Flying In a Carbon-Constrained World

On Friday, April 25th, the University of Puget Sound will be hosting a conference on aviation and energy security. Entitled "Flying in a Carbon-Constrained World: Aviation's Role in Oil Dependence and Climate Change -- National Security, Economic, and Environmental Implications of Oil Dependence and Climate Change on Military and Civil Aviation." The conference is co-sponsored by the Department of Politics and Government at the University of Puget Sound, 2020 Vision, the Sound Policy Institute, and the United States Air Force. The conference is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is requested. The agenda for the conference is here. If you're in the Seattle/Tacoma area, or anywhere nearby, come on down!!

A Little-Recognized Danger of Iraq

There is much, if not constant, talk about the dangers the US faces in Iraq. The constant stream of body bags home, the damage done to US soft power and reputation, the creation of a breeding ground for terrorists, the likelihood of ethnic cleansing and genocide if the US withdraws, the prospect of US troops staying in Iraq for 5 years or more. The list goes on. But there's another danger, one that rarely gets mentioned or discussed. That danger is that, as a result of Iraq, the US adopts a more realist foreign policy that calculates US foreign policy on narrowly-based grounds of power and ignores the proud and noble liberal mission that has always guided America in the world.

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune nicely summarized this danger in an op-ed column he wrote on Sunday, in which he wrote:

...it's worth remembering what helped to get us into Iraq: a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that favors U.S. military intervention abroad whenever we may be able to accomplish something that looks appealing.

...

Attitudes like that got us involved in the Balkans, where we had no national interest at stake; in Somalia, where we found ourselves fighting a war we didn't anticipate; and in Haiti, where our good intentions accomplished very little. Iraq, where conservatives turned idealistic liberal ideas to their own ends, was the ruinous culmination of that approach.

If there has been a flaw in U.S. foreign policy in recent years, it has not been an excess of disengagement, but the opposite: an irrepressible urge to use force for purposes that do not enhance our security but expose us to needless risk. The result has been that we find ourselves with more enemies, weakened influence, higher costs, greater strains on our military and less safety.

After the Iraq debacle, you would think our leaders would be willing to undertake a fundamental examination of the long-established and broad-based folly that made it possible. Not a chance.

And if you think that this problem is solely one of the neo-conservatives who get so much of the blame for the invasion of Iraq, think again. As Chapman points out, all three presidential candidates have expressed sentiments and foreign policy suggestions guided more by morals, values, and ideals than by realpolitik considerations.

During the early 1990s, McCain was wary of the use of American military power. But he supported sending American peacekeeping forces to Bosnia in 1995. When a civil war erupted in Kosovo in 1999, he became a fervent voice for using American bombers and even ground troops against Yugoslavia -- this when House Republicans were voting against giving President Clinton authority to go to war.

Soon after, McCain was urging a "rogue state rollback" policy. "We must be prepared," he said, to apply "military force when the continued existence of such rogue states threatens America's interests and values." Hmm. Whatever happened to that idea?

McCain's positions bear an eerie resemblance to those of Hillary Clinton, who vigorously favored her husband's decision to act in the Balkans. "I urged him to bomb," she said later. "You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time."

Her impulse to improve the world at the point of a gun was also on display in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Besides supporting the war resolution, Clinton often sounded like a crusading neoconservative, envisioning that Iraq would be a "model for other Middle Eastern countries" that would "shake the foundations of autocracy."

If Barack Obama is averse to fighting wars to spread democracy or to advance other noble purposes, he hasn't let on. He claims the United States has a "moral obligation" to act against "genocide" in Darfur, and he supports sending NATO forces to stop the bloodshed. One of his chief foreign policy advisers -- until she resigned over calling Clinton a "monster" -- was Samantha Power, a self-described "humanitarian hawk," who excoriated Bill Clinton for ruling out U.S. military action in Rwanda in 1994.

In a recent speech, Obama rejected the idea of cutting back our expansive role in the world. "We can choose the path of disengagment," he scoffed, "and cede our leadership."

Chapman's vision, and that of realists more broadly, is one where US foreign policy determinations are made along narrow lines of power, rather than any sense of "moral obligation," liberalism, or any other value.

To be sure, moralistic foreign policies have led the US into dangerous situations which have backfired. Somalia is the prime example of this, where the US intervened in a humanitarian disaster which escalated into a nation-building operation. But because the US didn't have the will to match its goals, the mission ended disastrously. But the common wisdom about Somalia isn't quite right. As Duke University professor Peter Feaver (full disclosure: Feaver was on my dissertation committee at Duke and I worked closely with him as a TA as well) writes:

The White House, having lost its stomach for the mission [in Somalia], cultivated a myth that it was the public, enraged by the death of U.S. troops, that demanded an exit from that country. The public was really only defeat-phobic -- not casualty-phobic -- but President Bill Clinton allowed defeat to be measured chiefly in terms of U.S. losses.

Chapman fears that a foreign policy based on ideals and values will get the US embroiled into conflicts where "national interest" is not at stake. But as Feaver demonstrates, national interest is largely defined by political leadership. When the leaders do a good job of defining a foreign policy endeavor as commensurate with national interest, the public will support it. And Somalia is an excellent example of what happens when the public is not convinced.

It may be more difficult to make the case that a humanitarian intervention or the prevention of genocide is truly in the American national interest. And that is as it should be. The president should have to demonstrate to the American people that the use of US military power is in the national interest. But national interest cannot and should not be drawn solely along narrow, power-based lines. National interest is not, as realists argue, an objective phenomenon determined by external calculations like the balance of relative power. Power matters, but so does the national will, ideals, and values. As Robert Kagan points out in his excellent book Dangerous Nation, US foreign policy has always been guided by a moral compass.

As I wrote when I blogged about this problem 18 months ago:

If we learn anything from Iraq, it's that the US must be exceedingly careful if it ever thinks about attempting large-scale coercive nation-building. But that lesson must not force the US to retreat from its liberal mission. The US does not always act in accordance with its principles nor should it. But it is unthinkable that the US would NEVER do so. It was the US that rebuilt the shattered European and Japanese states after World War II, it is the US that presses Zimbabwe and Burma to improve their human rights records, it is the US that is standing firm in its refusal to negotiate with North Korea, it is the US that is keeping attention focused on Darfur. And without the security umbrella provided by US military hegemony, issues of human security such as the ICC would be nowhere near the international agenda.

Let's hope things stay that way.

What to Do About Russia?

NATO has been quite busy this week, with much of the interesting activity at the on-going NATO summit revolving around Russia. The main question is: How much should NATO respect or defer to Russian concerns? All states have legitimate security concerns, and with a state as large as Russia, NATO would be wise to pay some heed to those concerns. But, is Russia still a world power that demands that NATO back away from its own security concerns? How much leverage does Russia still have? How much does it still deserve?

The questions are all present in the two main issues under discussion: NATO's possible expansion into Ukraine and Georgia -- former Soviet republics -- and the proposed missile defense system that the US wishes to build in Eastern Europe. In spite of Russian objections, NATO decided to endorse the European missile shield. Russian officials have repeatedly expressed their concerns over the system: Russian President Putin has warned that deploying such a system could fuel a new arms race, while Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Russian Parliament has said "said Russia doubted Washington’s motives. “We still do not have a proper explanation of this project,” he said. “It is not about the number of interceptors. It’s about undermining mutual confidence and trust.”"

On the other hand, NATO has been unable to agree on offering Ukraine and Georgia membership in Membership Action Plans, a program that prepare states to join NATO. Both Germany and France are opposed to the move, arguing that "since neither Ukraine nor Georgia is stable enough to enter the program now, a membership plan would be an unnecessary offense to Russia, which firmly opposes the move."

The first problem is that NATO got its priorities exactly backwards. Both programs are likely to antagonize Russia, but if NATO was only to get one of the two (missile defense or NATO expansion) it should have gone with NATO expansion. I've written several times about the folly of deploying missile defense systems (quick summary of my view: it's technically possible, but the threat of ballistic missile attack by a rogue state does not justify the massive amounts of money). But NATO expansion is one of the most powerful pacific forces of the post-Cold War era. The transformation of NATO from a security organization to a democratization organization has resulted in democracy becoming entrenched in most of Central and Eastern Europe. Spreading NATO up to Russia's borders will all but ensure that war in Europe is a thing of the past. Both Ukraine and Georgia have shown themselves to be willing and able allies of the US and the West, and Russia has demonstrated a disturbing willingness to involve itself in the affairs of its former partners. Contrary to the predictions of realists, the persistence and expansion of NATO are essential to cementing the spread of democracy and preserving the current moment of European peace. If NATO is to upset Russia about one thing, it should have been NATO expansion, not missile defense.

But the other, and more fundamental, question is: Should NATO be paying attention to Russian concerns at all? Today's Russia is certainly not the Soviet Union of the Cold War. It is a second-, if not third-, rate military power now, it is moving away from democracy and the rule of law, its economy is a mess. Does Russia deserve the kind of respect and deference due a great power? Answering that question requires a look at what a cooperative Russia has to offer, and what an upset Russia could do to interfere with the West's interests.

There are few issues on which the West would certainly prefer to have a cooperative Russia. Russia does seem to have more influence than anyone else over Iran and Iran's nuclear program. Russia provides large amounts of oil and natural gas to Europe. On the other hand, Russia's membership in the G-8 is more of a sop to Russian pride than it is due to Russian economic power. The much-fretted-over rapprochement between Russia and China in 2005 that some analysts took as a sign of impending balancing against the US and the West has produced little tangible shifts in power, capabilities, or even intentions.

NATO certainly neither needs nor wants to provoke Russia unnecessarily. But it does seem as if too much deference is being given the once-Great Bear. Russia probably cares more about NATO expansion up to its borders than it does about the ABM system, which perhaps explains why NATO rejected the former and approved the latter. But maybe that concern should have been reason enough to do the opposite. Russian security concerns should be taken into account. But to allow those concerns to move NATO away from its pacific mission is the wrong choice.

Bad Signs in Zimbabwe

In the wake of reports today that the opposition party in Zimbabwe had defeated the majority party of Robert Mugabe, now, breaking reports out of Zimbabwe indicate that Mugabe may be trying to hang on to power. The Associated Press is reporting that:

Security agents and paramilitary police in riot gear are surrounding a Harare hotel housing foreign journalists.

A man answering the phone at the hotel says they are taking away some reporters.

The man refused to give his name but said about 30 police entered the hotel Thursday and were preparing to take away four or five journalists.

Furthermore, the New York Times is reporting that:

Despite losing control of Parliament, President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his party were increasingly explicit on Thursday about their willingness to continue fighting for the presidency.

After days of public reticence about the party’s intentions in the wake of Saturday’s elections, Bright Matonga, a deputy information minister for Mr. Mugabe, indicated that the president was not prepared to step aside and would compete in a second round of voting if results showed that neither candidate had won a majority in the first round.

While the Times article focuses on the likelihood that Mugabe and his party would try to force a run-off or even a second vote, the AP report gives a more ominous spin to events there. The US and the international community need to move quickly to put pressure on Mugabe and his African allies alike to ensure that Mugabe knows that a seizure of power will not be tolerated in Zimbabwe, in Africa, and in the greater international community.

UPDATE: The Associated Press is now reporting that:

Police raided offices of the main opposition party and detained foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous sign that President Robert Mugabe might turn to intimidation and violence in trying to stave off an electoral threat to his 28-year rule.

...

MDC [the opposition party] secretary-general Tendai Biti said hotel rooms used as offices by the opposition at one of Harare's main hotels were ransacked by police during the raids.

"Mugabe has started a crackdown," Biti told The Associated Press. "It is quite clear he has unleashed a war."

This doesn't look good.

Zimbabwe On the Precipice

It appears as if the long, nightmarish rule of Robert Mugabe over Zimbabwe is finally at an end. Since assuming power 28 years ago, Mugabe has ruined a country once held up as a model of what post-colonial Africa might be. A country that once was referred to as the "breadbasket of Africa" is now a food importer. The economy has contracted by 40-50% since 2000. Inflation is at an incomprehensible 2,000%, if not higher. Over 3 million people are "missing". An "urban reclamation" program has made thousands of urban poor homeless, removing them from the cities and evicting them into the countryside. Entire towns have been destroyed. The list of misery goes on and on.

But, if the results from the election are as anticipated, Mugabe's reign of destruction may be over. But now is an all-important moment. Will he step down? Will Mugabe and his party accept the results and accept exile into the political minority? If he refuses, or tries to sabotage the election results or the process, violence could easily erupt. Already, there are ominous rumblings from Mugabe's party:

[Mugabe's] government immediately rejected the MDC victory claim as "mischievous."

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told Sky television: "President Mugabe is going nowhere. We are not going to be pressurized into anything."

The government has warned that victory claims before an official result would be regarded as a coup d'etat.

Matonga said in a telephone interview with Sky: "No-one is panicking around President Mugabe. The army is very solidly behind our president, the police force as well."

He added: "We are not going to be rushed by anybody. They can make statements left right and centre, but they are merely wasting their time."

Certainly, the international community needs to move quickly to inform Mugabe that it will not tolerate any subversion of the democratic process. But Zimbabwe and Mugabe have proven remarkably immune to international pressure in the past.

More importantly, the West, and in particular the UK and the rest of the British Commonwealth, needs to put pressure on those actors that do seem to have some influence over Zimbabwe: other African states. In the past, African states have been reluctant to sanction, condemn, censure, or even criticize Mugabe, largely due to his Mandela-like stature as a leading figure in the decolonization and independent movement. Now, however, the stakes are different. Allowing Mugabe to subvert and destroy the democratic process can simply not be allowed if Africa is to have any hope. The West must immediately tell Zimbabwe's African allies, especially South Africa and the African Union, that if there is any hint of interference or obstruction from Mugabe or his party they will be expected to intervene to ensure the peaceful transition of power. The AU should know that the funding and supplies it receives from Western states will be stopped, and South Africa should be told that its economic and political ties will be severely damaged unless they are willing to take a meaningful stand and action.

If the results are as predicted, Robert Mugabe must not be permitted to remain in power one second longer than is necessary. And while the West may not be able to ensure that he steps down, other states in Africa can. And they must.

Iraq's Ties to International Terrorism

Last week, with very little fanfare, the Institute for Defense Analyses (an independent, non-profit think tank that provides the US government, and particularly the Department of Defense, with analysis and reporting) released its exceedingly comprehensive study of 600,000 captured documents laying out Iraq's connections, interactions, and activities connected to international terrorist groups (the redacted report, in five volumes, is available on the webpage of the Federation of American Scientists). According to the Executive Summary:

The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States. At times these organizations worked together, trading access for capability. In the period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements.

...

This study found no "smoking gun" (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.
Saddam's interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks. A review of available Iraqi documents indicated the following:

• The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist operations prior to OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq.

• On occasion, the Iraqi intelligence services directly targeted the regime's perceived enemies, including non-Iraqis. Non-Iraqi casualties often resulted from Iraqi sponsorship of non-governmental terrorist groups.

• Saddam's regime often cooperated directly, albeit cautiously, with terrorist groups when they believed such groups could help advance Iraq's long-term goals. The regime carefully recorded its connections to Palestinian terror organizations in numerous government memos. One such example documents Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.

• State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training, and resourcing of terrorists. Examples include the regime's development, construction,
certification, and training for car bombs and suicide vests in 1999 and 2000.

From the beginning of his rise to power, one of Saddam's major objectives was to shift the regional balance of power favorably towards Iraq. After the 1991 Gulf War, pursuing this objective motivated Saddam and his regime to increase their cooperation with-and attempts to manipulate-Islamic fundamentalists and related terrorist organizations. Documents indicate that the regime's use of terrorism was standard practice, although not always successful. From 1991
through 2003, the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power.

And from the abstract on the FAS webpage:

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

So, while there is no evidence of any direct links between Iraq and al Qaeda, the report makes two things abundantly clear: One, that Iraq had extensive ties to numerous terror organizations and was willing and able to use terror as a tool of state politics, and; Two, that the religious nature of radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda would not prevent the secular, pan-Arab Iraq from working with them. As today's Wall Street Journal makes clear:

A pan-Arab nationalist, Saddam viewed radical Islamists as potential allies, and they likewise. According to a 1993 memo, Saddam decided to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia," where al Qaeda was then working with warlords against U.S. humanitarian forces. Saddam also trained Sudanese fighters in Iraq.

The Pentagon report cites this as "a tactical example" of their cooperation. When Saddam "was ordering action in Somalia aimed at the American presence, Osama bin Laden was doing the same thing." Saddam took an interest in "far-flung terrorist groups . . . to locate any organization whose services he might use in the future." The Harmony documents "reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda -- as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term version."

For 20 years, such "support" included using Fedayeen Saddam training camps to school terrorists, especially Palestinians but also non-Iraqis "directly associated" with al Qaeda, continuing up to the fall of Baghdad. Saddam also provided financial support and weapons, amounting to "a state-directed program of significant scale." In July 2001, the regime began patronizing a terror cartel in Bahrain calling itself the Army of Muhammad, which, according to an Iraqi memo, "is under the wings of bin Laden."

It's true that the Pentagon report found no "smoking gun," i.e., a direct connection on a joint Iraq-al Qaeda operation. Supposedly this vindicates the view that Iraq's liberation was launched on false premises. But the Administration was always cautious, with Colin Powell alleging merely a "sinister nexus" in his 2003 U.N. speech. If anything, sinister is an understatement. The main Iraq intelligence failure was over WMD, but the report indicates that the CIA also underestimated Saddam's ties to global terror cartels.

The Administration has always maintained that Iraq is just one front in the war on terror; and the report offers "evidence of logistical preparation for terrorist operations in other nations, including those in the West." In 2002, an IIS memo explained to Saddam that Iraqi embassies were stockpiling weapons, while many of the terrorists trained in Fedayeen camps were dispatched to London with counterfeit documents, where they circulated throughout Europe.

Around the same time, the IIS began to manufacture better improvised explosive devices "designed to be used in civilian areas," and the regime bureaucratized suicide operations, with local Baath Party leaders competing to provide recruits for Saddam as part of a "Martyrdom Project."

Reading over (or to be more accurate, looking over...volume 1 of the report alone is 94 pages while the volumes containing the documents are over 500) the report certainly paints a disturbing picture of a regime looking to export terror wherever and whenever possible. The documents show connections to nearly every major Islamic and Arab terror group, the operations of training camps, attempts to undermine Western and Arab states, the use of Iraqi embassies in countries like Greece, Austria, India, Turkey, and the Czech Republic to hide and distribute weapons such as missile launches and plastic explosives, as well as documentation of major operations. The report certainly gives credence that, as the WSJ put it "all of these are inconvenient facts for those who want to assert that somehow Saddam could have been easily contained and presented no threat to the U.S."

Five Years of War

After five long, hard years of war in Iraq, where do things stand? ABC News has produced what seems to me to be the most comprehensive poll of Iraqi public opinion (the article-length summary is here, the pdf with the complete questionnaire and charts is here). The results? "Improved security and economic conditions have reversed Iraqis' spiral of despair, sharply improving hopes for the country's future. Yet deep problems remain in terms of security, living conditions, reconciliation and political progress alike."

According to the survey:

Fifty-five percent of Iraqis say things in their own lives are going well, well up from 39 percent as recently as August. More, 62 percent, rate local security positively, up 19 points. And the number who expect conditions nationally to improve in the year ahead has doubled, to 46 percent in this new national poll by ABC News, the BBC, ARD German TV and the Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Without directly crediting the surge in U.S. forces, fewer report security as the main problem in their own lives  25 percent, nearly half its peak last spring. Forty-six percent say local security has improved in the past six months, nearly double last summer's level.

The number of Iraqis who feel entirely unsafe in their own area has dropped by two-thirds, to 10 percent. And with Sunni Arab buy-in, U.S.-funded Awakening Councils, created to provide local security, are more popular than the Iraqi government itself.

Even more striking is the halt in worsening views. In August, Iraqis by 61-11 percent said security in the country had gotten worse, not better, in the previous six months. Today, by 36-26 percent, more say security has improved. The new positive margin is not large. But the 35-point drop in views that security is worsening is the single largest change in this poll.

In almost all cases, however, the improvement since August and March still has not brought Iraqi sentiment back to its pre-2007 levels. While 46 percent now expect improvements for the country in the next year, that's still far below its level in November 2005, 69 percent. While 55 percent say their own lives are going well, that's down from 71 percent in late 2005.

Similarly, while there's been a big drop in the number who cite security as their own main problem, 50 percent still volunteer it as the nation's main problem overall  little changed from 56 percent in August. One in four Iraqis still report suicide attacks, sectarian fighting and other violence in their own area in just the past six months. And the provision of basic services has barely budged; 88 percent lack adequate electricity.

Much of the improvement since August is driven by Baghdad and Anbar provinces, focal points of the surge. Seventy-one percent in Anbar, and fewer in Baghdad but still 43 percent, now rate local security positively  up from zero in both locales last year. While a dramatic gain, most in Baghdad, home to a quarter of Iraqis, still say security is bad  a reflection of continued, albeit reduced, violence there.

Economic improvement complements the security gains. Fifty-seven percent rate their household finances positively, a 20-point jump, again steepest in Baghdad (especially its Sadr City area) and Anbar. The availability of basic consumer goods has soared even more sharply; 65 percent rate it positively, up by 26 points since August to its highest in polls dating to early 2004. And family incomes are up by 26 percent, about $80 a month.

...

Challenges remain broad and deep. Beyond their own lives, most Iraqis, 55 percent, still say things are going badly for the country, even if that's down from a record 78 percent in August. Violence remains common, particularly in the cities; local car bombs or suicide attacks, just within the past six months, are reported by 45 percent in Baghdad, 51 percent in Kirkuk and 39 percent in Mosul.

Living conditions for many remain dire, with sizable majorities reporting a lack of electricity, fuel, clean water, medical care and sufficient jobs. Improvement in all these has been modest at best. Six in 10 say they can't live where they choose without facing persecution, although this, too, is well down from its peak.

Sectarian differences remain vast. While more than six in 10 Shiites and seven in 10 Kurds say their own lives are going well, that drops to a third in the Sunni Arab minority. Eighty-three percent of Sunnis rate national conditions negatively. And while half of Shiites and six in 10 Kurds expect their children's lives to be better than their own, a mere 12 percent of Sunnis share that most basic hope.

...

Views of the United States, while still broadly negative, have moderated in some respects. Just shy of half, 49 percent, now say it was right for the U.S.-led coalition to have invaded, up by 12 points from August; the previous high was 48 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004.

Similarly, the number of Iraqis who call it "acceptable" to attack U.S. forces has declined for the first time in these polls, down to 42 percent after peaking at 57 percent in August. Even with a 15-point drop, however, that's still a lot of Iraqis to endorse such violence. (Just 4 percent, by contrast, call it acceptable to attack Iraqi government forces.)

Sunni Arabs, dispossessed by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, are a good example. In August 93 percent of Sunnis called it acceptable to attack U.S. forces. Today, that's down to 62 percent  a dramatic decline, but one that still leaves six in 10 Sunnis on the side of anti-U.S. attacks.

...

An integral part of the surge strategy  the creation of U.S.-funded and -equipped "Awakening Councils" to provide local security  is generally popular. The councils are better-rated than the United States, local leaders, local militias and even the Iraqi government.

Fifty-six percent of Iraqis express confidence in the councils, compared with 49 percent in the national government of Iraq, 47 percent in local leaders, 22 percent in local militias and 20 percent in U.S. forces. The councils attract confidence from 73 percent of Sunni Arabs  generally the most alienated Iraqis  as well as from 60 percent of Shiites.

...

On a structural level, 66 percent of Iraqis say the country should continue as a unified nation with its central government in Baghdad, as opposed to a confederation of regional states or outright partition. While Sunnis have been and almost unanimously remain behind a single state, there's been an advance in this view among Shiites, from 41 percent last March to 56 percent in August and 67 percent now. The holdouts are Kurds, nearly all of whom want autonomy or semi-autonomy (details below).

...

ne thing on which Iraqis tend to agree is the difficult state of their living conditions. In the single worst item, 88 percent say their supply of electricity is bad. (In another measure, just two in 10 report receiving electricity from power lines for more than 12 hours a day, although that is up from just 12 percent last March.)

It's not just about power. Eight in 10 lack adequate fuel for cooking or driving. Sixty-eight percent rate their supply of clean water negatively. Sixty-two percent say they lack adequate medical care, a number that's grown sharply from 36 percent in November 2005  likely relating to the flight of doctors, among other professionals, who've had the wherewithal to leave the country.

As noted, ratings of local security and family finances are sharply better; so is protection from crime  closely related to security and now rated positively by 54 percent, up from 35 percent in August (but still below its peak, 66 percent in November 2005).

The biggest improvement, also as noted, is in the availability of basic household goods, up 26 points to 65 percent positive. Laggards, though, include some essentials: electricity, medical care, clean water, fuel, enough jobs to go around and freedom of movement.

That's certainly a better picture than I believe many of us in the US would have described.

So, what do we learn from these results? First, the surge must not be undone. In the wake of the successes stemming from the increase in US troop presence has come the inevitable, short-sighted response that it's time for troops to come home. Doing that could be disastrous. US forces must remain in Iraq until the security gains have had more time to coalesce into political and societal improvements. Yes, that could take a while. But the alternative is so disastrous as to be unthinkable.

Second, the US and the Iraqi government need to work at improving basic living conditions. It is inexcusable that, five years in, barely 20% of Iraqis have reliable electricity, 80% lack adequate fuel for heating and cooking, and that around 2/3rds of Iraqis lack clean water or adequate medical care. The improved security from the surge has made political reconciliation possible, but if people lack the essentials of day-to-day life, political gains rapidly become meaningless.

The picture in Iraq certainly doesn't seem to be as bleak as many here in the US describe. But it is, at best, extremely fragile. Keeping high levels of US troops in place may be necessary, but so is improving the lives of Iraqis. If these things can be done, the situation will likely continue to improve.

Deterring Terrorists?

Today's New York Times has a fascinating article about how the US defense community is beginning to think about applying principles of deterrence to terrorist groups. Some excerpts:

The 2002 National Security Strategy, signed by the president one year after the Sept. 11 attacks, stated flatly that “traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents.”

Four years later, however, the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism concluded: “A new deterrence calculus combines the need to deter terrorists and supporters from contemplating a W.M.D. attack and, failing that, to dissuade them from actually conducting an attack.”

For obvious reasons, it is harder to deter terrorists than it was to deter a Soviet attack.

Terrorists hold no obvious targets for American retaliation as Soviet cities, factories, military bases and silos were under the cold-war deterrence doctrine. And it is far harder to pinpoint the location of a terrorist group’s leaders than it was to identify the Kremlin offices of the Politburo bosses, making it all but impossible to deter attacks by credibly threatening a retaliatory attack.

But over the six and a half years since the Sept. 11 attacks, many terrorist leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, have successfully evaded capture, and American officials say they now recognize that threats to kill terrorist leaders may never be enough to keep America safe.

So American officials have spent the last several years trying to identify other types of “territory” that extremists hold dear, and they say they believe that one important aspect may be the terrorists’ reputation and credibility with Muslims.

Under this theory, if the seeds of doubt can be planted in the mind of Al Qaeda’s strategic leadership that an attack would be viewed as a shameful murder of innocents — or, even more effectively, that it would be an embarrassing failure — then the order may not be given, according to this new analysis.

Senior officials acknowledge that it is difficult to prove what role these new tactics and strategies have played in thwarting plots or deterring Al Qaeda from attacking. Senior officials say there have been several successes using the new approaches, but many involve highly classified technical programs, including the cyberoperations, that they declined to detail.

They did point to some older and now publicized examples that suggest that their efforts are moving in the right direction.

George J. Tenet, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote in his autobiography that the authorities were concerned that Qaeda operatives had made plans in 2003 to attack the New York City subway using cyanide devices.

Mr. Zawahri reportedly called off the plot because he feared that it “was not sufficiently inspiring to serve Al Qaeda’s ambitions,” and would be viewed as a pale, even humiliating, follow-up to the 9/11 attacks.

And in 2002, Iyman Faris, a naturalized American citizen from Kashmir, began casing the Brooklyn Bridge to plan an attack and communicated with Qaeda leaders in Pakistan via coded messages about using a blowtorch to sever the suspension cables.

But by early 2003, Mr. Faris sent a message to his confederates saying that “the weather is too hot.” American officials said that meant Mr. Faris feared that the plot was unlikely to succeed — apparently because of increased security.

“We made a very visible presence there and that may have contributed to it,” said Paul J. Browne, the New York City Police Department’s chief spokesman. “Deterrence is part and parcel of our entire effort.”

...

Even as security and intelligence forces seek to disrupt terrorist operations, counterterrorism specialists are examining ways to dissuade insurgents from even considering an attack with unconventional weapons. They are looking at aspects of the militants’ culture, families or religion, to undermine the rhetoric of terrorist leaders.

For example, the government is seeking ways to amplify the voices of respected religious leaders who warn that suicide bombers will not enjoy the heavenly delights promised by terrorist literature, and that their families will be dishonored by such attacks. Those efforts are aimed at undermining a terrorist’s will.

“I’ve got to figure out what does dissuade you,” said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the Joint Chiefs’ director of strategic plans and policy. “What is your center of gravity that we can go at? The goal you set won’t be achieved, or you will be discredited and lose face with the rest of the Muslim world or radical extremism that you signed up for.”

Efforts are also under way to persuade Muslims not to support terrorists. It is a delicate campaign that American officials are trying to promote and amplify — but without leaving telltale American fingerprints that could undermine the effort in the Muslim world. Senior Bush administration officials point to several promising developments.

Saudi Arabia’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Asheik, gave a speech last October warning Saudis not to join unauthorized jihadist activities, a statement directed mainly at those considering going to Iraq to fight the American-led forces.

And Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, a top leader of the armed Egyptian movement Islamic Jihad and a longtime associate of Mr. Zawahri, the second-ranking Qaeda official, has just completed a book that renounces violent jihad on legal and religious grounds.

Such dissents are serving to widen rifts between Qaeda leaders and some former loyal backers, Western and Middle Eastern diplomats say.

“Many terrorists value the perception of popular or theological legitimacy for their actions,” said Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser. “By encouraging debate about the moral legitimacy of using weapons of mass destruction, we can try to affect the strategic calculus of the terrorists.”

It's about time. I have been saying for quite some time (just ask my students) that 9/11 represented a failure in American deterrence. The tepid responses to the numerous attacks against the US and American interests during the 1990s (the first WTC bombing, the dual embassy bombing in Africa, the bombing of the Khobar Towers, and the bombing of the USS Cole, all of which were met by police work and limited [and ineffective] cruise missile strikes) sent a clear message to the leadership of al Qaeda that the US did not consider international terrorism to be a primary concern and that the US would not respond seriously. If Osama bin Laden had believed that bringing down the twin towers and striking the Pentagon would result in the loss of Afghanistan as a haven, it's hard to imagine them not thinking twice about whether the cost would be worth the benefit.

Terrorists are rational actors; they use violence as a means to an end. And even if that rationality is hard for us to understand, they are nonetheless rational. The violence is not meaningless; it is not random. Targets are chosen for particular reasons and to advance particular goals. If the use of violence is ineffective, or even counterproductive, then its use makes no sense. It's about time that the US defense community has begun taking the deterrence of terrorists seriously.

UPDATE: Over at his blog, Dan Drezner notes that:

It's good stuff. But it's not "deterrence" in the Cold War sense of the word.

Successful deterrence of Al Qaeda would be taking place if the organization decided not to take action because they feared retaliation by the United States against assets that they held dear. Deterrence works if an actor refrains from attack because they calculate that the cost of the adversary's response would outweigh any benefit from the initial strike.

But that's not in the U.S. strategy. Instead, what U.S. officials appears to be doing is decreasing the likelihood of a successful attack -- by sowing confuson, interdicting logistical support, and reducing sympathy for the organization. The closest one could come to deterrence is if one defined Al Qaeda's reputation as a tangible asset that would face devastating consequences after a successful attack. Even here, however, the U.S. strategy is primarily to weaken Al Qaeda by increasing the odds of an unsuccessful attack.

The more appropriate word to use here is "containment." The United States is trying to sow divisions within the jihadi movement -- much like Kennan urged the United States to do among communists of different nationalities. The United States is applying counter-pressure in areas where Al Qaeda is trying to gain supporters and symathizers -- much like Kennan urged the application of "counter-force" in areas where the Soviets tried to advance their interests.

He's right. Mostly. Most of what the authors are describing isn't really deterrence, but containment or defense. But, deterrence does have elements that begin to blend into the other two concepts. Denial deterrence, for example, works by convincing the opponent that his attack will not succeed. From an article on the NATO website:

The deterrence by denial theory is not limited to missile defences, of course. The theory applies to any capability that can deny an enemy success in achieving his objectives. For example, passive defences such as decontamination equipment and suits and gas masks for protection against chemical and biological weapons might help to convince an enemy not to use such weapons. The National Security Strategy suggests that "consequence-management" capabilities for responding to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks may contribute to both dissuasion and deterrence by denial. It states: "Minimizing the effects of WMD use against our people will help deter those who possess such weapons and dissuade those who seek to acquire them by persuading enemies that they cannot attain their desired ends."

If al Qaeda can be persuaded that their attacks will be, as I said before, ineffective or counterproductive, they may be deterred from carrying them out. True, this begins to look more like defense, but the lines are blurry here.

What is Justice in Uganda?

The dispute between Uganda and the International Criminal Court over the status of the indictments of Joseph Kony and other leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army has reached a crucial point. Yoweri Musevni, the president of Uganda, has announced that Uganda will refuse to hand Kony and the others under indictment over to the ICC so that a peace deal, including an agreement for Kony and others to face local, Ugandan courts, can be struck. The ICC issued the indictments when Uganda, an ICC signatory, referred the case to the ICC in 2005 and Uganda is now obliged, as a result of its accession to the ICC, to arrest Kony and his lieutenants and remand them to ICC custody. Now, Uganda believes that that obligation is an obstacle to peace, as Kony has little incentive to end his rebellion and sign a peace deal if doing so will result in his arrest and trial in international court. Uganda has asserted the right to withdraw its request for ICC involvement, since Uganda requested the ICC's participation, but, according to the Guardian article linked above:

Richard Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor for the Bosnia and Rwanda international tribunals which laid the ground for the ICC, has said that if Museveni gets his way it would be "fatally damaging to the credibility" of the court.

"I just don't accept that Museveni has any right to use the international criminal court like this," he said last year. "If you have a system of international justice you've got to follow through on it. If in some cases that's going to make peace negotiations difficult that may be the price that has to be paid."

Last week, the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, refused to meet representatives of the LRA and said the indictments still stand.

The LRA is, unquestionably, deserving of punishment far beyond what a civil court can dish out. The LRA is infamous for abducting children and using drugs and terror to enslave them into their ranks, hacking off people's arms, legs, and even lips and eyelids, forcing children to rape and murder their parents, among other documented and reported atrocities. But should the desire to visit punishment and retribution on these monsters win out over the desire to resolve a long-running conflict that has killed, maimed, and dislocated thousands? Should the desire of the ICC and the international community outweigh the request of the Ugandan government to settle this conflict as it sees fit?

Over at Opinio Juris, Julian Ku and Kevin Jon Heller have been going back and forth on this issue. Julian sees the ICC as "an obstacle to peace," where Kevin argues that "it is difficult to argue that the ICC should simply step aside and leave the Ugandan government and the LRA to their own devices." According to Kevin:

There is obviously no guarantee that the two sides, once freed from ICC oversight, will negotiate a peace that is genuinely acceptable to ordinary Ugandans. Indeed, the evidence to date indicates otherwise. And, of course, the Court will suffer significant and potentially irreparable harm if it rewards the combined Uganda/LRA temper tantrum: as John Boonstra noted today (also at UN Dispatch), "[i]f the ICC is seen as capitulating to the demands of its host government — or worse, to those of an indicted war criminal — a dangerous precedent will be set for the court's work elsewhere."

What, then, is the right answer? It seems to me that the answer lies in the ICC's principle of complementarity. Given that ordinary Ugandans favor traditional justice for low-level perpetrators and criminal prosecution for high-level perpetrators, the Court should insist on two things: (1) that the Ugandan government and the LRA revert back to their original plan to try Kony and the other LRA leaders in Uganda's High Court; and (2) that the Ugandan government revamp its criminal justice system to satisfy the principle of complementarity. At that point — and only at that point — should the ICC step aside.

The principle of complementarity to which Kevin refers above is:

The International Criminal Court will complement national courts so that they retain jurisdiction to try genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

If a case is being considered by a country with jurisdiction over it, then the ICC cannot act unless the country is unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate or prosecute.

A country may be determined to be "unwilling" if it is clearly shielding someone from responsibility for ICC crimes. A country may be "unable" when its legal system has collapsed.

I think Kevin has set the bar a bit too high here, but his general point is a good one. Uganda has acceded to the Treaty of Rome, creating a clear jurisdiction for the ICC. The ICC should be more deferential to the needs of its members, particular in cases where indictments may be barring the road to settling a conflict (or convincing a leader to step down). And while it's right for the ICC to insist on some level of serious prosecution, the presumption should favor Uganda. A desire to lightly punish, or even perhaps pardon, Kony in order to end the conflict should not be seen as unwilling, so long as the settlement is real. If that's the price of ending the conflict, and if Uganda is willing to pay that price, the ICC should not stand in the way. If, however, Uganda was to pardon Kony and his underlings without a real end to the conflict, then the ICC would be right to maintain its insistence on carrying out the arrest warrants.

This is a difficult test case for the ICC and the expansion of international law more generally. As the example of Uganda shows, politics is often too complicated for generalized international law to deal with simply. And while law must not be ignored, it also must not be allowed to stand in the way of ending one of the more brutal rebellions on the planet.

Why Antigua Matters

Last August, the US lost an important decision before the WTO in which Antigua challenged American bans on on-line gambling. The WTO found that, in general, US bans on on-line gambling were illegal under WTO rules because the US allows significant amounts of domestic on-line gambling (e.g. on-line purchases of lottery tickets, Internet-based off-track betting). Antigua won the right to, if the US didn't comply with the WTO rule by either allowing on-line gambling or banning all on-line gambling, impose sanctions equivalent to $21 million (Antigua had asked for $3.4 billion) on the US through copyright violations. In response, the US withdrew from the part of the WTO dealing with on-line gambling, and is presently in negotiations with several countries over compensation for the US action. According to the previously referenced article:

Under WTO rules, a country may withdraw a service sector committed to WTO jurisdiction only with the authorization of other WTO signatory countries interested in the sector and only after compensating for future lost revenue a WTO signatory country might have earned were the commitment maintained. ... The U.S. is engaged in negotiations with the European Union, India, Costa Rica and Macao to determine how much it must pay them for withdrawing the gambling sector. These negotiations focus on what new service sectors the U.S. will submit to WTO jurisdiction in exchange for withdrawing gambling.

Yesterday, however, apparently dissatisfied with American offers of compensation, the European Union launched an investigation into American rules banning on-line gambling to determine whether those laws discriminated against EU-based companies. The investigation is seen as laying the groundwork for a potential suit in the WTO against the US.

US behavior in this case is absurd and barely explicable. The moral opprobrium argument holds no water, as gambling in the US is widespread and accepted. Is it really any different if someone buys lottery tickets, go to Vegas or Atlantic City, or gambles on-line? The only possible explanation is the US seeks to protect a small gambling industry, and is willing to undermine the global free trade regime to protect that industry. When it was Antigua challenging the US, the US was apparently willing to pay millions of dollars to avoid opening up (or banning altogether) gambling markets. But the entrance of the EU into this equation changes the parameters of the game quite drastically.

Since the dynamics of the US law haven't changed, it seems all but certain that the EU could win any suit filed in the WTO. It also seems certain that the EU would be granted far more than $21 million of damages. At which point the US would be faced with a real choice: Pay the EU billions of dollars in compensation (which would, in all likelihood be equated by some penalty against the EU for European protection) or lift the ban. The latter is, obviously, not preferred by the US domestic political arrangements. The former threatens to undermine the WTO. As I wrote when I initially blogged about this case:

It is very important that the US comply with the WTO's decision. The WTO is one of the cornerstones of the international order, and is vital for insuring the continued prosperity of this country, and nearly every other country in the world. Furthermore, the US has been trying to get smaller, developing countries to accept American intellectual property rights laws under the WTO. Why would they do so if the US refuses to play by the rules (of course, the American, European, Japanese, and Korean refusals to ease or cease agricultural subsidies are already driving this line of thought, but at least ag policy is not currently covered by the WTO)? Refusing to comply will fundamentally damage US credibility and interests to a degree that not even the invasion of Iraq was able to do. It is vital to the US that other countries commit themselves to the WTO and comply with its obligations; it is equally vital that the US do the same.

That was true when it was just Antigua. Now that the EU is involved, it's even more true.

Where Is the US in the South American Crisis?

Tensions continue to rise in the squabble between Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In response to a Colombian raid into Ecuador that resulted in the death of a key rebel leader of FARC, Venezuela and Ecuador both expelled Colombian diplomats, curtailed trade between the countries, and mobilized troops and sent them to the Colombian border. In response, Colombia released revealed documents it claims to have seized in the Ecuadorian FARC camp implicating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a major funding source for the Colombian rebels. Chavez has been blustering about the possibility of war, which, while unlikely, is highly destabilizing, particularly for a fragile country like Colombia. Trade between Venezuela and Colombia is normally robust, and, as Adam Isaacson, an analyst with the Center for International Policy, notes, the countries' militaries are not enthusiastic for war and the populations show little evidence of "war fever." However, revelations of Venezuelan funding for FARC along with Chavez's intimation that FARC will be allowed to operate freely in Venezuela make the possibility of another cross-border operation more likely which, at this stage, could be a catalyst for war, as Chavez has promised to retaliate against any Colombian incursion of Venezuelan territory.

Regional leaders, including the presidents of Mexico and Chile, have offered to mediate an end to the dispute, but so far, little progress at easing tensions has been made. The country that is most needed, in theory at least, to defuse the rising tension is the United States. With its political clout, military power, and economic might to provide inducements for cooperation, the US is invaluable in resolving these kinds of situations. In theory at least. In reality, US involvement would be, to put it mildly, counter-productive. The US, and President Bush, have spent so much time and energy needling Venezuela and Chavez about low-level policy disagreements like Venezuelan arms deal, not to mention the idiotic near-support for the attempted 2002 coup, the US has so poisoned the waters that it has no ability to influence the country when the situation is serious, as it is now. US attention has only emboldened and strengthened Chavez, allowing him to use US "imperialism" as a diversionary tactic to justify his domestic policies. It's hard to understand what the US believes it has gotten out of such antagonism, and now the policies are having a real impact on the ability of the US to maintain regional stability and order.

We can only hope that this situation will be resolved short of war. The countries of South America have enough problems without adding war to the mix. But we can also only hope that US policymakers will learn a valuable foreign policy lesson. Foreign policy capital is far too precious to squander on meaningless needling and ineffective interference. By engaging with and responding to Chavez's rhetoric and by developing a reputation as partisan and opposed to Chavez, the US has compromised its ability to act when its influence and power is most needed.

The Legal Status of Kosovo's Independence

My former professor at Georgetown University, Anthony Arend, has posted an excellent analysis of the legal status of Kosovo's recent declaration of independence. Here are some of the highlights:

I The Legal Framework

When discussing the question of secession, two basic legal principles are in tension: the right of states to maintain their territorial integrity and the right of peoples to self-determination. First, one of the cornerstones of the international legal order is the right of states to their territorial integrity, a right implied through out the United Nations Charter. Article 2 (4), for example, prohibits the threat or use of force against the "territorial integrity or political independence" of states. Second, another right-- explicitly recognized in the Charter-- is the right of self-determination of peoples. Under Article 1 (2) of the Charter, one of the purposes of the United Nations is "to develop friendly relations among nations [read, states] based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples . . . ." (emphasis added).

...

When does a people have the right to pursue self-determination through secession?

This is the thorny question. The Charter doesn't address the question, so we have to look to subsequent practice. In 1970, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Principles of Friendly Relations. This non-binding resolution had the following to say about the right to self-determination:

Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter regarding the implementation of the principle, in order:

(a) To promote friendly relations and co-operation among States; and

(b) To bring a speedy end to colonialism, having due regard to the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned;

and bearing in mind that subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle, as well as a denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter.

Every State has the duty to promote through joint and separate action universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Charter.

The establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people.

Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the present principle of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence. In their actions against, and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and to receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.

The territory of a colony or other Non-Self-Governing Territory has, under the Charter, a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it; and such separate and distinct status under the Charter shall exist until the people of the colony or Non-Self-Governing Territory have exercised their right of self-determination in accordance with the Charter, and particularly its purposes and principles.

Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as described above and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.

Every State shall refrain from any action aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of any other State or country. (emphasis added)

In practice, this resolution (read together with others) meant that colonies had the right to pursue independence immediately. And this proposition seemed to be widely accepted by the international community. It also seems to mean that groups under direct foreign domination or subjugation-- like the people of Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion in 1990-- would have the right to pursue independence. But what about non-colonies or not subjected people-- like the component parts of Yugoslavia?

The Secession of Quebec took up this question. After declaring that the right to secede existed with respect to colonies and peoples there were under alien subjugation, the court noted:

A number of commentators have further asserted that the right to self-determination may ground a right to unilateral secession in a third circumstance. Although this third circumstance has been described in several ways, the underlying proposition is that, when a people is blocked from the meaningful exercise of its right to self-determination internally, it is entitled, as a last resort, to exercise it by secession. The Vienna Declaration requirement that governments represent "the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction of any kind" adds credence to the assertion that such a complete blockage may potentially give rise to a right of secession.

Clearly, such a circumstance parallels the other two recognized situations in that the ability of a people to exercise its right to self-determination internally is somehow being totally frustrated.

But, once again, the court did not have to determine if there is such a right to secession:

While it remains unclear whether this third proposition actually reflects an established international law standard, it is unnecessary for present purposes to make that determination. Even assuming that the third circumstance is sufficient to create a right to unilateral secession under international law, the current Quebec context cannot be said to approach such a threshold.

The court explained that the people of Quebec were able to fully participate in the political, economic, and cultural life of Canada and could not possibly be thought to have been denied their right to self-determination internally. So, even if the law allowed for secession in this third case, the people of Quebec could not exercise that right because they were in no way being blocked from internal self-determination-- the required condition for possible secession.

So what the court leaves us with is the conclusion that secession might be lawful in "category three" cases.

II Applying the Law to Kosovo

Are the persons living in Kosovo a "people"?

As noted earlier, there is no precise defintion of people under international law. Instead, it seems to mean a group that preceives itself to be a people based on certain common characteristics. This defintion would seem to cover the Kosovars. An overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian, Muslim group, they seem to me to perceive themselves to have a common bond.

But do they have the right to secede?

As seen above, the law is a bit murky. There is no straight-forward rule that would indicate that secession is permissible in cases like Kosovo. Preserving the territorial integrity of states remains an extremely important legal principle. But even if we accept that secession is permissible in certain "category three" cases, it would have to be demonstrated that the Kosovars were being denied the right to internal self-determination within the Serbian regime. Is this the case?

This is an interesting question. It seems clear that before NATO and the UN became active in Kosovo in 1999, the people there were facing the potential of ethnic cleansing and were being denied their rights to be full citizens of the Yugoslav state. Since that time, Kosovo has been under the protection of the international community, as determined pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and subsequent resolutions. Under this arrangement, Kosovo was to enjoy "substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration." At the same time, Resolution 1244 reaffirmed "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other States of the region." What this suggests to me is that the way in which the UN envisoned Kosovo exercising its right of internal self-determination was as a substantially autonomous region that remained part of the state of Serbia. So can Kosovo now lawfully secede?


III Conclusions

1. In the absence of UN authority in Kosovo, a strong case for secession could be made.

If the UN had not become engaged in the Kosovo conflict, it would seem to me that a strong argument could be made that the people of Kosovo were being denied their right of internal self-determination and thus would have the right to secession. But note: even here the law is unclear as to whether a people in "category three" would ever have a right of secession.

2. Because the UN Security Council has been seized of the matter, a strong case against secession can be made.

Given that the UN Security Council has affirmed the territorial integrity of Serbia and continued to work for an autonomous, but not independent, Kosovo, a very strong argument can be made that in the absence of any further Security Council action, Kosovo secession would be illegal. Why? First, the Security Council has the authority to issue binding resolutions in this area. And even though Resolution 1244 does not explicitly prohibit secession or prohibit states from recognizing secession (like Security Council Resolutions 216 and 217 in the case of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965), it nonetheless seems to set forth the framework for self-determination that does not include independence. Second, it seems that all the parties in the case were attempting to create an autonomous arrangement-- not complete integration in to the Serbian political structure-- so the logic of the Quebec case's understanding of internal self-determination would not quite seem on point. In the Kosovo case, internal self-determination would be achieved through autonomy within Serbia, not full participation in the overall political, economic, and cultural life of the Serbian state, as was the case of Quebec.

Good stuff.

The Fallout from the US Satellite Interception

The United States has apparently successfully intercepted a failing satellite using a missile fired from an Aegis-class cruiser. However, it's not clear that the benefits of the strike will be worth the likely fallout. Coming on the heels of a Chinese test of a dedicated anti-satellite weapon, pressure seems to be mounting towards a space-based arms race as countries race to develop ASAT and AASAT capabilities at the same time as they seek to protect their own satellites. According to Clay Moltz, a professor of nuclear and space policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, "[the destruction of the satellite] solved a short-term problem, but it may cause us long-term headaches in terms of emerging test programs in other countries.”

This is a bad situation for the United States. The US is far more advanced in its satellite technology and capabilities than any other country. And while satellites are fairly expensive and sophisticated, it doesn't take nearly as much effort or sophistication to shoot them down. If American dominance in space is threatened, American dominance in many other fields is threatened as well. From my previous post on the January 2007 Chinese ASAT test:

First, from a national security perspective, a good deal of the American dominance in combat comes from its huge advantages in information -- reconnaissance, communications, imaging, GPS targeting and navigation, and so on -- which relies on satellites. An early strike on those space-based assets could blind the US military and level the playing field. True, the US has better weapons platforms and better trained soldiers, but without satellites, those advantages get mitigated.

Second, from a more global perspective, there is so much dual-use technology sharing between the military and the wider public that satellites, even military ones, are rarely purely military targets. GPS navigation, cell phones, weather imaging...all of these technologies rely on satellites that would be targeted in any preemptive military strike. Extending war into space could have dire consequences not just for the US military, but for the economies and civilian populations the world over.

The US needs to move quickly to derail the emerging space arms race. The US stands to lose far more than does any other actor, including China. There may have been pressing reasons to use a missile to destroy this particular falling satellite (although the only one that is credible is that the US feared that enough of the satellite would survive re-entry and impact as to pose a security threat if another country was able to retrieve it), this incident must not be allowed to set a precedent or spur spiral pressures for an arms race. The US has long opposed a global treaty banning ASAT weapons developments, largely for concerns over verification. Just last week, China and Russia proposed an international treaty banning ASATs. The US needs to work to figure out a mechanism by which it can confidently create a regime ensuring that space will remain peaceful and available for use by Americans and the world alike.

Another Sign of Progress in Iraq

Following on the heels of last month's passage of a de-Baathification bill, Iraq has taken another small step forward towards stability. Yesterday, the Iraqi parliament passed three vital measures: the 2008 budget, a law defining the scope of the powers of the Iraqi provinces, and an amnesty for thousands of jailed Iraqis, which also happens to be one of the benchmarks identified by the Bush Administration. The wrangling over these issues had been extremely acrimonious, and at times threatened to bring down the fragile and divided government.

While each of the measures is important in its own right, what is perhaps even more important is the way in which they were passed. Each law appealed to one of Iraq's primary ethnic groups. The budget was mainly supported by the Kurds who wanted to protect the 17% share of Iraqi national revenue that they had been receiving, the Shiites supported the definition of provincial powers to ensure that the central government will not be given too much power, and the Sunnis backed the amnesty, as the vast majority of the 26,000 prisoners in Iraqi jails are Sunnis. No side could get its preferred law passed against the opposition of the other two, and individually it appeared as if all the measures would fail. However, by working together and bundling the measures into one package deal, each party could receive its preferred measure in exchange for supporting the measures desired by the other party.

The importance of such a development can not be understated. The only chance Iraq has for stability and reconciliation is if the major political, religious, and ethnic groups believe that their futures can be protected and advanced through political participation and compromise. A cooperative deal such as this goes a long way to demonstrating that Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites can work together to achieve mutual interests, and that political power need not be a zero-sum game.

Again, as with the de-Baathification deal this is but a small success, and it no way indicates that Iraq has been "won". But again, the accumulation of small steps in the right direction can eventually produce the political climate necessary for success. It is certainly a positive sign that there are more and more examples of positive moves.

A Test For China

For the first time, the World Trade Organization has issued a major ruling against China. According to the AP report:

The WTO found that China was breaking trade rules by taxing imports of auto parts at the same rate as foreign-made finished cars, according to a copy of the ruling's conclusions obtained by The Associated Press.

In the sweeping decision, the three-member WTO panel found against China on nearly every point of contention with the U.S., the 27-nation EU and Canada.

The three trade powers argued that the tariff was discouraging automakers from using imported car parts for the vehicles they assemble in China. As a result, car parts companies had an incentive to shift production to China, costing Americans, Canadians and Europeans their jobs, they said.

...

China, which will still be able to appeal, claims the tariffs are intended to stop whole cars being imported in large chunks, allowing companies to avoid the higher tariff rates for finished cars. It argues that all measures are fully consistent with WTO rules and do not discriminate against foreign auto parts.

But the U.S. and the EU say that China promised not to treat parts as whole cars when it joined the WTO in 2001.

China's accession to the WTO was a vital component of the US strategy of engagement, in which economic relations with China are pursued as part of a two-pronged strategy. The first goal of economic development is to transform China's domestic economy into a middle-class, capitalist-style market which, it is argued, will in turn create domestic pressure for political reform. The second strategy of engagement is to make China increasingly dependent on the international community so that adherence to the status quo is more valuable than challenging it.

The WTO is an excellent forum for the latter strategy, as it requires countries to alter their domestic laws and economic rules to comply with international free trade requirements. As protection of domestic status is, more or less, the raison d'etre of national governments, agreeing to alter those arrangements for the sake of international free trade is a powerful signal of adherence to the status quo. How China reacts to the first negative ruling will be a meaningful statement of how China understands its own preferences vis-a-vis the status quo and the international system. If it agrees to comply with the ruling, which will certainly harm a sector of China's domestic economy that it desires to protect, it will be a strong sign that engagement is working.

The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism

In a commentary in today's Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman has a piece examining "The Implausibility of Nuclear Terrorism," in which he writes:

Why are we worried [about the possibility of nuclear terrorism]? Bomb designs can be found on the Internet. Fissile material may be smuggled out of Russia. Iran, a longtime sponsor of terrorist groups, is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. A layperson may figure it's only a matter of time before the unimaginable comes to pass. Harvard's Graham Allison, in his book "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe," concludes, "On the current course, nuclear terrorism is inevitable."

The events required to make that happen include a multitude of herculean tasks. First, a terrorist group has to get a bomb or fissile material, perhaps from Russia's inventory of decommissioned warheads. If that were easy, one would have already gone missing.

Besides, those devices are probably no longer a danger, since weapons that are not scrupulously maintained (as those have not been) quickly become what one expert calls "radioactive scrap metal." If terrorists were able to steal a Pakistani bomb, they would still have to defeat the arming codes and other safeguards designed to prevent unauthorized use. As for Iran, no nuclear state has ever given a bomb to an ally -- for reasons even the Iranians can grasp. Stealing some 100 pounds of bomb fuel would require help from rogue individuals inside some government who are prepared to jeopardize their own lives. The terrorists, notes Mueller, would then have to spirit it "hundreds of miles out of the country over unfamiliar terrain, and probably while being pursued by security forces."

Then comes the task of building a bomb. It's not something you can gin up with spare parts and power tools in your garage. It requires millions of dollars, a safe haven and advanced equipment -- plus people with specialized skills, lots of time and a willingness to die for the cause. And if Al Qaeda could make a prototype, another obstacle would emerge: There is no guarantee it would work, and there is no way to test it.

Assuming the jihadists vault over those Himalayas, they would have to deliver the weapon onto American soil. Sure, drug smugglers bring in contraband all the time -- but seeking their help would confront the plotters with possible exposure or extortion. This, like every other step in the entire process, means expanding the circle of people who know what's going on, multiplying the chance someone will blab, back out or screw up.

...If Osama bin Laden embarks on the project, he has only a minuscule chance of seeing it bear fruit. Given the formidable odds, he probably won't bother. None of this means we should stop trying to minimize the risk by securing nuclear stockpiles, monitoring terrorist communications and improving port screening. But it offers good reason to think that in this war, it appears, the worst eventuality is one that will never happen.

All of this is very likely true. Much of Chapman's piece is based on a talk Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University gave at the University of Chicago last month entitled "The Atomic Terrorist: Assessing the Likelihood" that argues "the likelihood that a terrorist group will come up with an atomic bomb seems to be vanishingly small." Mueller is also the author of the book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats and Why We Believe Them. Mueller's basic argument is that the threat of terrorism, especially when compared to other threats, risks, or priorities is exceedingly small and while basic precautions should be taken, much of the response in the War on Terror is overblown.

I agree with much of Mueller's argument, in theory. But, as I and Homer Simpson are fond of saying, in theory, communism works. Even if it is objectively demonstrable that the threat of terrorism, and nuclear terrorism in particular, is exceedingly small, that doesn't mean that the government can react in ways other than the ways it has.

Government, and democratic government in particular, is an inherently reactionary force that prefers not to address problems so long as they remain mere possibilities in the future. However, once an event happens, like 9/11, the government is on notice, so to speak, and cannot allow a similar event to happen again. Thus, overreaction occurs, as the government races to paper over obvious flaws and policy failures and and attempts to identify any similar potential problems in the future. And so we get the absurd prohibition on liquids aboard airplanes.

Now that 9/11 put terrorism on the radar screen in an emphatic manner, the government cannot be seen to be ignoring any future terrorist possibilities, no matter how small. Combine that with an over-arching paternalism that infects government at all levels, and it should come as no surprise that the government is likely to spend time and resources worrying about a threat that very well may have an infinitesimal chance of occurrence. Let's also not forget that those in favor of governmental action to deal with the threat of global warming advocate for the application of the precautionary principle, which argues that in the face of uncertainty about events with the potential to cause massive damage to humans or the environment, protective actions should be taken. A nuclear attack on an US city certainly meets that threshold level.

It very well be true that the threat of terrorism is small, and that the threat of nuclear terrorism even smaller. But that doesn't mean that we should expect the government to take proportionate steps to deal with the threats.

Next Stop, Garbage Island!

Apparently, garbage island, the destination of the barge on which Homer Simpson lands while escaping from a proselytizing Ned Flanders, is real. The Independent has a report about a "plastic soup" of garbage in the Pacific that is twice the size of the continental United States. According to the report:

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

...

The "soup" is actually two linked areas, either side of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.

...

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.

The majority of the "soup" appears to be plastic. Recently, there has been increasing movement in cities, localities, and even countries to move away from the use of plastics, particularly in grocery bags. One can only anticipate that the existence of 100 million tons of floating garbage covering thousands of miles of ocean will increase international pressure to reduce the amount of plastics waste produced. I would fully expect that the UN, or some other international environmental entity, will take this issue up in the near future.

Global Incident Map

A new resource has come to my attention and I wanted to mention it here. It's the Global Incident Map, and it's a fantastic tool for anyone studying terrorism in any form. The map displays icons representing various "global incidents" of actual terrorist attacks, suspicious events, and other relevant goings-on.

For example, looking at the US right now (9:48 AM, Tuesday, February 5, 2008) shows 19 incidents, ranging from unidentified white powder in an envelope in Virginia to a suspicious package found in San Jose to bomb threats in South Dakota. Pulling the map over to Africa, we see icons representing an attack on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania, the bombing of the Saudi embassy in Chad, and pirates seizing a Russian ship off the coast of Somalia. Pakistan shows a report from arrested al Qaeda militants that 600 suicide bombers are planning a major attack in Karachi, while in the Philippines, government soldiers clashed with Islamic rebels.

A fantastic tool for keeping track of terrorism, insurgencies, political violence, and suspicious acts around the world. Check it out.