http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/rss/17 This feed contains all new International Affairs articles on the Chatham House website. http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2342/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2342/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:50:22 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2341/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2341/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:49:28 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2340/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2340/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:48:04 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2339/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2339/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:46:26 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2338/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2338/ European security depends on the effective collaboration of the five major powers; it will be undermined by the extension of NATO, a policy driven by US domestic politics. The main threats to security are: the breakdown of political and economic stability; unintended nuclear proliferation and/or failure of the START process; Russia's evolving political and territorial aspirations. All three will remain marginal as long as Russia is constructively engaged with the West. NATO expansion threatens that engagement. It is seen by all strands of Russian opinion as violating the bargain struck in 1990 and will likely lead to the withdrawal of cooperation. Invitations to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic cannot be rescinded, but the consequences can be mitigated by refraining from integrating them into NATO's military structure, by ceasing to insist that NATO membership is open to all, and by perpetuating the de facto nuclear-weapons-free zone that presently exists in Central and Eastern Europe. Britain's stance could be pivotal. With an introduction by Michael Clarke. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:44:25 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2337/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2337/ This review article centres on Abu Ghraib, and in particular the images of Abu Ghraib as deployed in Standard operating procedure (2008), the film by Errol Morris and the book by Philip Gourevitch. The article probes the meaning of the images and the circumstances of their creation. It asks, inter alia, what do we know of the soldier-photographers (or photographer-perpetrators) who took them? What do we know of Abu Ghraib? And how are we to understand what happened there? Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:40:49 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2336/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2336/ Historians, like politicians, need to find a language and frame of reference to connect with their audience or readership. In the current US presidential campaign the candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are offering the voters a bridge between the troubled past and a more hopeful future. The works under consideration in this review article employ a similar method. All the authors share the widely held view of the broad shape of US foreign relations since the Second World War, in particular the ideological struggle with the Soviet Union known as the Cold War followed by the more amorphous attempt to maintain American primacy, which has characterized the last two decades. Throughout this longer period the processes and goals of US foreign policy have been controversial: there has not, of course, been complete consensus. One topic which was and remains debated is the role and value of individuals, either high-level politicians or senior diplomats, in the conduct of foreign policy. Another area of debate, often fierce argument, is the impact of domestic forces upon policy-making. In the present case the leading example is provided by the amalgam of influences which determine US policy towards that nexus of competing interests often optimistically short-handed as the Arab-Israeli peace process. One link between these two topics is the role of the US in multilateral bodies; and American actions within the United Nations and towards other international organizations are also examined. These and other related issues are contextualized geographically through an examination of American policies in the Greater Middle East, in particular the predominantly Muslim states which stretch eastwards from Egypt to India. While not providing a partisan political programme for the incoming president to follow, the collective message of these texts offers guidelines, even injunctions for the future conduct of US foreign policy. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:38:44 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2335/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2335/ The Ahtisaari comprehensive proposal for a settlement of the status of Kosovo met with deadlock in the UN Security Council. It would neither be endorsed nor imposed upon the parties. In view of that position, a new round of negotiations, conducted by the EU, Russia and the US, was launched over a period of 120 days. During these discussions, Serbia's President Boris Tadic revealed a significant measure of flexibility when putting forwards options for wide-ranging self-government for Kosovo. However, these forward-looking positions were undermined by a less advanced proposal emanating from other parts of the Belgrade government, including the Prime Minister. Moreover, the Serbian parliament sought to preempt developments by unilaterally adopting its own constitutional amendments relating to Kosovo, further undermining the credibility of Serbia's position at the international level. However, it could be argued that had Belgrade been willing to begin the previous round of negotiations let by Martti Ahtisaari with the advanced offers it was putting at the very end of the process, a different outcome might have resulted. Such action might have put pressure on western governments to impose an advanced autonomy settlement on Kosovo, rather than putting Belgrade under pressure to accept the Ahtisaari plan. In the end, Kosovo's independence was unilateral in two senses. On the one hand, Kosovo declared independence without the benefit of agreement from Belgrade or cover from the UN Security Council. On the other hand, Kosovo unilaterally accepted the provisions emanating from the Ahtisaari talks. These concessions had been made in the expectation that agreed independence would be forthcoming in return. Belgrade was therefore able to oppose independence and work against its consolidation, while profiting from Kosovo's agreement to the plan it had rejected. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:33:57 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2334/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2334/ Rising economies including China, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Korea, India, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are subtly changing the rules of foreign aid with profound consequences for the role of multilateral institutions and conditionality. Fears abound that this new aid is bolstering rogue states, fuelling corruption, and increasing the debt burdens of poor countries. This article critically assesses these arguments before dissecting the attractions of emerging donors' aid against a background of established donors' failure to deliver on promises to increase aid, reduce conditionality, better coordinate and align aid efforts, and reform the aid architecture. It argues that a silent revolution is taking place whereby the emerging donors are not overtly attempting to overturn the rules of multilateral development assistance, nor to replace them. Rather, by quietly offering alternatives to aid-receiving countries, they are weakening the bargaining position of western donors. The resulting tensions underscore the urgency of reforming the multilateral aid system. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:30:21 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2333/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2333/ Soaring oil prices since the early 2000s have led to a historic transformation of wealth from consuming regions to major oil exporters. In recent years many of these exporters have set up oil funds to utilize their massive and growing oil revenues. These funds are divided into two categories-stabilizing and saving. Their large investments in western markets have raised concerns that they might be driven by political and strategic interests rather than commercial ones. This article examines oil funds in the Persian Gulf, Norway and Russia. It discusses US and European proposals to regulate oil funds' investments. The article examines the International Monetary Fund's efforts to forge a consensus on a 'code of conduct' that would guide the relationship between oil funds and the recipient markets. The analysis argues against excessive regulation. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:26:47 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2332/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2332/ After a decade of relative neglect post-Soviet Central Asia has become a foreign policy priority for the transatlantic community. Both the United States and Europe have engaged with the region in recent years in pursuit of new strategic interests, including maintaining military basing access in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan and securing the export of Central Asian oil and gas to the West. Despite this period of renewed engagement, however, the quality of democratic governance within the region remains poor, especially in comparison with other post-communist regions that successfully completed their political transitions. In fact, the United States and the European Union have often tempered promoting their Central Asian democratization agendas in order to maintain access to these strategically important fixed assets. The transatlantic struggle to balance the pursuit of strategic interests and democratic values has been rendered more difficult by Russia's recent resurgence as a regional power. Backed by the Central Asian governments, Moscow has challenged the purpose and influence of western-based international and non-governmental organizations in the region, thereby further diminishing the transatlantic community's capacity to promote sustained democratic reforms. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:24:23 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2331/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2331/ Russia's military incursion into Georgia in August 2008 and formal recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia raise fundamental questions about Russian regional policy, strategic objectives and attitudes to the use of armed force. The spectacle of maneouvre warfare on the periphery of Europe could form a watershed in post-Cold War Russian relations with its neighbourhood and the wider international community. The speed and scale with which Russia's initial 'defensive' intervention to 'coerce Georgia to peace' led to a broad occupation of many Georgian regions focuses attention on the motivations behind Russian military preparations for war and the political gains Moscow expected from such a broad offensive. Russia has failed to advance a convincing legal case for its operations and its 'peace operations' discourse has been essentially rhetorical. Some Russian goals may be inferred: the creation of military protectorates in South Ossetia and Abkhazia; inducing Georgian compliance, especially to block its path towards NATO; and creating a climate of uncertainty over energy routes in the South Caucasus. Moscow's warning that it will defend its 'citizens' (nationals) at all costs broadens the scope of concerns to Russia's other neighbour states, especially Ukraine. Yet an overreaction to alarmist scenarios of a new era of coercive diplomacy may only encourage Russian insistence that its status, that of an aspirant global power, be respected. This will continue to be fuelled by internal political and psychological considerations in Russia. Careful attention will need to be given to the role Russia attributes to military power in pursuing its revisionist stance in the international system. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:20:50 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2330/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2330/ The downturn in relations between the UK and the US under the premiership of Gordon Brown presents an interesting opportunity to analyse the nature of the relationship between the two states. Brown's policy of creating distance between his approach and that of his predecessor, Tony Blair, and between himself and President Bush, offers a case-study in whether it is possible to be cool towards an incumbent leader while remaining close to the state he leads. In other words: is it feasible to be anti-Bush and pro-American? It also provides an opportunity to analyse the role of political timing in inter-state relations. By appearing driven by reaction to the events of 2003 despite taking office in 2007, Brown put himself out of step with the prevailing mood of the time. By also acting as if the Bush administration was a lame duck counting out its time to retirement in 2009, Brown allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred in his bid for America's attention by the conciliatorily pro-American new leaders of France and Germany. By acting as if the Bush administration is a political interregnum, the Brown government has invited the United States to treat his own administration the same way. The result is a dual interregnum in UK-US relations, with each incumbent leader awaiting the political demise of the other before better relations can be resumed. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:16:38 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2329/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2329/ For the last two decades the US has pursued what some analysts have called the 'fantastical idea' of military transformation that would enable the US to change the very nature of war. Known as the 'revolution in military affairs', this process would use technology to provide the US with battlefield dominance that no opponent could overcome. Motivated by the politics of the Cold War, however, this exit from reality has proved less than effective in what has become known as the 'war on terror'. The US has been pulled into nasty, 'small' wars, against enemies utilizing asymmetric tactics. The Bush administration has tried to destroy these groups through the use of military force, failing, or even worse refusing, to recognize that these enemies feed off the economical, political and social rot of weak and failing states. For the last eight years the US government has addressed the symptoms of a problem rather than the actual disease. If America wants to make serious progress with the most pressing national security risks, the next American president must enact a revolution in foreign affairs that sees a massive overhaul and substantial investment in the State Department and USAID. A critical mass of research exists to illustrate the links between development and security-it is time Washington gets serious and embraces a conception of security that is more holistic, and ultimately, more effective. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:09:18 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2328/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2328/ The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush's unpopularity at home and abroad and the looming threat of recession would have made a gripping drama of the 2008 presidential election campaign even without the ground-breaking emergence of the first credible black and female candidates for the White House. But the defeat of the Democratic establishment's front-runner, Hillary Clinton, by a little-known freshman Senator of mixed ancestry suggested that this was to be the year of the insurgent, just as the Republicans rallied to the least loyal and most contentious of their candidates, the maverick Senator John McCain. The extraordinarily attractive and articulate Senator Barack Obama re-wrote the rule book on winning primaries and caucuses with the help of Silicon Valley and an unprecedented turnout among black and young voters, before veering sharply to the centre once the nomination was secured. Orthodoxy returned at the conventions, with Obama picking a safe centrist as running mate and McCain choosing a Christian conservative, although generating great excitement by nominating a woman and undermining the usual democrat advantage among female voters. And for all the talk of a 'new politics', the year of the insurgents came down at the end, as US elections usually do, to a handful of swing states and the money and organization to win them. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:05:30 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2327/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2327/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:54:26 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2326/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2326/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:53:01 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2325/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2325/ Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:50:42 +0000 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2324/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2324/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:55:15 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2323/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2323/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:53:30 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2322/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2322/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:51:38 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2321/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2321/ In his important new book National responsibility and global justice, David Miller presents a systematic challenge to existing theories of global justice. In particular, he argues that cosmopolitan egalitarianism must be rejected. Such views, Miller maintains, would place unacceptable burdens on the most productive political communities, undermine national self-determination, and disincentivize political communities from taking responsibility for their fate. They are also impracticable and quite unrealistic, at least under present conditions. Miller offers an alternative account that conceives global justice in terms of a minimum set of basic rights that belong to human beings everywhere. Primary responsibility for securing such rights for an individual lies with his or her state, but in so far as these rights go unprotected, responsibilities for fulfilling them may fall on outsiders. While less ambitious that cosmopolitan egalitarian justice, Miller argues that his own view would nevertheless enable us to articulate what is most morally objectionable about our current world. In this article it is argued that none of Miller's critiques of cosmopolitan egalitarianism is effective, and that while certainly preferable to the status quo, a world governed by Miller's principles is not an attractive ideal. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:50:04 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2320/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2320/ The recent publications of memoirs by former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J Feith have reopened the debate over the origins of the Iraq War. Both men- who were widely blamed for the 'intelligence failure' on weapons of mass destruction and the exaggerated connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq-purport to set the record straight about what really happened inside the Bush administration during the run-up to the war. Yet, both men have actually produced books marked by a strange combination of self-pity and disingenuousness. This article looks at their attempts at self-justification in light of the growing evidence that the decision to invade was made in mid-2002; if true, their arguments that they were participating in a genuine policy debate rather than a search for a rationale become problematic. Rather than exculpating themselves, their memoirs instead serve as damning indictments of both men, showing how Tenet and Feith enabled the President's decision to wage war on Iraq as a matter of choice rather than necessity. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:46:53 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2319/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2319/ This article examines the justifications made for war by President Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq, cataloguing all the administration's statements that justify or support these wars. These discourses reveal a radical departure from the post-1990 trend of United States presidents, with international law and human rights being almost absent. The justifications point to a hegemonic US attempting to establish itself as the guarantor and provider of freedom and peace, attempting to establish a hierarchically structured international society. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:44:08 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2318/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2318/ This article evaluates recent literatures within International Relations on so-called 'private force'. It suggests that the conceptual weaknesses of much of this literature can be accounted for, in part, by a misunderstanding of the historical and sociological importance of the way power is organized and legitimated through shifts in the public-private distinction. This distinction is one of the primary mechanisms, if not the primary mechanism, for organizing political, economic and, therefore, military power. For the sake of historical accuracy and conceptual integrity scholars should abandon the terminology of 'public' and 'private' force. Tracing how public-private distinctions shift and change as an effect of political power is a joint task for historical sociology and international political theory. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:41:54 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2317/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2317/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:39:26 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2316/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2316/ The requirement of legitimate authority, though central to medieval and modern interpretations of the just war tradition, has received less attention in the contemporary literature than the other requirements of jus ad bellum. The usual interpretation holds that the kind of entities that have legitimate authority are states, coalitions of states, supranational institutions or national liberation movements and that these political entities are endowed with the authority to wage war. At the same time, contemporary literature on the ethics of international relations is characterized by a revival of the cosmopolitan tradition. This subjects states and quasi-states to stringent legitimacy conditions: according to cosmopolitans, states are internally legitimate-have the right to coerce their own members-if, and only if, they respect the latter's fundamental human rights. The principle of legitimate authority has been criticized in some recent writings on war for not taking account of the implications of (independently defended) cosmopolitan descriptions of state legitimacy. If states are subject to stringent legitimacy conditions such as those outlined above, the criticism goes, they do not possess the right to wage war simply by virtue of their being a state. Rather, the authority to resort to war should be vested in supra-national institutions as well as, or indeed, rather than, states. In this sense war becomes a mechanism for enforcing cosmopolitan moral norms, as opposed to a mechanism for resolving interstate disputes. This cosmopolitan account of legitimate authority needs to be developed to include supra-national institutions. While the author does not deny that such institutions have the moral and legal right to wage war, the aim of this article is to cast doubt on the cogency of the requirement of legitimate authority itself-on cosmopolitan grounds. From a cosmopolitan point of view, the article argues there are very good reasons for dropping the requirement altogether. After sketching out a plausible cosmopolitan account of justice in section two, section three shows that a war need not be waged by a legitimate authority in order to qualify as a just war. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:31:47 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2315/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2315/ Over the last decade or so, growing attention has been paid to notions of preventive war. The most notorious case is the approach adopted by the Bush administration after the 9 /11 attacks, but there has been a much wider debate. This article traces the lineaments of that debate, and the advocacy of a legitimate doctrine of preventive war, by those who are normally seen-rightly-as defenders of the rule of law and the just war tradition. This article argues that such attempts to justify some notions of preventive war are profoundly problematic and the attempt to make them fit within the rubric of the just war tradition is doomed to failure and potentially very damaging for the coherence of the tradition as an approach to the restraint of war. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:27:35 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2314/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2314/ As the global war on terror bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new interand intra-service struggle emerged within the military, between what we might call the 'transformationists' and the 'neotraditionalists'. The transformationists put their faith in network-centric warfare and precision munitions to resolve the intractable political, civil and religious conflicts of the twenty-first century. The neo traditionalists, in contrast, go back to the future for lessons, to the 'low-intensity conflicts' of Malaya and Vietnam, the 'small wars' that Marines fought in Central America in the interwar period, and even the instructions given to American servicemen deployed to assist the British occupation of Iraq during the Second World War. Lumped together under the rubric of 'irregular warfare', two new watchwords have had emerged from the neotraditionalist camp: 'counter-insurgency' and 'cultural awareness'. As the neotraditionalists reach out to social scientists to assist them in their efforts, a secondary civil war has erupted in the universities over whether academics should become involved in the new war efforts. Based on a week spent embedded with the 1/25 Marines at 29 Palms and extensive interviews with key proponents and critics, this article maps (and reflexively questions the practice of mapping) the future of warfare as it is planned, taught, gamed and operationalized by the US military. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:25:10 +0100 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2313/ http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/archive/view/-/id/2313/ Scientific methods and concepts have been exerting a powerful influence on the exercising of armed force since the Scientific Revolution and the dawn of the modern era. In association with the respective technologies of the clock, engine and computer, the scientific theories of mechanism, thermodynamics, and cybernetics have all in turn been recruited to shape distinct approaches to the challenges of imposing order on the chaos of the battlefield. Today, it is on the basis of the new sciences of chaos and complexity that the latest regime of the scientific way of warfare is being erected. Chaoplexic warfare draws on the study of nonlinear phenomena of self-organization to propose a radical decentralization of armed forces through the adoption of the network form. For all its present flaws, network-centric warfare and its operational concepts of self-synchronization and swarming mark an important step on the path to chaoplexic warfare. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:22:21 +0100