Posts Tagged ‘
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Monday, June 6th, 2011
Matthew Dahl
Matt Dahl is a judicial clerk in Virginia and writes about national security law on his
blog. The views expressed here are his own.
by Matthew Dahl
Last week reports emerged about attempted cyber attacks against the internal networks of three major U.S. defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, and Northrop Grumman. All of the attempted hacks tried to access the companies’ internal networks using compromised remote-access security tokens, which are believed to be linked to yet another hack that occurred at a different government contractor, RSA, in March.
Amidst news of last week’s attacks, DoD is preparing a formal cyber strategy and a list of deployable cyber weapons. The strategy is not in response to the incursions, but as the first formal cyber strategy written by the Pentagon, it obviously has bearing on USG’s response to them, as well as future assaults.
The strategy is not yet public, but two important provisions are known: First, that the Pentagon may use conventional force to respond to a cyber attack against the U.S.; second, that the strategy explicitly contains an authorization framework, reportedly requiring the military to obtain presidential approval before deploying cyber weapons.
While it’s time that the U.S. government assembled clear policies to respond to cyber attacks, it is important to recognize the unique challenges contained therein. Two of the most important are 1) assigning responsibility for an attack and 2) assuring that any retaliation avoids excessive collateral damage.
First, unlike attacks with conventional weapons, an attacker has more opportunities to hide his origin in cyberspace. For example, state actors can create plausible deniability behind contracted criminal groups, a tactic likely used by Russia and China. It’s unclear how the new strategy will deal with this point.
Second, if the U.S. government is able to correctly attribute an attack, its response would have to comport with international law, specifically a statute known as the Law of Armed Conflict (LoAC). The United States is bound to the LoAC through multiple treaties such as the 1907 Hague Conventions and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, as well as through customary international law. Two elements of the LoAC pose particular challenges in the cyber realm: proportionality and distinction.
Proportionality may be a particularly tough nut to crack, as we know that the Pentagon’s policy will permit retaliating against a cyber attack with conventional weapons. It’s new ground, and the argument could be made that launching a missile in response to a computer-based attack is inherently disproportionate. However, we must recognize that a cyber attack has the ability to cause actual loss of life if, for example, it were aimed at air traffic control systems and caused planes to crash. Under the new policy, only an attack of this magnitude would allow a conventional response to a cyber attack, and it is imperative that such a response be proportionate.
Distinction is another problematic element of the LoAC because cyber weapons can have unintended consequences. The amount of damage that a conventional weapon does is known before it is used even though it may damage unintended targets. Not so in the cyber world: Vital military and civilian assets may reside on the same network, thus making it difficult to limit damage to the legitimate military target. Furthermore, cyber weapons are different because entities that reside in cyberspace are interconnected on a global scale: attacking a target on a server in China can also cause damage to another server in Canada. This actually happened in 2010 when the U.S. military took down a jihadist website hosted in Saudi Arabia that led to disruption to more than 300 servers in Saudi Arabia, Texas, and Germany.
These are only a couple of considerations that complicate the use of cyber weapons, and developing a strong cyber capabilities must occur within the context of these considerations. With so much of its vital national assets relying on the Internet, the U.S. must equip itself with both the strong defensive capabilities and project power in cyberspace, as well as with robust policies to regulate these capabilities.
Photo Credit: West Point Public Affairs.
Tags: China, cyber, cybersecurity, L3 Communications, law of armed conflict, lockheed martin, matt dahl, Northrup Grumman, Pentagon, RSA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Texas
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Friday, March 4th, 2011
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
As an unregenerate liberal interventionist, I believe America should aid Libyan rebels fighting to rid their country of Muammar Qaddafi. But for all the attention a no fly zone has received, there are better ways to even the odds in this so far unequal contest.
The impulse to “do something” as Qaddafi’s planes and foreign mercenaries attack rebel-held towns is understandable. But at this point, imposing a no fly zone would entail high political costs while yielding uncertain military returns.
A key question, of course, is who would impose it? Given the likely opposition of Russia and China, the U.S. Security Council won’t authorize a no fly zone. Europe, as usual, is brimming with moral outrage but can’t muster the consensus to hand the job to NATO.
U.S. military authorities are scarcely enthusiastic. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Congress this week that imposing a no fly zone is a lot harder than it sounds. For one thing, it’s basically an act of war that requires that U.S. forces first attack and destroy Libya’s extensive air defense systems. For another, it would mean shifting aircraft and surveillance assets from the war in Afghanistan to the Mediterranean.
What really spooks U.S. officials is the spectacle of America, already engaged in two Middle East conflicts, launching yet another military attack on an Arab country. That could instantly change the Libyan narrative, shifting the world’s focus from ordinary Libyans’ valiant struggle for freedom to U.S. actions and motives. It could rekindle suspicions in the region that the United States is bent on imposing democracy on Muslim nations, undoing the Obama administration’s painstaking efforts to refurbish America’s image in the Middle East. In the worst case scenario, it could draw in jihadists and regional provocateurs hoping to lure the United States in a grinding and prolonged civil conflict.
Above all, Washington should avoid any step that might break the momentum of the popular upheavals now erupting across the Arab world. These bottom-up revolts hold out the best hope for democratic change that the people of the Middle East can believe in.
The best outcome for all concerned, of course, would be for the Libyan rebels to topple Qaddafi by themselves, with little or no outside help. That may not be in the cards.
The rebels, a mixture of lightly armed but highly motivated civilians and military defectors, so far seem to have stood up well to Qaddafi’s professional security forces and mercenaries. Take that assessment with a grain of salt, however, as this piece in the Guardian argues that much of the international narrative may be skewed by rebel sources. While the regime has lost control of eastern Libya, few observers believe that rebel forces can crack Qaddafi’s redoubt in Tripoli and the west, where he also enjoys support from his tribe.
A military stalemate thus may be the likeliest scenario. Since the real fighting is on the ground, a no fly zone might not have much impact. Says Jeffrey White, a military analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies:
Most of the attention so far has been on establishing no-fly zones, but these may be inadequate to deal with Qadhafi’s remaining forces. The regime’s key instruments are ground units, so no-drive zones or airstrikes would likely be needed to truly curtail its ability to move against the opposition.
So what should the United States and other leading powers do now? One answer is to intensify international and regional diplomacy aimed at isolating Qaddafi and his henchmen. Another is to get food and medical supplies to Libyan rebels and refugees. It’s also imperative to get a more accurate assessment of what’s really going on in Libya.
If the tide of battle shifts decisively in Qaddafi’s favor, the United States should be willing to provide the rebels with arms and intelligence. It is true that they are a disparate lot, that we know little about their aims once Qaddafi is gone (they may not know either), and that their ranks probably include Islamist groups.
Nonetheless, the rebels are determined to overthrow Qaddafi, which puts them clearly on the side of greater freedom and positive political change in Libya. And for now, that should be enough to merit America’s support.
Tags: act of war, Libya, military strategy, Mummar Qaddafi, NATO, no fly zone, Russia, stalemate, U.S.-China Relations, US Security Council
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Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
Beijing has arm-twisted nineteen countries to not send representatives to tomorrow’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. At issue is the honoree, Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political prisoner whose views on human rights and democracy don’t jive particularly with the Chinese Communist Party’s. Imagine that.
On the surface, Beijing’s deft deployment of “soft power” seems impressive: to keep nineteen countries from attending supporting democratic movements is impressive. “Soft power,” as Harvard professor Joe Nye explains in an October Washington Quarterly article, is an area where Beijing is just coming into its own.
But Nye also points out that Chinese soft power has limits:
It is not easy for governments to sell their country’s charm if their narrative is inconsistent with domestic realities. In that dimension, except for its economic success, China still has a long way to go.
Such is the case with the Nobel event. Let’s examine the nineteen no-shows, and their political and press rankings from 2009 by Freedom House, the NGO that tracks these sorts of things:
| Country |
Political Status |
Freedom of the press status |
|
|
|
| Afghanistan |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| China |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Colombia |
Partly Free |
Partly Free |
| Cuba |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Egypt |
Not Free |
Partly Free |
| Iran |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Iraq |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Morocco |
Partly Free |
Not Free |
| Pakistan |
Partly Free |
Not Free |
| Russia |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Saudi Arabia |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Serbia |
Free |
Partly Free |
| Sudan |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| The Philippines |
Partly Free |
Partly Free |
| Tunisia |
Not Free |
Not Free |
| Ukraine |
Free |
Partly Free |
| Venezuela |
Partly Free |
Not Free |
| Vietnam |
Not Free |
Not Free |
Yikes. Only two unfettered “free”’s in the lot. In other words, as Nye acutely observes: ‘[I]f the authoritarian growth model produces soft power for China in authoritarian countries, it does not produce attraction in democratic countries. In other words, what attracts in Caracas may repel in Paris.” How spot-on.
And if you’re interested in hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth, come see Joseph Nye, Under Secretary Michele Flournoy, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and a host of others talk about these issues at a PPI panel discussion on China, next Tuesday, December 14th in DC. Click here to see the invite and RSVP.
Photo credit: Adam
Tags: Afghanistan, authoritarian growth model, Beijing, China, Chinese Communist Party, Chris Coons, Colombia, Cuba, democracy, Egypt, Freedom House, Human rights, Iran, Iraq, Joseph Nye, Kazakhstan, Liu Xiaobo, Michele Flournoy, Morocco, Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, soft power, Strong Arm Tactics, Sudan, the Philippines, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Vietnam
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Friday, November 19th, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
No sooner had Congress convened this week for a post-election, lame duck session than a partisan squabble erupted in the Senate that threatens to scuttle a major nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.
The contretemps began when Jon Kyl, the Senate Republican Whip, said he doubted the Senate could take up ratification of the NEW START arms accord until next year. This may seem like an innocuous comment on scheduling, but delay could well spell death for the treaty. This year, President Obama needs eight GOP Senators to meet the 67-vote threshold for ratifying treaties; next year, he would need 14.
Kyl’s remarks were especially galling to treaty backers since he had earlier called New START “relatively benign” so long as the United States also takes steps to assure the reliability of its nuclear arsenal. Obama duly committed enormous sums to upgrade national weapons laboratories and modernize again nuclear warheads, including budgeting an additional $4 billion specifically to placate Kyl. In his statement, however, Kyl referred cryptically to “complex and unresolved issues” that still need to be worked out.
The administration nonetheless has said it will press for a vote this year. Failure to ratify the pact would be a major embarrassment for Obama, who promised the Russians the deal would be concluded this year. But even more, it would be a triumph of blind partisan animus over America’s national security interests, and our government’s to carry out a coherent and effective diplomacy with the rest of the world.
More is at stake than the rather modest arms reductions (under the treaty, both sides would cap their nuclear warheads at 1,550, down from the previous ceiling of 2,200). Senate rejection of the treaty could unravel the administration’s efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to disruptive states, as well as its “reset” of relations with Russia, which it believes has begun to pay dividends on Afghanistan, Iran, and other important fronts.
It’s one thing for Washington partisans to squabble over domestic issues, like extending the Bush tax cuts. It’s quite another to let their fights spill over in the international arena, and undermine America’s ability to lead abroad. In the not-so-distant past – namely, the presidency of George H.W. Bush – arms accords passed the Senate on nearly unanimous votes. If Senate Republicans kill NEW START, it will be another dismal sign that our deeply polarized politics no longer stops at the water’s edge.
This piece is cross-posted at No Labels
Tags: Afghanistan, America's national security interests, Bush, GOP, Homeland security, Iran, Jon Kyl, Lame Duck, Nuclear Arms, Post-Election, President Obama, Russia, Senate Republican Whip, START
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Friday, September 24th, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
Ordinarily, U.S. presidents don’t make headlines by extolling liberty and democracy before an international audience. But when President Obama did just that yesterday at the United Nations, it signaled a welcome shift from his previous reticence on these themes.
Here’s the key passage:
Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty; that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens. And I believe that truth will only grow stronger in a world where the borders between nations are blurred.
For sure, in his 2009 Cairo speech and elsewhere, the President has argued that individual freedom and democracy are universal aspirations. But in general, the administration’s voice has often seemed muted when it comes to standing up for liberal values.
Critics, for example, have cited Obama’s apparent downgrading of human rights in relations with China; U.S. eagerness to “reset” relations with Russia even as that country slides back into authoritarianism; and, the White House’s failure to offer full-throated support to Iran’s “green” movement which arose in protest over a rigged 2009 election.
The administration’s ambivalence about America’s responsibility to abet the spread of liberal democracy is no mystery. It’s a reaction to George W. Bush’s ill-conceived “freedom agenda”, which seemed to conflate U. S. democracy promotion with the use of force in Iraq and threats of “regime change” in hostile countries like Iran and North Korea. Bush’s unmodulated, even messianic, rhetoric about supporting democratic revolutions everywhere rattled America’s foes but also unnerved our friends as well.
President Obama has devoted his first two years to reassuring the world that America is returning to its tradition of cooperative internationalism, and he’s largely succeeded. The U.S. “brand” has been refurbished and America’s global approval ratings have risen.
But in rectifying its predecessor’s mistakes, this administration sometimes leaned too far in the opposition direction. At times it seemed to embrace foreign policy “realism”, which emphasizes material interests and geopolitics and downplays the role of political values and structures in shaping countries’ international conduct. In a telling omission, the administration has organized its foreign policy around the “three Ds” – diplomacy, development and defense – conspicuously excluding a fourth D for democracy.
But realism is antithetical to liberalism, which is why it has been most often associated with Republicans like Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft. From Woodrow Wilson’s day on, Democrats have argued that America can best advance its interests and ideals by throwing her weight on the side of individual rights, economic freedom and democracy. Their guiding philosophy is not realism but liberal internationalism, which holds that a freer world is a safer, more prosperous world.
Obama seemed to reaffirm that outlook yesterday. At the same time, the President continued to be clear that his administration’s approach to supporting democracy would be nothing like Bush’s. Picking up a theme introduced in recent speeches by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he promised greater U.S. support for embattled civil society organizations in authoritarian countries.
Finally, Obama stressed that promoting democracy is not something America should do unilaterally, but in concert with new democracies as well as old allies. That was a pointed challenge to countries like South Africa and some Latin American countries, who have been reluctant to speak out against human rights abuses and tyrannical rule in their own neighborhoods.
In all, it was an important speech that realigned U.S. foreign policy with core values that have defined it at its best, and led to its greatest triumphs.
photo credit: transplanted mountaineer
Tags: America’s responsibility, authoritarianism, borders between nations, Brent Scowcroft, Cairo speech, China, civil society organizations, cooperative internationalism, defense, democracy, Democratic Party, development, Diplomacy, economic freedom, freer world, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, human progress, Human rights, human rights abuses, in concert, individual freedom, individual rights, Iran’s “green” movement, Iraq, Latin American, liberal democracy, liberal internationalism, liberal values, liberty, messianic rhetoric, new democracies, North Korea, open economies, open governments, open societies, Politics and politicians, President Obama, promoting democracy, realism, republicans, Richard Nixon, Russia, Secretary of State, South Africa, three Ds, tyrannical rule, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. presidents, unilaterally, United Nations, universal aspirations, Woodrow Wilson, “freedom agenda”
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Monday, September 13th, 2010
Sarah Granger
Sarah Granger is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project. She is an editor and contributor to four books on computer security and the founder of PublicEdge, which advises progressive organizations on new media.
by Sarah Granger
I remember the feeling I had when first visiting Pearl Harbor, and again years later when flying into Manhattan just after September 11, 2001. There’s an eerie quietness about the ships buried underwater, and I still see the faces of people I met in the World Trade Center.
We were warned about those attacks. We may not have known the exact details, but in retrospect, we could have done more – much more – to prevent them. Today, we face a similar threat in cyberspace.
While we don’t know the exact details, we know something is coming, and the devastation could be far more deadly.
A cyber attack – by terrorists or a state – could look like sudden power outages, scrambled data in financial systems, air traffic accidents, water contamination, and mass media propaganda about all of the above. All of this can be done on computers from halfway across the globe. We’ve already seen examples of it – tests, so to speak – in other countries and within smaller networks. In 2008, Russian hackers took down Georgian government websites in an effort to throw off the administration during turf conflicts. Hundreds of Lithuanian servers went down earlier in the year in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack also by Russian hackers flexing their muscles in protest of the law banning public display of Soviet era artifacts. According to U.S. government sources, other countries have seen attacks on their power grids.
The nightmare scenario could involve air strikes with no warning systems enabled, missiles arriving from unknown origins. Dirty bombs could get through port security as logic bombs crush the remaining networks. Meanwhile, with financial systems crippled and damaged infrastructure, panic would ensue and local governments would be ill-equipped to deal with so many simultaneous problems. We could find ourselves with multiple major cities suffering from Katrina-like aftermaths – massive numbers of homeless, injured, without power or resources, while looters take to the streets.
Though no terrorist organization is yet known to have this capacity, most experts say we have less than five years before the first major cyber attack on U.S. soil. In a recent meeting with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand , she told a group of bloggers she thought five years would be a generous timeline. We know hacker cells operating in Russia and China already have the skills and the tools necessary, as do some in the Middle East. Terrorists may be next.
Over the past year, the Obama administration and the Pentagon have begun to take the issue more seriously, appointing a new White House Cyber Security Advisor and establishing the U.S. Cyber Command. While this marks a dramatic improvement, it is far from enough. We know logic bombs have already been placed into critical networks but what we don’t know is: when will they explode? And who put them there?
Fortunately, some members of Congress are working to address the situation. Both S. 1438, Fostering a Global Response to Cyber Attacks Act (Gillibrand) and S. 3193, International Cyberspace and Cybersecurity Coordination Act of 2010 (Kerry) address the international coordination necessary to seek and obstruct attackers. This is an important step in both preventing attacks and bringing the perpetrators to justice, although another more aggressive strategy of pre-emptive reactions to attacker stands on shaky legal ground.
We also must ready our military Cyber Command. Captain Daryl Hancock of the U.S. Fleet CYBERCOM (U.S. Navy 10th Fleet) spoke about their progress at the International Conference on Cyber Security recently, emphasizing they will be operational on schedule for next month. Still, we need more resources to manage future threats. H.R. 4061, The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2010 (Lipinsky) and S. 773, The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (Rockefeller & Snowe), attempt to address this, but training thousands of people to act as first responders to cyber attacks that could come in a variety of forms takes time and resources.
Since the Internet resides on a network of nodes owned and operated by a wide range of entities, our security rests in the hands of many people. Developing a nationwide attitude of awareness and preparation will reduce the likelihood that a large-scale cyber attack will have lasting consequences like the disasters of the past. We have the opportunity now to reduce the possible destruction that could result from these attacks. It’s in our hands, and in the hands of those who represent us.
Photo credit: The Egglepant
Tags: air strikes, air traffic accidents, Captain Daryl Hancock, China, cyber attack, cyberspace, DDistributed Denial of Service, DDOS, Dirty bombs, financial systems, first major cyber attack, Fostering a Global Response to Cyber Attacks Act, Georgian, H.R. 4061, hacker cells, International Conference on Cyber Security, international coordination, International Cyberspace and Cybersecurity Coordination Act, Katrina-like aftermaths, Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand, Lipinsky, Lithuanian, logic bombs, mass media propaganda, Middle East, Obama Administration, Pearl Harbor, Pentagon, pre-emptive reactions, Rockefeller & Snowe, Russia, Russian hackers, S. 1438, S. 3193, S. 773, September 11, Soviet era, terrorists, The Cybersecurity Act, The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Fleet CYBERCOM, U.S. Navy 10th Fleet, water contamination, White House Cyber Security Advisor, World Trade Center
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Thursday, September 9th, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
Among foreign policy mandarins here and abroad, it’s become axiomatic that America must radically downsize its global ambitions to avoid hubris and to match our straitened economic circumstances. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is having none of it.
In a speech this week to the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton vigorously affirmed the world’s need for, and America’s capacity to provide, strong global leadership. Even in a multipolar world, she argued, no other nation has the unique combination of strengths necessary to organize collective action against common global problems.
And, at a time when moral relativism has crept into U.S. foreign policy discourse in the guise of realism, Clinton was refreshingly unapologetic in pledging U.S. support for the “universal” values of liberal democracy. As she had done in an important speech to the Community of Democracies in Krakow July 3, she noted that authoritarian governments are cracking down on independent civil society organizations, and she pledged U.S. assistance to embattled NGOs.
Clinton’s confident assertion of a “new American moment” is in striking contrast to narrative of U.S. decline now fashionable among global elites. The story goes something like this:
As the Cold War ended, the U.S. found itself the last superpower standing, its system of democratic capitalism triumphant — and quickly succumbed to hubris. It intervened in conflicts all over the globe, rashly plunged into unnecessary wars, drank the elixir of free market ideology, and in general overestimated its ability to shape events and impose its will on others. Now we are overextended and facing a global backlash against U.S. imperialist pretensions.
What’s more, we’re broke and can no longer afford to maintain our old position as global hegemon. Meanwhile, economic dynamism has shifted eastward, and the rapid growth of China, India and others is fundamentally altering the world’s balance of power.
All this Spenglerian gloom points to an inescapable conclusion: America must retrench strategically. This entails defining our interests more narrowly, shrinking our military, ceasing to lecture others about democracy, and shedding the too-costly burdens of global leadership.
Clinton instead argued essentially for updating the liberal internationalist vision for today’s interconnected world. She stressed the need for America to once again be the chief “architect” of cooperative institutions, at both the regional and global level, for providing mutual security and prosperity, tackling underdevelopment and climate change, and defending human rights (with her customary special emphasis on women’s equality). Through such interlacing institutions, she said, the burden of providing “public goods” could be spread more broadly.
She also widened the definition of the Obama administration’s policy of “engagement.” In addition to engaging adversaries and rivals diplomatically, she stressed her determination to engage directly with the people and foreign publics in general.
Less convincing was her account of U.S. efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program. Our engagement with China and Russia, she said, paid real political dividends when the U.S. Security Council last spring passed, “the strongest and most comprehensive set of sanctions ever on Iran. ”
True, but Iran’s continued intransigence suggests the limits of multilateral diplomacy more than its effectiveness. The underlying assumption that Tehran is eager to be welcomed back into the world community overlooks the regime’s self-conception as a revolutionary Islamist theocracy and challenger of the international status quo.
In a curious omission, Clinton had little to say about terrorism amid all the architectural metaphors. While al Qaeda may be holed up in Pakistan, its ideology has spread to affiliates in Iraq and, more recently, in Somalia and Yemen, where the gruesome pattern of suicide attacks and mass murder of civilians is more and more evident.
Containing this ideological contagion is of critical importance to the United States and to its vision of a world order upheld by a growing network of liberal democratic institutions. Let’s hope we hear more from the Administration on this subject soon.
Tags: Al Qaeda, architect, China, civil society organizations, Community of Democracies, Council on Foreign Relations, engagement, Foreign policy, global leadership, hegemon, Hillary Clinton, hubris, Iran’s nuclear program, Iraq, Krakow, liberal democracy, liberal internationalist, multipolar world, new American moment, Obama, Pakistan, revolutionary Islamist theocracy, Russia, Secretary of State, Somalia, Terrorism, U.S. decline, U.S. Security Council, world order, Yemen
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Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised concern over human rights during her trip to Vietnam, a country she last visited in the waning days of her husband’s presidency. Per the NYT:
Noting Vietnam’s recent jailing of democracy activists, attacks on religious groups and curbing of Internet social-networking sites, Mrs. Clinton said she raised the status of human rights in a meeting with a deputy prime minister, Pham Gia Khiem. … She said the United States would press Vietnam to do more to protect individual freedom. …
Mrs. Clinton’s comments were notable, given that she has played down human rights concerns in visits to Vietnam’s neighbor, China. But her timing, at the outset of the visit, suggested that she wanted to make her point, and move on.
The last line is particularly intriguing, and offers potential fodder to critics from across the political spectrum: from conservatives wed to George Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” to liberal critics to issue-focused NGOs, like Human Rights Watch and Freedom House. Is the Secretary of State just making her point and moving on? Have human rights become simply a talking point, as Secretary Clinton unfortunately suggested before her first trip to China in early 2009?
Despite her regrettable gaffes about China, she’s said that her more nuanced approach is “designed to make a difference, not prove a point.” So what is Secretary Clinton’s approach, exactly?
In Russia, a country desperate for some international respect, a stern human rights stare-down could prove counter-productive. The balance between economics, bilateral security, multi-lateral security, climate change and personal freedoms demands measured engagement. Would, for example, Russia have cooperated on New START or Iran sanctions if the Obama administration issued one human rights tongue-lashing on top of another? Anything’s possible, but such agreements would have undoubtedly been more difficult to come by.
That’s why, in big countries as Will Marshall wrote on this site the other day, Secretary Clinton is focused on building civil societies:
In an important speech that got little attention back home, she unveiled what she called a 21st century approach to promoting democracy by defending civil society. Clinton described an independent civic sector as a nursery for democratic citizenship, no less critical to a free society than representative government and a market economy. And she warned of a spreading global backlash against civil society…. This marks a significant departure from the Bush administration’s approach to democracy, which centered on demands for elections and accountable political institutions. …
Clinton aimed more modestly, but shrewdly, at bolstering a particular aspect of liberty – freedom of association. In authoritarian countries, civil society or “third sector” organizations play an especially vital role in building the infrastructure of liberal democracy. … [Clinton's approach is] deeply subversive, in that it enables indigenous reformers to carve out space for civic action that is independent of state control. By defending the right of CSOs to organize and operate, and receive international support, the United States and other free countries can promote democracy from the ground up.
It’s in this vein that Secretary Clinton addressed an audience on cyber freedom at the Newseum earlier this year.
Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. … They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Expect the direct challenging on human rights to continue behind closed doors, but expect the Obama administration to take a more indirect, but ultimately more effective path in public.
Photo credit: US Mission Canada’s Photostream
Tags: Barack Obama, China, Freedom Agenda, Freedom House, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Human rights, Human Rights Watch, Iran, New York Times, Pham Gia Khiem, Russia, sanctions, START, Vietnam
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Friday, July 9th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
When a presidential hopeful like Mitt Romney signs a Washington Post op-ed attacking the president for an arms agreement with Russia, there’s a tendency among Democrats to shrug and ignore it. Mitt, we all understand, is a former governor with no foreign policy experience who needs to burnish his credentials in this area, even if it’s only by bloviating. And Mitt, we know, is vulnerable on his right flank, partially because the GOP has decisively moved in a more conservative direction since Romney posed as the “true conservative” candidate in 2008, and partially because his sponsorship of a Massachusetts health reform initiative that’s hard to distinguish from the hated ObamaCare is going to be a constant problem for him in 2012.
So you read Mitt’s op-ed and maybe laugh at the extraordinary retro feeling of it all — you know, all the Cold War hostility to the godless Russkies — and note the many right-wing boxes he checked off, from the ancient conservative pet rock of missile defense, to the ill-repressed desire for war with North Korea and Iran, to the ritual denunciations of Obama for his alleged fecklessness in negotiating with bad people. But initially, few if any Democrats had anything to say about it.
That certainly changed Wednesday, when Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) took to the same WaPo pages to pen a devastating riposte to Romney for getting, well, just about all the facts wrong. After tearing Romney apart on missile defense, on MIRVs, on what the treaty would and wouldn’t let the Russians do, and on the bipartisan support for what Obama’s done, Kerry concluded with this well-placed jab:
I have nothing against Massachusetts politicians running for president. But the world’s most important elected office carries responsibilities, including the duty to check your facts even if you’re in a footrace to the right against Sarah Palin. More than that, you need to understand that when it comes to nuclear danger, the nation’s security is more important than scoring cheap political points.
As it turns out, Kerry was nicer to Romney than was foreign policy wonk Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate:
In 35 years of following debates over nuclear arms control, I have never seen anything quite as shabby, misleading and–let’s not mince words–thoroughly ignorant as Mitt Romney’s attack on the New START treaty in the July 6 Washington Post.
Whether or not Romney’s efforts to display conservative ferocity on foreign policy work with the GOP base, he could pay a price down the road in terms of the impact on people who aren’t hard-core conservative ideologues. Talking to progressives, you generally get the sense that while they would fight Mitt Romney like sin itself if he’s the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, they basically think the man’s sane and relatively competent, and wouldn’t threaten the foundations of the Republic like some possibilities they could name. But a few more rabid op-eds on world affairs like Romney’s latest effort will definitely undermine any latent tolerance for Romney in center-left precincts, and will also provide some target practice in case the endlessly flip-flopping former governor’s act gets him to a general election.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Photo credit: marcn’s Photostream
Tags: Barack Obama, Cold War, Democrats, Foreign policy, Fred Kaplan, GOP, Iran, John Kerry, Massachusetts, missile defense, Mitt Romney, North Korea, Russia, Sarah Palin
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Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
Referees often make costly mistakes, as we’ve seen in the World Cup. But the World Trade Organization (WTO), which umpires international commerce, got a big decision right yesterday. It handed the United States a thumping victory in a long-standing, high-stakes dispute with Europe over aircraft subsidies.
At issue were some $20 billion and below-market lending rates — known as “launch aid” – that several European governments had provided to aircraft manufacturer Airbus. The WTO deemed launch aid to be an illegal subsidy, upholding a September 2009 interim ruling.
The largess of European taxpayers was critical to Airbus’ development of several of the companies’ main commercial jets. Without such favorable financial assistance, the WTO’s ruling said, it “would not have been possible for Airbus to have launched all of these models, as originally designed and at the times it did.” In other words, without government subsidies, Airbus would have never have become the world’s number 2 player in the lucrative market for commercial airframes. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has said that the subsidies have done “great harm” to competing U.S. manufacturing firms, especially number 1 Boeing.
The ruling is welcome, not just for Boeing and American manufacturers but because it boosts the credibility of the rules-based global trading system, which lately has shown signs of fraying at the edges. If the rules aren’t enforced, trade will become a zero-sum game as countries resort to mercantilist and protectionist strategies to protect their economic interests. That in turn could bring global prosperity crashing down. The WTO’s decision is important too because it serves as a warning to other countries — China, Brazil, and Russia — who might or want to subsidize their own aircraft producers.
In an ironic twist, even the unions were on board in support of freer trade in the Airbus case. As Will Marshall and I wrote back in September (when the interim ruling was announced), “Although organized labor often has taken a skeptical if not hostile stance toward international trade, Boeing’s unions strongly backed the U.S. government’s decision to file the case in 2004. The unions realized that Boeing competitiveness was suffering and that only fair and enforceable trade rules would ensure it.”
The WTO has no mechanism for enforcing its rulings, but rather provides the legal justification for the United States to even the playing field. It would be best, of course, if Airbus and its European patrons bowed to the WTO’s judgment and end the illegal subsidies. It would be a tragic irony if Europe were to embrace an economic unilateralism even as President Obama has put the United States back on a course of multilateral cooperation. But if Europe won’t play by the rules, the United States has three options.
First, our government could levy tariffs on Airbus imports to the United States. Second, it could spread the pain by taxing other European imports. And third, Washington could subsidize aircraft production by U.S. firms.
The first is far and away the best choice — taxing Airbus limits the trade dispute to an isolated sector of the market, and avoids a broader trade war over other products. Government subsidies for U.S. firms are the least attractive option, because other companies in other sectors may lobby for money based on that precedent, further distorting trade.
I don’t expect Europe to just roll over and play dead. Though the EU hasn’t officially decided whether or not to appeal the ruling, and there is the possibility that some governments will just ignore the ruling and continue to subsidize production. That’s a big gamble of course, because it would just provoke more stringent U.S. tariffs on imports.
But for now, the good news is that the worlds’ trade ump is on the job, sending off those who break the rules.
Photo credit: Caribb’s Photostream
Tags: Airbus, Barack Obama, Brazil, China, European Union, Ron Kirk, Russia, Transportation, United States, World Cup, World Trade Organization
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Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
The new United Nations Security Council has adopted a new round of sanctions against Iran. And they have some bite. But how and if they’ll truly be effective remains an open question.
Let’s start with the nuts and bolts. The sanctions compel Iran to comply with international inspections and to cease uranium enrichment. Failure to do so gets them this:
- A strengthened arms embargo, prohibiting nations from exporting to Iran battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles or missile systems.
- The resolution imposes financial and travel sanctions on specific Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) individuals and companies involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile program.
- Nations are authorized to inspect suspicious Iranian air and sea cargo for illicit items, interdict shipments in port and on the high seas, and confiscate any banned items found.
- The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) is sanctioned for its role in transferring nuclear and missile program components. IRISL vessels have also been repeatedly caught exporting weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah.
But it’s never that straightforward. Let’s take a look at what’s going on underneath the surface.
The Security Council resolution was adopted by a 12-2 vote, with an abstention from Lebanon, whose divided government includes members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah. The two “no” votes came from Turkey and Brazil, countries that had negotiated a uranium-exporting deal with Iran. Unfortunately, as you can read here, that deal fell woefully short of what the U.S. and rest of the international community needed to feel comfortable.
Frankly, the Obama administration mishandled Turkey and Brazil’s attempts to mediate. The White House should have cautioned the intermediaries not to go public until the deal was acceptable to the U.S. and Europe (you know, the countries Turkey is in NATO with…). American and European rejection of the deal has caused gnashing of teeth in Ankara and Brasilia (not to mention two “no” votes on the final resolution), splitting the global effort to rein in Iran.
Iran, as you might expect, remains defiant. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad continues on his rhetorical hot streak, calling the sanctions “annoying flies.” And to a certain extent, he’s right. As Thomas Erdbrink and Colum Lynch’s excellent article in yesterday’s Washington Post details, Iran does a pretty darn good job getting around them. And then there’s the possibility that Iran could use the sanctions as a domestic political tool to rally Iranians against the “American oppressors.”
But perhaps atop the list of concerns sits Beijing. Sure, China voted for the sanctions, but at what price? Check out this post to see what sort of sweetheart loopholes China secured for its energy companies in exchange for its support. Phew. It’s a lot. A confusing mess of a lot. On the one hand, it seems like the international community has passed a resolution with some teeth, but could sanctions end up being ineffective or, worse, counterproductive?
In the end, sanctions’ benefits are often indirect, subtle and not guaranteed. To get a sense of why sanctions are passed, bear in mind the Obama administration’s real goal: It’s not to inflict direct economic hardship, but rather, to raise the burden Iran must bear to obtain a nuclear weapon.
Sanctions can help the international community do so in two clear ways:
- Diplomatic isolation. Of course, Iran has been fairly isolated for years and years now, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce that sense of isolation from the international community on a regular basis. That’s why, incidentally, the Turkey/Brazil split and recruitment of China and Russia all matter. Getting the world on the same page against Iran sends a message of strength.
- When sanctions force Tehran to rearrange shipping contracts, sell vessels to front companies, move money, set up laundering and smuggling operations, stay at home from travel, etc., etc., those are all “costs.” To maintain a something close to the status quo, Iran has to invest time, money and political capital (both at home and internationally) to work around them.
The idea is that one day, Iran will wake up and say, “Huh. We’re alone in the world and working like hell to beat these things. Maybe we should sit down and talk this whole situation through.”
That day may never come, but it’s the best alternative the international community has.
Photo credit: wallyg
Tags: Brazil, China, Colum Lynch, Foreign policy, Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, national security, Nuclear disarmament, nuclear weapons, Russia, Thomas Erdbrink, Turkey, United Nations
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Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009, a potentially counterproductive Iran sanctions bill working its way through Congress, has been delayed. Versions of the law had been passed by both houses and were being reconciled in conference committee. A staffer I spoke to a few weeks ago suggested that the bill would be signed by Memorial Day.
But no longer. My friend Brian Wingfield at Forbes reported this week that bill sponsors Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) have delayed their bill for at least a month.
A delay, and potential scuttling of the law, may not be the worst thing in the world. Read Pirooz Hamvatan’s and Ali K‘s piece on P-Fix a few weeks ago, where they point out the current bill’s flaws:
The new bill aims to cripple Iran’s economy in response to Iran’s refusal to halt its nuclear program. But the sanctions being proposed are not the right answer. Such a sweeping measure would end up only hurting ordinary Iranians, especially the middle class that the U.S. must shore up to improve Iran’s chances for reform.
The delay is thanks to the UN Security Council, which announced it had reached a multilateral sanctions deal with China and Russia. Dodd and Berman say they preferred the multilateral approach all along, and seem content to let that process play out. Both China and Russia have been reluctant partners, so the deal is a potentially big diplomatic win for the Obama administration.
However, it raises the question — why would these holdouts acquiesce to the UN sanctions package now? Did they suddenly see the light? With all the exemptions and loopholes for Chinese companies, it’s doubtful in at least Beijing’s case. Check out this TIME article for a good explanation:
Beijing extracted a significant price for its support. Not only has Beijing watered down the sanctions to be adopted by the Security Council in order to ensure they don’t restrain China from expanding its already massive economic ties with Iran; Chinese analysts also claim that, in the course of a protracted series of negotiations with Washington, their government also won undertakings from Washington to exempt Chinese companies from any U.S. unilateral sanctions that punish third-country business partners with the Islamic Republic.
The Russians must have not gotten such a great deal. Iranian President Ahmadinejad singled out Moscow as a “historic enemy” for supporting UN sanctions, but seems to have forgotten to mention Beijing.
In the end, we’re left with a potentially counterproductive bill out of Congress, or an imperfect UN package. I’ll take the UN version any day of the week — even though Chinese companies get exemptions, it’s better to forge a strong international coalition against Iran’s nuclear program.
And members of Congress who supported that bill can still campaign on their vote, whether or not it ever gets to the president.
Photo credit: Daniella Zalcman/ CC BY-NC 2.0
Tags: China, Chris Dodd, Congress, Howard Berman, Iran, Russia
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