Paddy Ashdown – Page 7

Building peace after war 2012

The revelation of 9/11 still applies. Our peace too will depend on the extent that we are willing and able to work together to prevent conflict or re-construct peace in other parts of the world.

We live in turbulent and instable times and, as the world moves deeper and deeper into the era of resource scarcity and massive shifts in the tectonic plates of power, this mix is only likely to get more potent and more dangerous.

At the present there are some 74 conflicts in progress around the world, the overwhelming majority of which have occurred inside states or between ethnicities.[1] Some believe that what this tells us is that era inter state war is over – that these “little” brush fire, intra state wars of recent years, are the only wars there will be in the future – and that the age of great wars is passed.

I am not one of those – partly because there is so much dry tinder lying around and far too many firebrands; partly because interstate competition, especially in the developing world is not diminishing, it is increasing. And partly because the best structures for fighting wars, the most powerful ideologies for driving wars and the most destructive weapons for using in wars, still remain in the hands of nation states.

But all major conflicts are preceded by a period of instability. Indeed one way to look at the world’s present “little” wars is that they are the “pre-shocks” which always accompany major shifts in the established order. If we can control these better, by preventing them where we can, intervening more wisely where we have to and then reconstructing peace more successfully afterwards, we may make it easier to avoid a wider conflict.

We have shown that we are anything but good at this. We seem condemned to making and re-making, even the mistakes we know are mistakes, over and over again. The Iraq experience – and Afghanistan too – represent the triumph of hubris and amnesia over common sense. And in consequence, in both of those countries, we are now in grave danger of snatching a peace making defeat from of the jaws of a military victory.

But there is a deeper reason for our failures. The “gun boat” diplomacy approach to peace making isn’t working. If this were to lead to the end of intervention in the future it would be a tragedy, because we are going to need more of this, not less in an increasingly globalised and interdependent world. The fact that we have got it wrong so often should not blind us to the fact that there is a way of doing it right.

The things that have to be done to increase the chances of success – and things that should not be done because they can lead to failure – are not exactly rocket science and they are definitely not new – if only we could remember them long enough to apply them.

Avoid the conflict if you can – it will be much cheaper that way. But if conflict cannot be avoided, remember that it is not over when the fighting is finished. So, spend at least as much time and effort planning peace as you do in preparing for war; make sure your plan is based on a proper knowledge of the country and leave your ideologies and prejudices at home. It is a mistake to try to fashion someone else’s country in your own image; leave space for them to reconstruct the country they want, not the one you want for them. Remember that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression; so don’t lose the “golden hour” after the fighting is over – remember that an army of liberation has a very short half life before it risks becoming an army of occupation. Dominate the security space from the start; then concentrate first on the rule of law; make economic regeneration an early priority; remember the importance of articulating an “end state” which can win and maintain local support; but leave elections as late as you decently can. be sensitive to local traditions and customs. Understand the importance to the international community effort of co-ordination, cohesion and speaking with a single voice. And then at the end, do not wait until everything is as it would be in your country, but leave when the peace is sustainable.

And remember, foresight, which is the mother of prevention. There is no reason why the need to intervene should always take us by surprise. If the international community had put as much effort into prevention as we have into military intervention, some recent conflicts could have been avoided altogether.

Cohesion is the key. Multilateralism is better than unilateralism. Success can only come from a joined up approach which views the continuum of peace making as a “seamless garment” stretching from prevention, right through to the final exit of the interveners when a sustainable peace has been reconstructed.

To be successful needs more than good intentions and a warm desire to do something to help. Intervention is a very blunt instrument, whose outcomes are not always predictable.

So it is not for the faint hearted – or the easily bored. It needs steely toughness and strategic patience in equal measure. And a willingness to commit a lot of troops at the start, a capacity to provide sustained international support to the end and an ability to endure a time frame that is measured in decades, not years.

And the only reward, is that all that expenditure will be less than the cost of the war that was avoided, or the price of chaos which would have ensued if the international community had stayed at home.

What that means is that intervention should not be undertaken lightly or because no-one can think of anything better. Intervening has a tendency to make the interveners arrogant and those subject to intervention, either angry or dependent – and often both. Intervention should not be the first policy option. It should be the last answer, not the first instinct.

The bad news is that intervention is expensive, tough and difficult to do.

The good news is that, if we can learn to do it better, we will get our fingers burnt less often – and in the process may make the world a much safer and less painful place than it is at present.

1710 words.

[1] Heidelberg University Centre for the study of Conflicts annual report quoted in Pravda 22 May 2006

Dmitry Medvedev and New Iron Curtain 29 Sep 2012

Dmitry Medvedev and New Iron Curtain

“Do the Russians want war?” a Soviet-era song started. It went on o invite you to ask ordinary Russians – soldiers, workers, dock workers, fishermen, mothers, wives, sons of those who perished in the WW2 – whether they wanted war. The obvious answer was no.

Things may not be seem obvious today with a large number of Russians actually supporting the apparently warmongering mood of officials, as Russian tanks patrol Gori, and Sergey Ivanov describes the need for bombing in his perfect English accompanied by a wicked smile on BBC and CNN.

The unsophisticated Soviet-style propaganda heightened by hysteria on state-owned television broadcasts and billboards on the Moscow street that call for “Freedom of South Ossetia” and “you need it more than we do” statements with regard to WTO accession, might lead Europe and the US to believe that the Russians are their number three enemy and need to be punished for recent actions. Russian students with perfectly valid American visas are being turned away and sent back to Russia at US borders and there is talk of sanctions against Russians.

Is this the right strategy? Would sanctions against normal and civilised people help to resolve the conflict or even tone down official rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic ocean?

Although some would find it hard to believe, a significant proportion of the Russian people do not support anti-Georgian war, neither do they trust their leadership nor want to find themselves behind the freshly forged iron curtain. They believe in civilised values and are afraid of the new “Cold War” that many fear could result from the current conflict. While official sociological data may present overwhelming figures claiming all the Russians are as bloodthirsty as their leadership, the reality is more complex. Between large passive masses and an energised, but tiny opposition, there is a growing Russian middle class.

In May-June 2008 (two months before the war broke out,) the EU-Russia Centre undertook a study into the attitudes and feelings of well-off, educated urban citizens towards today’s Russia. We examined how the Russian middle classes perceive their country’s stability, security, rule of law and political process; we assessed their view of its place vis-a-vis Europe, its progress and problems; we posed certain behavioural choices in a variety of situations typical for Russia and its citizens; and, lastly, we considered their plans for the future.

While the study unveiled deep mistrust to the Western world with three quarters of respondents convinced that the West is likely to be hostile to a strong Russia, it also showed that less than half of Russia’s middle class believe in the much-vaunted stability of their country and of those over half see it as fragile, liable to change at any moment and under threat from a drop in oil prices or similar factors.

A central problem for the respondents is how to guarantee their own status, lifestyle, security of property and privacy. In many cases, this is so severe that many are considering leaving their homeland, or at the very least sending their children to be educated elsewhere. Half would consider moving abroad themselves – even if for a short period, (within the under 35 years group over 75% would consider emigrating). 63% want their children to gain experience an education abroad, while 35% would like to see their children live abroad permanently.

One cannot doubt that in the current situation, successful and well-educated middle class Russians are not feeling more stable or enthusiastic about their and their children’s future in Russia. It is not only them, but also international capital and managerial talent that is looking elsewhere, with RTS index at Moscow stock exchange falling following news first about Mechel, the war, and finally, Russia’s announcement of recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhasia independence.

These are all most recent examples of how over-reaction and the manipulation of Rule of Law has a tangible and damaging effect that will rob Russia of much-needed funding for its infrastructure as well as talent for its future development. It is important that the EU and the West speak with a single voice and insist that Russia must adhere to international law on Georgia. This is a matter, to of the rule of law. But we should remember that Georgia is not the only issue. There are other areas, too which offer a platform for discussions with Russia about the future shape of the relationship between the two blocs.

Does Mr. Medvedev want war? Hopefully not, as it will inevitably turn against his people and Russian future.

The Gas Crisis and the Opportunities for the EU 29 Sep 2012

The Gas Crisis and the Opportunities for the EU

For anyone following Russia’s increasingly assertive handling of its neighbours and business partners, Gazprom’s decision to turn off gas supplies to Europe should not come as much of a surprise. After all, Russia’s mammoth gas monopoly is in perpetual conflict with transit countries for its commodities, and Ukraine has faced the same very threat in the past years. However the European Union seems to have been unprepared for what was a predictable sequel to an old conflict.

To succeed in resolving this conflict and prevent future similar crises, the EU should change its paradigm in its perception of what Russian outward-looking economic policies stand for. In recent years the majority of European pundits have been favourable to the increasing state control over Russian industry and finance, as well as other strategic changes in Russia’s economy initiated by the former president (now prime minister) Vladimir Putin. In the conflict between the Kremlin authorities and the old-style oligarchs who controlled vast financial and industrial empires in the 1990s, the former were considered to bringing predictability and stability to the hectic Russian economic life, as opposed to the chaos and wilderness of oligarchy. The excessive wildness of the transition itself, as what is now called “looting of Yukos” by the Kremlin’s inner circle, appeared to many to be the inevitable price for restoring the order.

Subsequent developments proved to be disappointing to those who had believed Russia to be a responsible state governed by the rule of law. The new Russian economic order is now widely seen as corporatist, corrupt, short on both effectiveness and efficiency, and full of cronyism.

However the true picture is more complicated. The new Russian elite of so called siloviky (former secret service, law enforcement and military officers) may appear to be focused on only seeking financial gain, but this impression is flawed. Yes, they are greedy, and in their desire to ship their wealth out of Russia as fast as possible, rather than invest it in the country seem to be conceding that the good times cannot last for long. But they also still retain a vision of their country as a dominant regional superpower, and they challenge the European values with what they call Russian distinctiveness. In the Kremlin’s world it is logical to utilise economic advantages as political leverage, which is now seen as a softer version of the military face-off of the ‘90s. The present Russian leaders have both an enthusiasm and a propensity to politicise every issue at their first touch.

What this means is that, in its dealings with Russia, the EU has to find a way to deal, not with the objective facts of a situation but with economic pressure used as apolitical instrument, whenever Moscow feels it has the potential to convert trade into political advantage. In case where “Gazprom stands for Russia” there cannot be just a trade price dispute. What seems to be commercial wrestling turns out to be a geopolitical Big Game. The difference in prices for gas supplies to pro-Western Ukraine and the more conformable Belarus epitomises this geopolitical approach.

Yet still there are sufficient opportunities to outplay the offender. With a unified production and transportation system, Gazprom technically cannot easily survive any extended blockade of Ukraine and the 17 European consumer states that stand behind it. Mentally the Kremlin’s inner circle is not ready to sacrifice its own money for the sake of ensuring Russia’s political grandeur.

For Europe the successful strategy may be to create its own political leverage against Moscow’s gas truncheon. It is a historical fact that Europe has never talked to Russia with one firm voice, and if it were to do so it could have a staggering effect. The EU has a new president who is ready for this task – Czech president Vaclav Klaus is a politician who can tell the politically inconvenient truth. The Czech tradition of pragmatism and imperturbable common sense could help design an effective energy policy without excessive hype, arrogance or anti-Russian malice. But Prague will need help from Europe’s larger players, too, who by now ought to realise that the policy of exchanging chumminess with Moscow in return for gas from Gazprom has backfired painfully . The time to unite around a policy designed to match Moscows realpolitik, with our own if we are to succeed in securing Europe’s energy needs for the future.

Rio the New Statesman – Lord Paddy Ashdown, UNICEF UK President, 29 Sep 2012

Rio Summit New Statesman

The pros and cons of foreign aid have been subject to endless debate and it is difficult to engage in this without becoming mired in cliché and turning it into a shouting match. Newspaper front pages scream about the UK aid budget, while committed humanitarians fire back and dig in.

It is right and proper to debate such an important issue, especially at a time of economic hardship; but before tackling the practicalities and politics of aid we should take a step back and look at exactly what we are committing to.

Many believe as I do that providing long-term development aid is the moral thing to do. But we should also recognise that it is, from a practical point of view, the right thing to do.

The Jubilee celebrations sparked a wave of national pride and properly so. But one of the reasons we are ‘Great’ Britain is because of the international moral leadership we have shown on foreign aid. You know the quality of a country by its ability to help the most disadvantaged, and the Government is entirely right in saying that we shouldn’t balance our books on the backs of the poorest in the world. Compassion is part of the quality of a nation and I am very proud of the current commitment to meet our aid targets at a time of economic hardship at home.

The moral argument is clear. But there is also enlightened self-interest here.

People think armies give leadership and that guns and bombs supply power. They recognise less that our aid policy also increases our international influence. On my last visit to the UN in New York, the Secretary General went out of his way to stress the number of times he used Britain’s example to encourage other countries to fulfil their promises on aid, as we have done. ‘You have set the agenda’, he said, ‘and this has given your country great influence’.

At a time when the world order is changing dramatically with the rise of China, India and Brazil, the soft power and influence that a strong moral position on aid gives Britain should not be underestimated.

Critics of development aid are right however to attack aid that creates dependency. As the President of UNICEF UK and a politician I know that foreign aid needs to be a hand-up not a hand-out. In the long-term it needs to help develop trade and economies and help give people the opportunity to stand on their own two feet.

I have recently returned from Liberia where I saw just this type of aid in action. A population of just 4 million still bears the scars of a country where a vicious war has raged. UNICEF funds a remarkable cash transfer scheme for child headed households, which has so far helped 2,000 children. The agency gives out $60,000 a month in total, which equates to $25 a month for the most vulnerable children.

In families benefiting from the scheme, 97% took their child to a health centre when they were ill, 90% had increased food security and children in participating families were 2/3 less likely to be involved in child labour than children in similarly poor households.

Undoubtedly of course, Aid can only work in the long-term with good governance. If I could do one thing to support this it would be to create a new agency called ‘Auditors sans frontiéres – have double-entry ledger will travel!’ In my time in Bosnia I saw how accountants can get at corruption and root it out, putting in place the framework for accountable, open government. Leaders like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia need to be supported and the UK has a role in promoting good governance as part of its foreign aid programme.

But, development is working and aid has played a huge part in that. Globally, compared to 20 years ago 4 million less children will die this year, 3 million children have got the chance to go to school for the first time and 4 million more people have access to live saving drugs for HIV/AIDS.

Moreover, the right type of development aid does not only help countries grow and give children a better future but is also hugely important in helping to prevent great humanitarian crises. In the future, poverty and lack of access to resources will be one of the greatest drivers for conflict. Aid which lifts countries out of hopelessness and poverty is one of the best ways to prevent the conflicts of the future. If you think aid is expensive, just try war as an alternative. One of the things that has always puzzled me is why we are prepared to spend so much on fighting wars and yet so little on taking the steps that would have prevented them in the first place.

Last year is estimated to have been the most expensive year ever when it came to clearing up after disasters. Predictions show that the scale, frequency and severity of rapid onset humanitarian disasters will continue to grow in the coming years, and at an accelerating pace. And, as the Stern review noted, if climate change goes unchecked it could cause between an additional 60,000 and 250,000 child deaths in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Helping children prepare and adapt for climate change needs to be a major focus so we can prevent floods, droughts and hurricanes damaging the lives of children in some of the world’s poorest countries.

The best way to cope with future disasters is to use aid to build resilience in the countries which are most vulnerable. Acting ahead of the catastrophe, rather than responding to it afterwards – being ahead of events, not always trailing along behind them with emergency relief.

Aid isn’t perfect but neither are governments or people. Our moral stand on foreign aid is the right one for vulnerable children, the global economy and for shaping the type of world we want to live in. But in a world which is growing increasingly turbulent, increasingly interconnected and increasingly violent, helping others to break out of the cycle of poverty disease and hopelessness, is not only morally right, it is also in our own enlightened self-interest.

1039 Words

Remembering Richard Holbrook-m The Times 14 December 2012

The Times

Richard Holbrook

14 December

When the news of the death of Talleyrand’s old sparring partner, Prince Metternich, arrived in Paris in XXX XXX, he is said, famously to have asked “Now what can the old fox mean by that?”

The question which will be being asked after the death of one of our own age’s most significant diplomat, Richard Holbrook yesterday, will be “What an earth do we do now”

He was a very big man and not without flaws as diplomat. He had huge and at times even intimidating physical presence which he would often use, quite deliberately to bully others into acquiescence. If you were going to win Richard’s respect you had to show him you could stand up to him. Then he was a most wonderful ally and a most intelligent friend. A fellow diplomat once said to me about his iconic work to bring peace to the Bosnian wars “When Richard was about the sound of breaking bones was not far away”. It worked well in the Balkans – arguably less well in Afghanistan. I remember once having Richard and the recent French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner to dinner at my house in Sarajevo. Both were out of Government at the time and both clearly positioning themselves for a return after the coming election in their country. I asked them both to speculate on what the world might be like of Richard fulfilled his lifetime’s ambition of becoming US Secretary of State, and Bernard his, of becoming President of France. A furious and fascinating pyrotechnic display followed from both sides – though I remember concluding afterwards that it would be a world in which I would take some pains to ensure I was never far from my tin hat.

Richard Holbrook was above all a magnificent public servant for his country, from his very earliest days as a young Foreign Service officer in the Mekong Delta, through his life times triumph at the Dayton Peace Agreement, to serving, often uncomfortably I thought, under Hilary Clinton and President Obama in Afghanistan.

His greatest gifts were his clarity of mind, his sense of grand strategy and his ability to deploy power. I remember him telling me how he had fed false US intelligence to the Bosniaks about the strength of the Serbs at the end of the Bosnian war in order to bring the conflict to an end and create the conditions for peace. Subtlety was not in his armoury. But then, his heyday was during the years when America’s raw power was its most potent diplomatic attribute. This Richard used with huge skill and complete focus. He was a mover of pieces on the chess board when the world was mono-polar and all our compass needles, for or against, pointed at Washington. Palmerston would have understood very well where Richard Holbrook came from.

Richard was the ideal US diplomat when the US proposed and disposed in every corner of the world. Perhaps he found coping with the US’s new position in a multi-polar world, less congenial and less suitable to his skills. He seemed somehow like a great beast confined, in his recent role in Afghanistan, where he had all the right ideas (seeing more clearly and earlier than most the fact that a military solution was not possible and that therefore the military’s job was not to destroy the enemy, but create the conditions for a political peace) but was constantly hampered both by inter-Washington jealousies and by lack of the direct ability to influence things at the top in the way which he was used to.

Bosnia’s peace will be his greatest legacy. His legacy in Afghanistan is not without its critics – especially from those amongst the Afghans who found his forceful ways an assault on their sensitivities and those in the wider world for whom diplomacy in this part of the world is a matter of subtlety and manoeuvre not might. But he was correct about what needed to be done and right where others were wrong. Now everyone understands that a political peace, not a military victory, is the way out. If they had understood that earlier, things would be better.

When in due course the Afghan peace is assembled, based on reconciliation with the Taliban and a wider involvement of the neighbours, it will be the kind of peace Richard worked for.

America has lost a great public servant, albeit one more suited, perhaps to a different age. Those who knew him well, have lost a wonderful, congenial, loyal and intensely engaging friend. And I an age too full of smaller figures, we have all lost a really big one.

Remembering Srebrenica 24 June 2015

There were many many terrible deeds in the three years of war which devastated Bosnia and Herzegovina. I know because I witnessed some of them and saw the aftermath of many, many more.

But the greatest atrocity was the genocide at Srebrenica, which was, at once, the worst crime to happen on European soil since the Second World War and the signature horror representing all the horrors suffered by the Bosnian people.

Nothing can diminish the culpability of those who perpetrated this genocide. But, in condemning this evil, it is also right to acknowledge our passive complicity, as members of the international community for what happened in the UN “Safe Haven” of Srebrenica. We could have prevented this horror – but we chose not to.

Whether through error, misjudgement, an inability to comprehend, or just inattention, we stood aside when we should not have done. We should therefore remember Srebrenica, not just to bear witness to those who suffered, but also as a warning to us all of what happens when we turn our back.

The 8,000 gravestones in Srebrenica which mark the last resting place of those who were murdered, are also signposts that tell us of the consequences which can ensue when we fail to be vigilant against hatred and intolerance, even in our own societies. They oblige every one of us to be active, not passive in defending the universal values which are not the possession of any single religion or race, but are rather the common property of all humanity.

Remembering these painful truths about the past and acknowledging our own failures at the time, is the key to our shared quest for a better and more tolerant world in the future.

That is the best memorial to those who were killed at Srebrenica and the best commitment we can make to those who suffer still from of its aftermath.

Refugees The Guardian 8 Sep 2015

The Guardian 8 Sep 2015

Mr Cameron has highly developed skills in the political art of following where he should be leading. And so, after an excruciating few days having to endure being taught a lesson in compassion decency and political leadership by Angela Merkel – and sensing himself behind opinion again – he has produced “a plan to help the refugees”. But it is calibrated more by political expediency, than compassion.

And now he tells us that the answer to the problem is more bombing. But if the best part of two years of bombing with more than enough high explosive hasn’t solved this problem, how would Britain’s widow’s mite of a few extra bombs help?

First Cameron’s refugee “plan”.

Consider this. Mr Cameron choses to help those who are already housed and fed, not comfortably but safely, in refugee camps outside Europe, rather than those who suffer (and die too) for want of these inside Europe. Could it be that the toxic term here is not “suffering”, but “inside Europe”, because of the effect these words have on his back-bench Europhobes? If so then – irony of ironies – the desperate and the destitute tramping towards us on the dusty roads of the Balkans are hostages to Mr Cameron’s head-bangers – just as he is.

Consider also this. This is a Government policy costing, I suppose, several millions. How then do we measure its success? Not by assuaging the suffering of those currently fleeing from the Syrian battlefields, obviously – for it is in no way aimed at them. By its effect on reducing the number fleeing, then? But it won’t do that either.

Then consider this. Mr Cameron tells thus that NOT helping those in flimsy boats struggling to Europe will reduce the temptation for others to take this “lethal Journey”. This is exactly the same inhuman logic that Government Ministers gave us last Christmas when they insisted (albeit at Europe’s behest) that not saving drowning refugees in the Mediterranean was the best way to stop others following them. Hundreds had to drown before we finally saw that this immoral policy didn’t work. Do we really have to learn that lesson again? Mr Cameron seems to believe that being an asylum seeker is like going to the theatre – one only does it if one has a ticket for a seat. But fleeing for your family’s life, you will take any risk. You are not going to stay to die, because there may not be a comfortable bed in a place you can be safe.

But surely, the Government argues, shouldn’t we be discouraging the people smugglers? Of course we should. So attack the people smugglers directly, not their poor powerless clients.

Finally, consider this. We in Britain have a refugee problem as well – 3,000 of them throwing themselves at the gates of the Channel Tunnel. Whether that is a large number or a small one, measured against the 1.5 million in Turkey, or the 800,000 who will be accepted by Germany or the 68,500 who settled in France last year, depends on your point of view. But one thing is common to all these figures. The refugee problem is Europe-wide and can only be solved by a Europe-wide solution – our own British refugee “problem”, too. Yet Mr Cameron rejects any smell of a European solution (see above). And in doing so he undermines our national interest, makes solving our refugee “problem” harder, damages his own bargaining power with Europe and betrays the quality of compassion which is one of our true national characteristics, just as he does our age old, proud record as a nation of generosity to those in need.

Mr Cameron is a decent man. But he is also a deeply political one and in his “plan” announced yesterday, the politics has trumped the decency. This is not a strategy to give succour, it is a fig leaf to cover nakedness.

The public are ahead of the politicians in this – as they were on intervention in Bosnia. And so, in our myopia (or rather the Government’s) we fail to see what the cheering welcomers of Germany see so clearly. Those fleeing the Syrian battle-field are not “economic migrants” – they are, in large measure, the educated middle class (have you noted how many speak English?). They are the Ugandan Asians of our day. Remember how much they did for our country?

This is not to pretend that solving this refugee crisis is easy. It isn’t. It is excruciatingly difficult. The more so because it is not going away. The numbers we now see fleeing conflict ,will be dwarfed by the population movements we will see as global warming takes hold. But if this has to be so, then let it be done thoughtfully, within a Europe-wide context, and in a way consistent with our principles of free movement, decency and humanity. Not by spatchcock policies dreamt up on a Friday afternoon to cover political embarrassment.

And now to back a “refugee” plan that isn’t going to work. Mr Cameron wants us to get involved in a military plan which isn’t working either. Military strikes against ISIL are failing, not because we do not have enough high explosive, but because we do not have a diplomatic strategy which makes sense of the military action. The so-called “Coalition” waging the bombing campaign is too small, too Sunni and too Western. This is increasing the danger of a widening Sunni/Shia regional war in which the West is drawn into one side and Russia the other (as we have recently seen). The new rapprochement with Tehran offers us new possibilities to build a wider coalition which spans the Sunni/Shia divide in a way which strangles ISIL, and creates a better context in which military force makes sense. This is a framework into which Russia, with their own Sunni Jihadist problems, could be drawn too. ISIL will not be defeated by killing more Arab Muslims with more Western high explosive. What is needed here is more clever diplomacy not more pointless bombing – and that is where Britain should be putting its effort and taking the lead.

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Re-Alignment – Sunday Times 3 July 2016

Sunday Times 3 July 2016

A prayer attributed to a medieval cleric goes: “Lord, things are serious. This time please come yourself, this is no job for a boy”.

A people’s revolution lays waste to all previous European certainties. The sound of the tumbrils echoes round Westminster. One of the two Party leaders-of-state has been beheaded and the other is being led to the gallows by his mutinous Captains. Les Misérables march on Westminster behind a bunch of squabbling would-be leaders, who, beyond Brexit, agree on nothing and hate each other with a passion.. This is one of those revolutions which will end up devouring its children – as well as many innocent others along the way.

What on earth that is good, can be dragged out of this unholy mess?

Actually there is something, if we on the modern progressive wing of politics, now play our cards cannily.

First a bit of analysis, then a short proposition.

Many of the great changes in British politics did not come through political Parties, but through people’s movements which re-shaped political Parties. Think the huge public meetings which led to the Great Reform Act; think the Trades Union Movement which gave birth to Labour; think of the Suffragets, think the Gay Rights movement; think potentially last Thursday which looks as though it will now break both the Tories and Labour.

The new phenomenon of our time is the populist reverse take-over of political Parties. Trump did it to the Republicans, the hard left did it to Corbin’s Labour Party and the Brexiteers are about to do it to the Tories.

At one level all this is healthy and natural. Given the retreat of our political classes from the battleground of principle to the politics of managerialism; given the disconnect that has grown up between politics and people, some kind of convulsion was inevitable. But why does it always have to be a convulsion for something more ugly, more divisive, more xenophobic and more dangerous. Why is there never a convulsion for something better, instead?

One big recent event points to the possibility of a movement for better things, rather than worse ones. The huge public outcry which which erupted after the killing of Jo Cox seemed to hint that what people felt was murdered that day was not just a remarkable person, but also their own cherished ideas and values.

The present 3.5 million strong petition for another referendum may not succeed. But it is a powerful expression of public hunger, beyond political Parties, to find a way to fix the mess they think (me too) we have created for ourselves.

And so we have arrived at a most intriguing situation. The two great Parties-of-state who have dominated our politics for a hundred years, are no longer able to contain the opinions within them. With both spinning away to the extremes, what happens to the homeless millions – in politics and outside – who now have nowhere to go with their views and their votes? There is my wonderful Lib Dems of course. But we were set back hugely at the last election and it will take time to get back where we were, and the next General Election may only be months away

One of the barriers standing in the way of something more sensible is the political party itself. Look at a business model which does not take into account the new technologies and you see a model that is on its way to failure. Though all our Parties enthusiastically use the new technologies to communicate with the electorate, none use them either in their internal structures or propose them in the external practices of our politics.

And so engagement in Political Parties remains the preserve of the fanatic, in the case of the Tories, supplemented by the geriatric. The Lib Dems don’t do fanatic – more’s the pity.

The political Party and the political movement have become separated. We need to bring them back together again by widening access and lowering the cost of engagement. One model is the Five Star movement in Italy (but not its politics). Internet based, low membership fee, much more direct democracy. There are dangers here, not least of entryism and take overs. But are they really less than the dangers of the organisational collapse of political Parties which have become little more than clubs for the few, instead of voices for the many?

And while we are on the subject of the new technologies, is there anything more ridiculous than modern men and women doing their tax returns on line, manage their bank accounts on line and see their Doctor on line, but having to struggle through the wind and rain to a damp Church Hall to cast their vote with a stubby pencil scratching a cross on a scrap of paper?

I am not suggesting that all political parties follow the Five Star model. They won’t either easily, or soon enough.

And I am not suggesting forming one either. We’ll have to make do with what we have for the moment. But what about creating a space – a kind of virtual town hall meetings like those which led to the Great Reform Act – where those from any Party and none who hold modern progressive views – those epitomised by Jo Cox – can gather to find the means to defend what is decent and call for something better than the politics of extremism and xenophobia. It would only be a start. But with a General Election perhaps soon, who knows where a start could lead.

We would have to put aside the instinct in troubled times to seek refuge in the bosom of our own tribes.

But is that such a price to pay when, in the words of Jo Cox, there is so much more that unites us, than divides us?

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Public Servant Article April 2012

Public Servant article

Over the past few months, the nature of the new security challenges we face has been clearly highlighted by the rapid global spread of the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ pandemic. Experts have warned that several million people across the UK may be affected by the virus, with some scientists predicting that in a worst case scenario, as many as 1 in 200 people who contract the disease may go on to die. The ripple effects of an epidemic of this magnitude would be considerable: beyond the serious costs in terms of human life, large numbers of schools would be forced to close, and severe pressure would be put on hospitals, local GP surgeries, transport networks and other vital public services.

It is important to keep this threat in perspective. Concerted action on the part of government, the emergency services and the NHS has meant that the UK is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than ever before, and there are sophisticated contingency plans in place to cope with the social and economic disruption that would result. But questions remain about how well equipped we are to deliver on these plans at all levels, from the international right down to the local.

This speaks to a wider problem with the government’s current approach to national security, which has not adapted quickly enough to keep up with the profound changes in the international security landscape that have taken place since the end of the Cold War. In a world where climate change poses arguably a greater threat to our long-term security than terrorism or war, the protection of our country can no longer be left solely in the hands of the Ministry of Defence. It now requires all government departments to coordinate their activities much more effectively, and to move away from the stovepiped structures that inhibit the development of an integrated and strategic approach.

It also requires a fundamental change in the way that we think about national security. Henceforth, policymaking must encompass global, regional, national and local domains and better understand the roles that civil society, business, local communities, frontline professionals and citizens can play in delivering a secure United Kingdom. Our capacity to network UK government effort across these levels of action and with this wider range of actors will be crucial in meeting the complex challenges ahead.

At the end of June, the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) published Shared Responsibilities: A National Security Strategy for the UK, the final report of its two-year independent, all-party Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. Lying at the heart of this report is the conviction that for a positive influence to be exerted over the modern security environment, action must be distributed, coordinated and legitimate. Distributed in the sense that many different actors need to be involved in addressing the security challenges we face; coordinated in that they need to be made to pull in the same direction towards the same ends; and legitimate in that they need to be, and be seen to be, both legal and ethical.

This analysis has significant implications in terms of the government’s relationship with public service providers, for we would argue that to build a distributed response internally in the UK, and to deal particularly with challenges related to resilience, counter-radicalisation and counter-terrorism at home, central government must do more to share knowledge, power and resources with local government and the communities it serves.

For example, in the context of our national response to emergencies such as pandemic disease or extreme weather events, the Commission calls on both central and local government authorities to enhance and coordinate their efforts to assist communities in understanding risk-oriented decision-making processes and outcomes and enable them to access funding to build community level schemes, local networks and capacity to contribute to resilience on the ground. We would also encourage Local and Regional Resilience Forums to review how they might benefit from further third sector involvement, what relevant training they could facilitate for interested individuals and voluntary and community sector organisations, and how they could more widely consult on and disseminate their emergency plans.

Turning to the critical roles played by local government and community-level organisations in the national counter-terrorism effort, the Commission also believes that more should be done to push power and responsibility for preventive action down and out to these actors, which would involve moving from a ‘need to know’ approach to a ‘responsibility to provide’ mentality. In practical terms, this would mean sharing more sanitised information and intelligence products with Local Authority Chief Executives, Council Leaders and Police Borough Commanders regarding perceived vulnerabilities to radicalisation in their respective areas.

We also recommend that good practice on the prevention of terrorism nationally should be shared more widely: it is currently concentrated in only a small number of Local Authorities, usually those that have experienced terrorist or counter-terrorist activity directly, and the lessons learned need to be applied across the board.

A more broadly-based, joined up and inclusive national security strategy is needed. Public servants and the public they serve have key roles to play in its design and delivery.

“What will the world look like in the Obama era?” Private Banking Magazine 6 Nov 2009

“What will the world look like in the Obama era?”

Article for Private Banking Magazine

6 Nov 20-09

Three factors make the years ahead completely different from those of the last century and will force us to think in a completely different way about the world around us and what we have to do to prosper in it.

The first of these factors is not unique. But it is not going to be any more comfortable for that.

We are on the edge of one of those periods of history when the pattern of world power changes and a new order begins to emerge. And these are, almost always difficult times for the weak, tough for those whose power is waning and usually turbulent for almost everyone.

This economic recession is not like any other we have recently experienced. We will not, this time plummet down and then bounce back comfortably to where we were, before it all started. This is about something much deeper. Underneath the tectonic plates of global power are shifting. And when it is over we in the Western nations will, relatively speaking, be weaker and those in the Eastern nations, especially China will be stronger.

I am not saying that the rise of nations like China will be smooth or comfortable for them either. Beijing is trying to do something very difficult and, in a Chinese context, very dangerous, too. Their economy may be largely liberalised. But their society is not. And my guess is as they begin to loose the bonds of their old communist structures in favour of a freer society, as they must, there will be considerable turbulence in China too.

But, though this may alter the time scale and manner of China’s rise, it will not, I think, change the basic fact that great power status is her ultimate destination.

Nor do I agree with some of my more left wing friends who tell me that we are seeing the end of American power in the world.

The symptoms of decline in nations, as in humans are scleroticism, institutional arthritis and resistance to change. And the United States shows none of these – as the still remarkable election of Barrack Obama very clearly shows. I do not think that we have seen the end of the American century yet.

But, though the United State’s position as the world’s pre-eminent power, is not likely to change soon, the CONTEXT in which she holds that position is now certain to.

We are no longer looking at a world dominated by single super power. The growth of new power centres means the emergence of a much more multi polar world – one which will look much more like Europe in the nineteenth century than what we have seen over the second half of the twentieth.

And this will have a number of important consequences.

One will be a rise in regional groupings – of which history may say the EU was the first albeit highly imperfect, example.

Second and linked will be an increase in protectionism and probably a reversal of the movement towards free trade of the last half century – with all the implications that carries for a destructive period of beggar my neighbour economic policies.

The third implication of this new pattern of world power, is for us in Europe.

In such a multi sided world the eyes of the US are likely to be just as much, west across the Pacific as east across the Atlantic. The Atlantic relationship will not have the unique importance as a lynch pin for all other policies, as it has had over the last half century. The US security guarantee, under which we in Europe have sheltered since World War Two and which has given many the opportunity to take a free ride on Uncle Sam for their national security, no longer exists. There is hardly an American soldier left in Europe, beyond those whose purpose is not our protection, but the servicing of their operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My guess is that Europe will be less important to every future US president, including Barrack Hussein Obama, than we have been to every past one, including George W Bush.

In future we are likely to be judged by Washington, not on the basis of emotion and history, but on a rather more brutal appraisal of what we can deliver when it comes to pursuing our joint interests – and here the answer is not much, if Afghanistan is anything to go by.

The United States is increasingly going to have interests in the world which do not always coincide with those of Europe. And Europe is going to have interests which do not always coincide with those of Washington. For Europeans this will mean having a rather more sophisticated foreign policy in the future, than simply hanging onto the apron strings of our friendly neighbourhood super power, as we have in the past.

And things are more threatening for us elsewhere, too. We now have an increasingly assertive Russia, prepared to use the lever of energy, skilful at dividing and ruling, asserting the old Brezhnev doctrine of spheres of interest and backing it with military force when the opportunity arises. And beyond that we have a rising China and increasing economic power in the East.

If we Europeans do not realise that the right reaction to these new circumstances, is to deepen the integration of our institutions, especially those of defence, foreign affairs and economic policy, then we are fools and the next few decades are going to be much more painful than they need to be.

The last and arguably most important consequence of this new shape to world power is this; we are reaching the beginning of the end of perhaps six centuries of the domination of Western power, Western institutions and Western values, over world affairs. If we want to get things done, such as re-designing the world economic order, or intervening for peace, we cannot any longer just do them within the cosy Atlantic club; we are going to have to find new allies in places we would never previously have thought of. And they will probably prove less congenial and more demanding than we find it comfortable to cope with.

Iraq and Afghanistan may well be the last interventions we attempt depending on Western power alone. In future, if we cannot find wider partners for these affairs we will probably not be able to do them.

The global financial crisis has made it very plain. If we want a more ordered world at a time of great instability, we are going to have to provide a space at the top tables for nations that do not share our culture, our history, our world view or even, in many cases, our values.

This is going to be uncomfortable, even painful.

We are going to have to accept deals we would have hitherto have found completely unpalatable.

I suspect it will not be long before we look back at the deal we spurned when the Dohar trade talks failed, with the chagrin that comes with the realisation that this was an opportunity lost and we are not going to get anything as good again.

The second factor which is likely to make these the times to try men’s souls, is that, we are seeing a double shift of power.

Power is now not just shifting laterally from West to East; it is shifting vertically, too. Power is now migrating out of the structures of the nation state, which we created to hold it to account and make it subject to regulation and the rule of law, and into the global space, where the instruments of regulation are few and the framework of law is weak.

There is a rule of history. Where power goes, governance must follow. And if it doesn’t chaos, conflict and turbulence are the consequences.

What makes this even more urgent – even more dangerous – is that it is not just power that has been globalised; problems have too. The truth which our politicians in Westminster refuse to acknowledge and our old institutions can find no way to cope with, is that there is now almost no problem which affects our citizens well being or our nation’s future, which can be solved within the nation state or by its institutions acting alone; not our ability to protect ourselves; not our the cleanliness of our environment; not our capacity to tackle global warming; not our health; not our jobs; not our mortgages.

All of these and more now depend, not on the actions of our governments, but on their ability to work with others within a set of institutions which are global in scope and international in character.

The problem is, as the global financial crisis has showed and the issue of global warming showed before it, we have neither the institutions nor the political leadership to do this.

If one of the key phenomena of our time is the globalisation of power, then one of the key challenges of our time is to bring governance to the global space. And I suspect that this will be achieved more through treaty based institutions, such as Kyoto, the G20 and the WTO, than through a further spawning of UN based institutions.

Meanwhile we have a third factor to cope with which is now shaping this age in a way which is different in scale from anything we have ever seen before. Our increasing global interdependence.

Of course nations have always been connected. But today’s interdependence is of a completely different order. Nations today are not just linked by trade, commerce and diplomacy, they are intimately interlocked in almost every aspect of our daily lives.

An outbreak of swine flu in Mexico affects becomes relevant to our health in Britain, mere hours later.

The collapse of Lehman brothers sets in train a domino effect across the entire global economy in days.

The revelation of 9/11, is the revelation of our time.

That, to paraphrase John Donne, every man’s conflict affecteth me.

Even if you are the most powerful nation on earth, the consequence of ignoring what is happening in a far away country of which you know little and care less, can be death and horror one bright September day in one of your most iconic of cities.

One of the primary revelations of our age is that, today everything is connected to everything.

Which means that, in the modern age, the most important part of what you can do, is what you can do with others.

The key part of modern structures is not their internal order, but their external docking points.

It is not the effectiveness of the hierarchies which matters most, but the efficiency of the interconnectors.

And if you want to see the price of failing to understand that, you need look no further than Afghanistan. Here the chief reason for the fact that we are losing, lies, not in the ineffectiveness of the Afghan Government who we love to blame, but in our own complete failure to have any co-ordinated international plan; in our inability to work together between the nations of the coalition to a single international plan enacted with unity of execution and purpose.

The age when even the most powerful can expect success if they choose to at act unilaterally, is over. In the new multi-polar world which we entering, nations will raise the chances of success in their enterprises to the extent that they can make them multilateral and raise their chances of failure, if they are unable to do this.

There are going to be difficult times ahead. But they should not be impossible one, if our leaders, in politics and in business, can learn a new way of thinking. But the question is, can they ?

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