Mr. Evans, I read your article mentioned above, and here is my response :-
1. "Security" if defined implicitly or explicitly as the USA does , in terms of more military hardware being produced ( including in Eastern Europe) is a central error in prevention and resolution of world conflicts. The arming of Columbia and Pakistan, say more about the motivation to sell arms than to seek any lasting peace. The cycle of belligerence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict says much about the implications of the US continuing to ignore the violation of resolution 242, and the implications of violence breeding violence in the occupied territories. "Security" will not necessarily come from the barrel of a gun.
2. By definition, and from a US perspective, by reference to 1 above, the "Third world" and other nations, are to be made "secure" through the sale/purchase of more military hardware.
3. In consequence of 1 and 2 above, there is a deliberate profiteering from conflicts deliberately propagated ( quaere: encouraged?) in certain regions of the world. The role which the United States played in the 8 year Iran/Iraq conflict seriously brings into question the motivations of certain powers in securing strategic objectives irrespective of the human toll to be paid.
A rational starting point for analysis of the source of much conflict in the world might be found in the following quotation:-
" It is in the self-interest of the more advanced nations to close the growing gap in levels of economic attainment between them and the underdeveloped areas. For those disparities increasingly replace the cold war as the crucial factor of world tension."
( My emphasis - underlined) - From: "The politics of oil - a study of private power and democracy " by Robert Engler - Published 1961 - Macmillan p. 497.
Mr. Engler, I am sure, was not clairvoyant when his book was published in 1961.
The arming of the world in pursuit of profit, and the propping up of self-serving elites can only engender greater tensions and ensure more conflicts in the world. Mr. Evans' article glosses over a pivotal source of many of the tensions in the world by saying, " Policy options for reducing the flood are very limited..." ( i.e. reference to the flood of arms in the world). Surely, if the industrialised countries ( in particular the United States) was even marginally resolved to pursue a programme of international disarmament, and global reduction in arms sales, then international treaties could be implemented. However, much to the contrary we find the US actively opposing such measures. Mr. Evans hints at this in his phrase, "...for reasons, as so often, of domestic politics - to insist on diluting to the extent it did last year the UN plan for dealing with trafficking in small arms." What is not necessarily implied, but is masked and needs to be said, is that there is a confluence between the pursuit of oil interests, with a certain direction of domestic American politics, which is then extended into American foreign policy. The war in Afghanistan was about oil, and the resolve to have war in Iraq is yet again about oil. The American populace needs to be brought to a recognition of this, and be educated to a point of acceptance that adherence to the rules of international law is more akin to the true spirit of the American constitution, that a unilateralist descent into war.
Again, Mr. Evans puts a diplomatic spin on events in NATO, as exemplified in the phrase, "As to individual member states, the international security system is in bad shape if it has to rely on these acting alone to be the world's armed police. The United States is now the only state wholly capable of so acting alone - with its defence budget now substantially greater than all of the defence budgets combined not only of NATO and other allies..." Not so Mr. Evans, for if the US is to be permitted to act unilaterally, based on the rationale of its possession of greater fire power, then Iraq relative to Kuwait had as much right to resort to force, as would the Us in any decision to go to war. Surely, if the post-world war 11 framework is to hold, then one must insist on the sanction of the UN and condemn unilateralist aggressive action from whatever quarter it may come. If I am wrong, then one can safely conclude, "might is right." And so quite correctly, Mr. Evans does add, " but the costs to international order are bound to be very high if this happens." So true, therefore nations, however powerful need to act within the confines of international law, and the UN system.
Terrorism has root sources, and explanations for its causes - some by way of misconceived religious intolerance, some due to a sense of global injustice, others due to whom great powers had decided to train for war when a common cause was shared ( later to be abandoned with terrorism inverted against a former ally). And what also needs to be honestly identified is a thriving arms trade that feeds into situations of global conflict, irrespective of who the combatants may be. It cannot be denied that the arming of those in tension ridden parts of the world provides a boon to the sellers of the arms and those nations which produce the arms. The sale of arms to Iraq during the 8 year Iran/ Iraq war, by countries such as the US, Britain, France, and Germany, provides clear proof and an example of this process at work. Now, the ones who were most active in selling the arms are the ones most resolved to do the disarming. The Matrix Churchill inquiry in Britain, when after declaring war with Iraq, a covert British government company continued selling arms to the enemy portrays the extent of the duplicity and actual hypocritical indifference which operates in the world.
One is obliged to ask, with no undue measure of cynicism:-
A. "Security" against whom?
B. What is, or which are, the nation states against which NATO is to wage war upon with the expanded military capacities of NATO ?
C. Is "security" in NATO to be defined in terms of more military hardware being produced and sold?
All these questions come back to the central point of the processes afoot of arming the world for profit via the "evil" arms trade. Logically, it is through the very treaties for arms reduction, which the US consistently opposes, where greater and lasting "security" is to be found. Surely, if the nations of the world have less arms, and the rule of international law assists with treaties to ensure a deescalating of the global arms trade, then rationally the world would be advancing in response to "The challenge of conflict prevention and resolution".
This epilogue from Mr. Engler's book, in reference to the oil industry sums up much about the real sources of tensions in the world, if we care to think about it:-
" In the name of prosperity, the industry has been able to destroy competition and limit abundance. In the name of national interest it has received privileges beyond those accorded to other industries. In the name of national security , oil has influenced and profited from a foreign policy that has supported the chauvinism of a few rather than generosity to the aspirations of the many in undeveloped areas." Idem p. 9.
Governments, be these led by Tony Blair or George Bush, need to be told of the reasons why in the interest of world peace they must respect international law. Threatening unilateralist actions is not only irresponsible and jingoistic, it is quite simply dangerous for the preservation of world order and peace. For, if the rule of international law is not to be abided, what then is the new threatened American unilateralism to be termed, if not illegal? "
A World Where It's Rational To Be Anxious: The Challenge Of Conflict Prevention and Resolution"
Piece by Gareth Evans in NATO 2002: Mapping the Challenges (Prague Summit)Despite all the hopes we have been nurturing since the end of the Cold War, conflict prevention and resolution continue to be growth businesses. The world in which NATO is considering its future is one where it is rational to be anxious - about the continued risk of different kinds of deadly conflict, the proliferation of different kinds of deadly weapons, and the inability or unwillingness of present security structures to cope effectively with these risks.
Wars between states are much less common than they used to be, but cannot be discounted. The state of play between India and Pakistan remains extraordinarily fragile, with a huge risk of nuclear miscalculation on both sides; the Taiwan Strait and Korean Peninsula are quiet for the moment, but will need much effort to remain so; and tensions between many states in Africa remain very close to the surface. And if the US finally decides to go to war unilaterally against Iraq - arguing pre-emptive self-defence but unable to persuade the wider international community of the imminence of a grave threat to its security - it may not be easy to remain as confident as we have become about the wholly exceptional character of interstate conflict. Wars or conflicts within states nonetheless remain overwhelmingly the most likely cause of continuing disturbance and suffering. In the last decade 53 of the 56 major armed conflicts were of this kind - whether driven by grievance, greed, state failure or all of the above. From Colombia to Zimbabwe to Somalia to Macedonia to the Caucasus to Central Asia to Indonesia, and many places in between, there is a very real risk of major conflict breaking out, or escalating, or recurring or continuing. Ongoing attention to all of them by the key players in the international community is very hard to ensure, but it is crucially necessary. The security challenge on which the world has focused most since 11 September 2001 has been wars on states. This is hardly a new phenomenon - terror has been used as a weapon by the weak against the strong since time immemorial - but on 911 the notion of 'asymmetric' security threats moved in an instant from abstraction to alarming reality. How to best deal with these threats, apart from just shoring up homeland security and punishing the perpetrators, remains one of the most difficult policy problems around. But it should be clear enough where to start, and that is with the recognition that no-one is ever going to be better able to deal with terrorists than those governing the states and territories from which they come. Building both the will and the capacity of those governments to act effectively should, accordingly, be the primary objective of the US and its allies.
Tackling conflict and mass violence effectively means doing better than we have in dealing with the weapons with which it is waged, starting with the conventional weapons, including small arms and landmines as well as those of a higher-tech variety, in which the world is awash. Policy options for reducing the flood are very limited, but it is was an unhappy start for the US - for reasons, as so often, of domestic politics - to insist on diluting to the extent it did last year the UN plan for dealing with trafficking in small arms.
In the case of weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical and biological - non-proliferation regimes are under real stress, and there is real concern about such weapons falling into the hands of non-state actors with terrorist agendas. The problem is a real one and has to be addressed with every ounce of cooperative spirit the international community can muster - including the business community, which has a critical role in relation to chemical and biological inspection regimes in particular. After playing an important leadership role a decade ago in securing a tough international inspection regime for chemical weapons, the most recent contributions of the US have been to scuttle a draft protocol seeking a similar enforcement mechanism for biological weapons, have the Senate vote down ratification of the CTBT and devote a totally inadequate proportion of the gigantic defence budget to securing nuclear weapons and fissile materials in the former Soviet Union.
The other class of weapons we have to worry about - and for which international treaty regimes are little help - are what are now being called weapons of mass disruption. These are the hardest of all to deal with, even with much more sophisticated intelligence gathering and exchanges than we have now: cyberspace attacks on critical communications networks; and miscellaneous nightmare scenarios like highly strategically focused simultaneous physical attacks on key electrical stations, causing cascading power failure throughout even a continent-sized country.
The capacity and will of the international community to both prevent and react to all these risks is more limited than we like to acknowledge. At the global level the UN Security Council is fully empowered to deal with any situation it chooses to characterise as a threat to international peace and security. But while high level UN diplomacy is often more successful than is generally appreciated, the Security Council remains the prisoner of its member states - and the P5 veto power - when it comes to follow through by way of peace enforcement, peacekeeping or peace building operations. In recent years it has abandoned to 'coalitions of the willing' the actual conduct of any serious Ch VII based operations: the capacity for blue helmet command is just not there. What is crucial is that it does not also abdicate political responsibility: in the face of another conscience-shocking situation of similar magnitude, and one could arise at any time, the UN simply cannot afford another Srbrenica, Rwanda or Kosovo.
Regional organizations, quite broadly empowered under Ch VIII of the UN Charter, can be very effective in conflict prevention and management, not least because of neighbourhood knowledge and incentives. NATO - notwithstanding current existential anxieties as to whether it is still a military or now a political body, who it should embrace, and the extent to which its role should extend out of area - is far and away the best resourced of these. Its proposed new rapid reaction capability will add to its potential effectiveness - and if it can stimulate the EU into early operationalisation of its own proposed capability in this respect, so much the better. But most of the world's other regional organizations have a long way to go before being really effective even in a diplomatic conflict prevention role, let alone a military one.
As to individual member states, the international security system is in bad shape if it has to rely on these acting alone to be the world's armed police. The United States is now the only state wholly capable of so acting alone - with its defence budget now substantially greater than all of the defence budgets combined not only of NATO and other allies, but China, Russia, and its putative "axis of evil" enemies as well. The temptation may be very great for it to act pre-emptively, against non-imminent threats, without seeking UN endorsement, but the costs to international order are bound to be very high if this happens.
So what, at least in general terms, has to be done? The checklist for governments and intergovernmental organisations is straightforward enough. First, act comprehensively, which in the case of security problems means addressing them in a way that recognises they are not one-dimensional, and that social, economic and cultural factors can be at least as important as political and military ones in explaining why people and governments act as they do, and in persuading them to act otherwise.
Secondly, act cooperatively, which means recognising that in the real contemporary world, however big a country may be, most international problems are only solvable with the help of others. In the case of security threats it means recognising that acting together rather than in splendid isolation is also what for the most part is required by the UN Charter - the only dominant system of security law that we have, and which we would have to invent if it didn't exist.
And thirdly, act intelligently, which means acting comprehensively and cooperatively, but more than just that. Before the event, it means acting preventively - on the basis that nothing is so cost effective in terms of dollars, lives, property destruction and misery. During the event, in reacting to deadly conflict or the prospect of mass violence, it means acting productively rather than counterproductively: for example, not solving one problem by creating others - as may have happened with buying support for Afghanistan at too high a price from some of the authoritarian governments of Central Asia. After the event, it means acting sustainably - being prepared to devote as many resources to post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding as to the initial intervention. There is a real danger, despite all the rhetoric, of this not happening in Afghanistan.
Effective conflict prevention and resolution requires understanding of what is at stake, imagination in crafting solutions, institutions able to translate ideas into action, and above all strong leadership to mobilise the necessary will and resources. Supply on all these fronts has been long short of need, and it is a challenge for every actor on the international stage to find ways of bridging the gap.--
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"Non cooperation with evil is as much a duty as co-operation with good.",
Gandhi.
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Nick Robson, C.S.C.M.
Security & Counter Terrorism Consultant
P.O. Box 30297 SMB,
Grand Cayman Island,
Cayman Islands,
British West Indies.
Telephone: (345) 945-8556
Email: nick_r@candw.ky