daryl.copeland

Defence Policy, International Security and the Military: Time to Talk

by

South of the border, there have in recent years been a growing number of voices expressing serious concern over the militarization of American life.

I certainly share that sentiment.

Is an F-16 fly over and trooping the colours  really appropriate for the opening of the Super Bowl?

The USA is apparently becoming the Praetorian pole in an increasingly  heterpolar world order. Still, I think that a debate of this nature is culturally healthy, and have always admired the fact that some of the most trenchant, even withering criticism of U.S. policy and actions comes from domestic sources, including not least that country’s many military academies and war colleges.

Even in the mainstream media, a decade’s worth of assumptions used to justify deploying the military to pursue the epically misguided global war on terror are finally being questioned.

One could only wish that a similar degree of the scrutiny accorded defence issues in the USA  might one day be evident in the discourse on international policyin Canada.

Apart from a few faint echoes in the academy and a handful of specialized publications, that discussion here  is practically non-existent. I find that most unfortunate.

Canadians need to start talking about the kind of military that they require in the face of all identifiable threats and challenges. They must then somehow try and square the outcome of that conversation against a thoughtful consideration of whether or not the defence capability that they need matches the one that they have got.

I have my doubts.

Read more…

Osama and Obama: Turning the Page?

by

The reported killing earlier today of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is unlikely to prove a game changer for American foreign policy. Secretary Clinton has already suggested as much – the war on terror will continue unabated. Careers, promotions, budgets and bonuses depend on it.

I believe such a commitment to be both hasty and unfortunate, especially given the unmitigated disaster which the current course has visited upon the USA and the world since 9/11. That said, the death of “The Sheik”, the spiritual head of a loose federation of jihadi extremist groups affiliated worldwide under the ideological banner of the Al Qaeda franchise, does raise a series of other critical questions and issues.

Read more…

The Bottom Line: Thoughts on Commercial and Economic Diplomacy

by

For the past few weeks I have been lecturing and travelling in the UK and Europe with a group of MA candidates in diplomacy and international business. They are studying at the University of East Anglia’s London Academy of Diplomacy, and the subject of my short course is science, technology and international policy.

Even by Canadian standards, the group is exceptionally cosmopolitan and multicultural, with students from Afghanistan and Albania, South Africa and St. Lucia, Spain and Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Zambia. It’s a mini-UN, and our exchanges are informed and enriched by the diversity of perspectives brought to bear.

Continuous learning and compelling conversation.

Last week at Nyenrode Business University just outside of Utretcht, Holland, we received a very interesting lecture on “Commercial Diplomacy”. The subject also came up a few days later during a briefing at the Dutch Foreign Ministry, where we learned that in response to the Great Recession, the new emphasis for Dutch representatives abroad  is “Economic Diplomacy”. Some missions are being closed (mainly in Latin America), and a few new ones opened (mainly in Asia) with that priority foremost in mind.

Read more…

Days of Future Past – Part II

by

Editor’s Note. A few days ago I received an email from one of my younger brothers. While cleaning out some old files, he came across a paper which I had sent along for comment back in the spring of 1993. It was entitled At the Crossroads and had been prepared for delivery at a session of the Canadian Learned Societies on 07 June of that year.

I offer a selection of unabridged excerpts below, in hopes that readers may find them of some interest as a very early critique of the “New World Disorder”, neo-liberalism,  and what has come to be known as globalization.  For ease of handling, I have divided the post into two parts, the second of which follows:

At the Crossroads (continued)

The world may be smaller…

The global village has become crowded and unruly. The huts are ramshackle and the underprivileged precincts poorer. The profusion of ever more meagre units of political affiliation, and in particular the proliferation of dubiously viable, ethnically inspired states which have oozed from the wreckage of former federations, has greatly complicated the task of forging any consensus on new forms of international organization. With the possible exception of the UN, most of the post World War Two institutions are failing or facing irrelevance. The rational pursuit of national interests has been rendered vastly more difficult. The tribes are rising as states and institutions crumble.

Read more…

Days of Future Past – Part I

by

Editor’s Note. A few days ago I received an email from one of my younger brothers. While cleaning out some old files, he came across a paper which I had sent along for comment back in the spring of 1993. It was entitled At the Crossroads and had been prepared for delivery at a session of the Canadian Learned Societies on 07 June of that year.

I offer a selection of unabridged excerpts below, in hopes that readers may find them of some interest as a very early critique of the “New World Disorder”, neo-liberalism,  and what has come to be known as globalization.  For ease of handling, I have divided the post into two parts, the first of which follows:

At the Crossroads

Bubble, bubble, toil and…

These are ironic times. The end of the Cold War has lifted the pall of nuclear Armageddon, and the doomsday clock has been wound back. Yet few have felt any tangible benefits, and the work of multilateral institutions, policy analysts and decision-makers has been made immensely more complex and difficult. While the familiar patterns of behaviour imposed by the rigours of a superpower stand-off have faded from view, the outlines of the next global paradigm are only beginning to coma into perspective. The icy hand of death has slipped from the tiller, but the passage into unknown waters promises to be anything but smooth.

Read more…

Five Potential Pitfalls of Western Military Intervention in Libya

by

In a posting penned a couple of weeks ago, I expressed serious reservations  over the growing prospect of a Western military intervention in Libya. A political and diplomatic resolution would have been far preferable.  It remains a mystery in Western capitals how the unenthusiastic consideration of a no-fly-zone somehow morphed, with minimal public or political debate, into to an ambitious and ever-widening program of ground attacks.  Now, suddenly, the dogs of war have been let slip, and the actions of yet another  “coalition” are in full swing.

The Chinese, Russians and Germans, among others, have already stated their misgivings, and both Brazil and India abstained from the sweeping UN resolution which authorized the air campaign. While conflict outcomes  and their implications are inherently difficult to assess or predict, there are a number of factors in place which suggest that this episode may not end well.

Consider the following:

  • This cannot, in the first instance, be considered a humanitarian intervention as set out under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. The explicit goal here is regime change, which means that Western countries have essentially chosen sides in a regional and tribally-based civil war – a highly fraught course, as  experience in Afghanistan and Iraq makes clear;
  • Passage of Resolution 1973 notwithstanding, the UN Security Council is not broadly representative of world power or opinion; its authority arguably outweighs its legitimacy – significantly, no Arab countries have yet joined in the bombing, the  African Union is not supporting the intervention, and the Arab League, while initially on side,  has since voiced concerns. The debilitating optics, and catastrophic consequences of Western warplanes again attacking an Islamic country and killing Muslims will almost certainly erode whatever support remains;
  • The citizenry in participating Western countries were not asked if they supported a more robust form of intervention that had been initially mooted. Support for the present course is likely thin, and will become more so if the duration of the violence is protracted and non-combatant casualties mount;
  • Diplomatic alternatives to the use of armed force were not exhausted earlier in the process, and there is no obvious post-war plan;  today, there appears little room for any kind of negotiated settlement or face saving way out. The lack of a dignified exit strategy could blow back, and encourage Qaddafi hang on;
  • Qaddafi ‘s regime, however unpalatable, is not obviously more authoritarian or less representative than those in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman or Yemen, all of which still enjoy Western backing. Although no one will defend his appalling performance on human rights or corruption, the Colonel`s record of investing more than most in schools, hospitals, housing and infrastructure, together with coalition duplicity, suggests a degree of policy incoherence which can only become more obvious over time.

And then, of course, there are the notorious what ifs… What if the US decides that leading three wars simultaneously is too much, tries to hand off to NATO, and some members, including key players such as Turkey and Germany, balk? What if the campaign goes on and on, and nothing changes?  What if Egypt intervenes to break the stalemate or to protect the remaining rebel strongholds of Benghazi and Tobruk, effectively partitioning the country?

These are early days. If the intervention does not drag on, produces limited collateral damage, averts a slaughter,  and results in the formation of a popular, unified new government then it may yet prove justified. Taken in combination, however, the observations set out above are troubling, and underscore once again the inescapable problems associated with a reliance upon military force as the international policy instrument of choice.

Diplomacy on the Rebound at the Brain Food Buffet

by

From Tuesday through Saturday last week I attended the 52nd annual conference of the International Studies Association (ISA) in Montreal. The theme for this year’s event was Global Governance: Political Authority in Transition.

What does that mean? I still can’t say. But I can attest that this meeting represents one of the very rare occasions during which living legends such as Joseph Nye, Stanley Hoffman and Thomas Schelling can be seen and heard in the same general place and time. Moreover, they represent only the more recognized figures among the thousands of experts and specialists on hand.

Although dominated by participants from the USA, the conference also attracts scholars from Canada, Europe, the UK, Oceania and elsewhere around the globe. International relations is by far the most common of the disciplines represented, but economists, sociologists, anthropologists, and many others – including government officials, consultants and NGO representatives – attend as well. If it’s a subject of academic enquiry, international in scope, and communicated in the English language, then chances are you’ll find it at the ISA.

The event program looks and reads like a telephone book. Four times a day for four days, beginning at 8:15AM and ending at 6:00PM, 100 or so panels run simultaneously. While exhausting, this is a guarantee of  almost limitless choice, and if one promising discussion falls flat, there are endless fall back possibilities.

Each panel is organized under the auspices of one of the  various “sections” of the ISA – International Security, Foreign Policy Analysis, Political Economy, Intelligence, Development, and so forth. For networking, contact development, and most of all as a way to obtain a snapshot of leading edge thinking about just about anything international, nothing compares to dining out at this brain food buffet.

Read more…

What’s Next for Libya

by

The Mark

There is a growing sense of dread as western military assets are deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean, and politicians are speaking increasingly of the possibility of some sort of intervention.

Link