Germany’s Libya Abstention and the World: What Now?

         Germany’s March 17^th decision to abstain from the United Nations vote for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Libya has unleashed a firestorm of international criticism – as well as open skepticism on the country’s current and future fitness for leadership on the world stage. The tumultuous last few weeks have observers voicing three primary concerns on whether Germany should (or even could) assume the world leadership position it claims to want: 1) a paradox, both in policy and in image, 2) battered confidence on the part of its foreign partners, and 3) an uncertain future in global leadership.

         Germany’s actions are paradoxical at national, European and international levels. The country long followed draconian foreign-affairs strictures such as “never alone” and “never again Auschwitz,” which guided the country since it emerged, shuddering and ashamed, from its losing role in World War II. After abstention, these tenets seem, at least in the immediate, to have largely been cast aside – with no alternatives proposed to replace them. Equally problematic are the polling results of German opinion on Libya: Reuters reported in April that a whopping 71 percent of Germans support international intervention in the country. According to a contributor at the online Atlantic Community, 65 percent of Germans – essentially, many of the same voters – would disapprove of German participation therein. The country shows a sort of diplomatic allergy to the often ugly business of conflict prevention. Berlin still insists it wants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, but after its ill-considered abstention, its Western UN allies will surely be loath to grant such a diplomatic trump card to a partner increasingly seen as unreliable.

         The battered confidence in Germany’s recent diplomacy is perhaps best reflected by the United States and France. (...)

NY Times Suggests EU's North African Policy Is Unclear

See this New York Times piece on the European Union's mixed-bag policy suggestions on the current turmoil in North Africa. EU leaders have in recent days spent much fretting over the prospective masses of immigrants from the Mediterranean's southern crescent. The article underscores the particular concern that the possible collapse of the government in Libya could unleash "chaos and anarchy," which may in turn prompt huge flows of migrants into southern Italy and other European nations from that point on. 

The British foreign secretary William Hague has signaled that the North African situation has far broader implications for EU foreign policy, terming it a “major test, a historic test for the EU.”

“Clearly if we can succeed in bringing more democracy and more stability to North Africa and the Middle East that will be the greatest achievement for the E.U. since enlargement,” he added, referring to the bloc’s expansion to bring in former Communist states. “If we don’t succeed, the dangers to the E.U. of instability or extremism on our frontiers are immense.”

Other EU chiefs moved beyond hypotheticals and toward crippling financial restrictions for Libyan leaders who may be considering flight from the country. There is an implication the same would hold true for other government officials in the region, though whether other EU seniors will rally behind the pronounced position seems politically unlikely.  

A few EU politicians voiced benevolent, if politically unrealistic, aspirations to have functional democracy materialize in nations so long accustomed to authoritarian rule.

"Belgium’s foreign minister, Steven Vanackere, suggested that European parliamentarians should help countries like Egypt to develop a parliamentary system."

Also see how protests in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, were fought off with troops and warplanes on Monday, Feb. 21. In a symbolic shift in political capital, Libya's diplomats at the U.N. openly renounced Col. Muammar El-Qaddafi, the country's leader since the 1980s, called for his resignation and calling him a genocidal war criminal for his violent crackdown on protesters.

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?

Europe Under China: The EU's U.N. Tug-of-War

NYT/IHT journalist Judy Dempsey serves up some interesting perspective on Germany and Portugal's recent assession to nonpermanent seats to the UN Security Council. She uses China as an axis of comparison with western powers' UN moves, catering to the center of focus for the American majority of her piece's readers. 

By default, her article relegates Europe to the same observer status Germany and Portugal have just won. 

The following excerpts bring the China element to the fore:

"Europe’s decline is partly linked to China’s growing influence as an economic power, donor and lender. From Belarus to Iran, across Africa and Latin America, China is lending money, forging trade deals and building roads, airports and schools while tapping the natural resources of these countries.

And there are no strings attached. “China sets no conditions, unlike the E.U., which often sets them in an inconsistent way” [quoted from source]. Indeed, China’s way of doing things is seen as a direct challenge to Europe’s dominance in development aid and trade agreements."

And:

"... With the radical shifts in global influence led by China, Europe’s influence is waning, and fast.

The E.U.’s hopes of supporting human rights and democracy around the world are at risk of being defeated by changes in the global balance of power,” said Anthony Dworkin, international law expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Nowhere is this more obvious than at the United Nations, where the Union has suffered embarrassing defeats.

Last month, it failed to win expanded rights to the General Assembly, where it has observer status. A new status would have allowed Brussels the right to make proposals, circulate documents and address the Assembly.

To the dismay of  Catherine Ashton, the Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy [as implemented by the EEAS], some of Europe’s closest allies — Australia, Canada and New Zealand — abstained. Diplomats blamed the Union’s lack of strategy and consultation.

“The E.U.’s shambolic defeat was more than a humiliation,” said Paul Luif, Europe expert at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs in Vienna. “It showed the growing lack of support for an E.U. that seems more and more ineffective at the U.N.”

The article's title is "For Europe, a Challenge to Make Its Voice Resonate." Sounds more than a bit like "Europeans Woo U.S., Promising Relevance," also from the New York Times. One of its most prominent columnists, Roger Cohen, has similarly declared that "Europe is history," a "strategic backwater."

If what is arguably America's most Europhile newspaper sees grim days ahead for Europe, it should be equally gloomy -- and disconcerting -- to ponder the EU's eclipse within the UN Security Council specifically.