Tradition vs. The American Security State

William Shirey, University of Pennsylvania

Despite the myths, the United States has never “isolated” itself. Washington and the Founding Fathers indeed wished to avoid “entanglement” – meaning the morass of alliances on the European continent that seemed to always give way to war – but this never meant avoiding foreign affairs. A Navy was commissioned, treaties of amity and commerce were signed, and a “Quasi-War” with France took place before the Federalists were out of office in 1801.

What the American Founding Fathers truly believed, apropos foreign affairs, was that a balance must be struck between executive prerogative on one hand and democracy on the other. The President must, indeed, be able to act with his own judgment in order to navigate geopolitics with any sort of efficacy. Yet a democratic nation’s foreign policy should be at least partially circumscribed by democratic principles; the voice of the people should act as a check. The derogation of American tradition exists not, as is so commonly asserted, in America’s postwar emergence as the prepotent nation on earth. Rather, the derogation is that the democratic voice has been entirely eschewed from foreign affairs. The American executive has arrogated itself as the vox dei; it has, with remarkably little protest from the public, crushed the vox populi underfoot.

When the United States first groped at empire in 1898 with the seizure of the Philippines, it was not acting far outside of tradition. “Manifest Destiny” had been lodged somewhere at the fundament of the American imagination ever since the first settlements flourished in New England and Virginia under the auspices of English colonialism. This “destiny” had led a generation of 19th century Americans to the West, and by the end of the 1850s, they had filled the continent. In the 1890s, however, it was clear that this view of “destiny” was not to stop at Oregon. The Anglo-Saxon world had been just recently infused with a Darwinian sense of racial superiority; Hawaii and the Philippines beckoned as a chance to assert both American hemispheric dominance along with the superiority of Christian civility. This was an extension of the unilateralism preached by Hamilton and the hemispheric assertion preached by John Quincy Adams.

Most importantly – and most in line with the founding intentions of the American Republic – the annexation of the Philippines was the subject of a ferocious public debate. William Jennings Bryan brought crowds to tears with his oratorically brilliant damnation of American imperialism; he invoked the intense pacifism of the Christian tradition and the caution of the great statesmen in America’s past. In opposition, Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt threw down the gauntlet: they posited to the American public that this was the chance to seize greatness – and if they failed, the Kaiser and his armies would be on our doorstep. As the Constitution demands, it was Congress – the elected representative of the people – that made the final decision.

The Philippine decision was, at its time, the most momentous choice in the history of America’s foreign policy. Yet America in 1898 was a second-rate power. America’s encounter with the world would undergo a sea change beginning in 1917, when it declared itself to be an Ally in the Great War, and 1945, when it took up Britain’s mantle as predominant world power, guarantor of balance and open trade, and ultimate shaper of global affairs. The decisions that allowed this shift to happen – the entrance into World War I, the American abstention from the League of Nations, and the declaration of war against the Axis Powers in 1941 – were made by Congress after serious and public debate.

The United States has fought several wars since the end of World War II. Congress has not declared war in a single one of them, despite the clear demand for such a declaration in the Constitution. Korea was a “police action”; Vietnam began only as a mission on the part of U.S. advisors to help the French recolonize Indochina; in 2003, Bush invaded Iraq after gaining authorization from Congress to act freely. Much of America’s postwar excursions are entirely unknown to the public. Few know about the U.S. sponsorship of the 1953 Iranian coup, the 1953 regime change that John Foster Dulles fomented in Guatemala because of the taxation of a U.S. fruit company, Reagan’s funding for both sides of the Iran-Iraq war, or Carter’s arming of the Taliban and Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, and countless other such semi-secret proxy wars and involvements.

In postwar America, decision-making takes place in a National Security apparatus that has been constructed entirely apart from democracy. FDR’s “brain trust” gave way to the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, who answer neither to the people nor to the elected, constitutionally delineated institutions responsible for foreign affairs. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger made decisions in a completely clandestine manner; only a small handful in the executive branch knew that he and Nixon were planning to completely overturn the United States’ policy towards China. Ronald Reagan, when permitting the sale of arms to Iran, concealed the relevant documents from Congress and from four of the eight members of the National Security Council. Indeed, the unelected Oliver North was running foreign affairs more than Reagan. In the Executive Office Building, North and the National Security Council effectively constructed a parallel undemocratic government with its own appropriations, Lieutenant Colonel, and intelligence capacities. That the Obama administration, according to leaked intelligence, has supported the ouster of legitimate democratic regimes in both Paraguay and Honduras remains entirely out of the national conversation.

Some centralization is inevitable in a nation of growing population and power. A healthy level of executive entitlement is a must for a country that wishes to have a cogent operation in the international sphere. But the democratic voice was always assumed to have a place; indeed, the Enlightenment vision of a Republic was centered upon a virtuous and self-determining people. Those providential ideals with which the United States was crafted have suffered an apostasy under the national security state. They are now little more than talking points with which Presidential candidates and press secretaries woo the public. The values that we pretend to have can only return with the reintroduction of transparency and responsibility.

If NATO Cannot Be A Lion, It Must Be A Fox

ALFIE SHAW

Imagine that you are Vladimir Putin. In February 2014, you were met with a weak international response to your annexation of Crimea. That year, your military’s largest exercise involved 150,000 personnel and took place on your western border; by contrast, the largest NATO exercise involved only 16,000 troops drawn from 15 allies. In an October 2014 speech on the theme, “The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules?”, you declared your distaste for NATO, which you see as a “new effort to fragment the world, [and] draw new dividing lines.” You hope to draw your own lines representing your view of Russia’s place in the world. Imagine that you look to ill-defended Latvia, only 150 kilometres from St. Petersburg; why do you decide not to invade when you so easily could? 

Certainly not because you see NATO as a viable deterrent. Rather, because a simple cost-benefit analysis showed you that it was simply not worth it. NATO strategy must be radically altered in order to reflect this observation. 

Russia could not defeat NATO in a total war scenario but could achieve victory before a total war began. There can be no distinction between total war, where all of the resources of the state are dedicated to achieving complete victory, and nuclear war. Russia is capable of achieving limited victory against a NATO ally before the alliance can mobilise its conventional resources. Once limited victory has been achieved, all Russia need do is threaten a nuclear escalation in the event of a NATO response. The question then becomes, “is Latvia worth New York”, leading reasonable domestic political concerns to stall the Alliance’s military response. Delays such as this would allow Russia to seize the strategic initiative, making any future conventional attempt to liberate the occupied nation more difficult. It is clear, then, that given the indivisibility of nuclear and total war, NATO does not pose a significant deterrent to Russia.

Failure to respond to an invocation of Article 5 would secure NATO’s downfall. Since the Alliance exists primarily to provide collective defence, its credibility would be irreparably undermined if it failed to do so even once. A quick limited victory followed by a threatened nuclear escalation could, therefore, lead not only to conquest, but to the collapse of NATO in its current form. 

Why, then, does Russia not invade one of its weak Baltic neighbours?  The answer is that, in contrast with western media conflation of the apparent irrationality of Putin with that of Russia as a whole, Russia is a rational actor for whom the costs of an invasion significantly outweigh the benefits. The direct cost of an invasion would be small, especially if hybrid tactics were used to weaken the adversary before conventional forces were deployed. The indirect costs are far more considerable. 

Were Russia to cause Article 5 to be invoked by invading a NATO ally, it would become a pariah state. There is already little doubt in diplomatic circles that Russia is an illegitimate actor on the international stage: in 2014, the European Court of Human Rights delivered 129 judgments against Russia and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ordered Russia to pay $50 billion to the former shareholders of the oil company Yukos, which was illegally bankrupted by the state. Most notably, of course, the world awaits the publication of the Dutch Safety Board’s investigation into the MH17 crash. The cost to the Russian economy of withdrawal from the international stage would be immense. Clearly, then, Russia would derive little benefit from a Baltic invasion, even without the direct cost of an occupation.

Successful annexation cannot come simply from defeating an army or by deterring NATO. In order to be successfully annexed, a nation must be occupied and stabilized. As NATO so painfully learnt in Afghanistan, an occupation perceived to be illegitimate is enormously costly to maintain and unlikely to succeed. There is no doubt that a Russian occupying army would be obstructed and that the capital of the invaded nation would be damaged during the invasion phase. This increases the cost and decreases the benefit, respectively, of the annexation of a NATO ally by Russia. 

NATO cannot legitimately decrease the benefit to Russia of annexing an ally, but it can increase the cost. As I have shown above, the doctrine of tripwire defence, whereby NATO stations troops in its threatened allies, cannot increase this cost given the potential for nuclear escalation. At current levels of defence spending, NATO cannot be a lion; it must be a fox. 

Rather than meeting asymmetry by preparing to fight a new, symmetric, Cold War, NATO should prepare to fight against Russia’s weaknesses, which are the same as its own.  Rather than attempting to improve its conventional capabilities without increasing defence spending, a futile pursuit, NATO should invest in preparation for asymmetric defensive warfare in its threatened allies. Following the Swiss model of national defence, NATO must encourage the introduction of national service in its threatened allies. 

National service achieves two aims: firstly, it provides a larger regular and reserve army than would otherwise exist. Equally important, when the threat of hybrid tactics is real, it provides a common experience that strengthens the sense of national identity within a state, reducing the potential for extraneous forces to sow division. On NATO’s most vulnerable border, the Baltic, Estonia and Lithuania both operate systems of national service, though Latvia does not. 

The real value of national service is not in the overt preparation for conventional operations that it makes, but in the potential for that army to employ asymmetric tactics. Even with a conscript army, any of the Baltic states would crumble in the face of the might of the Russian army; once that army entered the occupation phase, however, the conscript army could wreak havoc, hugely increasing the cost of an invasion, and so making one less likely. 

In the Swiss model, all fighting age males and female volunteers capable of military service receive 18 weeks of mandatory training followed by seven three-week recalls over the following ten years. There is, therefore, a large citizens’ militia to complement the small full-time military. They retain their personal weapon after their initial mandatory training, and ammunition is stored centrally at canton level. In the event of an invasion, and with the benefit of training and equipment, this citizens’ militia would not only increase the cost of occupation, prevent stabilization and so reduce the likelihood of successful assimilation, but would reduce the likelihood of an invasion happening at all. 

The alliance must play by the new rules recently established by Putin. In the event of an invocation of article 5, NATO must involve itself in the process of resistance. In order to ensure its survival, it must demonstrate that it is fully committed to collective defence. As I have shown above, however, it cannot do this overtly for fear of nuclear escalation. It must publicly increase special operations training in order to demonstrate that it can deploy the capability to support and supply resistance against an invader, fulfilling its commitment to collective defence while reducing the likelihood of a confrontation. NATO cannot deter by playing the lion, but it can deter by playing the fox. 

Image: British soldiers take part in NATO exercise Saber Strike in Latvia, June 2015. Source: NATO.

A Swarm? Calm down and get some perspective

Will Yeldham

David Cameron recently sparked outrage with human rights activists lampooning both his rhetoric and Britain's policy on refugees. The media backlash did have a tinge of hyperbole about it and overlooked his more reasoned comments urging the prosecution of criminals trafficking both children and refugees. However, it is undeniable that as prime minister he must choose his words more carefully and not further the hostile rhetoric surrounding the issue.

What's more worrying is the stark difference between his recent statement and beliefs he espoused 2 years ago: “I believe that immigration has brought significant benefits to Britain, from those who’ve come to our shores seeking a safe haven from persecution to those who’ve come to make a better life for themselves and their families, and in the process they have enriched our society by working hard, taking risks and creating jobs and wealth for the whole country”. So what's changed? Well British political opinion to the EU for one thing. The principal problem is that this unhelpful language is continuing to cloud and disfigure the realities of the issue for the British public. Many members of the British press and government implicitly or explicitly classify many of those wishing to reach the UK as migrants as opposed to refugees.

Leaving rhetoric aside there is the more immediate problem that Britain is simply not pulling its weight in allaying the Europe-wide crisis. Any notion of helping Italy, which has been struggling to accommodate the 63,000 refugees that have arrived by sea, is caught up in the ongoing debate of Britain's position in the EU which, with the upcoming referendum, is coming to a head. When one looks at the numbers, Britain's ethical position is essentially indefensible. So far this year, more than 180,000 migrants have reached Greece and Italy by sea (others come from Turkey via the land border with Bulgaria). In Calais there are just shy of 3000.

Of course, people ask 'Well what about the next 3000’, and more refugees will come, but is it Britain's duty to stand quibbling on the sidelines of Europe, leaving countries such as Greece and Italy, far less able to process and accommodate migrants, in the lurch? UN Special Representative for International Migration Peter Sutherland argued just this in his statement that the UK should take more migrants as part of a “fair” solution to the problem, saying that “at the moment there is a huge disparity in the numbers that different countries are taking. On any basis, the Germans and the Swedes are taking far more per capita than the United Kingdom.” Many asylum seekers head for Germany, which in 2014 had more than 200,000 applicants. Sweden's next, with 81,000, then Italy, France and Hungary. Britain is way down the list, with only 32,000.

The most recent decision of the British Government to opt out of a voluntary scheme to resettle thousands of refugees arriving in Europe drew criticism from around the world and rightly so. The heated talks at the EU summit in Brussels saw European leaders endeavouring to formulate a solution to the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Whilst a proposal for mandatory quotas was rejected, EU countries agreed on a voluntary intake scheme. In order to relieve the pressure from southern European countries, members agreed to resettle 40,000 refugees now in Italy and Greece and another 20,000 people currently outside the EU. However, David Cameron's government has opted out. Just as depressing has been the range of headlines from tabloid papers calling for the Prime Minister to 'send in the army'. Luckily, home secretary Theresa May rejected calls for this ludicrous policy. Nevertheless, Britain must start pulling its weight, accept the voluntary intake scheme, engage in meaningful dialogue with the EU and most importantly place the humanitarian plight of refugees over short term political appeasement.

Follow the Leader?: Kazakhstan’s Succession Crisis

Katherine Crofts-Gibbons

On April 26th, the Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev won re-election with 99.7% of the vote in a rigged snap election. The officially designated ‘Leader of the Nation’ is very good at what he does. He has overseen an economic boom and rising living standards in Kazakhstan. He has successfully maintained political stability and prevented the emergence of rivals and opposition movements.  He is genuinely popular, and would probably win a free and fair election were he to hold one. However, the President is 75 and, it is rumoured, in ill health. He can almost certainly, if he chooses, hold on to power until he dies, but, despite the aura of immortality his 26 years in power have conferred, one day he will have to let go. 

It is not clear what will happen next. There is no precedent for a transfer of power in Kazakhstan, and there are no institutions to manage one. Nazarbayev has spoken publicly about the need to put in place a system for the succession, but he does not appear to have taken any steps in this direction. The Kazakh political system is highly personalised, based on informal patronage networks, with the president at the summit, rather than formal institutional structures. To simplify slightly, in this sort of regime, to secure power, a single successor must win over a critical mass of these client networks by presenting him or herself as the strongest possible patron, and it is in the clients’ interests to coordinate around one successor, who can thus become an effective patron. 

The problem in Kazakhstan is that there is no clear successor for the networks to back. Although the workings of the regime are opaque, the consensus is that Nazarbayev has yet to pick one. Experts and insiders regularly come up with lists of potential successors, but they are usually six, seven or eight names long, with no consensus, or even firm answers, on who is most likely. Dariga Nazarbayeva, Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter (he has no sons), was considered the likely successor, but has since fallen out of favour. Her ex-husband, Rakhat Aliyev, was at one time the front runner, but he too fell from favour and committed suicide in an Austrian prison in February. The number of potential competitors will complicate the coordination of elites around a new patron, unless Nazarbayev can use his personal authority to install one. 

The President may yet have time to pick and groom a successor, following the example of Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev, who successfully handed power to his son, Ilham, in 2003. Should the President’s chosen successor fail to win the loyalty of the Kazakh elites, or should Nazarbayev die before selecting one, a chaotic power struggle is likely, which could tip over into general unrest. 

A number of factors will add fuel to the fire.  There are fears of a ‘Ukraine scenario’; Kazakhstan shares 4,250 miles of border with Russia, and has a large ethnic Russian minority concentrated in the north. In 2014, Putin appeared to suggest that Kazakhstan’s existence as a state was tied to Nazarbayev. On top of this, and perhaps making Russian intervention to ‘protect’ ethnic Russians more likely, a recent spate of terror attacks reflects the growing presence of radical Islam. Home-grown sources of potential conflict include an increasing rich-poor divide, growing labour unrest and economic difficulties stemming from Russia’s economic crisis, cooling growth in China and low oil prices. Nazarbayev is strong enough to keep a lid on the instability these factors might otherwise create. His successor, particularly if the Leader of the Nation dies before designating an heir, may not be able to. 

Even if a successor does emerge, Kazakhstan faces an uncertain future. In order to hold on to power in the face of intra-elite competition and growing domestic instability, Nazarbayev’s successor, who will lack his popularity and personal authority, may turn to even tighter political control and repression. Rule of law is unlikely to be high on the agenda. Such a crackdown may provoke a popular backlash. 

Until a strong successor emerges, the stability of Central Asia’s largest and richest country rests on the, possibly delicate, health of a 75 year old man. 

The Alternative to Hatred: Small Steps towards a Shared Society in the Middle East

Rose Vennin

As I am shown around the Givat Haviva campus in Northern Israel, I walk past a three-meter high wooden sculpture similar to a totem pole. Curious, I ask Lydia Aisenburg, educator at the centre, whether it is indeed a totem pole and its significance. She swiftly corrects me: it is a peace tree, proudly sculpted by a group of Israeli and Arab children in one of the day-long sessions organised by the kibbutz to bring the two cultures together and further dialogue. It has symbolically stood there for a decade, persisting throughout the innumerable acts of violence in the region. 

With Israel having experienced violence and instability once again this past weekend, discussing local efforts fostering harmony, such as this joint arts program, seems particularly relevant. When considering the matter, most think that peace building and international relations in general are a top-down affair, that inter-governmental agreements are those that will end conflict. However, this is only part of the story: if tension exists among the local population then even a unanimously recognised agreement at the diplomatic level is ineffective. More than ever, long-term stability in the region needs to come from local communities, with Arab and Jewish civilians working hand in hand. 

This is where an organisation like Givat Haviva comes into play. Founded in 1949 as a national education centre, it is a recipient of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education for its longstanding work in promoting Jewish-Arab dialogue and reconciliation. I meet with Yaniv Sagee, the Executive Director, who details the centre’s new strategy: striving for a shared society, the programs created aim to enhance cooperation, equality and understanding between what are today divided groups in Israel. Although this may appear to be an impossible goal in a region with a tumultuous history, Givat Haviva’s record is quite convincing at showing that change on a societal scale begins with the socio-political unit closest to the people – the community level. Projects like the implementation of common educational programs and the establishment of Arab-Jewish municipal cooperation are tiny steps in the longer stride towards regional peace, developing interaction and understanding between the two groups.  

So although it may sound idealistic and trivial given the current conflictual situation, it is these tiny steps that matter today. By instituting shared values from an early stage in Arab and Jewish children’s political maturation, concrete programs like these lessen the separation between the two. As witnessed during my two-week trip to the region, hatred of the “other” is instilled from a very young age on both sides. Arab and Jewish communities can live 5 kilometres from one another, yet a world separates their views regarding the region, its history and the future they envision. Later on in the day, I visit one Jewish village, on top of a hill, and another Arab one at the bottom, both having yet to follow Givat Haviva’s program. After talking with local shop-keepers about their respective points of view, I am struck by the fact that there seems to be no interaction between the two communities – they are so close, and yet so far. In this context, how can we realistically expect the state of stability the international community repeatedly calls for?

Hence, as the peace process has slowed down to a standstill and a seemingly hopeless situation prevails, “the time to build a society of dialogue and understanding between all groups, has come, and not only at the governmental level, but even more importantly between local communities and civilians,” concludes Lydia Aisenburg. It is time to put the work of organisations like that of Givat Haviva further into the spotlight, promoting the notion of a peaceful shared society. And then only will the peace tree stand firm for centuries.

Title image taken at Givat Haviva.