As you all know, the crisis in Burma is transforming from a natural disaster to a humanitarian catastrophe due to the xenophobia, incompetence, and malevolence of the Burmese government. With every day that passes, the situation of the up to tow million Burmese people affected by this crisis, almost three quarters of whom have reportedly not received any assistance, is becoming ever more precarious. It is clear that the time has come for bold international action.  My colleague, Brian Vogt, wrote an excellent piece detailing one strategy for getting aid through to those who need it earlier this week.  Brian is quite right to warn that we must not to allow our disgust for the Burmese junta lead us to political posturing rather than decisive action.

Although the Chinese government stated last week that they did not think it appropriate for the Burma crisis to be brought to the UN Security Council, it is becoming increasingly clear that stronger action by the UN and the international community will be required to break this deadly impasse. French Prime Minister Bernard Kouchner was among the first to call for aid drops in Burma, even against the wishes of the Burmese regime. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now calling for a UN summit on aid to Burma. The United States must continue to take a lead in these efforts, and to build international consensus around a more aggressive assistance agenda with the greatest amount of international legitimacy possible. Clearly, food and aid drops will not be enough as water-borne diseases begin to take their toll over the coming days, particularly on the young and the elderly.  Specifically, the United States can actively support the provision of assistance under chapter 7 of the UN Charter, as was done for Somalia and other recent humanitarian crises.

As I follow the news on Burma and the cyclone that created such devastation there, I feel tremendous sadness.  However, this sadness quickly turns to disgust as I have read about the military junta’s reaction to this disaster.  I am appalled by the complete disregard that it has shown for its own citizens.  It reminds me of the Soviet Union’s reaction to the Chernobyl disaster.  It took the Soviet Union three days to even report that a nuclear disaster had occurred - a disaster that had the potential to affect both those in the Soviet Union and those living in neighboring countries.  The reluctance of the Burma regime to admit that it needs help seems eerily reminiscent of that era. 

Unfortunately, it’s not just about refusing aid - or accepting it only under the most restrictive conditions.  What is even more appalling is that one week after this disaster which is reported to have resulted in 1.5 million victims, the Burmese government has the audacity to go ahead with a sham constitutional referendum intended to cement its hold on power.  There are reports that the Burmese government has been diverting some resources from the relief effort to hold the referendum.  This complete disregard for its own citizens should be evidence enough that it is time for these leaders to go.  Of course, they intend no such actions. 

Simon Jenkins, a UK columnist, described the callousness of this regime:  When the cyclone tore off the roof of Rangoon’s Insein jail and part of it caught fire, the guards opened fire and killed 36. An aid worker told the BBC: “They are murdering their own people.” (more…)

While many folks (including myself) last week were focused on the primary results on March 4 which resulted in John McCain securing the Republican nomination and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton destined to continue campaigning for the foreseeable future, a March 5 event on Capitol Hill was overlooked by many.  This event spearheaded by the the US Center for Global Engagement’s Impact 08 project focused on a call for an increase in resources and influence provided to non military tools of US foreign policy engagement.  This initiative argues that for too long the US has overemphasized its military tools and underemphasized diplomacy and development.  Of course, for many years activists from groups such as the American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker group), Pax Christi, the Center for Defense Information, and many others have advocated for such a reprioritization.  One would expect that they were the types that had signed on to such a call.  In fact, just the opposite was true.  The call to action was signed by over 50 three and four star generals and admirals.  The list can be found here.  This group is co-chaired by former Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni and former Navy Admiral Leighton Smith. 

The numbers are actually quite staggering.  We spend about 22 percent of our national budget on defense while just about one percent on diplomacy and development.  This imbalance has gotten so far out of whack that even our military leaders are stepping up to the plate and registering their disapproval.  Of course, the irony is, as many international development advocates will tell you, the American public continues to falsely believe that in fact we spend about 20% of our national budget on foreign aid.  The public reports that they would be comfortable with around 10%.  In fact, our foreign aid spending is less than 1% of the overall federal budget.    (more…)

Last week Raj Purohit wrote that now that the Pakistani electorate has clearly rejected the status quo that it is time for Musharraf to step aside.  While I agree that the long term outlook for Pakistan would be much improved if Musharraf were listen to the will of the electorate, I think that we all must admit that the likelihood of him stepping down is fairly remote.  Although Musharraf’s party lost the parliamentary elections, thanks to his stacking of the court, he claims that he still legally can remain in power.  Until Musharraf loses the confidence of the military, we’re likely to see him in power for the foreseeable future.  No, I’m not happy with that reality, but I also recognize that US policy towards Pakistan is unlikely to force Musharraf from power.  If we focus our attention primarily on the removal of Musharraf, I fear that we are setting ourselves up for failure. 

No, the most encouraging result I heard from the Pakistani elections came not from Nawaz Sharif nor from President Musharraf, but rather from Senator Joe Biden when he called on the US to get serious about its long term Pakistan policy.  He called on the US to:

1. The U.S. must triple non-security aid, to $1.5 billion annually for at least a decade.  This aid would be unconditioned.  It would be the U.S.’s pledge to the Pakistani people.  Instead of funding military hardware, it would build schools, clinics, and roads.
2. The U.S. must condition security aid on performance. We should base our security aid on clear results.  The U.S. is now spending well over $1 billion annually, and it’s not clear we’re getting our money’s worth.
3. The U.S. must help Pakistan enjoy a “democracy dividend.”  The first year of democratic rule should bring an additional $1 billion – above the $1.5 billion non-security aid baseline.  Sen. Biden supports tying future non-security aid – again, above the guaranteed baseline – to Pakistan’s progress in developing democratic institutions and meeting good-governance norms. 
4. The U.S. must engage the Pakistani people, not just their rulers.  This will involve everything from improved public diplomacy and educational exchanges to high impact projects that actually change people’s lives.  (more…)

According to the New York Times, a donors’ conference in Paris today pledged a record $7.4 billion of aid for the embattled Palestinian Authority over the next three years. That’s a big number, and it is intended to support critical government functions in the Palestinian territories, while jump-starting economic growth to help provide Palestinians with a tangible “peace dividend.”

As observers of the conflict have learned by now, there is a direct and critical correlation between political stability and economic growth, so that neither can last long without the other. I hope, in particular, that the latest infusion of charity to the Palestinian territories will be quickly followed by for-profit investment, especially from wealthy Arab states, demonstrating the concrete benefits of stability to Palestinians, and helping to deflate the bloated state bureaucracy by offering attractive private sector employment. (more…)

Once the scourge of reflexive internationalism, the Bush administration is now dressing in multilateralist garb. The president’s latest concession is pushing the Law of the Sea Treaty, appropriately known as LOST.

The treaty declares all seabed resources to be the “common heritage of mankind,” hits Western mining companies and their sponsoring nations with fees and royalties, and creates a new global bureaucracy to divvy up the spoils. There are authorities, enterprises, committees, commissions, tribunals, and rules galore.

Unfortunately, decades ago the so-called Group of 77, the developing nations’ political lobby, appended this money-making scheme to [add] proposals to improve ocean resource exploitation, regularize petroleum exploration, improve environmental protection, and strengthen navigational freedom. Turn over the globe’s unowned resources to us, the Third World states offered, and we’ll recognize some of your rules–many of which already had been accepted as customary international law. (more…)

PSA Advisory Board member Sandy Berger and Eric Schwartz had a compelling op-ed recently in the Boston Globe on September 5th that I believe deserves more attention.  Berger and Schwartz argue that due to America’s foreign policy attention being focused primarily on Iraq, other competing powers are gaining the upper hand in important regions around the world.  In some developing countries America is losing influence as Russia and China pick up the slack with new infrastructure development projects and other types of support.  In national security terms the short term loss of influence in countries such as East Timor may not be the most pressing item on the US foreign policy agenda.  However, we must not forget that once upon a time Afghanistan also ceased to be a priority as Soviet troops departed, only to resurge as an Al Qaeda stronghold.  Seemingly insignificant backwater countries can have tremendous impact on the US at the hands of a few determined extremists. 

What is concerning is that in the Bush administration’s proposed 2008 budget the USAID foreign assistance component has been slashed by 31%.  Granted, some of this money has been funneled into the State Department’s economic assistance fund.  Nevertheless, this is no time to be pulling back on our engagement in the developing world. 

Berger and Schwartz raise the issue of China gaining ground in the developing world as it exercises its newfound wealth and global influence.  Although framing this relationship in adversarial terms can make sense, we may also want to consider how China might be brought into the global community as a responsible citizen.  I see this as one of our major foreign policy challenges. 

The jury is still out in terms of what type of foreign policy China intends.  My belief is that China’s foreign policy will be governed primarily by its interest in expanding both the markets for its products and for raw materials and energy.  Instability and conflict are bad for business, which leads me to conclude that although its foreign policy is focused primarily on its economic interests, it is not in the business of empire building.  Certainly this is the story that the Chinese are spinning for Western audiences so as to reduce their anxiety about China’s emergence.  Although a healthy dose of skepticism is always warranted, I tend to believe that narrative. 

See this explanation of China’s foreign policy on its US embassy web site: 

Maintaining world peace. China does not participate in the arms race, nor does it seek military expansion. China resolutely opposes hegemonism, power politics, aggression and expansion in whatever form, as well as encroachments perpetrated by one country on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, or interference in the internal affairs of another nation under the pretext of ethnic, religious or human rights issues.

Clearly for China sovereignty and economic self interest supersede “pretext” concerns such as human rights. (more…)

A few days ago a new bipartisan foreign policy initiative was launched to emphasize the role that development assistance and diplomacy must play in America’s foreign policy.  One goals of this initiative, Impact 08, is to challenge Presidential candidates to explain how they will integrate greater investments in development and diplomacy into their foreign policy plans.  Not surprisingly, many of the PSA Advisory Board members have also signed onto the statement, “A 21st Century Vision of U.S. Global Leadership Building a Better, Safer World.”  The group is co-chaired by Madeleine Albright (D) and Frank Carlucci (R) and the statement has been signed by prominent D’s and R’s such as Lee Hamilton, Wesley Clark, Bill Frist, Tom Kean, Paul O’Neil, Tom Ridge, George Shultz, Larry Summers, Tony Lake, James Baker, and many others. 

In reading the statement, there was one line that actually struck me because of its timeliness: 

“We must put in place development assistance and trade policies that will increase market access and create greater economic opportunities for both America and our trading partners.”

While I believe that the U.S. must certainly place a high priority on development assistance, it seems equally important to rethink our domestic policies that dramatically undermine those efforts.  What I’m talking about, of course, is the farm bill.  (more…)

I have been struck recently by the incredible irony in the news these days related to Bush appointees.  The two that come to mind:  Paul Wolfowitz and Randall Tobias.  It seems to me that there are some common threads that run through the controversies relating to these Bush appointees.  The two appointees have been Bush loyalists.  They also have been on the frontlines of moral crusades.  Now they are suffering incessant attacks (in the case of Wolfowitz) or have simply resigned (in the case of Tobias), because of their own moral failures, or simply because of incompetence.  For these two individuals, it may be even less important whether or not they are actually guilty of the charges than the degree to which their performance has brought discredit on the institutions they represent.  Even without passing judgement on their guilt or innocence, I think that there is certainly a lesson that can be learned. 

My fellow blogger Eugene Gholz has written in several posts about the Wolfowitz controversy.  In full disclosure, I’m no fan of Wolfowitz primarily because of his key role in the Iraq war.  For someone who made such drastic mistakes that will take decades for us to recover from, it struck me as tragic that such an individual would be asked to lead an organization devoted to lifting up those in poverty around the world.  As we all know Wolfowitz is now fighting for his life as a result of accusations regarding special treatment he provided to his girlfriend.  What is so ironic is that at the same time he was seeking to reform the World Bank by taking a hard stance against corruption.  The current situation with Wolfowitz is steeped in irony.  There are two conclusions that we can come to:  either Wolfowitz did provide special treatment to his girlfriend which would certainly result in his firing, or he did nothing explicity wrong, but found himself in a position whereby his actions certainly appeared to be inappropriate.  Certainly the second situation is less serious than the first.  However, many politicians will say that perception is reality.  In this case, the perception is that the anti corruption crusader of the World Bank was, himself, corrupt.  If indeed he did nothing wrong, then at the very least, Wolfowitz’s ability to make intelligent decisions must be seriously questioned.  Anyone who goes on a moral crusade must him/herself not only be unblemished in terms of that crusade, but he/she must also go to enormous efforts to eliminate any suspicion of hypocrisy.  In this, Wolfowitz, has clearly failed.  His judgement is brought into question.  If he remains at the helm of the Bank, the institution will suffer even if it was only because of a poor judgement rather than actual malfeasance. 

Randall Tobias has been the next one to fall into the spotlight as his name was revealed to be client of the now infamous DC Madam.  The irony here, of course, is that Tobias led the country’s international development efforts which in the past several years have taken a particularly moralistic tone.  For some time recipients of US funding are not allowed to even discuss abortion with clients in foreign countries.  The global gag rule prohibits any recipient of US money from providing or even discussing abortion with clients even if that activity is done without US government funds.   Tobias himself was in charge of agencies that required recipients of aid to explicitly condemn prostitution.  This was, despite the fact, that in many situations, those who practice prostitution in the developing world can dramatically reduce HIV incidence by the regular use of condoms.  However, such programs would simply go unfunded under Tobias’s tenure.  Once again, we see that pushing moralistic campaigns to the forefront of development assistance ignores the complicated multi faceted nature of these issues. Tobias was previous director of the Office of Global AIDS.  When he was there he received criticism for pushing an abstinence-based response to AIDS prevention in Africa. Before joining the Bush administration Tobias was a major Bush campaign contributor and CEO of Eli Lilly & Co.  Some have criticized his tenure there for limiting access to HIV drugs due to intellectual corporate property rights.  (more…)

Here’s a useful column that provides some data following up on my earlier post about World Bank salaries.

I certainly wouldn’t defend all of Wolfowitz’ choices (at the Bank or before, e.g. on Iraq). Nor do I know enough to criticize the performance of any individual World Bank staffer.  But the institution certainly cries out for reform. That’s the main point here.