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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: hegemony

Humanitarian Farce

29 Sat Apr 2017

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Book Review

≈ Comments Off on Humanitarian Farce

Tags

Antonio Gramsci, Bashar al-Assad, Benjamin Netanyahu, Britain, diplomacy, France, Hardeep Singh Puri, hegemony, India, Iraq, Libya, machtpolitik, matsya nyaya, media, mindfare, Muammar Gaddafi, Paul Wolfowitz, Perilous Interventions, R2P, Right To Protect, Russia, Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, terrorism, think tank, Ukraine, United Nations Security Council, United States, veto, Yemen

Perilous InterventionsPuri, Hardeep Singh. Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016. 280 pp.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Marcellus tells Horatio in the opening act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri probably could not have put it better about the United Nations Security Council and the existing global order. Through his book, Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos, a devastating indictment of Western hypocrisy in international governance, India’s former permanent representative to the United Nations gives readers a ringside seat to some of the discussions that went on in the Security Council during some of the major crises of the past decade. Puri lambasts the existing system and warns that without reforms, faith in multilateralism will soon fade.

Disregarding the advice of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck about the making of sausages and laws, Puri details the discussions within the Security Council on the question of whether the international community should intervene in Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Yet long before then, Iraq had attracted the attention of certain American strategists such as Paul Wolfowitz. They had argued as early as the early 1970s, Puri reminds us, that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power could potentially result in a domino effect of democratisation in the region and with it better partners for the United States. Two other candidates for regime change to accelerate this region-wide democratic revolution were Iran and Iran. Revolution in the former in 1979 and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war extinguished all such thoughts from the White House.

However, they were not forgotten. In Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of the US Congress in 2002, the former and future Israeli prime minister reiterated this same idea. American fears about Iraqi ABCs – atomic, biological, and chemical weapons – rang his message sweeter to Washington. Looking to their own careers, CIA officials funnelled intelligence reports they knew would be prefered by the High Command rather than those undermining the public narrative of state sponsorship of terrorism and WMDs. The United States went to war in Iraq soon afterwards and the Middle East began to unravel – not in a manner either Wolfowitz, Netanyahu, or anyone else had envisioned.

Narrow national interests coloured the deliberations of the Security Council over Libya as well. Puri recounts how Britain, Germany, and especially France, more than the United States, were interested in deposing strongman Muammar Gaddafi from the beginning. Libya’s relations with Western governments had been slowly improving since 2003 when Tripoli reached out through the United Nations to make amends for its role in several acts of terrorism in the late 1980s. That, however, was not the public face of relations between Libya and the Western bloc. The Arab Spring protests gave the West, probably hoping for a quick success, the opportunity required to oust Gaddafi.

Under the guise of humanitarian intervention and R2P – the Right to Protect – Western nations placed onerous conditions upon Tripoli. Puri narrates the arguments over the language of Resolution 1970 and how, through wording that was loose at best and deceptive at worst, the Western powers tried to gain international sanction to bring Gaddafi to heel using “all necessary means to protect civilians and make available humanitarian assistance.” As Libyan government forces started to turn the tide against the rebels in the civil war that had devolved out of earlier protests, France, buoyed by an Arab League resolution calling upon the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, pushed through Resolution 1973 that was sufficiently lax in its formulation to allow military action. NATO, led by France and supported by the United States went to war in Libya. Puri strenuously makes the point that this was in complete violation of the spirit of the discussions in the Security Council but the West did not wait until even the inl was dry before invding Libya.

Everything has conequences, and the Western sleight of hand over Libya had got Russia’s back up over Syria. As a result, when the Security Council started deliberating on Bashar al-Assad’s civil war, Moscow was implacable in their opposition to any sort of intervention. It is also possible, Puri admits, that this was due to greater Russian interest in Syria – a naval and ar force base – or because there had been a change in power in Moscow from Dmitry Medvedev to Vladimir Putin. It is also possible that there was no appetite for yet another war in the Middle East in Washington during an election year. Yet the pattern of Western behaviour was similar: hollow humanitarian claims supported by regional powers with vested interests against the incumbent authority. Predictably, the results were also similar: chaos, instability, wanton destruction of life and infrastructure, the rise of private militias, and terrorism – all at the cost of the region. Any chance for an early peace was stymied by unrealistic preconditions such as the abdication of Assad. Furthermore, Washington’s too clever by half notion of ‘good terrorist’ and ‘bad terrorist’ helped spawn its own nemesis – something American politicians, despite several repetitions, are yet to learn from.

Perilous Interventions also describes the paralysis of the Security Council owing to its veto provisions over the crisis in Ukraine caused by the secession of Crimea and its return to Russia. The author stops short of excusing Russian behaviour as he lambasts European and American ambition in seeking to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence. From the beginning, military force was out of the question in Ukraine for two reasons: Russia maintained a veto in the Security Council, and it was a major nuclear power that could not be trifled with as the likes of Iraq or Libya. The Western strategy, then, was to try and isolate Russia through economic sanctions. These may have worked partially but were doomed to fail eventually without the support of Moscow’s BRICS partners.

Yemen saw similar inaction from the Security Council. The country, already a regular on the UN body’s agenda even before civil war broke out, has experienced more death and destruction in five months than even Syria after four long years of fighting. Impoverished Yemen has for long been Saudi Arabia’s bete noire: fearful of foreign intervention – Egypt in the 1960s and Iran since the 1980s – in a country bordering its own restive Shia population, Riyadh has been quick and ruthless in its involvement in Yemen. The Saudi campaign, Puri reminds us, has received complete support from the United States and other Western powers despite the horrendous loss of civilian life due to the callousness of Riyadh’s military tactics that ranged from the use of missiles to indiscriminate bombing, which in one case even destroyed a Medecins sans Frontieres hospital.

Puri is not unfair in targetting only Western nations. He has a few choice words for the Indian debacle in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s too. However, the reader may surmise from the tone that the author is more understanding of Delhi’s compulsions than he is with Washington, London, or Paris. Furthermore, India’s reasons for getting involved in its southern neighbour’s affairs are a far more convoluted cocktail of domestic political considerations rather than the relatively straight-forward rapacious realpolitik of the West. The narrative also feels more restrained about the human cost of the tragedy in Sri Lanka compared to Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Yemen – but that may also be because the South Asian island has suffered far less despite a longer lasting conflict.

In each of the chapters is detailed a series of operational blunders that fed on each other and led to the present quagmire. From the insane notion of good and bad terrorism to the arming of certain rebel factions, from an utter disregard of historical follies to an almost stubborn refusal to accept intelligence from the ground, from giving ground to less informed commentators over professionals to cherry-picking intelligence, Puri’s rap sheet of Western political myopia and ideological blindness makes for a discomforting read – each of these mistakes, as we disapssionately read them, cost tens of thousands of lives.

Although Perilous Interventions is an excellent exposition of Great Power hypocrisy and the weakness of the United Nations in both, curbing the predatory instincts of some of its members and the oppressive nature of other members, it does not offer more insight on the crises of the past decade and half than a discerning reader could have gleaned from the regular perusal of the daily newspaper over the years. Why would a seasoned and distinguished diplomat be surprised by an unremarkable display of matsya nyaya?

The real punch of Perilous Interventions comes from its author’s assertion that this behaviour of the Western powers was given intellectual cover by their think tanks and media. In fact, Puri explicitly states that the push towards intervention in Libya came from the Western media over the inclination of a hesitant diplomatic corps. Gaddafi was portrayed negatively, incompletely, and even falsely – he had not, for example, threatened civilians with retaliation – in the tabloids to the extent that it was difficult for him to even get hotel rooms in New York during a 2012 visit. These observations by Puri only cement the cautious view of Western organisations in the rest of the world. They can no longer be seen as sources of intellectually rigorous, methodologically sound, and unbiased information. In fact, reading Puri between the lines, think tanks and media have become a new front for the West to propagate their hegemony through ‘mindfare’ – the war for opinions and minds throughout the world – true hegemony as described by Antonio Gramsci.

Perhaps the only criticism of Perilous Interventions is the author’s discordantly Pollyanna-ish view that India played a positive role during the deliberations over these crises. The Indian stance has always been distant, unhelpful, and predictable – urge a cessation of hostilities, encourage negotiations, and plead for an arms embargo on the region. Although these are perfectly rational recommendations, it is similarly irrational to expect that the agitated actors in a conflict that has already spilled over to violence wish to listen to sense. Consider, for example, the Indian response to international calls for restraint during its wars with Pakistan.

Furthermore, Puri’s suggestion that the permanent members of the Security Council volunatrily give up their veto powers – de facto if not de jure – is laughable. Such largesse may be expected only from foreign policy neophytes of the kind India has been blessed with but not anywhere else. Yet even if the Permanent Five were to surrender their veto powers, the question then arises as to who will bell the cat. Is the international community truly willing or capable of conducting a military intervention in China, for example, for any reason?

Perilous Interventions will certainly feed those who are already deeply sceptical of the West and subliminally hostile to it. However, rather than adding ghee to the fire of conspiracy theories, Puri records in detail, with evidence, genuine cases of opportunism and hypocrisy. His call for reforms in the United Nations is likely to go unheeded for the same reasons he gives for the crises of the past decade and half – machtpolitik and opportunism. As a result, Puri’s admonition that the Security Council and multilateralism will lose credibility may indeed come true.

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The Russians Are Coming!

01 Sat Mar 2014

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Europe

≈ Comments Off on The Russians Are Coming!

Tags

Antonio Gramsci, Charter on a Distinctive Partnership, Crimea, EU, European Union, Eurozone, G-8, hegemony, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Jack Matlock, John Kerry, Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, nationalism, NATO, realism, Rodric Braithwaite, Russia, sanctions, Ukraine, United States, Viktor Yanukovych

Napoleon is supposed to have warned his generals never to ascribe to malice that which could be explained by incompetence. The general tone of reportage and analysis on the riots in Ukraine, however, challenges the Little Corporal’s advice. For weeks, Western coverage has focused on the unsettling situation in Ukraine and the unhealthy relations of its oligarchs and President Viktor Yanukovych with Russia. Many have urged the European Union and the United States to adopt a firmer posture with Kiev and Moscow to win Ukraine over to the “European side” without giving any thought to what the region means strategically to Russia and how such ventures might precipitate a sharp response from Moscow.

When the Russian parliament finally did respond by authorising the use of military force to protect Russian minorities in Crimea, there was much shock and horror (at least feigned) in Washington and the capitals of Europe. In an eerie encore of their surreal commentary before Russian military manoeuvres, analysts suggested that the crisis may have been thwarted had Ukraine been a member of NATO as the organisation had spread to the Baltic republics ten years ago. Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius invoked NATO’s Article IV which calls for immediate consultations upon the violation of territorial integrity of a NATO member while others have pointed to the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between Ukraine and NATO which promises (Art. V:14) that the latter will support the former’s “sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, democratic development, economic prosperity and its status as a non-nuclear weapon state, and the principle of inviolability of frontiers.”

The absurdity of this boilerplate rhetoric becomes clear in the light of some history. Ukraine remains close to the Russian heart as the homeland of their ancestors. A large part of Ukraine came under Russian control after the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654 and the rest in the late 1700s. Several waves of Russification has left Ukraine without any strong identity and an uncertain sense of nationhood. Despite overwhelmingly voting to secede from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine remained in the Soviet – and then Russian – orbit out of necessity as well as in recognition of the fact that many Ukrainians still have close familial and cultural ties to Russia.

Since independence, Ukrainian politics has swung between leaning West and leaning towards Russia. Leonid Kravchuk’s desire to integrate his country into the EU did not sit well with Moscow but he allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet to remain in Sevastopol. Similarly, his successor, Leonid Kuchma, entered into a special partnership with NATO as well as Russia. As long as Ukraine did not drift too close to the West, Russia protested and tried to win Kiev back through a crude combination of coercion and enticement. Russia’s red line, when it came to it neighbours, became clear in 2008 when it used military force to delay Georgia’s membership to NATO. Russia also fiercely opposed US ballistic missile defence installations in Poland and Ukraine, threatening to counter with the deployment of Iskander, a short-range ballistic missile, to Kaliningrad. In this light, a Russian military response in Crimea ought not come as a surprise.

Ironically, as former British and US ambassadors to Russia, Rodric Braithwaite and Jack Matlock, have both pointed out, most Ukrainians do not wish to join NATO and they lean towards the EU only as a symbol of the good governance their own country has been sorely lacking since independence.

The sudden reversal of the situation in Kiev stunned Moscow. On February 18, the riot control Berkut were deployed to quell the protests at the Euromaidan; on the 20th, orders emanated from unknown quarters for snipers to open fire and the death toll shot up from 25 to 80; the next day, Yanukovych reached an agreement – capitulation – with the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Poland, but the protesters, enraged by the death of their comrades, demanded that he leave the country by February 22. Within four days, events had made a 180-degree turn.

From the Kremlin’s perspective, the speed and manner in which Ukraine had waltzed into the EU camp indicated that the radical nationalists had received covert assistance from the West. The new government was proceeding with the plan Yanukovych had rejected in November 2013 bringing Ukraine closer to the EU. With NATO’s interest in Ukraine no secret, there was every chance that Kiev might also repudiate its 2010 promise to remain non-aligned and instead seek membership of military organisation. The new government’s decision to remove Russian as an official language only served to underscore its political leanings for Moscow.

The Russian decision to use the military option in Crimea fits into an older pattern of the Kremlin creating buffer states between itself and its threats. In fact, Moscow’s security concerns could even be understood from Washington’s response to the discovery of Soviet missiles stationed in Cuba 52 years ago. US and European concerns about the freedom of the Ukrainian people are risible given their own support of Islamists in Syria and several unsavoury leaders worldwide.

Tragically, empty and thoughtless Western rhetoric may have worsened the situation for Ukrainians in much the same way as Radio Free Europe did for Hungarians in 1956 – they aroused expectations that could never be fulfilled. During the negotiations between the European Union and Ukraine in November, Kiev and asked for loans and assistance to shore up its flagging economy amounting to $20 billion. Aware of the rampant corruption in Ukraine, the EU unsympathetically offered $827 million. As in Hungary, the gap between what the West said and what it was prepared to do was substantial. Russia, on the other hand, has agreed to provide gas to Ukraine at a steep discount of 33% in addition to $15 billion in loans. Were Ukraine to slip into the European fold, it is doubtful whether an anaemic Eurozone will be able to buttress the Ukrainian economy or if the International Monetary Fund would be willing to.

Western response to Russia’s intervention has been swift. US Secretary of State John Kerry, while ruling out any military countermeasures, has hinted that the G-8 would isolate Russia with visa bans, trade and investment penalties, asset freezes, and boycotts. This will certainly hurt Russia, but it remains to be seen how effectively the threat can be implemented. Japan, for example, might express reluctance as Tokyo seeks allies in the region to balance a belligerent China. Additionally, the West also needs Russian cooperation on Syria and Iran, and Europe depends on Russian energy more than it remembers in the heat of the moment.

Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci defined hegemony as the power accrued to a group when they are able to exercise a role of moral leadership in a system. In other words, it is the additional power a socially dominant group achieves when its claim to represent the general interest goes unchallenged. The hegemon is able to place all the issues around which conflict rages on a universal plane. By framing the Ukrainian crisis in terms of abstract ideas such as freedom, Washington is (clumsily) diverting attention from the very simple and realist dimensions of the conflict.

As for the Ukrainian people…whoever said geopolitics had anything to do with people?


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on March 03, 2014.

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