The Partnership for a Secure America presents

A Bipartisan Foreign Policy

for January 2009

With

Ambassador Tom Pickering

Robert (Bud) McFarlane

Frederick (Rick) Barton

Monday, June 23, 2008, 9 – 10:30 am

1111 19^th St, NW, 12^th Floor, Washington, DC 20036

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Last week the Supreme Court of the United States ruled for the first time in Boumediene v. Bush on whether “noncitizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution.”

Specifically, the court ruled in a 5 to 4 split decision that unlawful enemy combatants captured overseas and transferred to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) have habeas corpus rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Translation: the 270 remaining detainees held at Guantanamo can now legally challenge their detentions in a civilian court.

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Mauro raises some important points in his blog post. In response to rising food prices and the growing hunger crisis, developing countries took steps to promote food security in an uncoordinated way, many by imposing export restrictions on food staples, which ended up contributing further to rising food prices. They did so without thinking how it would affect other countries.

These unilateral trade restrictions had the unintended consequence of hurting other developing countries, especially some of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This is another example of how uncoordinated actions to address global problems can lead to even larger long-term problems. It underscores the importance of multilateral institutions to better coordinate a global response to this crisis (and others). Multilateral approaches would include agreeing to a rules based approach to agricultural trade and assistance with balance of payment problems that countries may experience as a result of continued openness to trade in the face of rising prices.

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The global food crisis of 2008 is unprecedented. Not because of its scale or nature-a global price rise in the 1970s was, if anything, more devastating-but because for the first time, such a crisis is not being “humanitarianized”. From the beginning, the media, experts, and aid agencies have focused on the larger issues at stake.

So I could not agree more with Asma about the structural issues she identifies, and about the need for our policy-makers to craft their response to this crisis with these deeper problems in mind.

To the issues she identifies, I would add trade-distorting policies in developing countries themselves, the need for land rights reform there, and the urgency of combating ideologically-driven hysteria about agricultural biotechnology-a hysteria that is eagerly fanned by European NGOs and corporate concerns alike, because it prevents them from having to compete with American food exports.

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Last Thursday five detainees accused of playing integral roles in the 9/11 attacks were arraigned in Guantanamo Bay.  Among these was the self described mastermind behind the attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.  What was particularly notable about this arraignment process was the responses that Mohammed provided to the court when questioned.  He adamantly stated that he was actively seeking the death penalty in the hopes that his death would cement his place in history as a martyr for his cause.  This, I believe, presents quite a dilemma for those that seek to bring accused terrorists to trial to face their charges.  If the court hands down a death sentence that the terrorist actually seeks is that truly the ultimate punishment?  Furthermore, if that death sentence leads to further notoriety and fame for the accused, is there the danger that such a punishment will further elevate terrorist acts in the eyes of potentially sympathetic converts?

This dilemma actually reminds me of a similar situation in the unforgettable film noir, Se7en, starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. 

Warning – if you have not already seen the movie and don’t want to know the ending, don’t read the next italicized paragraph. (more…)

According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an article in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, China’s reluctant and belated concession to allow a skeleton UN-AU peacekeeping force in Sudan represents a newly “cooperative approach on a range of problems.” But the reality is that some newfound sense of Chinese responsibility on the world stage had nothing to do with Beijing’s decision to “cooperate.” The concession on Darfur (if you want to call it that) was entirely about the Beijing Olympics. Given that it took a threatened boycott by Western leaders for China to stop arms sales to Sudan and drop its veto of the peacekeeping resolution, I am dubious that we’ll see any further “responsible” behavior after the Olympic Games have come and gone. At this point, the Games are going ahead—with or without protesting Western leaders—and the leverage a coordinated boycott might have provided will be a mere memory.

But I’m not writing this to bemoan a missed opportunity or cast aspersions on Rice’s diplomatic optimism. I’m writing this to call some attention to the next opportunity down the road: Sochi 2014.

China and Russia are both rising powers, economically, militarily and diplomatically. Secretary Rice referred to both as carrying “special responsibility and weight as fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council.” Translation: they both have lots of nuclear weapons, so our military power doesn’t really scare them. China is also not the only rising power we’d love to see adopt a more cooperative stance as it claims (or reclaims) “full membership in the international community.”

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Let’s forget for a moment that Apple has just released their new and improved iPhone and that Hillary’s campaign is no more and let’s focus instead on the rising price of fuel. As of late Monday night, the big story on all of the major news websites is that the price of gas has just inched over the 4 dollars per gallon mark (not sure where they have been – in D.C., where I live, my local gas station was charging me that benchmark price well over a week ago).Now this is indeed big news. If you drive, you are definitely feeling the pain at the pump. But as you may already know, oil has snaked its way into many parts of our lives, so stand by for what could be a dramatic decrease in your purchasing power. If you wear clothes (and I imagine that most of us do) then you may notice a rise in the cost of your synthetic attire; if you use household paint, expect a jump in the price at your local Home Depot or Lowes; and if you color your hair, well…

Even food will become more expensive, due to the price of fertilizer and the cost of transporting products to the market.

*sigh*

Just as it has taken a series of national challenges to force us to get serious about interagency reform, the rising price of oil is going to act as a forcing function – making our nation come to terms with a looming energy crisis. One can expect some of the energy topics of old being recycled as a distressed public pressures lawmakers and corporations alike to find solutions. Will we make peace with the thought of nuclear energy? Will we increase our refining capacity? Will solar power be integrated into new construction? Will mass transit become the norm and not the exception? And will we decide to drill in locations that are currently off-limits? (more…)

Rapidly rising food prices globally and concern about the impact on hunger and poverty has prompted urgent multilateral discussions at the highest levels, including last week’s summit in Rome. The Rome Summit laid out a short-term and long-term plan of action. The immediate response must be to provide poor people with access to adequate and nutritious food either through food or cash assistance. But the international community will be far more effective if responding to this crisis also provides an opportunity to address the structural issues that are at play-underinvestment in developing country agriculture, trade-distorting agricultural subsidies in rich countries, the impact of biofuels, climate change etc.-and to fix a food aid system that is clearly inefficient and inadequately equipped.

The World Food Program has faced huge shortfalls in light of this crisis, as its budget, which relies on voluntary contributions, has been unable to keep up with the rising cost of food and transportation. The recent disasters in Myanmar and China add to the already daunting humanitarian needs. The United States and other donors have increased their contributions and last week, Saudi Arabia added $500 million in new money (not reprogrammed money). These contributions will allow WFP to continue existing efforts but not expand its programming. The United States and other donors should provide regular and realistic funding for acute food shortages. In recent years, the United States and other donor governments have consistently under funded budgets for emergency food aid.

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Foreign policy experts too often address a real potential threat to international security by simply listing all the things that could go wrong. Carefully parsing the causal relationships between (1) the threat and (2) its potential consequences is less important than simply outlining all of the horrible things that could eventuate. As a result, identifying such threats is much like playing dominos: If X happens, then Y and Z will surely happen (where Y and Z’s occurrence sounds the death knell for international stability). In foreign policy punditry, it seems that far too many of the big players adhere to the Domino Theory.

Let’s begin with the first domino, the “X” here, otherwise known the feared event that could set a number of horribles in motion. In a recent piece entitled “As things look, Israel may well attack Iran soon,” foreign policy guru and former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer falls right into this very trap. The dramatis personae in Fischer’s international yarn almost need no introduction. The United States appears early as the short-sighted buffoon, stumbling across the stage after too many drinks, a well-connected and well-heeled megacountry that just can’t understand the long term effects of its choices. Israel, of course, is depicted – as it sadly so often is – as a mostly-sober but utterly selfish charlatan, a nation beset by internal security problems it cannot quite handle and a history (the Holocaust) that it hasn’t really come to terms with. And then there’s Iran, that thoroughly inebriated beast of a nation, hell bent on destroying Israel no matter the cost. (So that there is no room for confusion, each of these descriptions distort the good and bad tendencies of each of these actors on the international stage.)

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I’m going to pick up on one part of the discussion of organizing for arms control and non-proliferation that my colleague Andy Semmel mentioned in his own piece on this blog as well as in his Senate testimony on May 15: the creation (or recreation) of a separate agency for arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation and related objectives. In my view, those functions have not been adequately performed within the State Department, and a new (or rather restored) independent agency is needed to reinvigorate US arms control and non-proliferation policy. That agency should have the particular goal of restoring our commitment to international rules and treaties as the underpinning of global collective security.

Let me also note that I share Andy’s view that controlling the spread of WMD is, or should be, a bipartisan national priority. To that end, it should be a shared objective among Democrats and Republicans to improve the way we organize our arms control and nonproliferation efforts. I hope that beginning with these two different but not incompatible views on the subject, we can foster a productive bipartisan dialogue, and agreement at least as to best practices, if not on the precise shape of our future arms control and non-proliferation programs.challenge as well.

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