Diplomacy & Crisis News

What is this country? “2004 Election Map” by The Lawleys licensed under CC BY 2.0

U.S. foreign policy thinkers say that foreign policy starts at home.  So what drives U.S. policy today?

Domestic division is a major theme throughout U.S. history.  But in the 21st Century, politics has evolved from two-party competition to intransigent bipolar confrontation.  A zero-sum trench war inexorably sucks in resources and emotional energy.  As one business analysis puts it, “Republicans focus their energies on pleasing far-right voters and Democrats on addressing … the far left.”  On a given legislative act, one side will “spen(d) every second trying to repeal it and the other side (will spend) every second trying to defend it at all costs.”  The polarizing dynamic goes beyond politics to permeate American culture.  If this is home, what country does foreign policy represent?

Public discourse speaks of “left” or “right” as though they define America’s political spectrum.  There are “far” or “moderate” versions of each, and “independents” fall somewhere between the two, but all sit on the same line, leaning toward one pole or the other – but along that line.  It may help to see those poles are not the only possible ones, and need not define American politics.  

Journalist George Packer, in a recent Atlantic article extracted from his new book, sees the nation fragmented into “four Americas” – Free, Smart, Real and Equal – carrying four contentious mindsets.  The four align with Walter Russell Mead’s Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian and Wilsonian schools of U.S. foreign policy thought.  Hamiltonian, Smart America drives the institutions and industries that have generated much of the nation’s wealth and power.  It speaks in economic and scientific rationality.  The Jacksonian, Real America fights for its own, seeing the world as a dog-eat-dog place where not winning is losing.  Free America sees our national order as freedom’s font, a view captured in Jefferson’s image of an Empire of Liberty.  The Wilsonian school seeks to realize ideals and right wrongs much as Packer sees Equal America driven to expose and eradicate inequality – he suggests calling it Unequal America.

The four schools/Americas do not account for every American impulse.  The issue of racism is only addressed directly in Unequal, Wilsonian America.  Older drives have faded or morphed, e.g. for territorial expansion or religious utopias.  A ‘state’s rights’ view supporting slavery was rejected and defeated.  New social patterns and new technologies may generate entirely new schools.  But the Packer/Mead framework raises an overlooked point. 

The different drives are pursued without restraint, often in self-righteous conviction.  Any voice for any American drive will invoke the unalienable rights and government by consent of the governed.  Each will bend these tenets of the Declaration of Independence to its own interpretations.  Packer wouldn’t want to live in an America that is exclusively any of the four, and the divisions among them worry him.  Mead notes how steering the U.S. “raft of state” is made cumbersome and frustrating by the four schools’ crosswinds and eddies.  But all rest on a common base.  Mead’s raft doesn’t sink, none of Packer’s ‘Americas’ would ever cede the name. 

Americans carry several drives, not just two.  The Packer/Mead framework shows them as interpretations of the same creed rather than fundamentally different identities.  And an overview reminds that while these four schools/Americas have deep roots, other have gone away and new ones can arise.  The four drives reflect cultural, historical nuances, not the stuff of desperate political conduct.

Will America reaffirm commonality over political interpretations?  In one arena, we really need to.  In foreign policy a nation acts as a unit.  However any competing schools or Americas may drive politics, foreign policy is carried out by “America” as a single entity.  If foreign policy starts at home, can the people and institutions who shape that policy do better than the politicians?  Will they carry the buoyancy of the raft, even as they are buffeted by foreign crosswinds and whiplashed by domestic politics? 

The question is not which of today’s two sides (or four or more, or current or new) will prevail, nor even whether a balance can be struck among them, but whether the shared touchstone shows through.  Can factionalized Americans exhibit the common page under their doctrines? 

In an age of mind-bending new developments, soul rending disruptions, and unlimited possibilities, any principles come under scrutiny and question.  Factions may well exploit the uncertainty to cement their base’s allegiance, so that division becomes all the harder to heal.  America’s creed offers a common, psychic bedrock, rigorous in concept and morally appealing.  American national conduct also needs to validate that basis of national legitimacy.

Alignment of conduct to principle always requires an art.  In an art of American policy everyone does share the same starting premises.  In foreign policy, one institution needs this art in order to function.  That is the permanent body of official U.S. representatives, the U.S. diplomatic service.  If they cannot display a consistent spirit across different administrations, they cannot really say what nation they represent.  For credibility in their job, U.S. diplomats need language that belies today’s bipolar partisan rhetoric.  Packer and Mead offer an image that might diffuse the standoff, to liberate the diverse Americas to see each other as fellow Americans rather than “us” or “them.”  U.S. diplomats who are fluent in the Declaration’s creed will see the image.  If they operate by this ethos, they can give Americans, ourselves, a picture of our founding creed in operation.  America will then project its core nature, as vessel of hope and catalyst for opportunity, to the world. 

The legacy of the Cuban Revolution that marks the daily life of Cubans to this day has taken a blow as Cuban citizens fight for their freedoms. The past narratives, posters, painting and songs of the fight against the Capitalists was always a draw for those outside of Cuba to defend and actively support the Cuban Revolution. Many a time during my own work in Western countries that excelled with virtues of freedom and democracy were colleagues who not only wore Che proudly as their work clothing, but encouraged visiting Cuba to take advantage of the advantages Cubans did not have in their daily lives. At one point a colleague who was an expert on Cuba had to be put on undetermined sabbatical as she had a long diner with Fidel Castro himself. While it was an impressive tale, it did not reflect well on an organisation that often had discussions with Cuban exiles living in the US at the time. Their rebels were seen as the heroes for most of the latter half of the 20th Century, but that might have changed recently.

Power to the people can only really come from grassroots movements that gain a certain level of strength, often based on valid grievances towards an established system. While Latin America has spent the last one hundred years flowing between Capitalism and Socialism, the trend often was linked to cults of personalities, namely since the 2000s Chavismo and faith in the Castros. The connections movements had to these personalities often propelled some awful and abusive policies towards those citizens that did not agree with their leadership. Whether their flag was red or blue did not always determine more rights to average citizens, in many cases, it turned them into refugees. With many of these refugees now living for a few generations in places like the United States, and more recently in Colombia, an aversion to anything that looks like support for similar movements creates a healthy aversion to similar outcomes.

When listening to discussions outside of Cuba, on Cuba, you will notice that it often is shaded by local politics and best/worst case scenarios. Often an accelerated narrative is created where Cuban protesters are compared to those that protest in fairly healthy democracies. While many of these claims can be seen as valid, they must accord with the reality of the situations at hand. Romanticizing a movement in places where rights are sacrosanct is not the same as analyzing a situation where Romanticizing the narrative eliminates the ability for protesters to seek their basic essentials in life.

In more extreme examples, the Romanticism of a situation is used to justify horrific acts by governments over their own people. Havana seems to have a soldier with a rifle in every intersection in calm times, and if we are honest towards ourselves, it is not the same as most cities where we reside. The almost wholly ignored plight of the Yazidis, especially women and children does not benefit from a romanticized narrative, so they are almost wholly ignored despite suffering the worst atrocities since the Second World War and brutal acts by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The silence by many democratic countries over the Uighurs being systematically eliminated is heard from young footballers before Prime Ministers, even though they make daily pronouncements against Genocide in the past that they barely recognise in the present. It is simply the worst thing you can do as a political leader in a democratic country.

When a narrative is used to violate human rights, it is no longer a narrative, but a tool of violence and oppression. It seems like Cubans are sending us all a message: Romanticizing dictatorships will put you on the wrong side of history. We should listen.

The Constitution

Even following America’s hasty and disorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States remains involved in prominent military conflicts in Libya and Syria (and, frankly, Afghanistan) – not to mention many smaller combat operations in other nations around the world. In these conflict zones, the United States conducts armed drone strikes, and occasionally participates in standard manned operations. While some might be hesitant to formally designate these conflicts as “wars”, these sorts of military operations undeniably cost the United States both lives and treasure. Each of these ongoing conflicts is authorized either through the notoriously vague 2001 AUMF or has no formal authorization at all. 

The Constitution grants the legislature the power to declare war and authorize military conflicts- Article I, Section 8, Clause 11: The Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War. However, over the last eighty years, the legislature has adopted a strategy of passing legislation that authorizes spending on military objectives like counter-terrorisim or regional security as opposed to direct declarations of war as prescribed in the Constitution. As a consequence, despite being at war for nearly half of the time between the 1940’s and the present day, the United States legislature has not voted to authorize a war since 1941at the start of American involvement in World War II.

Despite being a broadly known and well established problem (the legislature did not vote to authorize the War in Korea or the War in Vietnam), the wounds that come from the legislative branch’s unwillingness to take responsibility of foreign policy decision making are still being inflicted today. President Obama famously begged Congress for authorization in Syria.  S.J. Res. 21, the legislation proposed in order to consider the military authorization, was never brought up for a vote. Even without the legislature’s approval President Obama went on to authorize a conflict that is still resulting in American casualties today. 

The legislature shunned the wisdom of its collective 535 members in favor of one single person’s judgment- in my opinion, this sort of decision making process is akin to begging for mistakes to be made. It forces us to ask if our representatives are taking their responsibilities in foreign affairs seriously. 

With this context in mind, it is important to think about the oversight being conducted by the legislative branch in foreign affairs. According to research conducted by Linda Fowler, a professor of political science at Dartmouth, the legislative branch is conducting oversight hearings at a historically low rate. More than that, when oversight hearings do take place, Fowler’s research suggests that hearings have become increasingly about performative rhetoric as opposed to serious consideration or problem solving.

To amplify this problem further, research suggests that as the public becomes increasingly aware of the costs and outcomes of the conflicts their countries are involved in, they become less supportive of continuing those conflicts. Without the signaling from the legislature that today’s conflicts deserve serious attention, the media does not provide consistent coverage of ongoing conflicts, and the citizenry at large remain uninformed about truly pressing issues. As a consequence, conflicts with questionable authorizations can quickly become quagmires. 

Given the fact that the 2001 AUMF was voted on in, well, 2001, and wars being waged without congressional authorization are obviously a major cause for concern – Americans of all political persuasions should be frightened by this. More than that, the legislative branch should live up to its responsibility to conduct consistent oversight. This becomes even more important given the contradictions between the legislation that is currently being used to authorize many ongoing conflicts and America’s new posture in Afghanistan with the Taliban returning to control of the country. 

The bulk of the conflict in Afghanistan might be coming to an end, but we need to keep a careful eye on the future -as well as today’s continuing conflicts- in order to avoid this sort of mess down the line.

 

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Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association

 

Both sides must revise their red lines—or risk war.

On June 10, 2021, the president of France Emmanuel Macron announced the end of operation Barkhane in the Sahel region. It will be finished by the first quarter of 2022 in order to reconfigure French military engagement in Africa.

More details appeared after a virtual video summit with the leaders of the G5 Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger). In particular, France would start closing three military bases in northern Mali by year-end. Still there would be 2,500-3,000 of French soldiers, but within the so-called Takuba European task force. France, Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy and Sweden are now involved in Takuba force. 

For many years France was the main external security (and political) power in the Sahel region. Africa (as well as the Sahel) is within the eyeshot of many international actors. Among them is Russia, famous for its involvement in non-stable, problematic countries. In light of the latest decisions of France one question topped. Will those new security conditions transform in a chance for Russia to strengthen its role in the Sahel?

Operation Barkhane: why now?

Active military involvement of France in the Sahel began in 2013 after Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda took control of the desert north of Mali. Firstly France announced Operation Serval, which was transformed into Barkhane a year later. It covers Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger with the involvement of 5,000 French personnel.

After all these years war against terrorism in the Sahel turned into something similar to Afghanistan for France. But its military presence has not only an altruistic goal of supporting African states. So, among main French interests in the Sahel are:

1. Natural resources. For example, uranium in Niger, which is important for French energy sphere, especially for stage-managed Orano company, oil in Mali, where one more French company Total operates.
2. Political image. In international politics this region was always seen as a France backyard, where France as an ex-colonial power defined the rules.
3. Political “benefits” of African countries. They have a significant amount of voices within international organizations. Only in the UN General Assembly African states have 25% of voices. 

Earlier this year Emmanuel Macron warned that France would end its military presence if there was one more coup in Mali. Exactly, this happened at the end of May, 2021. But a second coup in Mali definitely isn’t the main reason for withdrawing the troops. 

First of all, operation Barkhane has caused significant fatigue among both the African and French people. Sahel’s people have organized demonstrations  with the demands of withdrawal troops several times. Concerning the French, only 49% of respondents support military presence in the Sahel. Death toll (56 soldiers since 2013) and its costs (costs $708 million a year) contribute to the problem.

At last, troop’s withdrawal is the chance for France to change its policy towards Africa and find other partners, not only in the West part of the continent. Also this is the way to deal with domestic French critics who blamed Paris for replacing sovereign nations in Africa. Especially in the context of future elections, planned for 2022 in France. 

Chance for an old Russian dream

Russia has already been intensifying its relations and involvement in the Sahel, especially in Mali by coup-d’etat with Russian fingertips. Moreover, there public opinion is more positive towards Russia than France. And expesially Asian country the Sahel region sees as future ally in war against terrorism. 

Russia chose Mali as a springboard in the Sahel not accidentally. This is a big country with so-called grey areas at the periphery, poorly controlled by the government. The Kremlin promises “assistance”: peace, military and political support. At the same time, Russian main interests in Africa are:  resources, political adherence at international level, new markets for weapons, new clients for state-owned mining companies. The Kremlin interpretes involvement in Africa as a way to strengthen its image as a world strong power and implements its old desire – to become a new Soviet Union. 

Moreover, African Sahel has a direct connection to the international role of Russia. There are many grey areas, related to illegal migration and narcotraffic. All these are sensitive issues for the EU. Gaining control over these areas gives Russia a significant advantage and possibility to use this “trump” in negotiation with the EU.

As always, Russia chooses weak countries to extend its influence, using old worked out instruments. They include: supply with weapons and mercenaries (well-known Wagner Group), supporting opposition groups, maintaining coup d’etats, using controlled media resources and network of NGOs. All this Russia has successfully tried in Africa many times: in Central Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar.

It’s worth considering that the Sahel is a complex region with a lot of problems – extreme poverty, clash of religions and cultures, the struggle for resources, the institutional weakness and political fragility. All this together creates an ideal environment for terrorists, a fertile ground for their slogans, to which the poor local population responds. And this is one of the reasons why terrorism is so ingrained in the region.

The Sahel is now a frontier against spreading terrorism. The regional countries themselves will not cope with this threat – they do need external support. And ending of Barkhane operation makes perfect conditions for Russia to spread its influence.

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