Kenya captured headlines in December 2007 when the former beacon of stability and growth in East Africa descended into political and social chaos after elections heightened ethnic and tribal divisions. Yet despite over 1,300 deaths, 300,000 displaced, and fears of a second Rwanda, Kenya has pulled back from the brink with the creation of a fragile power-sharing government between the two major rival parties, facilitated by the collaborative efforts of multiple stakeholders locally, nationally, and internationally.

Today, Kenyans return to the polls for the first time since the post-election violence to usher in a new constitution and drastic political and judicial reforms. As Kenya takes a step in a positive direction, its trajectory from violence and complete institutional breakdown to slow but constructive change should be an opportunity for the international community and United States to evaluate the potential and limitations of preventive diplomacy as a concrete foreign policy tool.

International involvement in Kenya did not involve boots on the ground, but focused on rigorous negotiations and external economic and political pressure from international institutions and countries. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, the African Union, and others were all key in the process, threatening punitive measures and pushing both sides towards compromise.

The effective and calibrated response of the international community following the diplomatic intervention was touted as a successful example of preventive diplomacy, where outside actors addressed both the security and humanitarian concerns. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe at a recent Brookings Institution briefing  stated,

We quickly deployed political officers, electoral, constitutional and security experts that became the main support staff for the mediator [former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan] as he helped the parties forge the agreements to end the crisis. I think few would contest that prompt international mediation in Kenya helped prevent an even larger catastrophe.

Further, international support for Kenya’s already robust civil society was key in the process, and continues to be so today. The international Commission on Inquiry on Post Election Violence, also known as the Waki Commission; the involvement of the International Criminal Court; and President Obama purposefully skipping Kenya on his trip to Africa; are a few examples of how the international community remained engaged in nudging Kenya forward. For the referendum, the United States has taken an active financial role by “supporting the process, not the outcome,” and the threat of ICC investigations has tempered the hate speech that fueled violence in 2008.

Getting involved in the internal politics of other countries can be messy, counterproductive, and costly, as Americans today know well.  Yet developments in Kenya demonstrate that by engaging strategically, early, and with local ownership, there is a way to walk the fine line of effective outside involvement. As we continue to address the threat of failing and failed states, we need to identify and strengthen tactics that work. Replicating Kenya is by no means an exact science: Kenya benefits from a robust civil society, free press, business sector interested in stability, and strategic importance internationally, all of which heavily contributed to the resolution of the conflict, and all of which are more rare in other conflict-prone countries.  Nevertheless, by engaging directly and purposefully early rather than too late, lives are saved, long-term costs are cut, and there is one less failed state threatening international security. The United States and the international community have a strong strategic interest in engaging quickly and early in rigorous preventive diplomacy to keep instability from taking root.

Today, Kenyans will take their own future into their hands to bring about long needed reforms to address their many economic, social, and political ills. They are a long way from the finish line, and there is still much to be done to ensure violence does not reoccur on the level it did in 2008. Two years ago, they got another chance and the safe space needed to move forward. It is in the interest of all to be prepared and ready to offer the right tools for others to have that chance.

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Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet state in Central Asia, has made many headlines after its corrupt President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in April. On June 10th, riots erupted between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek minority in Bakiyev’s stronghold Osh, leaving hundreds dead and sending a flood of refuges to neighboring Uzbekistan. The June 27th constitutional referendum ratifying a new constitution was deemed successful, but true peace is elusive in southern Kyrgyzstan. The violence continues as the Kyrgyz police abuse ethnic Uzbeks, and the unrest threatens to spread to neighboring countries. Riots may flare up anew when the local clans start vying for power in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Kyrgyzstan’s weak central authorities are unable to rein in the violence.

During this time, only the lazy refrained from opining about the Kyrgyz misfortune, but nevertheless world governments have not followed words with actions. Russia and the United States have limited their response to Kyrgyz pleas for help to providing humanitarian relief. Their continued inaction may have dire consequences. Even in the unlikely scenario that the conflict resolves itself, the indecisiveness of the two world powers will leave a bitter aftertaste in the former Soviet republics.

Just recently, Moscow and Washington were so anxious about securing their military bases that they were cutting deals with Bakiyev’s authoritarian regime: in 2008, Bakiyev threatened to close the U.S. military base to secure a Russian loan, changed his mind when the U.S. more than tripled its rent for the base, and appeased Russia by allowing it a second base in the country. Now that their bases are secured, both countries are indifferent to Kyrgyz problems. To be sure, Russia fears chaos in its backyard, and the United States hopes for a stable Kyrgyzstan as it wages war in Afghanistan. However, Moscow and Washington have so far shunned responsibility for stabilizing the region.

When asked to send peacekeeping troops by both sides in the conflict in June, the Kremlin refused, citing the “internal” nature of the unrest. Russia has never hesitated to use force in the past; twenty years ago the Soviet troops were sent to Kyrgyzstan’s Osh to quell a very similar conflict. Russia’s recent foray into Georgia proves the Kremlin is willing to go far to achieve its objectives in the region. Moscow’s objectives may also explain – though not excuse – its current inertia. The international opprobrium after the August 2008 war has made Russia wary of sending its troops to intervene in the affairs of other states, whatever the reason.  Today, any presence of Russian peacekeepers in Kyrgyzstan could be criticized by neighboring Uzbekistan, if not by the international community. Russia sees no need to interject itself between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek, potentially angering both sides. If anything, the unrest between the two pro-Russian ethnic groups could, conveniently for Moscow, put the U.S.’s feet to the fire by endangering the Manas transit hub for Afghanistan supplies, even more crucial after Uzbekistan closed a US base in 2005, making it more dependent on Russia’s cooperation.

Hiding its inaction with an image of a law-abiding state that shuns unilateral action, Russia called a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and had CSTO  uncover an excuse for inaction in its own charter, which allows for collective military actions only in response to a threat from another state. As a leader of CSTO, which also includes Belarus (which sheltered the deposed Bakiyev), Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Russia could easily find an appropriate chapter in the U.N. Charter allowing it to deploy CSTO troops, had it wanted to do so. However, inaction is what Russia has consciously chosen.

The United States has no less responsibility in maintaining stability in the region. After all, it was among the supporters of the Tulip revolution that had brought the now deposed Bakiyev to power. Where the previous U.S. administration may have not thought twice before intervening, the Obama administration called for multilateral action and is demurely exchanging “opinions on potential solutions to the crisis” with Uzbekistan, which it had once criticized for human rights violations and authoritarianism.

Not unwisely, the United States seeks to coordinate its security response with Moscow. Washington hopes Russia takes the lead. There is only one difference between the U.S.’s and Russia’s equally passive approaches to the problem: Russia shields its inaction behind CSTO, while the United States covers up with the Organization for Security and Cooperation for Europe (OSCE). Washington favors sending in an OSCE police force – a measure that is being decided by the OSCE Security Council this week. Clearly, an unarmed mission will not be able to stop another outbreak of violence, and only a strong dose of peacekeeping and mediation can fix the problem. While the United States cannot act too boldly in a post-Soviet state like Kyrgyzstan, it can surely be more active in advocating multilateral action beyond humanitarian aid.

The United States and Russia have a shared responsibility in stabilizing Kyrgyzstan, and the costs of their inaction are growing. The two countries cannot ignore ethnic conflicts in the region and should work on developing a common approach to security problems in Central Asia. If neither Moscow nor Washington take the lead in Kyrgyzstan (which may become the first parliamentary republic in Central Asia, if the fall elections succeed), China (which is far less tolerant of democratic developments) may have to step up to fill their roles. If they continue to stand idle, Russia and the United States may miss an opportunity to strengthen their positions in the region and instead allow the suffering of many innocent people.

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For those of us who have been frustrated by the delays in this process the President’s remarks today were very welcome. In particular I was encouraged by this portion of his statement:

Simply put it is past time to talk about starting negotiations — it is time to move forward. It is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that’s necessary to achieve our goals. Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon. And more importantly, we must give those negotiations the opportunity to succeed. And so my message to these two leaders is clear. Despite all the obstacles, despite all the history, despite all the mistrust, we have to find a way forward. We have to summon the will to break the deadlock that has trapped generations of Israelis and Palestinians in an endless cycle of conflict and suffering. We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then stepping back. Success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency. And that is why I have asked Secretary Clinton and Senator Mitchell to carry forward the work that we do here today. Senator Mitchell will meet with the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators next week. I’ve asked the Prime Minister and the President to continue these intensive discussions by sending their teams back to Washington next week. And I’ve asked the Secretary of State to report to me on the status of these negotiations in mid-October.

There is little doubt that the path to a final status agreement will be a tough one but I agree with the President that it is a national security imperative. The question to be answered is whether supporters of a two state solution can provide the political support needed to allow the negotiations to be completed. With that in mind I was encouraged by this letter from prominent faith leaders (see below).

Letter in Support of a Comprehensive Middle East Peace:

An American National Interest Imperative

We come from varied ethnic backgrounds and religious faiths that are diverse.   We are Democrats and Republicans.  We are veterans of war and of the struggle for peace.  Together, we are all Americans.

We find common cause in supporting strong U.S. leadership to achieve a negotiated, sustainable resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – a fundamental American interest that crosses racial, ethnic and religious lines.

We support President Obama’s determination to provide sustained, hands-on diplomatic leadership to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end through the creation of two viable, secure and independent states living side by side in peace and security.

The President has made resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a top priority since his very first day in office, and we commend his leadership.  We applaud the vision the President has laid out for peace in the Middle East and the challenge he has laid down to all of us to help work for peace and a more positive future for the people of the region and the world.

This is a moment of great opportunity and urgency.  After decades of tragic conflict, many Israelis and Palestinians despair of the possibility of peace.  While the international community and majorities of the Israeli and Palestinian people are committed to a two-state solution as the best option for achieving peace and security, the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

We express our support for U.S. leadership to chart a path to a better future and to the following principles:

• We support both Israel’s right to exist in security and the right of the Palestinian people to a viable, sovereign and secure state of their own.

• A peace agreement will need to fulfill UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and resolve critical issues of importance to the parties including refugees, borders, Jerusalem, settlements, and security.

• The Israelis and Palestinians, however, have not – on their own – been able to reach agreement.  After nearly two decades of negotiations, we believe bold American leadership can help Israelis and Palestinians make the difficult decisions necessary to achieve lasting peace and hold the parties to account should they fail to honor their commitments.

• We support the sense of real urgency that the President brings to the issue and his determination to reach a negotiated resolution to the conflict during his first term in office.

• At the appropriate time, we will support the Administration if it decides to present proposals for a just and equitable solution that provides dignity, security and sovereignty for both peoples.

• Finally, we believe a peace agreement should be comprehensive – encompassing Syria and Lebanon as well as normalization of relations between Israel and the countries of the Arab world.  We support the idea of a comprehensive regional peace that builds on the Arab Peace Initiative, with its offer of recognition and normalization of relations between Israel and all Arab nations in exchange for resolution of all outstanding issues.

Both sides must take steps to move the process forward, and we support the President’s efforts to end Israeli settlement growth and to halt Palestinian violence and incitement. It is now time to move to the next stage of diplomacy and to address the tough issues that must be resolved to bring this conflict to an end.

There are many who will attempt to block the path to peace.  They may believe that the status quo favors their interests or that time is on their side.  The President should know that we understand the status quo is unsustainable and time is of the essence.  We will stand with him as he promotes a fair and just resolution to this long-standing conflict and asks all parties to make the difficult but ultimately necessary compromises for peace.

We pledge to work with the President, to forge the path to peace and security for the Middle East.  We also pledge to work with those in both societies who seek peace, justice, and security, and to stand up for those who hope for a better future for themselves and for the generations that follow.

Sincerely,

Frank Anderson
Former Chief, Southeast Asian Division, CIA
President, Middle East Policy Council

Dr. Ziad Asali

President, American Task Force on Palestine

Robert Barkin

President, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

Jeremy Ben-Ami

Executive Director, J Street

Ambassador Warren Clark

Executive Director, Churches for Middle East Peace

Debra DeLee

President, Americans for Peace Now

The Rev. Mark Hanson

Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

President, Lutheran World Federation

Father Theodore Hesburgh

President Emeritus, Notre Dame University

The Most Rev. Howard J. Hubbard

Bishop of Albany

Chairman, Committee on International Justice and Peace

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Dr. Joel C. Hunter

Senior Pastor, Northland Church

Member, Executive Committee of the National Association of Evangelicals

Rev. Bill Hybels

Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

Lynne Hybels

Advocate for Global Engagement, Willow Creek Community Church

Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon

General Secretary, National Council of Churches

Rabbi Peter Knobel

Former President, Central Conference of American Rabbis

Rabbi Charles Kroloff

Former President, Central Conference of American Rabbis

Imam Mohamed Magid

Imam and Executive Director, All Dulles Area Muslim Society, ADAMS Center, in Sterling, Virginia

Salam Al-Marayati

Executive Director, Muslim Public Affairs Council

Rev. John McCullough

Executive Director and CEO, Church World Service

Rev. Peter Morales

President, United Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Archbishop Emeritus of Washington

David Neff

Editor in Chief, Christianity Today

Rev. Gradye Parsons

Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA)

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Imam of Masjid al-Farah, New York City

Dr. Bob Roberts, Jr.

Senior Pastor, NorthWood Church, Dallas, TX

Hon. George R. Salem, Esq.

Chairman, Arab-American Institute

Strategic Advisor, DLA Piper LLP

Roland Santiago

Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori

Presiding Bishop and Primate, The Episcopal Church

Ron Sider

President, Evangelicals for Social Action

Rev. John Thomas

General Minister and President, United Church of Christ

Dr. James Zogby

President, Arab American Institute

**This letter reflects the opinions of the individual signatories. Institutions are listed for identification purposes only**

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The SENSE simulation is unique in the breadth of stakeholders included in the scenario. I played a parliamentarian (one of six), but there was also a president with a cabinet of ministers covering all the major governance areas, a central bank, international donors, international and local NGO’s, private domestic firms and a multi-national corporation.

SENSE is also unique in that it uses computers to process the decisions of these many actors to constantly update the status of Akrona. Depending on your role, you are able to update certain elements of the simulation based on the decisions you make, and you can track the decisions made by other players. For instance, while I was sitting at a parliament computer yesterday, I was quite pleased to see the Minister of Finance cut spending in the civil budget and start paying down the national debt.

You do learn about dryer things like the elements of GDP, the interplay between the central bank’s discount rate, the import tariff rate, and the national debt. But the simulation excels at teaching what cannot be learned in a book, and I came away from the simulation with a new appreciation of the human factors of reconstruction. As a parliamentarian who controlled the pace at which sectors of the economy were privatized, the corporate tax rate, import and export tariffs, and the overall budget allocation to defense and civilian spending, there were constant requests made of me. Either government ministers were asking me to privatize the telecommunications sector, or a domestic firm was asking me to lower corporate taxes and raise import tariffs on agriculture, or the Ministry of Defense was pushing me to raise the portion of the budget spent on defense. Through all this haze, I was trying to figure out what was the right policy for the country and for my ethnic group (the Akroni), and I soon realized that any decision I made might make one or two groups happy, and make everyone else angry and think I was incompetent. When adding that psychological element into the chaotic and fast-paced environment we were faced with, I came to a new appreciation of what post-conflict governments face.

There is no easy solution, there is no solution that makes everyone happy, and there is rarely a “right” policy or solution. It’s a series of tradeoffs and compromises and reactions to unfolding events. And morale flags. Feeling that you have no power to effect the change you want is demoralizing, as is realizing that you are losing battles that you think are important. On the flip side, seeing your goals achieved is an exhilarating feeling. These human elements affect how the different stakeholders interact, and getting stuff done relies so much more on that than one might expect without having done the simulation. I highly recommend this experience to anyone who can participate, and I also look forward to continuing the NSC simulations with the PSA Congressional Fellows.

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The extraordinary level of Congo’s suffering is perhaps only rivaled by the conflict’s own complexity. Congo’s eastern provinces contain massive mineral deposits that are the source of the metals used in the cell phones, laptops, mp3 players, and digital cameras we use every day. But the minerals are mined in horrendous conditions under the watchful eye of many ambiguously interrelated militant factions, earning the lucrative natural resources the name “conflict minerals”.

Recently, strides have been taken toward achieving transparency of the origins of the minerals with the introduction of the Congo Conflict Minerals Act, co-sponsored by Senators Brownback, Durbin, and Feingold. The legislation would require all U.S.-registered electronics companies selling products containing columbite-tantalite, cassiterite, or wolframite to annually disclose the country of origin – and, if derived from Congo or an adjacent country, the mine of origin – to the SEC. Through oversight by the State Department, the intended outcome of the bill will be to sever the funding of the armed groups at the source. By modeling the effort on the Kimberley Process – the regulatory policy that has brought relative stability to the diamond trade in Liberia and Sierra Leone – the plan hopes to achieve the same results.

But Congo’s crisis is fundamentally different from the one that rocked much of West Africa for the better part of the last twenty years. The scenario of mining-at-gunpoint, as depicted in the film “Blood Diamond”, does occur – particularly by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the same Hutu rebel group that earned international infamy for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. However, the system more often takes the form of a subtle taxation scheme imposed by the militants, which then steer the revenue into a “shadow economy” and smuggle the minerals across the borders into neighboring Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi to be exported. The taxation system traps the Congolese workers in appalling conditions and extreme poverty, but they have no alternative. So, in order to ensure the livelihood of millions, any attempt to disrupt the mineral trade must be an extremely delicate process. The investigation into the militant groups must be, as Senator Feingold said, “sensitive to the complex reality” of the crisis to avoid inaccurately casting all of the factions in the same light and prompting an implicit blanket sanction on all metals derived from the region by a wary consumer electronics industry.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the “conflict minerals” are as much a symptom of the crisis as they are a cause. Congo’s suffering is cyclical – weak governance gives rise to the inadequate security that allows for the exploitation of the minerals which, in turn, fuels the persistence of weak governance. Therefore, sanctions on the mineral trade must be complemented by proportionate measures to address the lack of a functioning central government. Currently, the militants essentially operate autonomous fiefdoms in the east that lie well beyond the realm of the Congolese government’s minimal authority. To make matters worse, the Congolese National Army often facilitates the illicit trade with support drawn from the very same UN funding intended to suppress the conflict. The only way for the government to achieve some semblance of legitimacy is to initiate a comprehensive development strategy that accounts for the Congolese state’s ineffectiveness. In the words of Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills, “the only way to help Congo is to stop pretending it exists.”

Although the conflict has dragged on virtually unchecked, it is not as if Congo has gone unnoticed. Despite the remarkable lack of media attention, Congo is actually home to the world’s largest UN peacekeeping mission (MONUC). The UN Security Council also adopted Resolution 1857 in December 2008, enhancing sanctions on the “conflict minerals” trade. The U.S. Congress has acted as well. The self-explanatory Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006 – introduced by then-Senator Barack Obama with support from a group of 12 high-profile bipartisan co-sponsors – passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. But, thus far, the act and all other attempts to establish stability have failed largely because of a fundamental lack of cohesion in Congo’s development strategy. In its recent Congo strategy paper, the Enough project lamented, “there has been no coherent approach to alter the incentive structures that keep Congo’s institutions weak and dysfunctional.” Nicholas Garrett echoed the need for a strategy that will “lay the foundation for a large reform process.”

The U.S. global development capacity is currently spread haphazardly across 12 departments, 25 agencies, and nearly 60 government offices, and are still predominantly governed by an outdated law passed in 1961. But the timely Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act – introduced April 29th by Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Howard Berman – calls for the first National Strategy for Global Development (NSGD). The proposed legislation would provide a long-term “centralized decision making” framework for U.S. development efforts. Such a comprehensive framework is the key to ensuring that an effective approach to relief and development in Congo is finally realized.

Congo is the victim of an intricately intertwined array of problems, from “conflict minerals” to deep insecurity to incompetent governance. We must form a cohesive development strategy to tackle all facets of the country’s complex instability. Most importantly, we must not lose sight of the critical role played by “conflict minerals” in the crisis. Just as the militants’ “shadow economy” hinges on the continued flow of the minerals, the trade’s vast wealth must also be harnessed and redirected into a legitimate Congolese economy. There is no quick fix for Congo. Debates about the root of the crisis are irrelevant because Congo’s suffering is not a chain that can be broken when one link is detached. Rather, Congo is a balloon that can not be popped – squeezing one side only swells the rest even more as the air flows throughout it. But by applying careful and coordinated pressure on all sides, Congo’s air of suffering can, slowly but surely, be released.

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We do not need to reorient our grand strategy to deal with pirates. We don’t need to reshape the U.S. Navy to fight a motley band of young men in leaky boats. As my colleague Ben Friedman has written, piracy is a problem, but decidely minor relative to many other global security challenges.

But some are criticizing the approach taken to resolve last week’s standoff. They say that the only way to truly eliminate the piracy problem is to attack and ultimately clean out the pirates’s sanctuaries in lawless Somalia. This “solution” fits well with the broader push within the Washington foreign policy community that would deal with our security problems by fixing failed states.

I have gone on at length, usually with my colleagues Justin Logan and Ben Friedman, on the many reasons why a strategy for fixing failed states is unwise and unnecessary. I won’t expand on that thesis here, other than to point out that of all failed states in the world, Somalia is arguably the most failed of the lot. “Fixing” it would require a massive investment of personnel, money, and time — resources that would be better spent elsewhere.

Mackubin Owens offers one of the more intriguing defenses of this approach in a just published e-note for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Owens likens a strategy of fixing Somalia to Gen. Andrew Jackson’s military operations in Florida, a story that features prominently in John Lewis Gaddis’s Surprise, Security and the American Experience. As Owens notes, when some members of President James Monroe’s cabinet wanted to punish Jackson for exceeding his mandate — in the course of his military campaign he captured and executed two British citizens accused of cavorting with the marauders who had attacked American citizens – Secretary of State John Quincy Adams jumped to Jackson’s defense, and proposed a different tack. He demanded that Spain either take responsibility for cleaning up Florida, or else give it up. And we all know what happened. Under the terms of Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Florida became a territory of the United States. 26 years later, it became our 27th state.

I’ve vacationed in Florida many times. Walt Disney World is wonderful for the kids; I’ve been there six times. I spent three memorable days watching March Madness in Miami a few years back. Spring training baseball is great fun.  Adams couldn’t have imagined any of these things when he acquired a vast swampland; he cared only that Florida under Spanish control, or lack thereof, posed a threat.

Here is where the parallels to the present day get complicated. I’ll admit that I’ve never been to Somalia. Perhaps they have their own version of South Beach, or could have some day. But I’m frankly baffled by the mere intimation that our national security is so threatened by chaos there that we need to take ownership of the country’s — or the entire Horn of Africa region’s — problems.

And yet, that is what many people believe. And this is not a new phenomenon. In many respects, we have chosen to treat all of the world’s ungoverned spaces as the modern-day equivalent of Spanish Florida.

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It is a dark irony that the printing press – the nifty device that made religion available to the masses – is often in the crosshairs of the world’s most militant believers.  Perhaps this isn’t alarming at all, since the right to think what one will and speak as one pleases is at odds with the core dogmas of religion. And what, pray tell, are these core dogmas?  First, religious truths can be neither criticized nor defamed.  Second, the attempt to criticize or defame those truths is a sin of unparalleled proportion, an abomination, as it were.

If you have any doubt that these core dogmas are alive and kicking, consider this:  A diverse yet similarly cantankerous and commonly-minded group of Muslims, grouped under the umbrella of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, are now demanding that Islam be shielded from criticism.  In July of 2008 the Conference formally asked the United Nations to recognize that “Islamophobia” is a real threat affecting the lives of well-meaning, peaceful Muslims.  According to the Conference, not only are Muslims often subject to stereotyping and discriminatory treatment, they must also endure the most insulting, offensive and contemptuous treatment from others, since the world is quite eager to “defile” and “denigrate” the sacred symbols of Islam.  Islam is itself under attack, a vicious and baseless siege that will only end if the United Nations steps in to level the playing field.

If Islam is “under attack,” is that a bad thing?  The United Nations seems to think so, and appears keen to intervene, as it recently renewed a non-binding resolution (62/154) entitled Combating defamation of religions.  This resolution has a number of lovely instances of non-sense on stilts, but focus your attention, dear friends, on the following gems:

(The U.N.) Expresses its deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.  (5)

(The U.N.) Stresses the need to effectively combat defamation of all religions and incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular.  (9)

Paragraph 5 is quite entertaining, if you put just a bit of pressure on it.  Is the problem that Islam is sometimes or even often correctly associated with human rights violations and terrorism, but in absolute terms “frequently” incorrectly associated with human rights violations and terrorism without sufficient grounds?  Or is the problem that in relative terms, people tend to incorrectly associate Islam with human rights violations and terrorism?  My sense is that the latter cannot be correct.  But the real issue isn’t the relative proportion of correct to incorrect associations between Islam, on the one hand, and human rights violations and terrorism, on the other.  The real bugbear is whether the U.N. should spend its valuable time trying to malign a practice – i.e., the criticism of Islam – that in a non-trivial number of instances gets the association between Islam and the underlying problems exactly right.

As for paragraph 9, well, consider the following.  First, this paragraph conflates defamation and incitement to hatred, two very different things.  Defamation is a legal concept, roughly meaning the false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, whereas incitement refers to an act or series of acts that are designed to bring about a certain outcome, in this case hatred.  In conflating these concepts, Resolution 62/154 invites one to conclude that defamatory speech inevitably leads to or is equivalent to incitement to hatred.  Given all the bright lights working at the U.N., it’s a bit shocking that this kind of sloppy drafting actually made it into an official resolution.  Then again, maybe such tomfoolery has become commonplace at the United Nations.  After all, Ban Ki-moon is at the helm, and he’s the fella that condemned Geert Wilders’ fiercely critical documentary on Islam, arguing, though of course not in so many words, that free expression is not nearly as important as appeasing the Islamic community.  Ban Ki-moon, of course, pays no mind to the fact that in the Netherlands, where Wilders resides, the Islamic community is the instigator of violence, not its victim.  But I digress.

Second, the U.N. should not be concerning itself with reducing, or encouraging the world community to reduce, instances of religious defamation.** Imagine the response of the global community if the U.N. decided to attempt to silence journalists or public intellectuals who asserted a causal connection between the Catholic Church’s position on celibacy and the rate of pedophilia and sexual abuse among the clergy.  You can tick all the boxes here:  (i) speech, tick; (ii) directed toward members of a discrete and easily identifiable religious group, tick; (iii) designed to humiliate, degrade and/or morally condemn those folks, tick; and (iv) that is capable of making third parties angry at members of that religious group, tick.  Preposterous, you might say, and indeed you should say.  Equally absurd is the U.N.’s attempt to take the same steps to prevent critics of Islam from speaking their minds.

It is easy to envision what the Conference wants the world to be:  A place where Islam sits atop a privileged perch, immune from criticism of all varieties, incisive and superficial alike. This is quite a rich request, coming from representatives of a religion whose practitioners (1) mandate second class citizenship for women, (2) prescribe death as a penalty for adultery, (3) often (but not always) demonize Jewish people, and (4) regard the Koran as the ultimate authority on any political, social or moral question (without regard to the plausibility of the Koran’s position on the question at hand).  “Pay no attention to the sharp, deadly sceptre my confederate is about to pierce you with, but instead listen to my kind and gentle entreaties,” the Conference seems to say.

The problem with such a world is that it immunizes the thoughts, beliefs and practices of Muslims simply because they’re Muslims.  Can we possibly imagine a darker future for the freedom of thought and speech than this?  Though we may empathize with Muslims who are peaceful and progressive, it does not follow that the values of free speech and open debate should take a backseat to the illiberal, anti-speech designs of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.  And that is precisely why there can be no privileged perch, no escape for Islam, or any other religious tradition, that would like nothing more than to have its fantastic claims – supernatural, moral, or otherwise – exempted from serious consideration and criticism.

** This claim is controversial.  Some might say that the U.N. should have a role in addressing forms of religious defamation that directly lead to violence against members of religious organizations or groups.  I do not disagree that speech which is designed to cause or specifically encourage violent conduct could in some cases attract the attention of the United Nations.  However, where the distinction between defamation and incitement to hatred (discussed above) is properly appreciated, there is no need to recognize a role for the U.N. in regulating religious defamation.  The real problem lies with speech and conduct that is designed to cause or encourage violent conduct, not defamation.

In Australia, Victoria adopted anti-religious vilification laws in passing the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act (RRTA) in 2001.  Under the RRTA, a person may not engage in conduct (including speech) that “incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of” a person or class of persons on the basis of “religious belief of activity.”  If a person engages in “serious religious vilification” under the RRTA, criminal penalties of up to $6,000 and prison terms of up to 6 months may apply.

This is an interesting and pragmatic approach to addressing speech that has the effect of marginalizing people on the basis of their religious beliefs and practices.  On the one hand, the RRTA provides for stiff criminal penalties.  On the other hand, the RRTA includes a very broad immunity for public speech carried out in good faith that was directed toward (a) any genuine “academic, artistic, religious or scientific purpose” or (b) “any purpose that is in the public interest.”  Sounds like the RRTA’s drafters understood the need to protect all religious defamation that falls short of actually hurting someone while still leaving judges discretion to apply criminal penalties to properly penalize vicious attacks on religious minorities.

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The report alleges that the Rwandan government, headed by a former Tutsi rebel, has been supplying troops and heavy artillery to General Laurent Nkunda, the leader of the Tutsi community in the DRC.  Meanwhile, the DRC government (or more precisely, the DRC army) stands accused of collaborating with the FLDR, a Hutu militia encompassing many of the leaders of the 1994 genocide.  The result is a proxy war of sorts, between two governments eager to formally distance themselves from the conflict and keen to portray the civil war as a battle between renegade forces.

The report will force the Security Council in general, and the Sanctions Committee in particular, to think long and hard about novel ways to approach the DRC conflict.  Clearly, the current approach of combining an arms embargo with a significant, in-country UN peacekeeping presence has been ineffective in addressing rising security and humanitarian concerns.  The arms embargo, the UN report has found, has been repeatedly breached by the Rwandan and DRC governments, among other organisations.   The UN peacekeeping force, whilst being the largest and most expensive of its kind in the world today and the beneficiary of a recent injection of a further 3,000 troops, still faces considerable problems in terms of both legitimacy and practical power.  The disparate nationalities of the troops and the size of the peacekeeping force, relative to the civilian population, have made it difficult for the peacekeepers to fulfil their mandate of disarming the rebel forces.  Suggestions that the peacekeeping force has not been appropriately prioritising the protection of civilians, including by respected aid agencies such as Oxfam, have only added fuel to the fire. 

However, all of these shortcomings should not lead us to conclude that peace in the DRC is an “impossible task”, as some have argued.  The lessons of the Rwandan genocide, which forms both the temporal and causal precursor to the DRC conflict, are enough to warn the international community against yet another abdication of its responsibility.  Yet we must also avoid the opposite fallacy of taking too rosy a view of intervention.  An ill-conceived operation, eager to compensate for the gross inadequacies of our response to Rwanda, may ironically end up contributing to, rather than preventing, unnecessary carnage in the DRC.    

What action, then, should the UN take?  The UN report recommends the imposition of sanctions against particular foreign companies and individuals that have traded with the FLDR.  However, this can only be seen as a small step in the right direction, given that the majority of support for the rebel forces originates from the Rwandan and DRC governments.  Any serious prospect of stabilising the situation in the DRC, and of eventually reducing the onslaught of violence, must involve negotiations with both governments, as well as the forces they prop up.  Although the willingness of the governments and rebel forces to engage in negotiations has to date been discouraging, it is essential that the UN exhaust all avenues of meaningful compromise first if it is to turn its mind to a more heavy-handed approach. Meanwhile, the UN peacekeeping mission must work hard to regain its legitimacy and effectiveness, including by making strategic use of any additional forces.  After all, the DRC peacekeeping force was approved under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the most potent tool in the Charter’s collection, allowing the use of “all necessary means” in the carrying out of the peacekeepers’ mandate.  The precise means required by the situation in the DRC may be an issue on which reasonable minds may differ, however the spectre of another Rwanda, on an even greater scale, must surely be enough to startle the international community into taking decisive action this time around.  

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Consider the fact that on September 24th, during the fight over the Wall Street bail out, the House of Representatives passed, bill passed by a vote of 392-39, a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without any public protest or meaningful press comment. This show there is unlikely to be any significant pressure to cut military or related national security spending.

Instead, Senators Obama and McCain seem to be reading off the same page. That is the kind of bipartisanship we do no need. The time is long past for someone to stand up and say the obvious; that both military and associated “national security” spending is out of control and continually getting more outrageous.

The latter category includes nuclear weapons spending at the Energy department, plus the State department, as well as Veterans Affairs, and the intelligence agencies. All together that totals exceeds a trillion dollars annually.

Let’s stipulate that there are multiple factors which impact U.S. military spending. And yes, while the financial crisis will increase pressure to reduce military spending, other countervailing political factors will ensure that there likely will be no significant reduction.

Why is this? The primary reason is that the United States is at war, even if is an undeclared one and one which the country is largely disengaged and removed from. And no politician dares cutting military spending for fear of being accused being ‘soft on defense” or not “supporting the troops.”

Unlike the situation at the end of the 1980s and early 19980s there is nothing comparable to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which drove significant reduction in U.S. military spending.

Today the situation is reversed. The United States is fighting the “long war” (formerly known at the global war on terror) and politically both the incumbent administration and the opposition party are reluctant to cut military spending at such a time.

Sadly, there is nothing in the campaign platforms of either Sen. John McCain or Barrack Obama to suggest that they would significantly reduce military spending.

In fact McCain says the United States must enlarge the size of its armed forces. That alone will guarantee that operation and support costs, traditionally one of the highest categories of U.S. military spending will stay high.

Likewise Sen. Obama supports plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops.

Indeed, just last Friday, Richard Danzig, a U.S. Navy secretary during the Clinton administration and a top national-security adviser to Barack Obama said he expects military spending during a Democratic administration wouldn’t drop. If one listened carefully one could hear champagne corks popping in the office of all major military contractors.

And then there was the announcement last week by outgoing Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas who said that the U.S. military wants an increase of $57 billion in fiscal 2010, about 13.5 percent more than this year’s budget of $514.3 billion. While that request would include costs that to date have been paid by supplemental appropriations it would still be a real increase.

What you heard from the Obama and McCain camps was deafening silence.

Finally, while one might think that Congress, which, technically holds the power of the purse, might be inclined to do something there is the longstanding Congressional tradition that by voting for more military spending, they are providing “jobs” for their economy, not to mention their constituents, as well a more general Keynesian pump-priming mechanism.

It is true that in the long run there are structural factors at work which may cause lower military spending.

Notably in a speech on Sep. 29 at the National Defense University Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the military must understand the limits of combat power and its leaders must be skeptical that technology can bring order to the battlefield.

He cautioned against efforts at reorganizing the Pentagon around buzzwords like “transformation,” which was not so veiled reference to the silver bullet technology approach championed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He challenged those who advocate investing in smaller numbers of higher-technology weapons in a belief that war can be revolutionized. “Be modest about what military force can accomplish, and what technology can accomplish.”

Gates said that the Pentagon has placed comparatively too much emphasis on developing high-technology weapon systems aimed at potential state adversaries such as China or Russia that take years to develop, he said, noting that the 2009 budget contains more than $180 billion for such conventional systems. But given U.S. military dominance in air, land and sea power, the Pentagon can safely shift away from building small numbers of highly advanced ships, aircraft, and other systems and instead purchase larger quantities of simpler, cheaper equipment.

Yet that de-emphasis, if it does happen, will take many years to unfold, and we can’t afford to wait.

The costs of the Iraq war are very substantial and will continue to rise for years to come, even if U.S. forces were withdrawn tomorrow. The Iraq war will cost far more in the next year than the Iraq portion of that $68.6 billion Congress has provided in the in the new military. Thus sometime in 2009 the direct costs of the war there, that the Bush administration once predicted would cost perhaps $50-60 billion in total, will cost more than $800 billion, or $100 billion above the cost (in the best case scenario) of the bailout of the financial system now being proposed in Washington. This excludes long-term costs such as payments of health care and veterans benefits, which ultimately could total somewhere between one-and-a-half and seven worth of bailout money.

Yet as long as the United States remains at war nobody expects to see a decline in military spending. Despite large war costs there is nothing comparable to the end of the Cold War, or the Great Depression that would drive military spending significantly downward.

Consider what Andrew Bacevich, retired Army officer and professor at Boston University, and author of the recently published book. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, wrote:

The quadrennial ritual of electing (or reelecting) a president is not an exercise in promoting change, regardless of what candidates may claim and ordinary voters believe. The real aim is to ensure continuity to keep intact the institutions and arrangements that define present-day Washington. The veterans of past administrations who sign on as campaign advisers are not interested in curbing the bloated powers of the presidency. They want to share in exercising those powers. The retired generals and admirals who line up behind their preferred candidate don’t want to dismantle the national security state. They want to preserve and, if possible, expand it. The candidates who decry the influence of money in national politics are among those most skilled at courting the well-heeled to amass millions in campaign contributions.

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Taking into account some of the arguments made by Devil’s Advocate in response to my previous post, I’d like to expand on some of my original points as well as clear up a few inconsistencies and misunderstandings that seem to have emerged in this exchange. I’ll return to the question of defense spending and America’s geostrategic position in a moment, but I’d like first to clear the debate of some straw arguments that Devil’s Advocate makes, likely due to my incomplete exposition of some of my original ideas.

In disputing my diagnosis of likely causes of twenty-first century instability, Devil’s Advocate makes the following argument:

Mr. Eckel attributes 21st century instability to “poor resource management, unresolved tensions between political institutions and political identity, [and] governments that are unresponsive to the needs of their people.” The exact opposite in fact is true: The instability in the world is directly caused by governments that attempt to manage their resources and economies (Pre-1995 India, Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia, Maoist China, Vietnam, etc.) Planned economies create much more instability than ones that rely on the free market and capitalism.

Just to be clear, I’m not advocating the reintroduction of central planning as the guiding principle of global economic management. I’m certainly not advocating for, nor defending, the kinds of klepto-socialism practiced by the leadership of Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Maoist China or the now-defunct U.S.S.R. When I talk about “managing” the global economy, I’m talking about using market-based institutions to guide global development. This isn’t a new idea, nor is it a particularly leftist one. The I.M.F. manages the global economy by ensuring that individual government insolvencies don’t lead to the systemic collapse of global finance. The W.T.O. manages global trade. The World Bank attempts to manage economic development. None of these institutions are particularly socialistic, and they certainly aren’t back doors to central planning.

What I’m advocating, from a political perspective, is the development of global institutions that take into account not just traditional measures of economic health like per-capita GDP, public debt, balance of trade etc, but also the manner in which that health can be sustained. In China, for example, the staggering rates of economic growth in recent years have been accompanied by equally staggering environmental destruction. A 2006 report produced by the Chinese government estimated that environmental damage had cost China 3 percent of GDP in 2004. That number may be low. The next year’s report was not released for fear of embarrassing the regime. The fact that, today more than ever, there are serious negative externalities to industrial development that markets aren’t capturing shouldn’t surprise anyone who is paying attention. I’m simply proposing that we develop global regulatory regimes to capture them.

Returning to the question of U.S. military spending and military supremacy, however, I’d like to expand a bit on my initial exposition. Devil’s Advocate frames the issue of the size of America’s armed forces as merely a matter of will, rather than of long-term capability. Furthermore, given his misdiagnosis of the principle threats to global security – the regimes he mentions are a threat, not the threat, and probably not the most important one – Devil’s Advocate’s position is problematic. Since, historically, military power closely tracks relative economic strength, it is unrealistic to expect the United States to continue to occupy the near-omnipotent global position that it held during the early 1990s. Rising powers like China, India, Japan, Brazil, and even the E.U. simply won’t permit it. The maintenance of a military capable of taking on all comers on any corner of the globe would require continuous exponential increases in military spending that would quickly become unsustainable. Given the vagaries of domestic politics, this would likely lead to wild swings in our military budget, giving us no stable footing on which to stake out a secure strategic position. It isn’t a matter of will; it’s a matter of solvency.

In a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Richard Betts argues that the U.S. spends far less on its military than would be necessary to achieve hegemonic dominance, but far more than is necessary to provide for its basic security. We spend more than half a trillion dollars a year on defense, and yet had no real military options when Russia recently invaded Georgia. On the other hand, the unprecedented reach of our armed forces encourages leaders to, in the words of Robert Kelly, “state-ize” problems like terrorism that require different and more nuanced approaches.

Under such circumstances, the United States would be far better served initiating a gradual reduction in military spending – or at least a curb of its increase – to play out over the next few decades. Many of the key pillars of our global security alliances (Europe, Japan, South Korea, Israel) are now sufficiently wealthy to bear the burdens of their own defense with diminished front-line American help in any case. We should continue to invest heavily in military research and development, both because it will provide us with the capability to ramp up our military’s size should the security situation demand it, and because our status as the key developer of military hardware will help continue to justify our place at the core of our various Occidental and Oriental security alliances.

One final point bears mentioning, though it’s almost cliché these days, given that it goes back to the Eisenhower era. The defense industry is now so thoroughly integrated into the rest of the American economy that the politics and economics of adjusting our defense posture towards less expansive goals will have to be dealt with very carefully. If this is going to happen, it will require a broad-based, multi-administration consensus that American military spending needs to be rationalized with our new geoeconomic and geostrategic position. Such considerations have been sorely absent from the broader national debate. It’s time they were given a more prominent place.

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