve relations. So if the White House was ever serious about that, it will have to find a way to communicate that its really only Joe, you know.
The left-wing US blog Daily Kos has let Research 2000 do a poll on some of the purported 'boogeymen' of the right, including France and Europe. It turns out that France and Europe are almost universally loved by Americans. France has a 66 to 26 favourability rating, and for Europe the rating is 63 to 29. Favourable opinions of France and Europe exist across ethnic groups and party lines, but there is some regional difference: southerners have an evenly split opinion of both France and Europe.
This is quite a dramatic shift in opinion among the American population from four years ago, when the (more conservative) pollster Rasmussen reported that 57% of Americans held an unfavourable opinion of France.
Opinions of France have probably improved as a result of the improved political relationship that started with the election of Sarkozy, and were reinforced by the election of Obama. At the same time, they might deteriorate again if there is another major diplomatic disagreement between the two countries. Right now, the French and Americans have important reasons to stick together as they are both threatened with 'revenge' by Somali pirates...
Harmony isn't a very interesting reporting item, and so from the NATO summit in Strasbourg-Kehl, we mainly get to see video images of burning hotels, and reports exaggerating the scope of disagreements. The New York Times report by Steven Erlanger and Helene Cooper provides a quite clear example. They write:
For Mr. Obama, in many ways, the two months since he took office have been a reality check on the difference between Europe’s vocal support and action.
But was there loud vocal support in Europe for a surge in Afghanistan in the first place? I haven't heard it. In any case, the Obama administration has long been playing down expectations of additional troops from Europe. In public it moved to asking European countries for more aid instead. In that sense, the 5,000 added troops European countries have now (temporarily) committed are a decent result for Obama to take home.
The size of the added money for the Afghan National Army and civilian aid, at 100 million and a pledged 500 million for aid, on the other hand, are not very impressive, although Obama says that it is 'signficant'. Perhaps he expects that he will get more in the future?
The NYT report also plays up the tension with Turkey over the nomination of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO Secretary General. It seems that the negotiations took a long time, but at the end of the day, there was agreement. Turkey got a few concessions, and Rasmussen got the post.
The difference with the report in the French paper Le Monde is striking. Le Monde writes that this summit has managed to achieve consensus, and focuses on the agreement existing on Afghanistan, the new Secretary General, the reinitiated dialogue with Russia and the return of France to the military command.
Perhaps that is a bit too rosy, but consensus seems to dominate at the end of this conference. Whether the consensus is right and whether everything that has been promised will also be delivered are other questions.
That's what Daniel Korski notes in his latest ECFR policy brief. Factually, a lot of European countries have already sent more troops in Afghanistan, and still more are on the way there. Between November 2006 and March 2009, European troop levels increased by nearly 9,000, and European troops now make up nearly half of the ISAF mission. This has been the result of a set of (mostly) quiet revolutions in national policies on Afghanistan. At the same time, Europe still has not delivered a clear common strategy on Afghanistan, which is lamentable.
Korski makes some considered recommendations for an EU policy, which is very welcome, considering the lack of consideration on the official levels. At the same time, his ideas call for a critical review. Korski offers a list of seven policy recommendations, which are:
A twin process of reconciliation with the Taliban and constitutional reform to be launched
EU to field a large election observer mission and NATO to deploy the NATO Response Force for an election-focused boost to ISAF
NATO allies to improve training of the Afghan army by setting up a Military Advisory Force, a Military Advisory Centre and launching a NATO training mission for non-basic army training
EU to grow its police mission by hiring 500 officers on the open market, including from third states, like Ukraine, Moldova, Morocco, Serbia and Turkey, while reconciling the roles of the US CSTC-A and EUPOL
EU states to support the establishment of a special UN-backed serious crimes tribunal, located in Kabul or elsewhere in the region, to take on drug kingpins
US and EU to call for a new UN “assistance envoy” for Pakistan and to organise a donors’ conference
EU to launch a “capital reconstruction team” for Kabul to guarantee a concerted focus on security and reconstruction
The notion of starting a tribunal for drug traffickers as a form of nation building is an innovative idea, and a temporary boost in troop numbers in the weeks leading up to the elections also sounds like a good plan that could bring real results as well as goodwill for an effort that is managable for Europe's militaries and can be sold to the domestic electorate.
Continue reading "Europe Surging in Afghanistan?"
Over a year after the fact, that is the central conclusion of a report commissioned by the Council of the European Union, which was released today. To a fair amount of international attention. The BBC has a write-up, including a pdf of the report. And even the Wall Street Journal, which has published a fair amount of columns by the Georgian President Saakashvili, had a headline that reads 'Report: Georgia Triggered War With Russia' (via Jerome).
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