Friday, October 14, 2011
The Urgent and the Important
Talleyrand is in another dyspeptic mood. The British secretary for defence, Liam Fox, has just resigned for reasons, ostensibly, of friendship. The Israelis and Palestinians persist with their bouts of UN exhibitionism. Much of Europe has taken its usual navel gazing to a new extreme, although this time with good reason. The United States has entered its ‘election season’, also known as the season of diplomatic hibernation. Meanwhile between three and five thousand Syrians have been killed, with many more to come. Yet reporters ignore them. Iranian operatives in cahoots with Mexican drug runners are just too interesting.
The showdown in Syria was predicted here and here. All the signs now point to a civil, probably regional, war. Who is preparing for this possibility? Will Western ‘electorates’ support the necessary measures to deal with the consequences?
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Wages of Self Destruction
Talleyrand has been thinking about the teachings of Teilhard de Chardin, and specifically about his notion of ever expanding structures of human organization which supposedly inspired Jean Monnet and other promoters of the European idea. Put more bluntly, this was Dwight Eisenhower’s solution to problems you couldn’t solve: enlarge them.
It is strange, even ironic, to witness the opposite taking place across Europe and beyond in slow motion. First the Greeks, the Irish, the Italians, et al, said it was the bankers’ problem to solve, then the politicians’. The French, Germans said it was the problem of the Greeks, Italians, et al to solve. The USA and China and virtually everyone else around the world say it is the Europeans’, or really the Germans’, problem to solve. And so on.
It’s not a case of passing the buck, merely. No, the pathology is deeper, or it seems so. Maybe enlarging problems was a twentieth century phenomenon; now we break them down and wish them away. Our global minds have grown smaller with our sense of possibilities and our courage. That may not be so bad. The problem however is that we are still living with a bevy of twentieth century enlargements that require constant care and feeding, with 'Europe' being at the top of the list.
Revolutions are made of the confinement by juxtaposition of mutually exclusive forms; in other words, when they fail to keep up with the times. One wonders what Teilhard would make of our current predicament. The more we try to break a problem down into soluble parts, the more we resist ‘contagion’, the bigger and more powerful it becomes.
The solution surely is to enlarge the problem faster than it can enlarge itself. But our leaders and governments seem constitutionally incapable of doing that. Papandreou, Berlusconi… They are only the first of many canaries to come.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Dr Pangloss Reports
[note: Talleyrand does not endorse the following opinion]
Dr Pangloss ventures the bold suggestion that not all in the world is as terrible as it looks.
1. The democratic upheaval in the Middle East is occurring at the moment of Europe’s eclipse. Therefore few people in either region suffer from the illusion that the liberalisation of these countries will draw them closer to Europe, or that Europe serves as any kind of beacon. This is not 1989 all over again, and reformers in the Middle East and North Africa will be spared the deep disappointment that surely would have come if anyone had his focus on a European light at the end of the tunnel. Self-reliance, however ugly it can seem at times, is a healthy thing.
2. The normalisation of diplomatic and economic relations is proceeding, however gradually, in East Asia at a moment of U.S. weakness and alongside the American presidency of a man predisposed to the appearance of passive humility. Imagine if this had taken place a decade ago, before September 11th, when tough talk about the Chinese ‘peer competitor’ was all the rage? A no-brainer, as Americans (or Taiwanese, as the case may be) like to say. At the very least, the Chinese now are trying harder to sound constructive. Not so a decade ago.
3. The long and inevitable American retreat from global dominance is taking place as gracefully as it possibly can do in the circumstances. It began in the 1970s, enjoyed a sweet Indian summer in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and now proceeds along its predictable course. Unlike the Soviet empire, it has not suffered a dramatic collapse and, so long as most of the rest of the world plays along and gradually assumes greater responsibility for the globe’s peace and prosperity, will it continue with retrocession, to everyone’s long-term benefit. ‘We’re only meant to rule this place so it can learn to rule itself' has never made more sense.
All this no doubt is premised on there not being:
1. A full blown military crisis with Iran.
2. A full collapse of the Euro.
3. A full blown civil war in Syria that draws in Lebanon and Jordan.
4. A full blown crisis with Pakistan and/or North Korea.
5. A full break between Israel and its long suffering American patron.
Dr Pangloss doesn’t think any of those things will happen.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Failure
The USA has suffered some further losses in the Middle East with the collapse of its diplomacy over Syria at the UN and, to add insult to injury, the announcement by the Egyptian authorities that several young American political activists may face trial.
The diplomat making the most noise in both instances is America’s UN delegate, Susan Rice. She used the word “disgusting” in the former instance and has entered into full finger wagging mode in the second. There can be little doubt now that she is auditioning for her next job.
Americans occasionally like a schoolmarmish Secretary of State: e.g. JF Dulles, Madeleine Albright. More to the point, they can be useful presidential foils. But they pose a big risk. Rare is the wagging finger that stops or prevents a war.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
A French Victory
Getting even, it is said, is the best revenge. François Hollande has many reasons to celebrate his victory in France. He has prevailed, not only over Nicolas Sarkozy, but also over Dominique Strauss-Kahn and every other politician who claimed the mantle of political glory ahead of him – including his long time ex-partner, Ségolène Royal, who lost to Mr Sarkozy in 2007. For a ‘nice guy’ from central casting, life doesn’t get better than this.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
On Responsibility
There is little one can say about the latest, unspeakable massacres in Syria. They strike a pain even the cold, antiquated heart of Talleyrand. Not simply on the face of it but also because they were both predictable and predicated, not least by Mr Assad himself. The world's response then was a policy of scold, combined with wait-and-see. Those who care about their interests there face an important choice now. They have to understand how the last couple of interventions look to some people. Saddam Hussein was overthrown and killed, it was said, for having wicked aims and a nasty reputation and track record. Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown and killed largely for the same reasons; both were unloved and, it is significant, comparably weak. In both cases, those who expedited the process insisted upon outsiders’ 'responsibility to protect' against anticipated outrages. But if a regime murders some 10,000 people and gives no evidence of stopping, what is the response? It’s hard to say which is more nauseating: the crying wolf or the hand wringing after the fact. Neither can compare to the desperation and fury the Syrian people must now be feeling.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Hot and Cold Civil Wars
Mr. Andrew Sullivan has declared “a Cold Civil War” in America. He makes a persuasive case that the battle lines of this red versus blue war approximate the ones of the original Civil War. It is worth pointing out that the Cold War has also been described as a global civil war that few could escape. How new or unique is Mr. Sullivan’s war? America has always hosted a Kulturkampf of varying character and dimensions; there has never been a single American worldview; and its adversarial, almost Manichean, tradition is second to none. Its ideological map has always resembled its geographic one: the line of the frontier; with us or against us; New versus Old; slave versus free; cowboys versus Indians; and so on. The protagonists almost always proclaim themselves to be under existential threat from the antagonists; the country is never big enough for both of them. Still, the country and its constitution have survived.
So, Talleyrand thinks it’s too soon to tell whether this latest battle is another skirmish or a real war. His mind is attracted to other parallels: the invasion of Baghdad in 2003 bore no better resemblance than to the capture of Mexico City in 1847: from the slipshod planning to the extended supply lines during the initial march to the capital, to the sheer luck of the thing. A campaign of “regime change” resulted in occupation and conquest. U.S. Grant, who saw his first real combat in the Mexican War, later said that the U.S. Civil War was God’s punishment for that earlier adventure, one he regarded as unnecessary and immoral. Many people have suggested that a reckoning has yet to come for Iraq. Perhaps there are more Civil Wars in store…
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Playing with Fire
David Cameron is an interesting figure. He seems trying most of the time to be a posh John Major: a decent, ordinary bloke doing his best for his country. At other times—during his duo act with Nicolas Sarkozy over Libya, for example—he does his best Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair: possessed, hectoring, moralistic and transparently hypocritical in the best British sense.
What is he up to now? He’s supported a referendum on Scottish independence and on membership in the European Union. Is there also a David Lloyd George or Stanley Baldwin tucked inside that soft shell of a home counties politician? Does he have a secret, devious plan to rig these votes? Is he that much more ruthless than he looks? Or will he go down as the prime minister who shrank the size and influence of the UK to their smallest since the 18th century? Talleyrand is sympathetic with the small-is-beautiful conservative instinct. But are the British people? It appears that some of them will have their say.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Office Pool
The newspapers are full of office pools for the next Obama administration. Talleyrand’s own preference is to take the president at his word to (re-)unite the country under a veil of bipartisanship. Insiders will say these are far-fetched. But for the three power ministries, he prefers the following: State: Richard Lugar; Defense: Colin Powell; Treasury: Robert Zoellick.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
The Quiet Americans
Talleyrand, alas, did not get his wish with the American president’s new appointments. No matter. The guiding force of the second Obama administration is Mr. Lugar. If this were any other country, we’d say that Obama-Biden-Kerry-Hagel have mounted a palace coup of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It’s not the first time—we said it for the first GW Bush administration, which looked to many people like a restoration of the senior branches of the Ford administration, apart from Powell the apostate.
Events will determine what this team does and how it does it. But for now it’s worth noticing that the old Americans so many of us became accustomed to in foreign policy—the bold brash bullying people like McNamara, Rumsfeld, Kissinger, Baker, Holbrooke—are gone. They created as many problems as they solved, or tried to solve, to be sure. But the world got used to this type. It knew what to expect from it and how to handle it.
Obama and his team are not quiet in the literal sense; they are, on balance, more loquacious than loud. But they are a deliberative lot; self-appointed wise men; cautious often for the sake of being cautious; accustomed to deference; and only half-eloquent. Their egos are no smaller than those of their predecessors. But by their ostensible humility, thoughtfulness and unity, they will sow a great deal of confusion among us. Expect mischief.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Decent Intervals
The American president’s speech this week declaring an end to the war against Islamist militants brought to mind several analogies from recent American history: Ronald Reagan’s “turn” after 1986 in the Cold War when he replaced the fist with the outstretched hand and, together with Mikhail Gorbachev, ended that war peacefully; and Richard Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s peace with honor to the war in Vietnam. In both cases, the enemy played along: the first caved; the second prevailed. Each one did so after a period of heightened tension and great violence (or the threat of violence). Neither result seems to be self-evident, so far, however, in this most recent instance.
Good gamesmanship depends on a proper diagnosis: realism, in some cases, can be overtaken by pragmatism. The war against al Qaeda and its fellow travelers has generally been depicted as a war against an ‘ism: fanaticism, terrorism, extremism. That is to say, a war against a nihilistic ideology bent against the destruction of all that the civilized world holds dear. It has been that, to some degree. But locally the picture blurs. It is possible to view this particular conflict, beginning in the mid-1980s, in parallel to the conflict that began in the late 1970s with the Iranian revolution, namely, a struggle for the mastery of a region and a political culture therein. Analogies tempt the urge to simplify and exaggerate. But it is difficult to depict today’s Syria as anything but such an internationalized civil war, in which every party has great interests at stake, not least their prestige. If anyone doubts this, just listen to Hasan’s Nasrallah’s speech today.
President Obama is wise to keep his country out of this. Nobody should get mixed up in someone else’s civil war unless it is absolutely necessary and vital to one’s own country’s interests. Franklin Roosevelt was wise to do so in Spain. George H. W. Bush was, to a point, wise to do so during the wars of Yugoslav succession. Some have said that today we are witnessing such a regional civil war dating back to the Ottoman succession. Perhaps. The older the analogy, the more facile it is. But the geopoliticians have a point here. If the Russians pull everyone’s chestnuts out of the fire for the fourth time in two decades at the upcoming Geneva meeting, many people will save a good deal of face. We must pray for this outcome, however ironic. Indeed, the best that anyone can hope for is a result similar to the one that followed the Geneva Conference of 1954. This won’t please Vietnam analogists. Let them come up with something better.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
French Cloud
For some time the world has waited for the other European shoe to drop. Yet despite tremendous pain and unrest, Greece, Spain and Italy have, as the Europeans love to say, “muddled through.” But this is merely just the end of the beginning, most likely. And the other big shoe, everyone knows, is France.
The popular uprisings around the world taking place in the past couple of months have different origins, different aims, different means of expression. But the one thing they have in common is their frustration from disappointment, and their exhaustion with hypocrisy, and with “muddling through.” There have already been signs of this in France, and in other parts of Northern Europe. Nobody should be surprised to see more.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Mandela
The length and drama of Nelson Mandela’s death watch is no surprise. For he is the last real leader most of us know. His death will seal, once and for all, the end of the twentieth century. Today’s leaders are, as the popular term puts it, “transactional.” There are none who stand for something greater than themselves; there are none who feel greatness. Mandela is the last who lived through the great ideological battles of the last century; he is the last who prevailed over them.
Today’s leaders and societies resemble Talleyrand’s own favourite: the eighteenth. Fragmented, hierarchical, fickle, violent as well as conservative. The age of the masses is gone. The age of the courtier has returned.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Deplorable
“Deplorable” is the word that the American Secretary of State used to describe the killings in Egypt. It is being repeated up and down the ranks of his department. It is apt. For the United States government has little authority left there, apparently. The days when the world waited to hear the words of its president before sealing the fate of Hosni Mubarak already seem like decades ago.
It is worth recalling that the power behind the throne back then, the late Omar Suleiman, said “no way” when he was asked if the army would fire on the masses gathered in Tahrir Square. The police and paramilitaries were brutal; but for the most part the army kept its word.
No longer.
By most accounts, the Americans had urged President Mubarak to reform and liberalize his country’s political system. They urged President Morsi to govern more intelligently. They urged the country’s military rulers to show restraint, both toward Morsi and as recently as this week toward his supporters. All of these urgings have come to naught. What is going on?
The Egyptian army is a formidable power. But it has never been entirely autonomous. For a while it catered to the wishes of its Soviet suppliers. Then it shifted to the Americans. Those days are evidently over. Now its royal paymasters from the south are on top.
It is well known that several Gulf monarchs have long despised the Muslim Brotherhood. They are not calling the shots in Egypt. (Neither did the Soviets nor the Americans, for that matter; it was always more complicated than this.) But they almost surely must approve of what can only be described as a systematic campaign of decimation.
Talleyrand wonders if they haven’t bit off more than they can chew. For we needn’t be reminded that at the same time they are bankrolling a proxy war in Syria, which shows every sign now of expanding to Iraq and Lebanon. One war at a time is always good advice.
But perhaps that is the point. This is a single war—one with many, perhaps countless, local variations—but a single war nonetheless. It is beginning to look like a Middle Eastern version of the Thirty Years’ War. And the prospects for a Westphalian order—in which all states pledge to honor one another’s borders and to desist from interfering in one another’s politics for sectarian or any other reasons—seem very remote indeed.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Shots Across the Bow
Talleyrand is having fond memories of Mr Madison’s war when he, following the naïve example of his predecessor, sought to teach us a lesson and ended up taking his country to war on behalf of a principle, and losing badly.
What Mr Obama’s game is now is anybody’s guess. His shot probably won’t be a dud. It may allow him to check this box and get back to the things he really cares about. Yet he must know that an attack on Syria at this moment violates several tenets of American policy, namely:
--do not launch a military attack without significant international support and a clear casus belli.
--do not launch a military attack without preparing the American people and reaching a consensus over costs and benefits.
--do not launch a military attack without a full contingency plan.
--do not, ever, speak of a military attack as being “tailored” and “limited” and expect to be taken seriously by the people you’re trying to influence.
--do not, ever, enter someone else’s civil war unless absolutely necessary.
Perhaps the Vietnam syndrome really is dead. Perhaps Obama and his team know much more than they’re letting on. Perhaps their diplomacy is much more subtle and successful than it appears. For his and his country’s sake, we must hope so.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Strategies and Tactics
Edward Luttwak’s latest attempt to prove a theory about civil wars—that they follow a natural course and are best left alone to play themselves out until all sides are too tired to fight—is like much of his interesting work: clever but not very intelligent. Civil wars, particularly international civil wars like Syria's, are not all the same. There are some that end with intervention, even partial intervention; there are others that are prolonged, and worsened, by it. What to do, or not to do, in Syria should be informed by a much better informed grasp of reality on the ground than Luttwak evidently has.
This war is not taking place in a vacuum or petri dish. There are other major players besides the Syrians and the Americans. Do they all share an interest in keeping this war lasting indefinitely, as Luttwak contends for the Americans? Do they also have the power to calibrate it? Do they expect that it will remain relatively confined to Syrian territory?
An affirmative answer to any of those questions is not self-evident. Nor is his reading of US policy in 2011 and early 2012 as being the result of short-term optimism. Then, as now, it was more likely driven by confusion, uncertainty and timidity (it was an election year, after all) -- and a sensible fear of getting involved directly in an extremely messy and dangerous conflict.
There is no clear choice between doing nothing, doing just a little, or launching a large scale military intervention. When in doubt, doing nothing or just a little is often a wise policy. But stalemate is not in anyone's interest here because the conflict is is growing, not shrinking. So too should the response: if you can't solve a problem, and can't hide from it, then enlarge it.
The focus of the United States and its allies now should be less on how big or small a symbolic scolding ought to rain down on Damascus and more on how the complicated and diverging interests of the various major powers now intervening in Syria’s civil war can be reordered in a common direction toward containment and, ultimately, peace. The best strategic minds ought to direct themselves to this practical course of action, and not to proving or disproving one another’s pet theories, however appealing they may be to the cynics among us. But that will require much more creative diplomacy, and a much more of a public commitment to it than any American or European official has shown thus far.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
The French Mandate
Alexander Stille makes a nice case for why the French have gone out on a limb over Syria. Yet he neglects to mention the fact that Syria (and Lebanon) were once under French control as a League of Nations Mandate. Perhaps this grants a special responsibility? (We recall that Iraq was under a British mandate.)
Some people have suggested that today’s Middle East is undoing a century of geopolitics: ending once and for all the Sykes-Picot division of postwar spoils. Sykes and Picot are long dead. But does anybody take a mass redrawing of borders seriously? Let’s pray not.
For now the evident sentimentality of some Europeans touches the heart. It also makes for a convenient explanation of why the French once reflexively took the Serbian side in the wars of Yugoslav succession while the Germans took the Croatian side, etc. Thankfully Americans don’t much go for this kind of thing: if they give a toss about a place like the Philippines, it won’t be because anybody knows about their occupation of it long ago.
Too much emotion is never a good thing, however. "A sentimental policy knows no reciprocity."
Monday, September 2, 2013
Raising the Stakes
Edward Luce has invoked a popular metaphor for Barack Obama’s predicament, perhaps recalling the president’s statement that he “does not bluff.” Evidently not. With his latest Syria gamble, Obama “risks getting into a game of poker he cannot control.”
Poker may not be the best metaphor—card games are won not by controlling your opponent literally but by outsmarting him with the hand you're dealt. Throughout the Cold War and after, games metaphors were mixed and imperfect: Soviets play chess, Chinese play go, Americans play checkers, and so on.
In this case a better analogy would be to judo. And we all know who the judo artist is.
Whatever happens in the next couple of weeks (and much will almost surely happen in Syria), there’s little doubt that the Americans and their allies have been put off balance. They are not yet thrown.
What would a real defeat look like? To answer that question, at least from the Russian perspective, we have to ask what the aim would be. Saving a vicious Syrian client is probably not the principal one. Nor is reversing a 40-year-long departure from major player status in the Middle East.
There’s a bigger and more obvious target which continues to be vilified by many Russians, for quite understandable reasons. Contingency planners should be asking, if Obama takes one for the team now, what will happen if the conflict continues to spread and NATO is forced to act? Where will the American, British, French, German and other governments stand then?
Article V is like virginity; if its deterrent value is lost, there’s no going back.
The Russians are not the main players in this conflict, of course. But they are master opportunists, and a very big opportunity has, up to now, been delivered to them. Humiliate a great power when it’s down, it may come back. Humiliate an alliance, the alliance dies.