A report released by the staff of Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) has sparked controversy from Russia and Georgia.Titled “Striking the Balance: U.S. Policy and Stability in Georgia,” (PDF) the report argues NATO Allies need a coordinated policy toward Georgia, and suggests it should include a resumption of arms sales that halted following the 2008 Georgia-Russia war:
The United States and NATO allies must reconcile a policy that leaves a dedicated NATO partner unable to provide for its basic defense requirements. These efforts will be most effective if they are undertaken on a multilateral basis. The Alliance must come to grips with the reality that Georgia will require coordinated security support from America and European nations for some years to come.
…
Particularly in the realm of security assistance, such coordination is critical. While Georgia finds itself under a de facto arms embargo, other NATO allies are pursuing record military deals with the Russian Federation. Georgia has become an exceptional contributor to international security through its contributions to missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. A strategy to enable Georgia to similarly provide for its own territorial defense will require close cooperation with NATO allies to preserve stability in the region.
Following the war between Georgia and Russia, both Europe and the United States have largely stopped selling lethal military equipment to Georgia.The United States has nonetheless continued training Georgian forces for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq under a program titled the “International Military Education and Training Program” (IMET), and funding appears to have increased for this training.Relatively speaking, military equipment sales to Georgia were much higher than training funding up to 2008, but have dropped to zero in 2009 (see charts based on data from the Lugar report).
Georgia has embraced the report while Russia and the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia argue arms sales to Georgia could lead to another outbreak of violence in the region.
It's the same procedure as every year: Millions of Germans watch "Dinner for One" every New Year's Eve since 1972. It is "as big a tradition in Germany as the crystal ball drop is in New York's Times Square," writes Patrick Donahue for Bloomberg. You can watch the 10 minutes British comedy on Youtube. It is so funny, it never got dubbed into German. As Observing Hermann points out: "A bit strange maybe, but aren't most traditions - when they're not yours, I mean?"
Many in the media write every year that this New Year's Eve tradition is strange and that this silly slapstick never got popular in the UK or the US. Of course, I could point out that US upholders of moral standards probably do not like to broadcast all that drinking and the sexual reference in the end. But that is all silly and not important.
The end of a year should be a time for reflection, I believe. It's worthwhile to remember all the unknown people who have done good in the real world. I try to ignore the many "year in review"-articles that feature silly people that made the headlines. The media does not write much about the many relief workers in war and natural disaster zones around the world. At least not while they are alive. Marla Ruzicka from California got big press coverage after she was killed in a car bomb explosion in Bagdad in April 2005.
Actually, seriousness and silliness serve both their distinct purposes. It's all about finding the right balance in life between work and entertainment. Marla would definitely agree. And with these superficial words of wisdom 2007 comes to an end. Thank you for reading Atlantic Review. Stay tuned in 2008. All the best for the new year.
Posted by Editors in
US Foreign Policy on Thursday, December 10. 2009
The Atlantic Review is pleased to present this guest article by Dr. Shanthie Mariet D'Souza of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, India.
President Barack Obama’s ‘new strategy on Afghanistan’, unveiled on December 1 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, linking additional troop deployment to a timetable of drawdown of forces and narrowly defined goals, misses out on the core essentials of counter-insurgency (COIN) campaigns which hinges on time, long-term commitment, institution building and larger political strategy. Ultimately, COIN campaigns are won in the political domain, where military is only one of the many essential elements to achieve the long-term solution.
As the debate on the troop surge raged in the United States following the controversial Afghan presidential elections and waning domestic support for the Afghan war, President Obama announced his decision to send 30,000 troops within the first half of 2010, nearly acceding to his top military commander General McChrystal’s request for an additional 40,000. President Obama banking on his approach of ‘multilateralism and diplomacy’ has requested NATO allies to pitch in another 10,000 troops. So far NATO appears to have managed to garner support for another 7,000. Combined with NATO troops, the top US Gen. McChrystal would eventually get the required number of 40,000. The amount spent on Afghan war will increase from an estimated $130 billion in fiscal 2010 to $160 billion.
With increased troop levels, Gen. McChrystal had promised to turn the tide of the Taliban momentum in 12 months. By adopting a ‘population-centric’ COIN strategy of ‘clear, hold, build and transfer’, the additional troop could help in ‘clearing and holding’ insurgency afflicted areas in the south and east. However, with focus of troop deployment being the South and the East, concerns abound regarding the stability of Afghanistan’s North and the West. The Taliban insurgency which works through various networks has the capacity to cause instability in these regions, as witnessed recently in Kapisa, Kanduz and Baglan. More importantly, the COIN strategy does not look at new measures of cutting the symbiotic nexus and sources of funding of the various strands of Taliban insurgency which is a huge motley of various anti government groups, followers of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s radical group Hizb-i-Islami, the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, religious clerics, narcotic traffickers, bandits and tribal fighters in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. For instance, the Haqqani network, operating in Khost, Paktia, Paktika, and North Waziristan has now extended its activities to Ghazni, Logar and Wardak provinces.
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...
Who is to blame that we are not winning in Afghanistan? Karzai, Obama, NATO, the Europeans, or Jimmy Carter again? Afghanistan's President Karzai was criticized a lot lately. Now the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens comes to his defense and puts the blame on NATO. He makes the dubious claim that:
Matters went abruptly south in Afghanistan after several years in which they had gone swimmingly well under Mr. Karzai, including a thriving economy, girls back in school, people having access to health care and so on. The answer has a lot less to do with Mr. Karzai's performance than with NATO's.
"Abruptly south"? "Swimmingly well"? Oh please! Perhaps Stephens was like most of the US media so fixated on Iraq and domestic politics that he ignored Afghanistan.
Yeah, sure, I wish NATO had been more successful in Afghanistan, but let's not forget that the United States first did not want NATO's help in Afghanistan, because the Bush advisors thought that NATO was not up to it, then they asked NATO to play an ever bigger role anyway because they wanted to focus on Iraq and thought they needed NATO's help in Afghanistan.
If the US had not pulled resources from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, then Afghanistan and Pakistan might be in a better shape today. If this turns into a new transatlantic blame game, the Europeans will focus on US neglect of Afghanistan in the early and very decisive years.
John Hannah blames NATO more strongly in Foreign Policy:
Despite repeated assurances from Washington, the Afghans palpably feared that the transition to NATO reflected the start of America's ultimate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Psychologically, this perception of declining U.S. commitment almost certainly had the dual effect of dangerously demoralizing the Afghan government and people (resulting in counter-productive hedging behavior), while emboldening the Taliban.
Similarly, the Pakistani government -- believing the United States to be once again headed for the Afghan exits -- was encouraged even further in its double game of maintaining an "option" for returning a friendly Taliban to power in Kabul.
Militarily, the shift to NATO, particularly in the south, undeniably resulted in a significant loss of combat effectiveness on perhaps the war's most important front. While America's British, Dutch, and Canadian allies fought valiantly in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, they were no match -- frequently by their own admission -- for the extraordinary fighting skills of their U.S. counterparts. With only some exaggeration, a senior Afghan official once told President Bush that 800 U.S. troops had generated a greater sense of security and well-being among the population in Helmand than 8,000 NATO forces.
Very interesting. (Emphasis was added by me.)
Still, the opposite argument can be made that America's heavy reliance on airstrikes has harmed the US image in the region and contributed to the rising insurgency. Only recently the US reversed its policy from focusing their "extraordinary fight skills" on insurgents to providing security for Afghans. The US army is now doing the kind of "social work," which Europeans got ridiculed by parts of the US media for. It seems US strategy is now more in line with European ideas. Without NATO troops the United States would need to rely even more on airstrikes and cause more civilian casualties.
Former US Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter and Leo Michel from the National Defense University have written a good reminder on the importance of allies Keeping our Allies on our Side, which starts with a great quote by Winston Churchill: "There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies and that is fighting without them."
US President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel peace prize, but stated that "I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations."
This speech has made clear that Obama sees himself as re-establishing American soft power. What should he do with the 10 million Swedish Kronor?
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.
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.
"If someone had said two years ago that the US would have largely withdrawn its forces from Iraqi cities by now, he would have been called naive," writes German journalist Christoph Suess. Europeans did not believe that the Iraqis would be able to handle their own security so soon. They (we) "completely ignored all successes on the ground" and "did not want to confess that maybe the US did in fact achieve something in Iraq."
It's the first open letter of this kind since 1989. A group of former heads of state, heads of government, and cabinet ministers from Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic warn President Obama that their close alliance with United States is undergoing a severe test:
Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, however, we see that Central and Eastern European countries are no longer at the heart of American foreign policy. As the new Obama Administration sets its foreign-policy priorities, our region is one part of the world that Americans have largely stopped worrying about. Indeed, at times we have the impression that U.S. policy was so successful that many American officials have now concluded that our region is fixed once and for all and that they could "check the box" and move on to other more pressing strategic issues. Relations have been so close that many on both sides assume that the region's transatlantic orientation, as well as its stability and prosperity, would last forever.
That view is premature. All is not well either in our region or in the transatlantic relationship. Central and Eastern Europe is at a political crossroads and today there is a growing sense of nervousness in the region.
The Kansas City Star published the fascinating eight-part series A Good Exit: Leaving Iraq by Matt Schofield, who travelled to Baghdad, Berlin, Istanbul, Leavenworth and Washington. Matt was kind enough to seek my expertise as well. In fact, the article U.S. and Iraq need more help, less indifference from Europe starts with some quotes from yours truly:
The Germans don't care. The French don't care. The Dutch don't care. Even the British, who had been the staunchest ally of the United States inside Iraq, now seem to believe that what America broke, America bought.
"Iraq isn't on our priorities list," explained Joerg Wolf, editor-in-chief of the Berlin-based Atlantic Initiative, a trans-Atlantic think tank. He noted his opinion was based on a recent survey of 250 European policy experts. "The belief is that this is now a U.S. problem, and the U.S. has to fix it."
But Wolf and a growing number of European policy experts believe this is a huge mistake. "The fact is, if Iraq turns south, there are major consequences for Europe."
The above mentioned survey was actually conducted in September 2007 and included responses from 14 policy analysts from ten European countries, but interesting and still relevant nevertheless: Here are the links to the survey's three parts:
world. I try to ignore the many "year in review"-articles that feature silly people that made the headlines. The media does not write much about the many relief workers in war and natural disaster zones around the world. At least not while they are alive. Marla Ruzicka from California got big press coverage after she was killed in a car bomb explosion in Bagdad in April 2005. 
President Barack Obama’s ‘new strategy on Afghanistan’, unveiled on December 1 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, linking additional troop deployment to a timetable of drawdown of forces and narrowly defined goals, misses out on the core essentials of counter-insurgency (COIN) campaigns which hinges on time, long-term commitment, institution building and larger political strategy. Ultimately, COIN campaigns are won in the political domain, where military is only one of the many essential elements to achieve the long-term solution.
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).
or 
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