Looking back over decade since 9/11, what events and developments stand out globally? Among others:
9/11 changed everything, and the carnage and consequences engendered by that day haunt us still.
It is perhaps premature to propose potential conclusions and lessons learned in the immediate wake of the rebel victory over the Gadhafi regime. On the surface, it appears that NATO support for the rebellion assisted materially in achieving the objective of ridding Libya of a widely detested dictator.
In terms of success, this would seem to represent more than can be said for Western efforts in backing one side in the Afghan civil war, or intervening under manifestly false pretences in Iraq. Both of those episodes have proven extremely costly. Still, before breaking out any more champagne, there are several issues regarding the Libyan affair which require more sober and sustained reflection than they seem to have received at the international meeting on Libya’s future held September 1st in Paris.
One of the defining characteristics of globalization is its tendency to produce winners and losers by polarizing, economically, socially and politically, within and between nations.
Globalization’s benefits have been privatized, while its costs have been socialized. The appearance of severe inequalities – in incomes, opportunities, and future prospects – after decades of generally narrowing gaps, has been one of the most worrisome consequences. With the triumph of neoliberalism, social democracy on the run most everywhere, and not least in Canada. However much this may please special interests such as business groups and the wealthy, a smaller state almost inevitably translates into program and service reductions for the disadvantaged and those least able to defend their interests.
For the past several years I have spent about a month a year teaching at the London Academy of Diplomacy. During those very pleasant interludes, it has struck me that London has become a world city primus inter pares, a cosmopolitan global crossroads and network node for business, finance, culture and education.
If you are lucky enough to find yourself in a position to benefit from it’s status as a world city, London presents vast possibilities and is a wonderful place to live and work. There is really no place quite like it.
The bombing of government buildings in central Oslo, and killings at the Labour party’s summer camp on the nearby island of Utoya, have shocked Norway and the world. Carefully planned and executed with devastating effect, apparently by 32-year-old Norwegian national Anders Behring Breivik, these acts were deeply troubling, and anything but arbitrary.
One week later, what to make of it? Behind the headlines, can any kind of meaning be ascribed?
It is a pleasure to return to the exquisitely sweet softness of central Canada in mid-summer.
While the month away in New Zealand and Australia for a series of speaking engagements, conferences and meetings with government, university and NGO representatives on matters of science, technology, diplomacy and international policy, was delightful, it’s always nice to be home.
Except, except…
Time spent abroad always sharpens the comparative perspective. Returning from trips abroad over the past decade or so, I have noticed – with an increasing sense of alarm – that in comparison to most of Europe and Australasia, this country is looking kind of tired, worn down, wrung out and generally uncared for.
For some reason, on this occasion I experienced that sensation of falling behind with particular intensity. So with this post I have decided to put the analysis of international relations on hold and share some thoughts instead on what is becoming of Canada, my home and native land.
I have been back in New Zealand, the enchanted Land of the Long White Cloud, since June 16. During that surpassingly enjoyable period I have been reacquainting myself with various parts of the country – Auckland, Northland and the Coromandel peninsula, attending a conference on Science Diplomacy at Otago University’s 46th Foreign Policy School in Dunedin, condulting with colleagues at the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and speaking at various branches of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.
All of this has been most rich and rewarding, and some of the subject matter has even generated interest in the local press.
Before getting into any of that, however, here’s an instructive tale.
A few weeks ago in Oslo, Norway, in the company of about 40 other invitees from around the world, I attended an OECD “experts” meeting, sponsored by the Norwegian and German Ministries of Education and Research, on the subject of Science, Technology, Innovation and Global Challenges.
The workshop was predicated upon the shared realization that if international policy and decision-makers cannot be convinced that a radical course correction is needed, then in the not too distant future the planet may reach a tipping point. Beyond that point, recovery will be difficult, if not impossible.
Think climate change, diminishing biodiversity, food insecurity, resource scarcity, pandemic disease, and so forth.
So… we were talking about the principal threats imperilling life on the planet.
Not your standard bit of bureaucratic process.
Today, I am en route to Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand, to speak at a conference entitled Science Diplomacy: New Day or False Dawn. Among many other speakers are Murray McCully, the Foreign Minister of New Zealand, Vaughn Turekian, head of the science diplomacy unit at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and Dr. Jeffery Boutwell, from Pugwash USA.
Two global gatherings in two months on science, technology, diplomacy and international policy. Is it possible that something’s happening here, even if what is ain’t exactly clear?
Maybe. I certainly hope so.
From May 18-20th in Oslo, Norway, along with participants from some 40 countries and organizations around the world, I attended an “experts workshop” on Science, Technology and Innovation to Address Global Challenges. The meeting was organized jointly under OECD auspices by the Norwegian and German Ministries of Education and Research
The agenda included presentations and discussions on issues such as priority setting, funding, capacity building, and…
Asleep yet?
Well, this is your wake up call.
The Oslo meeting was far from a garden variety bureaucratic encounter. The rubber really hit the road during the final substantive session, which was innocuously entitled “Delivering Benefits.” At that point in the proceedings a consensus began to develop around a single, somewhat terrifying realization: If international policy and decision-makers cannot be convinced that a radical course correction is needed, then in the not too distant future the world may reach a tipping point beyond which recovery will be difficult, if not impossible.
The consequences could well be catastrophic.
To understand how a group assembled by such a respectable institution as the OECD could reach such a disturbing conclusion, some sense of the over-arching analytical narrative is required. My interpretation of the fundamental line of argument goes something like this.
In the globalization era, the most profound challenges to human survival — climate change, public health, diminishing biodiversity, and resource scarcity, to name a few — are rooted in science and driven by technology. Moreover, underdevelopment and insecurity, far more than religious extremism or political violence, represent fundamental threats to world order. In this context, the capacity to generate, absorb and use science and technology (S&T) could play a crucial role in improving security and development prospects. Addressing the needs of the poor, and bridging the digital divide could similarly become a pre-occupation of diplomacy.
Although poverty reduction contributes to development, and development is the flip side of security, S&T issues are largely alien to, and almost invisible within most international policy institutions. National governments, foreign ministries, development agencies, and indeed most multilateral organizations are without the scientific expertise, technological savvy, cultural pre-disposition or research and development (R&D) network access required to manage effectively. If this is to change, and in order to examine the remedial possibilities, politicians, opinion leaders and senior officials must be critically aware of both the dynamic inter-relationships among principal actors and the key questions and issues at play.
Unfortunately, their preoccupations lie almost entirely elsewhere.
The lion’s share of international policy resources are at present devoted to the military, which according to the rationale outlined above represents a colossal, and extremely costly misallocation. With a dominant international policy focus in many industrialized countries on counter-terrorism and the struggle against religious extremism and political violence, the threats and challenges which most imperil the planet remain largely unaddressed.
All told, this tale amounts to one terribly disturbing disconnect.
Because not only are the dots not joined-up.
In most cases, there are no dots.
Whatever comes out of the Oslo meeting, it clearly will not, in itself, be enough to save the world. But if the project contributes to a more acute and widely-shared awareness of the real threat set, then we may all emerge at least with something in rather short supply under the present circumstances.
Hope.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.