Failed States, Counter-Terrorism and Obama

Last week, President Obama delivered an important foreign policy speech, which has significant bearing on the future of weak and failed states. In contrast to the wide-ranging aspirations of Bush’s “War on Terrorism”—and even some of Obama’s earlier rhetoric about global counter-terrorism efforts—this speech set forth a modest foreign policy agenda.

During most of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2009), the grand narrative of global counter-terrorism dominated official rhetoric. The 2002 National Security Strategy declared that America and other stable democracies were fundamentally threatened by weak and fragile states. The experience of Afghanistan was used as the main example of how a failed state could become the source for global attacks.

In reality the Bush administration never had the resources, time, or political will to develop a truly global response to threats emanating from failed states. Even if Bush’s rhetoric matched policy realities, failed states have never primarily been terrorism-related threats. Yes, Yemen and Somalia could certainly be added to the discussion involving Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even so, the primary security threats associated with failed states are more local in character.

Obama’s recognition of the obvious last week is worthy of praise: Americans do not have the patience and spirit of sacrifice to sustain an unending, meddlesome global counter-terrorism effort. (Nor do Americans really want to engage in long-term nation building projects as part of a global counter-terrorism strategy.) Besides, such an undertaking was never really achievable anyway. Citizens and leaders in a democracy should be able to call out hubris when necessary. Particularly in an age of budgetary austerity, the U.S.A. has no business sustaining an open-ended illusion that one powerful country can remake vast regions of the developing world for its own ends.

Geopolitical Hotspots

A fire provides lighting in a bombed-out apartment building in Aleppo, Syria, December 26, 2012. Photo credit: Freedom House (via Flickr, Creative Commons license).

Syria’s diverse coalition of rebels is gradually closing in on Damascus. The experience in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, suggests that the rebels may face a drawn-out fight for the capital city. Government loyalists in Aleppo continue to control parts of the urban area. This week, the Israeli government is charging that the Assad government has “repeatedly” used chemical weapons over the last month. Sadly, intelligence gathering in Syria is very poor right now, arguably a casualty of austerity cuts in the West.

The photo shows part of a poor district in the city of Aden, Yemen. An estimated 20,000 refugees inhabit this district of 50,000 people. Photo credit: European Union (via Flickr, Creative Commons license).

Yemen faces many challenges, including dwindling oil and water supplies, trans-national terrorist activity, and a surging secessionist movement in the South. Twenty-three years after the northern and southern regions were united, at the end of the Cold War, southerners remain unsure about the wisdom of the unification. As the photo suggests, Yemen is also located near the volatile Horn of Africa region.

Pictured are a United States Navy supply ship and helicopter in the tense South China Sea region. Photo credit: U.S. Navy (via Flickr, Creative Commons license).

Even while world attention has been focused on North Korea’s provocative bluster, the maritime disputes in East and Southeast Asia still simmer. The multi-state dispute over small islands in the South China Seas is very much ongoing. China has recently announced plans to send tourists to the Paracel Islands, which are disputed with Vietnam, but administered by Beijing. This area borders the larger Spratly Islands zone, parts of which are claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Geopolitical Issues for Obama’s Second Term (2013-2017)

When Time magazine selected Barack Obama as their 2012 person of the year, they noted that the re-elected president is seeking to emphasize domestic issues in his second term. While this emphasis may come about, it is highly likely that foreign affairs will occupy much of Obama’s time after his second inauguration.

Following is a quick preview of seven key geopolitical issues that will likely occupy much of Obama’s agenda. What is remarkable is how few of these issues were intensively debated in the long 2012 election campaign.

1. America’s fiscal health
   The early January deal on tax rates is only the beginning of efforts to restore balance to America’s public finances. If the president is successful in brokering a grand bargain with Republicans, defense and foreign affairs spending will inevitably decline in a significant way. Contrary to the perceptions of many Americans, the U.S. does not spend a great deal of money on international aid and non-military foreign affairs. It is particularly the Department of Defense that would have to adjust to an earlier era of austerity.
2. Climate change
   In 2012, candidate Obama was stunningly quiet about the ongoing climate crisis. After the big letdown at the 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen, world leaders committed to keep working on a comprehensive plan in South Africa in late 2011. Because of the Great Recession, and a market-driven shift to cleaner fuel sources, American greenhouse emissions are now lower than when Obama took office. Much hard work remains, and major battles loom over EPA regulations and U.S. participation in an international climate change framework.
3. Iran
   It is quite possible that Iran will develop deployable nuclear weapons during the second Obama term. The real threat may be a chaotic nuclear arms race in the Middle East. As Ray Takeyh and others have argued, a nuclear Iran could be contained. Other consequences of a nuclear Iran may be harder to address.
4. Political reform in China
   China is on track to become the world’s largest economy by 2020, if not several years before. That progress, and China’s growing influence around the world is directly dependent upon the country’s political stability. China’s new leaders will be severely tested over the next four years to manage political dissent and information flows.
5. Transition in Afghanistan
   Though Obama did not start the war in Afghanistan, he took direct ownership with the surge of 30,000 additional soldiers into this failed state. The key issue is whether political reconciliation can occur with a sufficient number of the Taliban.
6. Europe’s future
   Europe starts 2013 with some signs of hope. Notably, borrowing rates are sharply lower for most of the region’s governments. Yet, centrifugal forces in the European Union remain strong, and it is quite plausible that President Obama will have to help manage the disintegration of the EU.
7. Illegal drugs and the Americas
   For now, immigration has receded as a defining issue in relations between the United States and its southern neighbors. It is not clear how interested Obama will be in proposing new solutions for the drug-related violence and instability confronting Latin America.

Helping Failed States in an Age of Austerity

Protestors of austerity budgets in Dublin, Ireland, November 2012. Photo credit: informatique (via Flickr, Creative Commons license).

According to traditional wisdom, helping failed states is expensive. Right now, Europe, Japan, and the United States are loaded down by a massive debt burden. Emerging powers – including China, India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa – don’t seem too interested in bankrolling expensive new state-building missions. So, it looks as though we are at an impasse. Except, that we’re not.

The first premise – on the financial costs of helping failed states – is not necessarily true. Successful state-building / reconstruction can involve long deployments of foreign militaries and billions of dollars in international aid. Foreign engagement in Afghanistan, for example, has been anything but cheap. Yet, this costly “big footprint” approach is not the only available option in assisting fragile states. And that is a good thing, given the unavoidable reality of this age of austerity.

Europe, Japan, and America are clearly in the midst of an age of austerity. “Austerity” simply refers to a massive and sustained program of public spending cuts (and tax increases). Even without the massive deficit spending associated with the Great Recession (2007-), these established industrial states were facing structural imbalances. In all of these areas – but especially in Japan and most of Europe – rapidly aging populations are severely straining prior social welfare commitments. In the U.S., a pervasive anti-tax culture has also starved the state, and therefore led to more dramatic tradeoffs between domestic spending and foreign assistance. On current trends, the present decade is likely to remembered by much of the world as a “lost decade” economically, due to the circumstances of austerity.

No matter. The onset of austerity could actually be a helpful stimulus to creative thinking about responses to state failure. Because we must come up with low-cost solutions to state decay, it is more likely that we will do so. Two key options are the following: 1) provide diplomatic flexibility to redraw the territories of existing states and 2) in rare cases, allow “stateless zones,” rather than push the development of modern states where they are not wanted. You can read more about these and other low-cost solutions to state failure in my new book, State Failure: Realities, Risks, and Responses ($4.99, available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo).