Atlantic Review

War in the Caucasus

CNN reports:

Georgia's president said Friday that his country is under attack by Russian tanks and warplanes, and he accused Russia of targeting civilians as tensions over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia appeared to boil over into full-blown conflict. "All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes and specifically targeting (the) civilian population, and we have scores of wounded and dead among (the) civilian population all around the country," President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN in an exclusive interview.

Please share interesting links to analyses in the mainstream media and blogosphere or write your own analyses on this escalating situation in the comment section. I am most interested in policy recommendations for the European and US governments.

Kyle Atwell has already asked the the big question "Will Europe and the US come to Georgia's aid?" in an Atlantic Review post in May 2008, when NATO membership for Georgia was discussed: Georgia Conflict: Should NATO Marry the Small Kid on the Playground?

UPDATE from Nanne Zwagerman: This AP analysis by Jim Heintz, on the Moscow newsdesk, is the best I've seen so far:

Behind the hostilities in South Ossetia are two nations that have long been spoiling for a fight, with Russia eager to show it's boss in the region and U.S.-backed Georgia determined to prove it can stand up to its huge neighbor. With Vladimir Putin in Beijing for the Olympic opening ceremony and the world's attention fixed on China, Georgia may have been betting it could pounce on an opportunity to quickly wrest control of its breakaway province. But the gamble may backfire: Washington hasn't endorsed Georgia's power play, and Moscow's counteroffensive has brought the two sides into a fight it will be hard for Georgia, a former Soviet state, to win.

My best guess would be that Russia will not go far beyond South Ossetia and will then only escalate further when Georgia launches a counterattack. This is looking more and more like a major miscalculation by Saakashvili.

India on Doha

The new Atlantic Media Network blog has a very useful press roundup on the Doha round collapse, focused on the question who 'did it in'. They quote papers from both sides of the Atlantic on the matter.

The coverage alternates between blaming India and China (India foremost) and choosing the safe, neutral storyline by claiming that they are 'asserting' their newfound power.

One perspective that certainly needs to be added is that of India itself. Here are three stories from the Times of India:

'Do As the Americans Did' is a leader by Arun Maira that focuses on India's need to build up its economy and the associated need for protection. The United States focus as a case study in this matter, as its strongest period of growth (1890-1910) happened at a time when it was protectionist, and Europe was more liberal. Maira claims that 'healthy' free trade must be the end point of an evolutionary process.

'Save Doha' is the paper's editorial. It comes down to the point that India's and China's demands for the threshold for a safeguard mechanism were too protectionist, but that the EU and US could have found a middle point for a compromise. "The world", the paper concludes "can't wait till Indian agriculture is ready to face global competition, of course. But neither can the world ignore India and China's concerns."

'Playing to the Gallery' is another leader, by Narendar Pani. He compares the single-issue focus of the current commerce minister with that of the former, Murasoli Maran, who categorically opposed labour standards at the WTO ministerial in Seattle, 1999. According to Pani, this has led to the BBC arbiting over labour standards instead of the WTO, as western firms are mindful of public pressure. The obstruction back then has turned out to have mainly symbolic consequences and Pani expects similar results from India's current obstruction.

The State of European Defence Integration

European defence integration is little discussed, chiefly because it does not really show progress. The last major news was a dust-up a few years ago over the question of having an independent headquarters from NATO in Brussels, between the USA and UK on one side, and a batch of continental countries led by France on the other side (Sarkozy has recently won over the USA, the UK still has to be wood). Or, if you have really been paying close attention, the recent missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Chad. For those who are interested why there has been so little progress, Nick Whitley has written a very useful policy paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations on Europe's security and defence policy.

As Pat Patterson wrote in a previous post, the report is long and not always readable if you are not familiar with the lingo. So here's a short overview.

In the 1990s, the EU agreed to form what the media called a 'rapid reaction force'. This was a plan to have a force of up to 60,000 troops capable of deploying within sixty days. These troops would be drawn from national armies. Little has come of this capability, and the EU has since shifted its policy towards developing 'battlegroups'. These are units of around 1500 troops to be deployed on very short notice. Whitney estimates that two are now actually operational.

Whitney's policy paper is marked by a post-cold war strain of thought that sees current security threats mainly in failed, failing or recovering states, in which intervention has to take place. It is odd to place this in the context of a struggle against Russia, as Simon Tisdall does in the Guardian, since Whitney specifically lambasts Europe's excessive capacities to fight war in Central Europe, and questions expensive projects like aircraft carriers. Europe's current manpower is too large, in Whitney's view, and at the same time not enough of it can be deployed abroad.

Continue reading "The State of European Defence Integration"

The Bear is Back

This is a guest blog post by Pat Patterson:

While much of the West is hyperventilating over whether they even need NATO the Russians have announced a series of military procurements and strategic plans that will force European governments to confront not only a larger Russian land force but also its promise to construct a deep water navy of at least six carrier battle groups. Simon Tisdall has written an article recommending a "coherent" European defense system in reaction to the realities of this new well-funded Russian strategic plan. Tisdall argues that Europe will be the main loser, rarely mentioning the US at all, if they do not take steps now to confront a problem that might be overwhelming in a decade. Much of his article is based on a much longer report (pdf) by Nick Witney of the European Council on Foreign Relations. But beware the Witney article, or rather report, is over 78 pages and sometimes lapses into defense jargon.

What is unusual is that Witney and Tisdall maintain that the EU and I would assume NATO does not need to increase spending but rather not waste what it does spend. That seems like a good idea but oftentimes armies get what the contractors can build rather than what the military asks for. The onus is placed squarely on the European nations to solve this problem and gain some independence from a reliance on the US to foot the bill. Tisdall does conclude that so far American criticism of the European defense posture has been ".benign" but that might well be due to American disappointment over some nation's skirting of its perceived treaty obligations in Afghanistan and thus a desire not to further roil European sensibilities. However both Tisdall and Witney hint that while the US is still saying pretty please in public its private conversations could become much more forceful and unpalatable.

NATO Television: New Website Offers Useful Information

NATO recently launched a new website through the Public Diplomacy Division called NATO TV. The site has so far been producing front-line operational footage, interviews on NATO issues, press conference videos, an archive with footage going back to 1945, and more.

Undoubtedly much of the footage will be propaganda, though NATO is billing it as news and "the voice of 26 countries". However, this propaganda may not be a bad thing, for at least two reasons:

• First, there is a broad lack of understanding about NATO's role in the post-Cold War world, and reasonably so: today's threats are more complicated and nuanced than ever before, making NATO's role in responding to them more difficult to understand than when it had one main mission: deter a Soviet onslaught. NATO TV increases transparency on NATO's activities and organization in an easily digestible format.

• Second, while NATO has accomplished a lot historically, and continues to be a key Alliance for both Europe and the United States today, often the media (including yours truly) only highlight controversies or failures – “the only good news is bad news,” as they say. NATO TV will provide information on positive achievements.

As an example of a NATO TV product, the website is running a series that follows the daily life of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) located in Southern Helmand Province, part of the NATO International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). I found the second episode (three of six parts have been released at the time of this post) to be the most interesting. In it, Sergeant Ryan Messina provides the following quote on progress in Afghanistan from the perspective of a foot soldier:

When you see the way it was, and the effect you have on it, and the way it is now, it has a big impact on you as a person, you feel good about yourself, you feel like you have done something for these people.

You can find the three videos released so far at the natochannel.tv website.

US Military Strategy Goes European

While many US (and European) pundits criticize the European countries for a lack of military hard power or even ridicule German and other soldiers as armed social workers, the Pentagon is increasingly focusing on humanitarian missions, writes The Boston Globe:

Having learned the limits of force in Iraq and Afghanistan, US military strategists are rewriting decades-old military doctrine to place humanitarian missions on par with combat, part of a new effort to win over distrustful foreign populations and enlist new global allies, according to top commanders and Pentagon officials. The Defense Department is implementing a series of new directives to use the American arsenal for more peaceful purposes even as it prepares for war, including a little-noticed revision this year to a document called "Joint Operations," described as the "very core" of how the military branches should be organized. The effort illustrates a growing recognition that, to combat radical ideologies and avert future wars, the Pentagon must draw more heavily on its deep reserves of so-called soft power.

Dan Drezner notes that the US military does not want this responsibility, but is stepping up because no other agency possesses either the resources or the willingness to act. He also blames this development on how the foreign policy budget is authorized:

Congressmen are happy to authorize more defense spending, because that's easier to justify to their constituents, particularly those constituents whose livelihoods are tied into the military. Authorizing civilian spending on foreign policy, however, just looks like a handout to other countries - it's much easier for Congress to say no to that authorization, and look fiscally prudent in the process.

Europe-bashing has Diminishing Returns

In reporting on the U.S. presidential campaign, it is taken for granted that showing excessive friendliness towards Europe would be damaging for the candidates. They would seem too concerned with the opinion of the world, and not enough with America's security. That downside to touring Europe has also been highlighted by David Francis in his Atlantic Review post 'By Giving a Speech in Berlin, Obama is playing with Fire'.

A spokesman for McCain has tried to capitalise on an expected anti-European sentiment by alleging that Obama was more interested in meeting 'throngs of fawning Germans' than in visiting American troops. If this is a broader campaign strategy, it may well backfire.

On the left-leaning democracyarsenal blog, Michael Cohen ties together the data we have on America's perceptions of European countries, and their perception on the perception of America abroad. This leads him to conclude:

The notion that Americans want their presidents to maintain an arm's distance relationship with our Allies is a canard. There simply is no evidence to support this notion. But due to constant repetition by neo-conservative politicians and various enablers of this Administration it has become conventional wisdom. It's about time we put this silly idea to rest.

Don't let the colour on that distract you from the data. The polling shows that since recently, a majority of Americans perceive the image of America abroad as a major problem, and, a fortiori, the vast majority now have a favourable view of Germany, the UK, and France.

Here is Your Article on McCain: There are no Articles on McCain!

We your Editors have received some reader emails this week that express concern we are writing about Obama too much, McCain too little.

I tend to agree Obama is covered disproportionately on AR, but I think it is important for people to realize that our main objective with AR is to identify key articles in the media, and respond to them -- the source of our problem is the fact that the media as a whole is biased toward talking about Wonder Boy Obama, and so our pool of content is limited as it is.

We are not a news organization, but a blog that responds to news. Subsequently, our disproportionate coverage of Obama reflects the media's disproportionate coverage of him. The scant coverage of McCain is not limited to our website. In fact, it seems the biggest news on McCain this week is that he is complaining about nobody wanting to write news about him. And he is correct.

In comparing Obama and McCain’s media entourages during Obama’s trip abroad last week, the Globe and Mail found that:

Trailing in [Obama’s] charismatic wake was a whole legion of the top stars of the U.S. press corps. All three news anchors of the big networks were with him... And back at home, during what was undeniably Obama Week in American journalism, when Mr. McCain touched down on a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., there was... but one lonely local newsperson to witness the arrival of the other nominee.

However, McCain has not always been on the losing side of media bias. Steven Chapman from Real Clear Politics makes the simple observation that the media is fickle; one day’s rock star can be old news--or no news--the next:

Continue reading "Here is Your Article on McCain: There are no Articles on McCain!"

Is the Doha Round No Longer Relevant?

A short commentary on the Doha Round of WTO negotiations:

The talks being held at this time in Geneva are not making enough progress. The latest compromise text that had been drawn up by Pascal Lamy is opposed by India, and the U.S. is also blaming China for going back on earlier promises, as the Associated Press reports.

[Tuesday Update: The talks have now collapsed in what the Telegraph calls a 'blow to globalisation']

One fascinating element of the talks is the emergence of a core group of 7 WTO members who consulted closely on the new deal. Here's an excerpt from the Bridges daily updates:

Seven of the world's largest trading powers emerged front and centre in the struggling talks at the WTO on Wednesday, meeting all afternoon and late into the night in an attempt to find a way out of the impasse in governments' push for breakthrough deals on agricultural and industrial goods trade. [...]

Australia, Brazil, China, the EU, India, Japan, and the US were discussing non-agricultural market access (NAMA), agricultural market access, and trade-distorting farm subsidies, a source said.

This provides a useful mirror for the current balance of power in the world in the trade arena. The absence of Canada is notable. Keep in mind that Russia is not (yet) a WTO member.

Continue reading "Is the Doha Round No Longer Relevant?"

What Germans Think of Barack Obama: Continuity We Can Believe In

The majority of Germans support Barack Obama for the US presidency, not because they believe he will radically change US policy, but because he is expected to return it to the familiar pre-Bush trajectory. This is the conclusion from my colleague Ben Heine over at atlantic-community.org

Ben and I have interviewed German, American and other attendees of the Obama rally in Berlin yesterday. We have asked some of the questions that you suggested on Atlantic Review. Here's our video with their responses:

What do you think of the opinions expressed by the interviewees?

By Giving a Speech in Berlin, Obama is Playing with Fire

This is a guest post by the US journalist David Francis:

As a journalist who covers U.S-European relations and as a U.S. citizen who hopes for better relations with Europe in the next administration, it was quite gratifying to see so many Berliners waving American flags to greet U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in Tiergarten yesterday.

Too often in the last eight years, Germany has greeted American politicians with disinterest, disdain or worse. The images of Obama standing in front of hundreds of thousands of cheering Germans are spectacular and a reminder that an American politician is still welcome on foreign shores. Many believe Obama's German reception is a harbinger of things to come.

Continue reading "By Giving a Speech in Berlin, Obama is Playing with Fire"

Obama Keeps it Global

One of the first things I picked up in the audience after Obama's speech was 'fast genau eine halbe Stunde' (almost exactly half an hour). The audience was keeping time. After many had waited for two hours or longer, they were perhaps expecting more? Certainly, it took some time to get the people around me to warm up beyond 'polite applause'. About halfway in some big applause lines came on seeking a nuclear free world, taking responsibility to fight climate change and ending the war in Iraq. Of those, only putting the idea of a nuclear free world in the spotlight might be unexpected.

Newsworthy on the side of the audience would be that there was quite some applause for Obama's lines about fighting together in Afghanistan, and even roaring applause for his line 'Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?'. The liberal internationalist sentiment championed by Joshka Fischer has clearly not yet perished in Germany.
Continue reading "Obama Keeps it Global"

Understanding Berlin, a pre- Obama speech guide

Obama's high-profile speech tomorrow in Berlin is fostering all kinds of tragic misunderstandings.

On the size of the crowd, the Deutsche Welle reports that Berlin authorities are expecting up to a million people tomorrow, at the Siegessäule. This is probably the most absurd overestimation since Hillary Clinton's campaign played up expectations of turnout in the Puerto Rico primary. The most plausible explanation for the figure would be that Berlin's authorities hope to turn away people.

Over 100,000 people at the speech will make good pictures for Obama, as long as the networks don't spend all day speculating about the size of the crowd.
Continue reading "Understanding Berlin, a pre- Obama speech guide"

Karadzic's Arrest: Triumph of European Soft Power?

Finally, Serbia is back in Europe. Stephen Castle and Steven Erlanger write in the NY Times:

Europe on Tuesday welcomed the arrest of Radovan Karadzic not just as a victory for international justice, but as a vindication of the Continent's favored political doctrine: soft power. (...)
In the last few months the European Union has helped bring a pro-Western political party to victory in Serbia's elections while ensuring that it has powerful incentives to hand over war crimes suspects. The arrest of Mr. Karadzic demonstrates how effective the union's leverage can be, particularly with neighboring countries that have ambitions to join it.

Yeah, it only took a bit more than a decade...

But then again, how successful (and how costly) is hard power? Milosevic and Karadzic were not arrested during the many Balkan wars... (Well, obviously, without the wars, they might still be in power.) And capturing Saddam was much more expensive and demands from the US to a strong commitment to Iraq of at least a decade...

German Military Returns to Traditional Standing in German Society

This is a guest post from our long-time reader and commenter zyme:

July 20th is no day like any other in the self-image of the Federal Republic of Germany. The day of the assassination attempt of Count von Stauffenberg and his supporters on Hitler in 1944 marks one of the most decisive dates for the Republic and for its military, the Bundeswehr. It is conducted in remembrance of the military resistance against Hitler during the war.
From Germany's rearmament in the 1950s till today this has not changed. The circumstances have though - in many ways. Apart from foreign deployments and new defense strategies, Sunday's ceremony provides a good example of taking a look at how much the perception of the Germany Army among the national public and politicians has changed:

Continue reading "German Military Returns to Traditional Standing in German Society"