Category: International relations

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Typologies of military rule, types of coup and the Honduran sub-type.

The thread on the post about the Honduran coup made me realise that there is much misapprehension about coups and military regimes. I shall attempt to clarify the key terms and concepts involved.

Coups are the forcible resolution of a conflict between elites. They stem from the failure to resolve said conflicts within civilian institutional boundaries. They are not revolutions.

Revolutions are mass-based armed collective action leading to parametric change in society. Parametric change involves fundamental economic, social and political change beyond the change of regime. Revolutions are mass mobilisational; coups are demobilisational. In the 20th and early 21st century the only regimes overthrown by armed revolutions have been oligarchic authoritarian, with the collapse of the Eastern bloc being a mix of mass based collective resistance (not always armed) mixed with elite fracture in favour of reform. Hence they have been called by some scholars “peaceful revolutions,” although there is considerable debate about the authenticity of their revolutionary character. No democracy has been overthrown by a revolution (although some have been created by them), but many a democracy has  fallen to a coups.

Coups can be hard or soft depending on the amount of mass mobilization preceding the coup and the degree of repression involved in the military intervention. The equation is simple: The more there is mass based collective action, particularly armed collective violence, the harsher the coup. The harsher coup, the more militarised the state will become after the coup, and the higher the degree of repression of regime opponents. Thus student riots, middle class demonstrations and wildcat strikes will invite a modicum of repression, whereas guerrilla attacks or civil war will invite a far more deadly form of military intervention.

Military rule has two variants: ruler and arbitrator (or mediator) military regimes. Ruler military regimes are rule by the military as an institution, with a defined ideological project and no time limit on their tenure in power. The ideological project has specified economic, social and political objectives, which means that ruler militaries often have a specific class coalition underpinning them. The Latin American military-bureaucratic authoritarians of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were allied with the export bourgeoisie, finance capital and foreign MNCs (as examples think of the Pinochet regime in Chile or the Argentine, Guatemalan or El Salvadorean  juntas of the 1960s and 1970s), whereas the Arab military developmentalist regimes of the 1950s through the 1990s were allied with the secular domestic bourgeoisie and urban working classes (think Nassar in Egypt, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and post-Kemalist Turkey prior to 1980). The Burmese junta is a contemporary example. Note that although civilians may be present in ruler military regimes, and they may even have parties, parliaments and civilian courts as legitimating facades, it is the military as an institution that ultimately governs.

Ruler military regimes often come to power after their prior failures as arbitrator military regimes. Arbitrator military regimes only intervene in politics in order to restore a broken institutional order after a period of conflict. The military approach to intervention is much like a “time out” given by parents to bickering children, although in this case the bickering is between civilian elites and their political representatives. The arbitrator military sets a time table for withdrawal from power and demands that the civilian elites put their political house in order less there be a more severe intervention down the road. The military has no ideological project of its own and prefers to return to its security functions sooner rather than later, understanding that the major internal problem of being in government is erosion of its combat skills (which is the Achilles Heel of ruler militaries that stay in power for extended periods of time, since rather than training for combat, officers become military bureaucrats whose major activity is issuing edicts, writing memos and answering the phone. That invites attack by adversaries).

For much of its recent modern history Honduras has been governed by ruler military regimes (following on oligarchic rule in the 19th and early 20th centuries). After the installation of democracy it has attempted to professionalise in order to better serve the national defense (and recalling that it lost the soccer war with El Salvador). In the 1980s the US cast a blind eye on the counter-insurgency campaign conducted against local Marxist and Maoist guerrillas in exchange for allowing the stationing of counter-revolutionary forces and US advisors on the border with Nicaragua. The US currently maintains a military force of 600 troops (mostly special operations and counter-narcotics detachments) at a Honduran military air base in Soto Cano. In the 1990s the US pushed hard on the Honduran military to remove itself from politics altogether, making a variety of military assistance programs contingent upon it doing so. Until a week ago the Honduran high command upheld its end of the bargain.

It should be noted that in a small country like Honduras the elite is very interbred. Military commanders are related by blood to political leaders, high ranking clergy, large landowning families and the rising urban noveau riche. The officer corps cannot escape, even at dinner conversations, the bickering of politicians and other influential civilians. Thus the pull on them to intervene emanating from these civilians is unusually strong, and almost always in favour of protecting elite interests against “socialist” threats.

The current coup is, therefore, a variant or sub-type of the arbitrator military regime. The military removed President Zelaya and his government and allowed the installation of his designated civilian successor (and opponent), Roberto Micheletti, after Congressional and Supreme Court requests to do so. It maintains a strong presence on the streets of Tegucigalpa and the border regions, but has not resorted to blanket repression, arrest, detention and murder of Zelaya supporters (although some deaths in clashes have been reported), nor has it imposed a state of siege (although a state of emergency is in force). It has not militarised the state apparatus, has not assumed a larger governmental role,  and other than on specifically security-related matters, prefers to have the new civilian government do the talking. The speed in which it intervened and withdrew is a novel twist on the arbitrator military story. By all measures this has been a relatively benign coup.

But a coup is a coup, and by the standards of the OAS and international community in general, an illegal usurpation of the popular will as expressed through regular elections and civilian political institutions. Therefore, the military command should have resisted the move (and civilian entreties), as military upholding of the constitution means simply to abide by it, not necessarilly act as the guarantor of its enforcement. It will now be interesting to see how the political negotiations over Zelaya’s fate work out, but whatever the outcome and whether Zelaya is allowed to return to Honduras or not, he is finished as president. The one good thing to take from this political farce is that the Honduran military command apparently underestands, even if only out of self-interest, that its days as a ruler military are as over as are Zelaya’s dreams of re-election.

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The class element in recent Middle Eastern elections.

Lost in the chorus of outrage over the Iranian election results and subsequent repression of protest is the socio-economic cleavages evident in the polls. The same is true of the coverage of the Lebanese parliamentary elections held two weeks earlier.  It is therefore worthwhile to examine this dimension.

President Amadinijhad represents not only the militant Islamicist ideological wing embodied in the Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basij, who are now purportedly in a power struggle with the clerics in the Guardian Council over the direction of the post-revolutionary leadership movement. Amadinijhad also represents, both in tone and demeanour, the urban working and rural classes. Against him are poised the supporters of Mir Hossein Mousani, a former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs who his supporters and Western analysts see as a reformist. He is also a millionaire who receives his support from the urban bourgeousie, secularists, the better educated and university students. In most aspects he is not discernably different from Amadinijhad with regard to major policy issues (such as the civilian nuclear energy program), but he does represent a modernizing element within the revolution, one that is more secular, more technologically savvy and more attuned to Western mores than the mullahs and Revolutionary Guards (at the elite level) and the working classes (at the base) that see Amadinijhad as a bastion against corrosive secularisation of the revolutionary ethos.

The election was a referendum not on Iran’s foreign policy (which the West is obsessed about), but on Amadinijhad’s economic management, which by any measure is poor and which, like in any other country, occupies the attention of the mass electorate. Iran is a net oil importer that cannot feed itself in spite of its large land mass and variegated geography, access to the sea and ample fresh water. It was also a contest between the cell phone and twitter generation and the rest, since only 30 percent of Iranians have access to computer facilities and less than half have access to cell phones. Clearly, Amadinijhad and the mullahs underestimated the power of cellphone and computer access, particiularly when the regime itself is now dependent on computer services and cell phones in order to conduct its daily business (which practically speaking means that universal shut downs or denials of service are nigh impossible). 

My belief is that Amadinijhad won the election, but by a narrow margin that spooked him and his supporters who felt that a close vote would undermine the face of strength and unity they wish to present to the West with regards to the nuclear progam, support for Hamas and Hezbollah and foreign relations in general, to say nothing of their relationship with the Sunni Arab world. Unfamiliar with the subtleties of vote fraud so well refined in advanced democracies, the Amadinijhad government–which controlled the balloting–padded their lead too much and hand counted votes too quickly to be credible. Hence the uproar.

But the genie is out of the bottle no matter what happens. Amadinijhad is dead in the water as far as having influence and leverage at home and abroad. In terms of foreign policy, he cannot purport to be the representative of any consensus vis a vis relations with the West, which undermines any bargaining position he hopes to maintain on key foreign policy issues (simply due to the lack of acknowledged majority support for his views). Domestically, the Revolutionary Guard and Basij has been sent a clear message that their ideological project is not shared by a wide swathe of Iranians. Moreover, the class divisions that precipitated the election crisis will not go away just because the government quells the protests. Thus, whether or not the West would like to intervene in the post-election process (a move that has never been proven to be successful over the long-term), the class conflict underpinning the electoral dispute will continue so long as both sides play the dispute in zero-sum terms. In the measure they do, they risk the possibility of civil war, since significant elements in the conventional military (particularly in the more technologically or professionally oriented branches of the Air Force and Navy) will not follow Revolutionary Guard orders to kill their own people  (if nothing else because the officer corps and non-commisioned officers are part of the middle classes), and because the “real” military will be needed to quell any mass revolt. In the measure that the Amadinijhad and Mousavi factions cut a deal and marginalise the Revolutionary Guard and Basij pustchists, the clerics and conventional officer corps will back them. The question is, can they reconcile the class conflicts in a political compromise that is mutually binding, universally acceptable and stable over time?

In Lebanon, Saad el-Hariri assumed the mantle of his assassinated father Rafic and gained a majority in the June 7 parliamentary elections, winning 71 of 128 seats . Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah, won 57 seats and accepted the outcome. Hezbollah represents the working class and Shiia vote in Lebanon; Hariri represents the Sunni, Christian, Druze, secularist and bourgeoise vote. The West applauded the result and urged Hariri to proceed with his father’s anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian project, which includes marginalising (and criminalising) Hezbollah. Understanding the realities on the ground, Saad el-Hariri has opted instead to form a  national unity government that includes Hezbollah because he apparently understands that class, not religious conflict, is what drives many to support the Shiia extremists (who deliver on their promises of social services far better than any of their pro-Western counterparts).

 What is remarkable is the unmentioned premise for Western political support in a Middle Eastern (or any other)  election: defense of upper class (read capitalist) interests at the expense of all others. To be sure, religious, ethnic and cultural conflicts are bound up in these electoral contests, but one thing remains clear: even in societies rendered by such superstructural forms of primary identification, it is class that drives the major political divisions, and it is class interest, capitalist class interests specifically, to which the West responds most favorably when it comes to electoral outcomes. All of this is obvious: for the West it seems electoral democracy is not so much about the freedom to choose but about the “freedom” to choose bourgeoise leaders who uphold the national capitalist class interest as well as an affinity for Western economic orientation and macroeconomic logics (in spite of the obvious debacles such orientation has produced in both the developed and developing world). The response to Hamas’s electoral victory is an indication of that view, above and beyond its problematic approach to violence, Iranian connections and  non-recognition of Israel. 

I should note that the current trend in both elections indicates a move away from religious militancy and towards moderate-secularism, which to my mind is a good thing. It also represents a specific repudiation of Shiia militancy, either in the form of the Revolutionary Guard ideology or the perspective of its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies in Lebanon and Palestine ( fully understanding the local conditions underpinning their respective support), something that will undoubtably comfort elites in the Sunni Arab world.

For the social democratic Left the elections pose a conundrum: who to support? The “bad guys” (at least in Western eyes) are supported by the working masses and rural poor; the “good guys” are supported by elites and other propertied groups as well as well-meaning sorts such as intellectuals and artists. The class line does not suffice to chart a course of response to such situations. For social democratic governments, this poses a major problem; for right wing governments such as that temporarily governing NZ, it does not. Thus the question begs: when confronted by this type of class conflict viewed through the prism of contested elections, does the democratic Left (in government or in opposition) choose democracy over class interest or vice versa? If so why, exactly? If not, why not?

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Chosŏn Realism

(This and the last are posts I’ve been meaning to put up all week, having been prevented by a migraine and a deadline.)

This week seems an opportune time to link to a small but superb collection of North Korean propaganda posters reproduced (with two brief and fascinating contextual notes) from David Heather and Koen de Ceuster’s book North Korean Posters.

ess_north_korean_39
(“Let’s extensively raise goats in all families!”)

Discussion of the second test in the media has cast a great deal of heat and not very much light on the issues at stake, including one alarming statement in the NZ media by Tim Beal of Victoria University that the USA could defeat the DPRK militarily “without losing a single soldier” (audio), which runs contra to the understanding of the situation I had when I lived there. My understanding, admittedly mostly from pub discussions with officers in the South Korean and US defence establishment, was that the reason there’s a stalemate is a sort of mutually assured destruction, because while the forces in the South clearly have the strategic advantage, the DPRK has an unknown but very large number of well-protected and hidden artillery pieces and conventional rockets in the mountains just north of the border, within easy range of Seoul, and the few dozen hours it might take to destroy them all could result in catastrophic loss of life and infrastructure in that very densely-populated city.

Tough call.

L

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Explaining the Opening of Diplomatic Dialogue

There has been much blather about Obama kow-towing to Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega at the recent Summit of the Americas conference, as well as his overtures to Cuba and Iran. At a minimum, his opponents accuse him of sending the wrong message (apparently it involves “legitimizing” governments that have already been majority elected by their own constituents), and at the worst he is labeled a “socialist” and a “traitor” to the US ideals. The drumbeat of hatred in disloyal opposition is stoked by conservative media outlets, who openly incite the ideologically inclined to physically act upon their irrational fears.

Notwithstanding that type of beat-up, and partisan idiocy aside, there is no reason to be alarmed. US broaching of diplomatic dialogue with various adversaries is a tried and true aspect of conventional diplomacy. Henry Kissinger was a major exponent of the approach, so it is no less useful for US President Obama and Secretary  Clinton to do so. 

As a proven diplomatic tactic, one that the Clinton re-treads who run Obama’s foreign policy apparatus clearly subscribe to, the offer to thaw relations between the US and Cuba, Iran and Venezuela is a “tit-for-tat” strategy designed to gauge the intentions of the opponent. Derived from game theory, it simply states that you open with a cooperative move, then replicate the opponent’s response. If the opponent responds with a cooperative gesture, then continue the iteration. If they opponent responds in an uncooperative fashion, then respond in kind, and only change when the opponent changes the tone of its response. In other words, always replicate the opponent’s move.

As the stronger actor, the US is advantaged by such a strategy, as it puts the other side in a quandary vis a vis domestic constituencies and its own rhetoric (Iran is the current case in point). If there are internal contradictions within the political structure of the opponent, such a strategy is designed to expose them.   For example, the US (under Reagan of all people!) told General Pinochet that they would prefer that he not stand for the presidency of Chile under his rigged constitutional referendum in 1988, and offered several inducements (personal as well as political) for his cooperation. He refused, so the US responded by publicly announcing that, in the interest of US-Chile relations, it would prefer that he did not assume the presidency even if he won.  The conservative coalition that backed him splintered over the offer. He consequently lost the referendum and his hand-picked successor lost the 1989 election that restored democracy to Chile. The point is that Reagan and company wanted a conservative post-authoritarian elected government untainted by the name “Pinochet.” When he showed his megalomaniac tendencies and his support base fractured, Chileans got a left-center, pro-market government instead. Win-win on all counts from a post-Reagan US perspective.

I use the Chilean example only because I am personally familiar with it, but the general point is this: a willingness to talk after periods of estrangement is a diplomatic tit-for-tat opening. It puts the ball in the opponent’s court and gives (US) politicians room to delineate their subsequent moves. Exploiting media opportunities to show “friendliness” is symbolic sop thrown out to soften the opponent’s constituency, and can only be undermined by resistance from one’s own constituency (which is why Fox News and its Republican lapdogs are barking so ferociously about it).  Watching local and international media spinmeisters weave their interpretations (however governments may succeed in controlling interpretations), both sides can measure the external and internal consequences of their respective responses, and carry on accordingly. That gives them a degree of separation from political responsibility in the event of failure.

Closer to home, the question arises: does New Zealand understand the utility of a tit-for-tat strategy when dealing with places like, say, Fiji? If not, MFAT should read the above, and the vast literature that underpins it.

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Blog Link: On Denuclearization.

In the comments thread on my earlier post about whether the US was in decline, as well as in the comments thread on Obama’s Prague speech over at kiwiblog, and during an interview on Jim Mora’s show, I found myself correcting people with regard to US strategic doctrine. That got me to thinking about Obama’s promise to pursue global denuclearization. I decided to write up my thoughts as this month’s Word from Afar column at Scoop: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0904/S00148.htm. The bottom line is that there are many reasons to believe that the promise, while apparently sincere, has many obstacles to overcome, and not all of them are located in Iran or North Korea.

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The Parallels between Fiji and Thailand

Although it may not seem likely on the face of it, there are some significant similarities between the political situations of Fiji and Thailand. To understand why, we must start with some background and definitions. Fiji and Thailand are modern examples of praetorian societies. Prateorian societies are those in which social group and political competition occurs in non-institutionalized fashion. Rather than use mediating vehicles such as courts, parliaments, collective bargaining and the like, inter-group competition assumes direct action characteristics: street demonstrations, riots,strikes, lockouts, blockades, and outright physical conflict. This can be due to the failure of such institutions to accommodate social group and political competition within established boundaries of rules and procedure, or it can  be due to social and political group disregard for the institutions themselves. Where institutions such as parliament and the courts still function, they tend to microcosmically replicate the zero-sum approaches of the society at large: dominant groups manipulate the system to their own advantage and use it to punish their opponents. In turn, opponents attempt to wrest control of state institutions for their own gain. Compromise and toleration of difference are lost in the struggle.

The reason social praetorianism occurs is that there is not a shared majority consensus on the political “rules of the game.” This can be due to the lack of ideological consensus or disenchantment with the system as given. Either way, it spells trouble in the form of political and social instability. As a reflection of the surrounding society, this gives rise to something known as military prateorianism. Taking its name from the praetorian guard of Roman emperors, who were said to be the makers and unmakers of kings, a praetorian military emerges as the dominant political actor in socially praetorian societies by virtue of  the force of arms. It s the default option given generalized institutional failure, and as such is characterized by an internal (rather than external) security orientation, high levels of politicization and a strong interventionist streak.

There are two types of praetorian militaries: arbitrator (or mediator) and ruler. Arbitrator military praetorians assume control of government when civilian institutions break down, but do so only to re-establish the constitutional order and provide the law and order that gives civilian actors the time and space to re-establish a consensus on the rules of the political “game.” They usually enter into power via relatively peaceful coups and set themselves a non-partisan agenda as well as a specific timetable for withdrawal from government. The point of the intervention in the political system is to stop political bickering and re-establish the institutional bases of civilian rule.

Ruler military praetorians have no such limitations. Often emerging in the wake of repeated attempts at military arbitration between competing civilian groups, the ruler military has no timetable for withdrawal and a political, social and economic agenda of its own. They tend to be more violent than their arbitrator counterparts, in no small part because they see civilian society as undisciplined and chaotic and civilian politicians as venal, self-serving and corrupt. The modern archetypes were the military-bureaucratic regimes of Latin America in the 1970s, the Pinochet regime in Chile being the most notorious of them. They tend to hold power for a half decade or more in order to transform, via the use or threat of force, the basic socio-economic and political parameters of the praetorian societies in which they are located. When they withdraw, they do so under rules of the game they set down for their civilian successors.

Thailand has oscillated between periods of arbitrator and ruler military rule, interspersed with numerous failed attempts at democratic governance. In the current political crisis, the pro-royalist “yellows” (of airport blockade fame) and pro-government “blues” are vying with anti-government “reds”  (of ASEAN summit cancellation fame) to vie not so much for democracy (which is what they all claim) but for the favor of the Thai military when it finally steps back into power. The yellows are more elite and middle-class in social origin, whereas the reds are lower middle and working class in composition, so the historical odds favor the yellows (the blues are a cross-section of party loyalists of the current Prime Minister, disaffected yellows and hired thugs). But with an ailing King and more reds than yellows taking to the streets, the military may be swayed away from its traditional pro-royalist stance in the interests of securing majority support for a reformative coup. If this analysis is correct, it implies the inevitability of another Thai coup, most likely leading to a ruler military regime that embarks on a program of political reform that breaks with the partisan lines of the past. Given that it confronts a significant Muslim insurgency in the south of the country that has links to similarly-minded insurgent groups in the Philippines, the Thai military will be loathe to be drawn into politics and will only do so if the present levels of social praetorianism threaten to escalate into unacceptable levels of violence that challenge its monopoly of organized coercion within the territorial limits. It is for the Thai civilian elite to prevent this from happening, and so far they have shown no inclination to do so.

The Fijian military has repeatedly intervened in the country’s politics over the last two decades, and the Bainirarama regime is no exception. Fiji’s social praetorianism stems from the conflicts between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, a conflict that has socio-economic class as well as ethno-religios and linguisitic characteristics. Its civilian political elites have proven incapable of achieving consensus and have a strong penchant for corruption and nepotism. Thus the military sees itself as the “saviour” of Fijian society. With this latest “coup-within-a-coup,” (see Lew’s post immediately below) the Fijian military praetorians appear to be moving from an arbitrator to a ruler role, perhaps because they believe that the country is nowhere close to consensus on a reformed and reconstituted rules of the political game. I have written previously (“Bullying Fiji Part 2: The Inside Game”) some of the reasons why this may be so, but the larger point is that it appears that no amount of pressure from New Zealand or Australia will alter the conviction of Commodore Bainimarama and his colleagues in the Fijian armed forces hierarchy that it is in the country’s best interests to prevent a Thai-type scenario from developing. The UN may be able to exercise some pressure in curtailing Fijian military involvement in multinational “blue helmet” operations, but even then, with Russia and China on the Security Council, the likelihood of passing resolutions authorizing this form of sanction on Fiji for what is an internal matter is, to say the least, unlikely.

The are two dangers to ruler militaries, one specific and one general. The longer leaders of ruler militaries stay in power, the more enamored of the perks of the position they become. Whatever their good intentions at the onset, they tend to become increasingly despotic over time, losing sight of the original project in order to concentrate on their personal fortunes. That increases resentment against the regime and factionalisation within it, which essentially returns the praetorian situation to where it began. Moreover, the longer a military is in power, overseeing civilian ministries and involving itself in politics, the less its leaders are maintaining and honing their war-fighting command skills. This may not be an issue for a country without enemies, but for countries with internal or external threats, the erosion of a war-fighting capability strikes to the heart of the military raison d’etre and emboldens adversaries of all persuasions. Put another way, to remain in power is to lose war-fighting capability, and to lose war-fighting skills (including command skills) is to invite attack. This is especially true for the Thai military, but even the Fijians need to consider this given their regular deployment of troops to foreign conflict zones under UN mandate.

The final problem is that whether the military intervenes or not, and whether it does so in arbitrator or ruler guise, on-going situations of social praetorianism is the key element leading to state failure. One only need look at the recent history of Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan to understand the implications.

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Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

Lesson 1 for everyone:
Political expedience is no substitute for democratic process.
Lesson 2 for would-be tyrants:
If you’re going to overthrow a state, leave no functional apparatus which might threaten your regime.

The Fijian Court of Appeal has ruled that Frank Bainimarama’s coup was unlawful and that he should be removed from his position as the head of the interim government and replaced with an “independent person” appointed by the President. (No Right Turn has more.)

This is complicated. A few implications I can see (Pablo can probably do better than I, and anyone is welcome to suggest more):

  • The court hasn’t ruled that Former PM Laisenia Qarase should be reinstated – and he would not qualify as an independent person. It’s difficult to think who could, given the regime’s tendency to deport, imprison or intimidate those who didn’t play its game.
  • May 1 is the deadline to announce an election date. However Bainimarama is (I assume) no longer constitutionally empowered to do so. He’s damned either way here – if he fails to do so, he tacitly accepts that he hasn’t the right, and if he does so, then he overrides the court of the land and gives his political opponents a legitimate chance to overthrow the regime.
  • Bainimarama may now be officially illegitimate in law, but he does still command the armed forces in fact, and they have demonstrated in the past few years what they’re prepared to do for him. The task of re-establishing legitimate government is harder than simply declaring an “independent person” the new interim PM.
  • Assuming Bainimarama doesn’t step down, the international community now has firm grounds to throw the figurative book at Fiji, cutting off all aid, trade and diplomatic ties on the grounds that Bainimarama’s government is now illegitimate in law. Indeed, you could argue that they have no choice but to do so. This means a likely deepening of previous policies which haven’t really done much to hurt the regime but have done plenty to hurt the ordinary Fijian people, and could drive Fiji closer to China. Tough call.

Geopolitics is a funny beast. Everyone who’s honest with themselves has known this all along – but it’s taken a panel of Australian judges stating the obvious to pull away the fig leaf and (presumably) force a response.

L

Edit 20090415: Too much has happened over the long weekend for me to write cogently about given the other things I need to do this week, so I’ll refer yous to the excellent Idiot/Savant, with whose judgements I mostly agree on this matter.

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Another American Century, or an Empire in Decline?

In my professional life  I read as a matter of course the debates about so-called US “hegemony” and whether or its “liberal” view of its role in international affairs will continue for the forseeable future (in this context “liberal” refers to the American idealist tradition of trying to re-make the world in its preferred image, whatever that may be. It is an overarching view that supercedes neo-conservative, neo-realist, constructivist or institutionalist approaches to the international engineering project). I think that the issue is worth consideration by a broader audience.

Some believe that, as the sole military superpower and core economic cog in the global system of finance, production and exchange, the US, albeit over-extended by the military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan and beset by its financial market melt-down, remains unassailable in its position of dominance in world affairs and will continue to be so for at least the next 30-50 years. If anything, the debacles of the W. Bush administration are seen to have taught US political elites the need for a more sophisticated, broad based approach to both foreign policy and state regulation of  markets as well as domestic political representation, all of which have their crystalisation in the presidency of Barack Obama. For this view, the American capacity for self-renewal in the face of adversity is boundless, which is why it will continue to dominate world affairs in the 21st century.

Others think that the US century has past, and that the emergence of China, in particular, spells the end of its hegemonic position in the world. There is still a decade or more to run before it is eclipsed by the PRC, but in this contrary view the US’s days as the pre-eminent international actor are numbered, particularly given the emergence of other powers (India, Brazil, Russia, the EU, perhaps Australia, Iran and Turkey) and US inability to curb its consumption, dependence on fossil fuels and adherence to nationalist-conservative ideologies as the bulwark against the “socialist” tendencies of Obama and his purported ilk. Mired in arguments about gay marriage and abortion, viscerally fearful of (dark-skinned) immigration, beset by domestic “culture wars,” the US is seen as a self-absorbed, narcissistic giant about to be toppled by a global community sick and tired of its arrogance, ignorance, bullying and meddling.

I am of two minds on this. For all its military misadventures the US can still do what no other country or combination of countries can do when it comes to projecting force. Guerrilla wars may bog it down but will never threaten its core interests. Likewise, although its economy is stagnating, it still dwarfs any other regional, much less national market and still has a dramatic repercussive effect on all other markets in the global commodity chain. It may be somewhat bowed, but it is as of yet unbroken.

On the other hand, its cultural vacuousness, its myopia, its clear signs of decline on all fronts relative to a decade ago suggest that the US is, in fact, slipping from the position of superpower to that of just another major power amongst others, and that it can do nothing to prevent the international system moving from the the unipolar configuration of the immediate post-Cold War era to something that although as of yet unclear, will certainly be multi-polar in a decade or so.

Which leads me to ask three questions: 1) at the point that the US feels itself being eclipsed (should that occur), will it wage a last ditch war (or wars) to prevent that from happening, and if so, will these conflicts go nuclear (which is where the US arguably has its most decided military advantage in terms of delivery platforms as well as array of warheads)? 2) will the world be a better place in the event that it does cede its preeminent role to rising powers? 3) what is the “proper” class, environmental or otherwise “progressive” line to take on this?

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A Green Neo-Realist Foreign Policy Manifesto

Now that the Green Party has matured into the third most important political party in NZ, it is time that it develop an equally robust foreign policy stance that moves beyond its visceral commitment to pacifism, human rights and civil liberties, international ecological defence and anti-imperialism. Although laudable goals that still have a place on the Green foreign policy agenda, these foundational pillars need to be supplemented by a more nuanced and less ideologically rigid, but no less idealist in principle, approach to New Zealand’s foreign affairs.

Lets start with defence and intelligence. The Green Party should maintain their absolute commitment to conventional and unconventional weapons non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament, prohibitions of chemical and biological weapons and bans on the manufacture and sale of land mines and other indiscriminate munitions. It should maintain its commitment to seeing the NZDF externally focused on peace-keeping and nation building as its major priority. It should resist efforts to turn the NZDF in to a mini Australian armed forces, and resist the calls for the NZDF to follow Australia, the US and the UK into battle no matter the context or justification. But it also has to realise that NZ’s own defence is premised on its being a good international security partner, and that it cannot abrogate its responsibilities in that field. To that end, the Greens should support efforts to restore a close air/ground support wing to the NZAF in order to provide NZ peace-keeping troops with independent air cover in foreign conflict zones. Even when under multinational military control such as the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, military protocols allow services of each country to protect their fellow troops as a priority. If NZ is going to continue its level of international troop deployments in conflict zones like Afghanistan, East Timor, the Solomons and elsewhere, the ability to provide protective air cover to its troops on the ground is surely a worthy cause. And, as it turns, out, be they rotary or fixed wing, surplus close air support platforms in the inventories of several NATO and other countries come relatively cheap when compared to the aborted F-16 purchase of a decade ago.

Likewise, the Greens needs to support the reinforcement of the Navy’s long-range patrol and interdiction capability, if for no other reason than to protect the resources located in the NZ Exclusive Economic Zone and to deter illegal poaching of whale and endangered fish in the waters adjacent to it. Moreover, such a capability can also serve in anti-piracy roles in the sea lines of communication most vital to new Zealand’s trade, and to keep track of the increasing presence of foreign submarine and surface fleets in and around New Zealand waters. Passivity in the face of such probes will likely be interpreted as acquiescence or inability to counter them, which will encourage further encroachments into the EEC, if not the territorial limit itself. That is also why the Greens need to support the continuing emphasis placed on the NZSAS as the country’s special operations branch. What it can do differently is question the deployments they undertake on behalf of foreign powers, perhaps broadening the scope of their activities to areas outside of the usual SOLIC (special operations and low intensity conflict) scenarios.

 Thus, the Greens should support efforts to increase NZDF spending to  1.5 percent of GDP, in line with the lower threshold of OECD nations, but with a specific focus on the Green “line” of defense and security priorities. No more over priced and ill-suited LAVs, no more $1 million-a-copy anti-tank shoulder fired rockets–just the best weapons and platforms for the NZDF’s unique “niche” role in international security affairs. Even if coat-tailing on previous Labour initiatives, a neo-realist Green approach to defence can provide a human security orientation that extends beyond the traditional security concerns of the major parties.

With regard to intelligence, the Greens must continue their valiant opposition to the unaccountable and often rogue behaviour of  the NZSIS and Police intelligence. But it must couple its demands for more democratic accountability and transparency–something that may begin with the appointment of Russell Norman and Tariana Turia to the Parliamentary Security and Intelligence Committee–with a more reasoned demand that external intelligence collection be separated from domestic intelligence collection and delegated to different agencies. Counter-intelligence functions can be shared because foreign espionage often follows commercial and criminal avenues, but the business of spying in foreign places is very different than spying on one’s own citizens. Thus the Police should be responsible for the latter, with all of the attendant legal safeguards that purportedly govern their operations, whereas the NZSIS can limit itself, along with the GCSB, to external intelligence collection and analysis. No other political party has even mentioned this, much less understood the multiple rationales as to why decentralisation of intelligence functions is actually an important step towards removing the authoritarian culture so deeply imbedded in New Zealand’s intelligence apparatus. In line with these reforms, the Greens should demand that the PSIC be elevated to the status of select committee allowed to review classified material in closed session. Only then will real parliamentary oversight of the intelligence apparatus be possible.

In terms of trade, the Greens need to modify their generic opposition to trade. Instead of a seeming blanket opposition to open economies, the NZ Green Party needs to understand that for a vulnerable isolated and resource-scarce country like NZ, trade is a lifeline. It is here to stay as the mainstay of macroeconomic policy. Therefore, the issue should not whether to trade or not to trade, but how to trade? The answer, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is to trade fairly as well as (or as opposed to) freely. Trading fairly means to concentrate not just on tariff reduction and other bi-or multilateral entry conditions, but on after-entry conditions pertinent to labour rights, working conditions, gender and indigenous issues, wages, health, safety and environmental standards. The goal is to promote a level of regulatory symmetry n the trade relationship, thereby leveling the playing field or at least standardising the rules of investment and competition in the interest of productivity, growth AND human dignity in the labour process. This is as true for NZ investment abroad as well as foreign investment in Aotearoa. The basic thrust is to do onto other (foreign) laborers as what one would do onto oneself (or one’s co-nationals). Capitalists may not like the impact on their short-term profits of promoting such trade agreements, but it is in their longer-term interests, in terms of a guaranteed restrained rate of profit, that they play fair and symmetrically. Moreover, such a stance places NZ at the forefront of trade debates that emphasize a balance between profit, growth and larger communitarian considerations.

Diplomatically, the Greens need to promote a strengthened constructivist-institutionalist approach to foreign policy. Constructivism in foreign policy is focused on normative value change in key policy areas (say, human rights and disarmament)  and institutionalism is focused on strengthening multilateral institutional approaches to conflict resolution and global peace and stability based on shared ideals.  Although Labour advocated such an approach, it too often has compromised its stance in order to curry favour with trade or defence partners. National has no commitment to idealism in foreign affairs. Thus it is left for the Greens to push hardest for an ongoing, if not increased commitment to finding multilateral institutionalised approaches to the sources of international disputes, and to push for progressive value change within international organisations and regional institutions. In doing so it will help continue New Zealand’s reputation as an honest international broker, mediator and arbitrator committed to supra-and transnational methods of grievance redress and resolution. After all, if the world is truly to move away from the anarchic” state of nature” that is the realist conception of international affairs, it needs to move beyond the nation-state as the ultimate adjudicator of international disputes. It is up to small countries to make the case. It is their self-interest to do so, and that is eminently realist in conception. It is, in other words, a bit of Green (neo) realism at play.

All of this is a big task and may run counter to the wishes of more militant elements in the “watermelon” constituency of the Green Party (which should be seen as a source of strength rather than as a weakness). Now is the time to move beyond the parochial environmentalism, classism and other foundational Green principles and towards an agenda that attracts more mainstream voters in pursuit of being a legitimate swing vote and therefore real power broker in the New Zealand political system. This foreign policy manifesto is a gesture in that direction. That does not mean abandonment of  the foundational principles, but the enhancing and expanding of them. This is important because only the Greens have the ability to contribute significantly to a shift in the status quo political discourse currently on display. No other party does.

 After all, with ACT having prostituted its libertarian principles to the crime and punishment authoritarians headed by Mr.Garrett (see Lew and Anita’s posts on the issue  below), the Greens are the only honest political party left in parliament–with them, what you see is what you get, full stop. Given that unique position of advantage, now is the time for the Green Party to develop more depth to their policy agenda, which is why this post is tabled.