The West and the Sudan Referendum

THOUGH it deserved better than being relegated to the Sunday "Outlook" section, The Washington Post today ran a compelling early-warning article and video on the role of the international community as Sudan gears up for a referendum on January 9th. In less than a week, southern Sudanese will take to the ballot box and determine whether their half of the country will secede from its northern counterpart. The north-south divide has produced decades of violence fueled by economic, racial and religious differences, notably in the region of Darfur, and many international figures have expressed great regret over not doing more to stabilize the region.

This time, leaders hope, will be different: President Obama has initiated a blitz of diplomatic activity in an effort to preemptively avoid violence. The push has involved US officials as well as foreign partners. Obama has sent over twenty envoys to the region in recent months, and has bundled a mixed carrot-and-stick package designed to motivate Sudanese power figures into a proactive mindset toward keeping the peace. The US president has also enlisted the help of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose country abuts Sudan's northern border. Mubarak can leverage diplomatic and political heft with Sudan's would-be warmakers, the US administration hopes. Said Samantha Power, an advisor to Obama on the region, "this is the first time I have seen the US government devote so many high-level resources to preventing violence before it happens rather than responding to it after the fact."

In light of the violence in recent years, the event will take

place under the strong glare of international media, which boosts at least somewhat the chances of a peaceful referendum. And a host of international groups are involved, with the African Union acting as peace brokers, the European Union with offers of economic aid, and a full 10,000 UN staff on the ground to ensure a voting process both fair and on-time.

However, the piece argues, "diplomacy can only be effective if it is complemented by a willingness to take action if prevention fails." This rings loudly of a hard-power solution of last resort, should the violence that is so dreaded nonetheless erupt. The article, written by the genocide prevention expert Michael Abramowitz, goes on to suggest dim hopes for the overly optimistic. It reminds the reader of the recent catastrophes in Rwanda and Bosnia, as well as the withering criticism roused by the international community's role -- by turns inappropriate, insufficient or lacking entirely -- in both of these.

Abramowitz therefore urges that the international community be prepared to make war to break war, so to speak, even as he strongly questions the role the UN would be able to play should armed intervention become necessary. 

"It is far from clear that the U.N. Security Council would react quickly to an unfolding crisis, and most experts agree that the U.N. troops in Sudan would be of little use should atrocities commence. (Years of conferences, NATO and E.U. deliberations, and think-tank studies on civilian protection have yet to yield momentum for an effective international rapid-deployment force to deal with such emergencies.) The United States has the capacity to intervene militarily in Sudan, but after 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, would it have the will, and would it be effective?

If the unthinkable were to happen in Sudan this year, we might hear echoes of Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general in charge of peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1994, who futilely begged the United Nations for more troops to end the slaughter there - and who has lived in anguished regret over his failure ever since."

Abramowitz clearly sees the need for a two-pronged security approach for Sudan: 1) do everything possible to prevent violence from happening, and b) should violence return, be prepared to quell fighting with a persuasive (meaning mighty) show of force from the international community. 

PRACTICALLY speaking, the burden of the second task of course falls to the West. The military prowess of the African Union and its members is more reputed for internecine warring than for effective peacekeeping. More worrying still, the other blocs involved -- the EU, the UN, the United States -- face deep structural differences on what necessitates armed response to bloody conflict. The recent ghosts of Bosnia, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Iraq have only emphasized this disparity, in which the US is most often ready to fight (Afghanistan) -- but fights when it shouldn't (Iraq), or doesn't when it should (Rwanda), or fights too late (Bosnia). 

By drastic contrast, Europe suffers from a nearly Pavlovian reflex against military action of any kind, for any reason. This is the product of deeply entrenched civilizational lessons learned from two world wars fought at home, as well as a "never again war" dogma that has occasionally blinded the continent to its responsibility to act militarily in the world during times of true humanitarian need (Bosnia, again).

We all hope that no referendum-related violence transpires in Sudan, but another major question may develop among the international community of the West: if intervention becomes necessary, will we be of one accord to execute it?

"Foreign Policy? What Foreign Policy?" Recession-Era U.S. Voting

Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center, had this to say on US foreign-policy introspection in a recent article in The National Interest: 

"It is hard to recall a time when foreign policy issues played so diminished a role in the American public's thinking. Midterm election exit polls found only 8 percent of voters saying that a foreign policy issue was a voting consideration for them, and more generally, national polls show just 11 percent citing a foreign policy issue as the most important problem facing the nation. This is the lowest registration of international concerns since immediately before the 9/11 attacks."

 He goes on:

"Terrorism, the most immediate threat to [the United States], is a big issue now lacking either prominence in the public’s mind or a heated debate among policymakers. Americans have expressed a steady state of concern about terrorism since the 9/11 attacks, but the polling suggests that most have become somewhat inured to the possibility of another attack. For example, there is no indication this year of widespread anxiety in the wake of reports that terrorists attempted to place package bombs on flights destined for North America. Most Americans (59 percent) say they are worried about an imminent terrorist attack in the United States, but the level of concern today is about what it was in July 2007, and has remained relatively steady since 2003."

Kohut concludes with some interesting thoughts on America's worries in the Asian sphere, specifically China and the Korean peninsula:

"As with terrorism, the public has deep concerns about America's place in the world, but these worries do not evoke a strong policy debate. Yes a growing plurality thinks the U.S. now plays a less important role on the world stage, and majorities recognize China's growing power and worry about it. But for now at least, there is little edge to American attitudes as a consequence. Few regard China as an enemy (17 percent) or a partner (25 percent). As has been the case for more than a decade, China is seen as neither friend not foe by most Americans (52 percent). In fact, more Americans now hold a favorable view of China than did so in 2007 and 2008.

"Neither the recent North Korean bombardment of South Korea as it stands, nor foiled terrorist attack in Portland Oregon seems likely to rouse the American public. If history is any judge, it will take a foreign policy crisis of a major order, to awaken public opinion on international affairs. And when Americans stir, it is hard to predict the new direction of their thinking. What is likely however is that a change in direction of public opinion will be relatively short lived. That has certainly been the case so far in post–Cold War America."

Kohut's last paragraph is his most poignant, and one that identifies a structural American gene within the national political DNA. This level of isolationism would strike European publics as downright otherworldly. Europe is small compared to the U.S., and its foreign policy thoughts are often foremost in mind given that they are always closer to home. The United States has the singular peculiarity of being separated from both allies and enemies by an ocean on each side. So when other matters become pressing, in this case the national economic crisis, unemployment and widespread disillusionment with Obama's platform of hope and change, U.S. citizens traditionally put foreign policy thoughts on a very distant back burner.

Paradoxically, the U.S. seems to be ignoring the very wars it launches, and Europe is just as (if not more) preoccupied with world affairs in which the United States is at work. 

This cockamamie balance of today's Atlantic ring countries results in the world's progress toward multipolarization, a status much distrusted by many of the classical powers in the West. 

And yet some see beyond this, toward a future power balance in which the West will dull its appetite for world predominance with a healthy slice of humble pie. Just last week Hubert Vedrine, the former French foreign affairs minister, hit the radiowaves asserting that the transatlantic community was guilty of "Western arrogance" and that its member nations are "no longer the masters of the world." The recent economic tremors certainly don't help matters, where in Europe the Euro currency seems ready to crumble. The United States are faring no better, with the latest studies putting the jobless rate at a disastrous 9.8%.

Of course, the obvious insinuation of Kohut's piece is that Transatlantics, while struggling to steady a rocking economic boat, shouldn't take their eye off of the horizon. Prolongued economic travails will only increase the likelihood that one or several Western states drops the ball in a fateful moment of  security absent-mindedness. 

Should this risky position continue, Kohut's forebodings of a "foreign policy crisis of a major order" -- we're all probably thinking September 11th -- may come to pass. As for predicting the new direction in Americans' thinking should another disaster happen, well, the last lurch in U.S. opinion led to the Iraq War. Yes it was strongly resisted, both in the U.S. and abroad, but it happened anyway. 

American voters and the greater West risk more than they know while spending so much time navel-gazing over their domestic problems. They should also keep a watch on the dangers creeping just beyond its borders, and hone their global affairs literacy to know how best to act should action become necessary.

The Economist on the US Mid-Term Elections

Count on The Economist to deliver detached, informed, and dispassionate assessments of the US political scene. This UK news source is far removed from the red-and-blue squabble here in Washington, as well as the political phase cancellation that renders both parties' politicking all but inaudible. 



  
The piece is titled "Angry America," recognizing the palpable angst caused by historically high joblessness rates and the giant question mark looming over the day-to-day of many Americans' lives and plans. Yet it urges the US populace  to "cheer up" over their immediate future, a rare cadence within the polarized American commentariat.

"(...) America is now an uncharacteristically uncertain place. Abroad it seems unsure of who its friends and enemies are. At home there are too many imponderables: over how the health bill will play out in practice; over what might happen to energy prices if carbon-pricing is resurrected via executive action; most of all, over what Mr Obama can do about those yawning deficits. People do not like uncertainty; so if Americans are angry, it is hardly surprising.

Mr Obama seems curiously unable to perceive, let alone respond to, the grievances of middle America, and has a dangerous habit of dismissing tea-partiers and others who disagree with him as deluded, evil or just bitter. The silver tongue that charmed America during the campaign has been replaced by a tin ear. Some blame this on an emotional detachment his difficult upbringing forced on him, others on the fact that he has lived all his life among tribal Democrats. Whatever the reason, he does not seem to feel America’s pain, and looks unable either to capitalise on his administration’s achievements or to project an optimistic vision for the future.

Which ought not to be so hard. Despite its problems, America has far more going for it than its current mood suggests. It is still the most innovative economy on earth, the place where the world’s greatest universities meet the world’s deepest pockets. Its demography is favourable, with a high birth rate and limitless space into which to expand. It has a flexible and hard-working labour force. Its ultra-low bond yields are a sign that the world’s investors still think it a good long-term bet. The most enterprising individuals on earth still clamour to come to America. And it still has a talented president who can surely do better than he has thus far."

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