Global Brief | Winter 2018 by Louis Fishauf Design Ltd.

The Geokrats are Back. Just How Do They Think?

EDITORS’ BRIEF

Strategy, geography, and questions of basic national survival and advantage were never really off the table. But their 21st century articulations, far from boring, are still in gestation.

COVER ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL WARAKSA

in the increasingly hot Korean (or North Korean) theatre. Finally, Irvin Studin offers up 10 theses on Russia this century – how it works, how it can be governed, and how the world’s most complicated country can negotiate its international path (and conflicts) in the coming decades. In Tête à Tête, GB speaks with Singapore’s former top diplomat to distill the issues, stakes and possible exit strategies for the various pressure points and crises in Northeast Asia. GB also exchanges with the outgoing head of Oxford’s St. Antony’s College on the future of Brexit, the EU, and even the Catalan question. In Query, former longtime CSIS director Ward Elcock meditates on the future of Canadian intelligence. And former top Canadian foreign policy adviser Jocelyn Coulon explores Canada’s strategy (for now, highly underdeveloped) for the African continent. In Nez à Nez, Yuriy Romanenko of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future faces off against top Ukrainian geokrat Grigoriy Sytnik, formerly of the National Academy of Public Administration in Kiev, to assess the consequences (thus far) of the Ukrainian revolution. In The Definition, GB tries to describe the nature of the situation in Myanmar, particularly in relation to the Rohingya, with the help of Moe Thuzar of the ISEA-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, Arabinda Acharya of the National Defense University at Fort Bragg, and Abhishek Srivastava of the University of New Delhi. In Strategic Futures, the University of Ottawa’s André Lecours, Andres da Silva of the Catalan European Democratic Party, and the University of Winnipeg’s Jose Lopez Bueno place their bets on the look and feel of Spain in the year 2022. In Situ reports come to us from Berlin via the University of Marburg’s Wolfgang Krieger, as well as from Canberra via Christian Barry and Nicholas Southwood, both from the Australian National University. GB is in the French Cabinet Room of young Emmanuel Macron, as he plots his country’s next moves in the Middle East (and doubtless beyond). George Elliott Clarke, Canada’s parliamentary poet laureate, closes the book in Epigram. Enjoy your Brief. | GB

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he original working name of GB, before it launched nearly a decade ago, was Geokrat (yes, with a ‘k’ – perhaps for emphasis). And the geokrat remains the ideal-type when GB’s team thinks about its writers around the world (in English and French alike), many of its most demanding readers, and indeed its subjects – starting with strategic decision-makers on all continents, in politics, business and all spheres of life in between. Who is this geokrat, and how does she think? What are her calculations? What sources does she (or he) use? A few things remain plan. The geokrat trades in raw realities – no morality plays, no oblique language, and, for (analytical) certainty, no Facebookisms: words like ‘(deeply) troubling,’ ‘alarming,’ ‘jarring,’ ‘shocking’ and even ‘worrying’ try to make no appearances in our pages. What is clear, even if the world of the geokrat – in this early new century – still defies clear interpretation and articulation, is that the 21st century geokrat will, if only to endure, have to be a clever cat indeed. She or he will not only need to incorporate into the calculus data points, intangibles and judgements from everywhere (because ‘everywhere’ may seem increasingly available), but will also be searching for competitive edges and advantage by finding or engineering insights that, at the margin, are not immediately accessible to any relevant peer group. The search for such differential insights and the gambles the geokrat will make based on these inputs will form the geokrat’s craft this century. To the death… John E. McLaughlin, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, is back in our pages, revisiting, in the One Pager, his interventions of 2009 and 2014 to tell us what the next five years of conflict in the world look like. In the lead Feature, GB Editor-in-Chief Irvin Studin builds on and updates his four-point game framework, first articulated in these pages in 2012, to suggest a more sophisticated mental (strategic) map for Canada this century. Jeremi Suri of the University of Texas at Austin goes on to imagine the next five years of America, domestically and externally. Barthélémy Courmont, GB Geo-Blogger and also of the Université catholique de Lille, explains the art of the possible – what, if anything is to be done? –

N O. 2 2

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & PUBLISHER Irvin Studin

WINTER 2018

D E PA R T M E N T S

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EDITORS’ BRIEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 ONE PAGER

John E. McLaughlin | The future of conflict – take three . . . . . . . . . 5

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IN SITU

SENIOR EDITORS Milos Jankovic, Zach Paikin

Wolfgang Krieger | Whither German intelligence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

JUNIOR EDITORS

C. Barry & N. Southwood | Migrants and the Pacific solution. . . . 30

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TÊTE À TÊTE Bilahari Kausikan | North Korea, China and Asia-Pacific futures. . . 26 Margaret MacMillan | The consequences of Brexit, thus far . . . . . . . 38 QUERY Ward Elcock | Whither Canadian intelligence?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Jocelyn Coulon | Quelle stratégie pour le Canada en Afrique?. . . . . 22

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F E AT U R E S

CANADA’S FOUR-POINT GAME, PART II America-China-Russia-Europe, or ACRE: prudent, porous and promiscuous engagement for national survival and advantage BY IRVIN STUDIN

WHITHER THE US IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS? Isolation, intervention and diminished American expectations BY JEREMI SURI

QUE FAIRE DE LA CORÉE DU NORD? Pour Washington, Pékin et Moscou, la prolifération se retrouve, une fois de plus, à la croisée des chemins PAR BARTHÉLÉMY COURMONT

TEN THESES ON RUSSIA Reflections on hybrid administration, algorithms for exiting the conflict, and how to govern the world’s most complex country BY IRVIN STUDIN

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The Future of Conflict –Take Three The former CIA head revisits his predictions from 2009 and 2014, and projects forward to 2022 BY JOHN E. McLAUGHLIN

actors, ranging from hacktivists to terrorist movements. So what can we expect looking ahead five years? In 2014, I said that the most certain thing about the future of conflict is that there would be a lot of it. I believe that this is still a safe generalization, and that it will be most pronounced in three arenas. First, we are likely to see what might be called a protracted standoff among the great powers, as rivalries persist and the will and processes for dampening them remain elusive. Ukraine is a good case in point. NATO powers have few tools to force Russia out of Ukraine other than economic sanctions, while Russian president Putin sees keeping Ukraine out of Western institutions and frameworks as a core interest that he cannot sacrifice. In Asia, the interests of the US and its partners converge only partly with those of China, making it difficult to collaborate on a strategy to avoid the seeming inevitability of a North Korea armed with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. A second trend fuelling conflict will be the atomization of terrorism in the aftermath of a likely successful international effort to push ISIS off the Iraqi and Syrian territories that it seized in 2014. With its global strategy, ISIS has established a number of nodes, outside its heartland, in places like Egypt, Libya, East Africa and Southeast Asia, from which it can plot, train, plan and regroup. Attacks such as the ones in Ankara, Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, Manchester, London, Barcelona and Manhattan will become the new normal for the immediate future. Finally, the Russian hacking of the US election is probably just the front end of a long bout of cyber-duelling among nations, accompanied by the incalculable impact of cyber-skilled non-state actors. Russia’s intervention was novel only in its means. It was fuelled mainly by social media and, as such, was merely the 21st century version of a covert influence tradition rooted in the post-revolutionary Russia of the last century. With cyber tools certain to grow in sophistication, we are certain to see more such efforts. Nothing is likely to interrupt this trend, short of successful cyber arms control negotiations or a calamitous event, such as a ‘cyber 9/11.’ The latter would involve some country experiencing the loss of its power grid or some other capability essential to its normal functioning and to public health and safety. Such an event might (or might not) have the effect that the 9/11 attacks had in galvanizing international support for the resource and policy commitments needed to combat terrorism. | GB

John E. McLaughlin was Deputy Director and Acting Director of the CIA from 2000 to 2004, and now teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

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or the third time since the inaugural issue of GB in 2009, I will try to look ahead five years to estimate the future of conflict. In 2014, l graded myself at B for my 2009 effort. Of the three trends that I had highlighted, two materialized generally as I had projected, while one did not. I correctly projected, first, the growing role of technology – especially cyber-offence and defence – and, second, the increased conflict within societies as a result of the convergence of ethnic, religious and demographic trends. I am still feeling good about these forecasts. In both cases, the impact of the phenomena has only grown. Exhibit A is the disruption flowing from the Russian cyber-attack on the 2016 US presidential election, which created unprecedented tension in the American political system. As for my expectation of increased conflict within societies, the three years since these assessments has seen rising violence in the Middle East, with the rapid growth of ISIS and a fierce, ongoing battle to defeat it. What kept me from a higher grade on my 2009 assessment was a miscall on energy. I anticipated rising demand and a shortage of supply. The demand prediction was spot-on, but the evolution of horizontal drilling (“fracking”) in North America pushed energy supply off the charts and, once combined with green technology, conservation and battery technology, pulled prices down to create an oil surplus. Now, based on my follow-up assessment in GB’s Fall/Winter 2015 issue, I have moved into the B+ range. I thought that the US would by now be less able to exert influence and referee conflicts than in the past, and that this would open up vacuums into which other players would move. That is precisely what we have seen in places like Ukraine (where Russia has not only bit off Crimea, but pressed meaningfully into eastern Ukraine) and East Asia (where China has built military facilities in disputed parts of the South China Sea and asserted air rights over the contested East China Sea). Meanwhile, the US has further weakened its capacity for influence in Asia because of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership – at a time when China is pushing competing initiatives like One Belt, One Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. I anticipated two other things that have generally come to pass: heightened strife in regions lacking comprehensive security agreements, such as the Middle East, and the growing influence of non-state

ONE PAGER

Whither German Intelligence?

IN SITU

As Angela Merkel returns for a fourth term, Germany’s services will have to reckon far more seriously with the country’s realities WOLFGANG KRIEGER reports from Berlin

A Wolfgang Krieger is Emeritus University Professor of Modern History and the History of International Relations at the University of

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Marburg, Germany.

t first glance, Germany’s intelligence system seems to conform to the usual pattern in Western democracies: foreign intelligence is separate from domestic intelligence, and intelligence is separate from policing. Moreover, all of these are subject to parliamentary scrutiny, both in financial and policy terms. A closer look at the German system, however, betrays a number of significant peculiarities. For starters, there is no separate military intelligence service in Germany. Instead, this function is subsumed to the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service. This may have been sensible during the Cold War, when German armed forces (Bundeswehr) were entirely under NATO command, guided by NATO intelligence. After 1990, when Germany, now reunified, began to participate in non-NATO or ‘out-of-area’ missions, a ‘national’ military command centre was created. And yet most of the intelligence staff within the ministry of defence were transferred to the BND. The Bundeswehr retained only the mobile technical collection units (army, navy, air force, satellite collection), defence mapping, and the military information service. This state of affairs was considered appropriate even after 9/11, as Islamist terrorism was not seen as a military challenge (contra the spirit of the US ‘war on terror’), but rather as a challenge for diplomats, law enforcement, and development aid workers. On this logic, no expansion of German intelligence was needed. At the same time, nearly all Western countries – and the UK and France in particular – invested massively in their defence and intelligence capabilities. Berlin’s response to cyber warfare was similar. A Bundeswehr ‘cyber and information’ command was established in April 2017 – many years after Washington, Paris and London had created such commands, with both defensive and offensive capabilities and on a much larger scale. Somewhat earlier, in 2016, the BND, following a delay caused by the political fallout from the Snowden crisis, was given additional funding to hire several hundred experts in computing and data management. Germany’s reaction in learning of the National Security Agency (NSA) data leak in 2013 was unique among the nations. While the strategic community in the US and the UK, the two countries that had suffered the most damage to their intelligence

capabilities, overcame the public scandal within a short period, the German media and most German politicians professed to have been ignorant of the close cooperation between German intelligence and the NSA in the first place. A parliamentary inquiry reporting in June 2017 produced little evidence of actual wrongdoing, apart from a certain degree of negligence on the part of BND technicians in handling long NSA wish-lists for bugging the phones of certain political figures, defence contractors and international offices. Public discourse made it seem as if the BND’s cooperation with NSA was somehow illegal or unethical – even if the basic bilateral intelligence cooperation agreement between Berlin and Washington had been signed by the current federal president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, back in 2002 when he had been in charge of the Chancellor’s office under Gerhard Schröder. When cross-examined by the committee of inquiry in March 2016, a year before being elected president, Steinmeier professed to not understand the ways in which the agreement operated in practice. Chancellor Angela Merkel, the last to testify before the committee, knew better than to become involved in the details of the debate. In 2013, she was scandalized by news of her (non-encrypted) mobile phone having being bugged by the CIA. She immediately pressured US President Barack Obama to sign a ‘no-spy agreement’ with Germany. Obama did not oblige. At that point, Merkel, realizing that she was in a no-win situation, dropped the issue and left all further debate on intelligence politics to her lieutenants. She even refused to hand her mobile phone over for inspection to the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI), the federal agency responsible for data security. In June 2016, she fired Gerhard Schindler, the president of the BND, without giving any specific reason. No BND chief had ever been fired before. But now a scapegoat was needed for Germany’s part in the Snowden scandal – preferably someone far removed from the Chancellor’s immediate political circle. Also related to the Snowden scandal was the 2016 legislative reform covering the BND’s foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations. Until the reform, SIGINT operations were controlled by secret executive orders, with scant guidance from legislators. The law now spells out in minute detail whose communications may be intercepted and for what purpose.

A new, independent commission of six high court judges and federal prosecutors was established in order to authorize such interceptions. For all practical intents and purposes, this was a major political triumph for those who do not believe in the need for Germany foreign intelligence operations in the first place, and who wish to see Germany’s ‘intelligence power’ reduced to a bare minimum.

PHOTOGRAPH: MATTHIAS BALK / PICTURE-ALLIANCE / DPA / AP IMAGES

Constitution – in Cologne. Debate came to a head in 2011, when a violent neo-Nazi network (NSU) was uncovered. The NSU had by then committed at least 10 murders since 1999 (with nine of the victims having been of Turkish or Greek origin), in addition to a long string of bank robberies and a still unknown number of other crimes. Subsequent parliamentary inquiries and a major court trial in Munich uncovered a multitude of inept domestic intelligence operations into neo-Nazi

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here have been, to be sure, significant improvements in German foreign intelligence since 9/11. The lowering of thresholds for data protection and the sharing or exchange of intelligence information gave intelligence and law enforcement professionals greater room to manoeuvre. In June 2017, the federal parliament even passed legislation allowing law enforcement (but not intelligence services) to use computer malware for purposes of spying on certain types of criminals or suspected criminals. For its part, domestic security intelligence in Germany has been in deep trouble for several years. Under the federal Constitution, this is a shared responsibility between the 16 Länder (regional) offices and the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) – the Federal Office for the Protection of the

In the absence of a high-quality strategic community, with dedicated research institutes and university programmes in national and international security studies, the Munich effort alone is unlikely to bring Germany into line with Israel, the UK, France and the Netherlands – all of which are well ahead in security studies.

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circles, and of German intelligence failure more generally. Indeed, both law enforcement and intelligence had failed to connect the dots between the NSU hate crimes because they had ruled out the possibility of neo-Nazi ‘terrorism’ altogether. Critics demanded a thorough reform – something that, in the idiom of the American FBI, would turn the Länder offices into subordinate branches of the BfV. Of course, this would undermine the fundamental federal principles by which the judiciary, police and domestic intelligence (along with science, education and other areas) are key competencies of the Länder. As a substitute for constitutional overturn, then, a series of practical steps have been taken, including the establishment of more intelligence fusion centres, joint data storage and exchange, and more data-sharing in general. Apart from combatting domestic terrorism, the BfV and its regional sister services also have important roles in counter-intelligence and cyber defence. On cyber, in particular, a large-scale national effort was launched in June 2017 to improve the cyber capabilities of the BfV, the Bundeswehr and law enforcement. The BND has agreed to leave behind its technical collection and data-processing units when the rest of its headquarters will complete its move from Munich to Berlin in 2018-2019. Moreover, a joint civilian-military training programme in intelligence at the Bundeswehr University near Munich will be Germany’s first graduate program in intelligence. It remains to be seen whether all this is a step forward in creating a proper German intelligence culture in the broader sense. In the absence of a high-quality strategic community, with dedicated research institutes and university programmes in national and international security studies, the Munich effort alone is unlikely to bring Germany into line with Israel, the UK, France and the Netherlands – all of which are well ahead in security studies.

hat is to be expected in the foreseeable future? Germany, like all Western countries, will face enormous challenges caused by turmoil in the Islamic world, uncontrolled migration and, to be sure, the emergence of neo-authoritarian regimes in Russia and Turkey at Europe’s borders – not to mention Asian hotspots like North Korea and the meta-dynamic of the accession of China, militarily and strategically, to great-power status (see the Tête à Tête interview with Bilahari Kausikan at p. 26). The most serious security and intelligence challenge is bound to emerge from the massive and chaotic immigration from the Muslim world, sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans (with about a million such migrants having entered Germany in 2015-2016 alone). The going mantra is that “We will succeed” (Angela Merkel in 2015) if only Germany integrates these migrants rapidly and affords them every opportunity to succeed. And yet integration for many of these migrants will not be possible, while outright rejection of European values may well grow for a non-negligible number of them as their former homelands disintegrate into chaos. | GB

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ive years ago, in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of GB, I proposed a new framework for understanding and developing Canada’s interests and pressures in the 21st century. The thrust of the article was that if Canadian policy and strategic leaders did not have the right ‘mental map’ of Canada’s international relations, and if Canada did not master the enhanced strategic complexities associated with its new-century ‘strategic game,’ then the country would either not survive the century, or would emerge from the century as a strategic cripple, unable to meaningfully determine the terms of its own existence. Let us recall, as established in previous issues of GB, that modern states last an average of about 60 years, after which their ‘statehood’ is ended or transformed unrecognizably through one or both of war and constitutional collapse. At over 150 years of age, then, the Canadian federation, which is internally very complex but which has, among all the nations, known very few

CANADA’S

FOUR-POINT GAME PART II Irvin Studin is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher

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of Global Brief.

external existential pressures – and virtually no war at all on its territory in over a century – will have to work hard to secure its future on terms familiar and acceptable to itself. Canada’s four-point game this century is dictated by the country’s borders, newly conceived. I call this four-point game ACRE. To the south, we have the obvious ‘A’ in America (the US), with which Canada has been at peace since the 1871 Treaty of Washington. To the west, there is China, or ‘C.’ To the north, across the fast-melting Arctic ice, is Russia, or ‘R.’ And finally, to the east, is Europe, or ‘E.’ On this conception of things, Canada is surrounded this century, on all sides, by nuclear powers, three of which are arguably great powers. The core Canadian strategic objective, in order to survive and succeed, is to minimize the frictions (or ‘threats’) at its borders, and to maximize the strategic rents flowing from its management of its many-vectored relationships. What is new in this Canadian mental map? First and foremost, the ‘C’ and the ‘R’ – plus the resulting interrelationships between the various letters (countries and regions) that come with these additional two relationship vectors. In other words, Canada is interested

America-ChinaRussia-Europe, or ACRE: prudent, porous and promiscuous engagement for national survival and advantage this century BY IRVIN STUDIN

this century not just in each of the four vectors A, C, R and E, but indeed in the six additional vectors AC (the America-China relationship), AE (America-Europe), AR, ER, EC and RC. (We could easily add combinations of three-country relationships, within the ACRE universe, to this mix.) In total, Canada’s game this century turns on at least 10 vectors, with the individual ACRE vectors being primary in strategic importance, and the additional six interrelationship vectors of secondary importance. The very articulation of a Canadian mental map or relationship-vector strategy is also arguably new, as modern Canadian strategic thinking tends to flow from projections of interests from Ottawa outward, with the interests (the ‘ends,’ as it were) driving the national strategic concept, but without this national strategic concept necessarily embedded in any ‘systems’ framework of international affairs. The four-point game construct instead privileges a means-oriented approach to Canada’s international relations. Canada must be interested in, and must invest in, all of the 10 relationship and interrelationship vectors commended to it by its mental map – with the varying intensities of Canadian investment over time expressing themselves as a function of deliberate strategy, rather than through improvisation or circumstantial fetish – always in order to minimize the aggregate friction and maximize strategic rents. In effect, the relationship itself (the means) logically precedes the interest (the end), with the underlying understanding that Canada must master all of these relationships and interrelationships in order to survive and succeed this century – and, almost as importantly, that Canada cannot properly know its ends without proper investment in the means (the relationships) themselves. How, for instance, can Canada know what it wants from, say, China or Russia this century? At the time of this writing, it does not know either sufficiently well to be able to make any serious determination in this regard. What should Canada’s posture be in negotiating its four-point game this century? Answer: Canada must be prudent, porous and promiscuous. Prudence is a counsel to national humility, moderation and proportionality in Canadian engagement across its ACRE and secondary ILLUSTRATION: DANTE TERZIGNI

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What is new in this Canadian mental map? First and foremost, the ‘C’ and the ‘R’ – plus the resulting interrelationships between the various letters (countries and regions) that come with these additional two relationship vectors.

relationships. Porousness means that Canada must, barring war and national emergencies, remain open (non-dogmatic) to the exchange of ideas, products and people. Finally, strategic promiscuity means that Canada must be ever-opportunistic and flexible in determining the intensity of its key relationships over the course of the century. Of course, China (or ‘C’) has, for all practical intents and purposes, always been in the same physical and geographical spot vis-à-vis Canada (west of what is today British Columbia), but it has never, over the last 150 years of the Canadian federation, formed part of Canada’s essential strategic algorithm. Why? Answer: Because Canada’s modern formation in 1867 occurred shortly after China lost the second Opium War. Bref, the entire century and a half of Chinese instability and strategic weakness and marginality coincides almost exactly with the 150 years of the modern Canadian state. No longer… As for Russia (or ‘R’), while it too has always been to the immediate north of Canada geographically (in three state forms – imperial, Soviet and now republican post-Soviet, the second lasting only 70 years), the melting of the Arctic ice has, for the first time in history, created a direct physical juxtaposition between the modern Canadian and Russian states. Canada and Russia are the two Arctic giants of this century – far ahead of the US in this respect – and the relationship between the two will determine much of the fate of huge swathes of land, water, seabed and sky in the Arctic and northern territories of both countries (and in the Arctic commons more generally). Let us also note that the ACRE framework is not meant to be comprehensive or exhaustive in its coverage of Canada’s strategic relationships this century (see the Query article by Jocelyn Coulon on Canada in Africa at p. 22). One might rightly ask: Where is, say, Indonesia? Where is Israel? Where is Brazil? Where is India? Answer: They may all be relevant or even important to Canada in the 21st century, but they are in all cases of subordinate strategic significance. In other words, these relationships have no existential import for Canada, and are unlikely to command as much strategic attention and as many strategic resources as the fundamental ACRE and ‘ACRE-plus’ web of relationships. Moreover, much of the importance of these subordinate relationships will turn on the ways in which, and the degree to which, they are connected (or not) to the primary ACRE relationships.

‘A’ is for America The US will remain Canada’s most important economic partner and strategic ally for the foreseeable future (see the Feature article by Jeremi Suri at p. 32). However, the strategic standing and capabilities of the US in the broader world are fast diminishing. It is not just the economic weight of the US that is in

relative decline, but indeed two other critical elements of American power and prestige, particularly as considered by Canadian analysts: first, the attractiveness and achievements of the American political system; and second, the judgement of its strategic elites. In this context, what is the Canadian interest vis-à-vis the ‘A’ vector? It is to maximize economic and strategic advantage from the American relationship, while methodically, systematically carving out enough space from this naturally close relationship in order that Canada develop the capacity to ‘think for itself.’ This Canadian capacity to think for itself includes the capacity to manage the contradictions between Canada’s relationship with the US and Canada’s increasingly important relationships with the other three primary vectors of its four-point game this century: with China, with Russia and, more comfortably, with Europe. It includes the ability to ‘defend ourselves’ – whatever the means to that defence. Three key moves are required of Canadian strategic leaders in order for the country to begin to think for itself: first, conscious investment in the idea that, for all the historical commonalities and affinities between the two countries, Canada’s strategic vocation and project are, as anticipated by Canada’s founders and articulated in its constitutional framework, separate and different from America’s strategic vocation; second, that, in a pinch or in times of existential or strategic crisis, there is, in the absence of clearly overlapping interests, no obvious reason to presume that the US will defend Canada; and third, as a logical consequence, that Canada ought to see its relationship with the US as instrumental rather than constitutive – that is, we use American power and prestige (and America’s typically superior assets and relationships) where this is useful and suits us, to Canadian advantage (and possibly to mutual advantage). But we must never view, nor should we be perceived as viewing, American power and prestige as identical with, or indistinguishable from, Canadian power and prestige.

‘C’ is for China There is a school of Canadian strategic thinking that holds that Canada should minimize or limit its engagement with China for reasons of moral or political difference. This school of thinking patently misunderstands China’s new-century importance globally and to Canada in particular, and condemns Canada to painful isolation or provincial irrelevance at best, and strategic castration at worst. (The same applies, to a far less formidable extent, for Canada’s border relationship with Russia in the Arctic this century.) As mentioned above, Canada has never had to reckon with a serious China. It has also never had a

to become fluent in Mandarin and other Asian tongues. They will need to develop deep professional relationships and networks across Chinese society, in all sectors. And they will need to be able to work with and within the Chinese mentality – a patent inability today for Canadian strategic elites, who are culturally and intellectually trained strictly in Western (or, more narrowly still, Anglo-American) thinking and references, and who are highly inflexible and uncomfortable in their strategic imagination and literacy outside of Western frontiers. What do we wish to achieve in the Chinese relationship this century? Three things. First, Canada will want to maximize its inclusion in – and ability to help shape – any and all description of Chinese international regime-making – in respect of international trade and investment, infrastructure and, to be sure, matters that emanate from Canadian humanitarian and rights traditions. Second, Canada must, quite obviously, maximize economic returns from the massive and increasingly wealthy Chinese consumer market, from Chinese corporate and state investment, and also from various species of joint ventures and partnerships with Chinese universities, research institutes and companies. Third, Canada must be the first among the major democracies, and especially among the major federal democracies, to incorporate into its political and policy culture and operations the key advantage of Chinese and Singaporean algorithmic governance – to wit, the ability to think, plan and deliver over the long run. How to do this in a democratic context this century? More complicated still, how to do this in a democratic and federal context? No Western democracy has yet answered these questions persuasively in this early new century.

What should Canada’s posture be in negotiating its four-point game this century? Answer: Canada must be prudent, porous and promiscuous. Prudence is a counsel to national humility, moderation and proportionality in Canadian engagement across its ACRE and secondary relationships.

‘R’ is for Russia Canada’s Russia relationship turns not on any serious strategic renaissance of Russian power, as with the Chinese case, but rather on the brute fact that the Arctic ice frontier with Russia is fast melting, with the ice expected to be in full recession during summers in the coming decades. This means that, as a matter of strategic fact, the country with the greatest territorial, military, economic, environmental, scientific, cultural and people-to-people exposure to Russia, among the large Arctic states this century, will be Canada. In the Canadian strategic mindset, then, Russia is no longer to the east of the EU and Ukraine, but rather immediately due north of us – at our doorstep, as it were. Indeed, had Canada the appropriate mental map in preparing its position on the Ukraine-RussiaWest conflict over the last several years, it would have been less frontal and dogmatic in breaking relations with Moscow, realizing that Canada has

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border relationship with a country whose political system and tradition are so fundamentally different to the constitutional-federal-democratic framework that governs modern Canada. And yet the China that finds itself effectively at Canada’s western border is not only the most serious strategic power in the world today, but it also has – for its many pathologies, and if we ourselves are properly porous – much to teach Canada and other democratic states about planning and administration (to which we return below), infrastructure, environmental science and policy, logistics and, to be sure, education. This is not a hagiography of China, but plainly an empirical fact, given certain comparisons between American (or Western) and Chinese achievement in these fields over the last two decades. Indeed, this is a fact that, despite the manifest dynamism and industry of American society and civilization, has led to a plurality of states in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the former Soviet space and Africa pivoting to adopt certain Chinese (and Singaporean) characteristics and processes in their constitutional-strategic and administrative frameworks, while seeking to preserve the strong popular feedback and legitimating features of Western democratic systems. A good portion of the Canadian strategic elite – particularly those based in Ottawa, Montreal or Toronto – fancies that Canada is not ‘in’ Asia (as it were), or that the country has no meaningful Asian strategic vocation. They may be surprised to learn, however, that Vancouver is physically closer to Beijing than Sydney, and only slightly less close than Brisbane. (Indeed, Whitehorse in the Yukon is closer to Beijing than all of these other cities.) This is meant to prove that the notion that Australia is somehow ‘in Asia’ while Canada is ‘not in Asia’ is largely constructed. Australia very consciously constructed its Asian identity and vocation, and with growing velocity after the Keating prime ministership, over the course of several decades after strategic abandonment by the British in WW2, in the face of Japanese bombardment and faced with the growing strategic, economic and demographic importance of Asia (see the Tête à Tête interview with Kevin Rudd in the GB’s Fall/Winter 2015 issue). Canberra, too, once presumed that its longstanding, more powerful ally would defend it in a pinch… Bref, Canada will need to construct its own Asian strategic identity this century. Of course, Canada’s Asian identity will only be partial, rather than the near-total one fashioned by the Australians, given our far more complex strategic game. However, as in Australia, the construction of this new Asian strategic identity will turn on immersion and learning. As discussed below, many Canadians, and many Canada’s strategic leaders in particular, will need

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Such a conception of the relationship would mean that Ottawa could evidently and properly disagree with Moscow on a host of matters and files, but that the overall relationship should remain kinetic, porous and forwardlooking.

before itself an entire century of complex, highly varied transactions with Russia (some of which may acquire existential import before long). Such a conception of the relationship would mean that Ottawa could evidently and properly disagree with Moscow on a host of matters and files, but that the overall relationship should remain kinetic, porous and forward-looking – with deep and regular points of bilateral contact and communication at all levels of government and society, and with all prospects of militarization of conflict marginalized. If one accepts the thesis that Ukrainian success is largely impossible without a reconstitution or resoldering (granted, on new, more equal terms) of Ukrainian-Russian relations (see the Nez à Nez debate between Yuriy Romanenko and Grigoriy Sytnik at p. 56), and indeed that the future health or survival of the EU is compromised by a poor or hostile relationship between Brussels and Moscow (see my Feature article at p. 48), then the correct Canadian strategic position is one that advances Canadian interests in both Europe (‘E’) and Russia (‘R’), and, by extension or implication, in Ukraine in part through a strong and productive relationship with Russia – starting in the Arctic. Indeed, the Arctic relationship, properly nursed, allows Canada to pivot to meaningful engagement with Russia in the European theatre (and Ukrainian theatre), in which Canada is far from disinterested. A Canadian position that professes to support Ukraine or advance Canadian interests in Ukraine through outright, frontal hostility with Russia is, on this logic, an exercise in strategic idiocy: it helps neither Ukraine (which cannot thrive without Russian re-engagement) nor core Canadian interests in the Arctic (and Europe, for that matter). Moreover, taken to its logical conclusion, this position could portend one of war with Russia – again, contrary to any Canadian interests in Ukraine, the Arctic and Europe – or indeed some manifestation of Russian destabilization, if not collapse. With 14 land borders and at least three maritime borders, including with Canada, the internal collapse of the world’s biggest country would result in colossal global destabilization – not unlike the 1917 October Revolution and the subsequent five-year civil war, from which parts of the world are arguably still recovering a century later. What, then, are Canada’s objectives in the Russian relationship this century? There are at least three of them. First, Canada must develop deep professional and society-to-society discourse with Russia and Russians across the entire complex of Arctic and Northern policy issues, including economic questions, energy, mining, oceans, fisheries, Arctic wildlife, climate change, transportation and shipping, science, indigenous peoples, infrastructure, culture, sport and, to be sure, military and even intelligence matters. Second, Canada must, through its deepened relations and more sophisticated engagement, push,

press and persuade Moscow to constantly privilege a non-military logic in its Arctic behaviour over the course of the century. Third, Canada must deploy maximum diplomatic ingenuity in order to engineer ‘interstitial’ connections – more precisely, international legal and institutional regimes – between Russia and the EU (the ‘R’ and ‘E’ vectors), as well as between Russia and North America (the ‘R’ and ‘A’ vectors). I return to these interstitial constructions later in the article, for they are central to global peace and stability in our time.

‘E’ is for Europe Canada’s overriding objective in its European relationship is to keep the EU and its possible successor forms together for as long as possible over the course of this century (see the Tête à Tête interview with Margaret MacMillan at p. 38). This means that Canada’s purpose is to continue to support the legitimacy, vitality and adaptability of the EU as arguably the world’s most important international regime for peace, and one that serves the security and economic interests of Canada in a stable and reasonably predicable international order. More granularly, Canada’s interest in a united European order is rooted in the EU’s primary and genetic imperative of locking Germany into a long-term peaceable logic – a logic that forecloses the two-front security dilemma that was at the core of the two world wars in the last century: Russia to Germany’s east, and France to Germany’s west. If the EU remains the world’s most important peace project, its ability to adapt to the needs and pressures of this century – of external or internal provenance – will have to be supported by constant innovation within the union and its constituent countries, as well as deep pools of theoretical and practical advice from friendly countries on other continents. For Canada, in theatres like post-Brexit Britain and Spain in the wake of the Catalonian crisis (see Strategic Futures at p. 62), the major opportunity, in addition to the massive potential economic rents to be earned in what remains the world’s largest single market, is to become a very activist player in helping states with contested central authorities develop flexible federal frameworks – all in the general interest of preserving the viability and effectiveness of the EU as an international legal regime of peace. If federalism – or degrees of federalism and decentralization – will in the coming decades be de rigueur for many unitary states in the EU (including, beyond the UK and Spain, Italy, France, Poland, and perhaps a post-Brexit Ireland), it is equally true that many of the EU’s unitary-state neighbours will be struggling with the very same structural-constitutional dilemma. As such, most of the countries of the former Soviet space, starting with Ukraine and Russia right at the borders of the European space, are already searching

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far and wide for better approaches to relations between capital and region or province, up to and including different forms of federalism. But as federalism as a felt concept is largely foreign to the post-Soviet experience, there is a major opportunity for Canada, levering deep bilateral immersion and understanding, to insert itself as the go-to authority and source of practical expertise that will allow these countries to parry their massive administrative and political pressures in order to survive and succeed. (In the medium term, Turkey is another large country that could profit from such Canadian federal engineering.) And, of course, in helping the EU’s key border countries to adapt for survival, Canada will be advancing its dominant interest in European stability.

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Other Vectors and Interstitial Regimes

If Canada is interested in both America and China, then it must clearly also be interested in the relationship between these two countries. What are its central interests vis-à-vis the AC relationship? Answer: the absence of war, strategic predictability, and the maximization of openings to advance any number of other Canadian interests. Without exaggerating Canadian import, Canada can best advance these interests by deep immersion in the bilateral relationships proper, including through superior intelligence and analytics on these relationships (see the Query article by Ward Elcock at p. 18). Beyond this immersion, however, a key, new-century respect in which Canada can be pivotal in influencing and even shaping the AC relationship, as with other cross-relationships among the ACRE vectors, is by leading the invention of perhaps the most important missing element in the present-day international legal and strategic architecture – to wit, what we might call ‘interstitial regimes’ between existing international regimes. In the AC relationship, there is no tendon-like legal or strategic mechanism or complex of mechanisms binding the emerging post-NAFTA economic regime in North America with whatever eventually emerges as the comparable legal regime in the Chinese and East Asian space. Contradictions between these regimes or, most brutally, competition among border countries for inclusion in one or both of these regimes may over time drive a logic of preparation for war. Indeed, this is arguably what happened in the violent estrangement between the EU and Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Frontal, zero-sum competition between the regulatory and normative gravities of the EU, on the one hand, and the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union, on the other, over a weakly constituted and poorly governed space – Ukraine – led to this space being torn apart, resulting in grave destabilization of the EU and Russia alike. What should have happened to avoid this? How can such collisions and contradictory pulls be prevented in future? Answer: there must be interstitial tendons – or ideally, a proper interstitial regime – binding the EU with the Eurasian Economic Union, across Ukraine, in order to manage the inevitable contradictions (some competitive and many accidental) between these two gravities; all in the interest of peace and stability. Similar interstitial regimes can be constructed between the Eurasian Economic Union and the new post-NAFTA architecture for North America – across the Arctic space, which if left un-

touched by such tendon-like mechanisms could also, not unlike Ukraine, become a theatre contested by war between large blocs (regimes) pulling in opposite directions. If Canada can summon the appropriate strategic imagination to see for itself an opportunity, if not a responsibility, to lead the development of such new interstitial regimes between international blocs, then the country already enjoys world-leading juridical capabilities and talent to support such ambitions. Now, to move with velocity…

The Domestic Game What kind of domestic capabilities would allow Canada to negotiate its four-point game successfully, and indeed to even play a major role in managing some of the bilateral or multilateral relations among many of the great powers at its borders this century? First, the material; and then the mental. The multiple interventions in GB in favour of a Canada of 100 million by the year 2100 are very much part of the four-point game framework commended in this piece. Canada will need a much larger population over time to populate the borders touching its ACRE relationships – especially the northern border, but also its western (China-facing) border. No country can meaningfully defend and manage a major (active) international border without a significant population living close to that border. And yet Canada has barely over 100,000 people living across its three northern territories. Of these 100,000 people, most are, in their mental map, still southward-looking – with Yukoners, for instance, tending to think more about Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa than what lies due north: the Beaufort Sea and then the Russian Federation; or indeed what lies westward, beyond Alaska – to wit, China. If it will take time for Canada to responsibly reach 100 million people across its massive territory, it will also take time for the national strategic mentality to evolve and migrate. (Remember that the 100 million construct, beyond its obvious demographic aspects, is also a framework for more capacious, longer-term thinking for Canada.) A larger population will, barring domestic convulsions, increase the national economic, cultural, intelligence, scientific, military and diplomatic assets available to Canada’s strategic leaders to be able to increasingly shape and even dictate the terms of certain international transactions. With this increased capacity will come increased national confidence – a term-setting mentality, as it were, emerging over the course of the century. However, until such time as Canada has both the material capacity and appropriate (or commensurate) mentality to play a supremely sophisticated four-point game, the better counsel is for humility in its positioning, avoiding existential plays that would expose it unnecessarily, and without appropriate defences, before the several great powers at its borders. Humility requires a period of Canadian learning and building – a national languages strategy across the entire population (as discussed in GB, French-English bilingualism plus one other tongue, international or indigenous); embassies in all of the world’s capitals, friendly and unfriendly alike; and a campaign among the country’s leaders and future leaders, across the sectors, to break bread and get to know, in person, their opposite numbers in the decision-making centres of the ACRE world. And then beyond. | GB

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Whither Canadian Intelligence?

QUERY

The former longtime head of CSIS meditates on the next decade of threats, challenges and imponderables BY WARD ELCOCK

Ward Elcock was Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service between 1994

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and 2004.

he head of any major intelligence agency can hardly look ahead a few months, let alone 10 years. And yet, quite evidently, successful intelligence requires foresight, planning and a future-oriented imagination. Unencumbered, therefore, by my former professional responsibilities, with the exception of any obligations I may have under Canada’s Security of Information Act, I can offer some reflections on key forward issues, pressures and opportunities for intelligence agencies in Canada. To be sure, if one is to think about where Canadian intelligence and intelligence agencies are headed over the medium and long run, one must first identify where they have been. In Canada, intelligence as a subject or discipline, and intelligence agencies as institutions, have enjoyed a three decade-long period of general stability in legislative terms. Fairly little changed in the foundational CSIS Act from its inception in 1984 until 2015, when the ability of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to operate outside of Canada was confirmed and the authority to take active measures to intervene beyond the simple reporting of intelligence were introduced into the legislation. Of course, these new provisions gave birth to controversy insofar as they were interpreted as allowing rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be overridden. This controversy has persisted to the present day. Since the early 1980s, CSIS has faced real challenges in the form of national security threats from a variety of terrorist groups, including the Babbar Khalsa, the Tamil Tigers, and both Al Qaeda and ISIS – threats that have properly been prioritized by the Service over other responsibilities and pressures, such as counterintelligence. For its part, the Communications Security Establishment (CSEC), which only really came into legislative existence in 2001, after the attacks of 9/11, has made similar calculations in response to similar challenges. Indeed, CSEC remained relatively obscure to most Canadians until the revelation in 2013 of the information stolen by Edward Snowden. Canadian agencies, like those elsewhere in the world, have seen substantial growth in size and in the requirement to develop the capabilities to respond to these threats – including movement away from a focus on counterintelligence to counter-terrorism, while anticipating and adapting to the major changes

in communications technology over the last three decades. Importantly, these developments have been supported by considerable stability in Canada’s key allied relationships – a set of dynamics that have allowed Canadian agencies to move from being minor players during the Cold War, with little to offer but geography, to very capable players, able to make significant contributions. As such, the intelligence reach of both CSIS and CSEC has broadened substantially over the years – in some cases because of the nature of the targets being investigated, and in others due to the growth in capabilities and the concomitant expansion of their reputation in the world of intelligence – beyond the limits of Canada’s traditional close relationships with the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand (the Five Eyes), as well as intelligence services in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. If this period has been one of growth for Canadian agencies, it has been similarly so for the agencies of countries that Canada and Western countries have traditionally regarded as adversaries. While some of these adversaries have continued to provide challenges – notably the counterintelligence challenges posed by the Russians and the Chinese (although many of the world’s intelligence agencies have also sought to operate in Canada, if only to the level of being a nuisance) – many of these same adversaries have also faced, and been considerably preoccupied by, the same terrorist challenges exercising Canadian and Western agencies – most notably from elements of Al Qaeda and ISIS. While the agencies in countries such as Russia or China are often little constrained by formal legislative requirements, it is equally true that the consequences of having to respond to serious terrorist threats have been comparable in these countries, even as these agencies have continued to hone intelligence skills that Canada views as creating a counterintelligence challenge. Unfortunately, all good things (and most bad things too) come to an end. For Western agencies, the first major sign of the challenges ahead was the damage done by the said revelations in 2013 of the information stolen by Edward Snowden. These revelations made clear the degree to which the US and some of its agencies had been operating certain collection programmes without full legislative authority. And yet, in an age where many confide

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As SIRC will also have increased responsibilities to review all elements of the Canadian intelligence community, this enhanced review architecture will likely double the review workload for CSIS, while adding a sizeable new load for bodies like the Canada Border Services Agency and parts of federal government departments with an intelligence function, but which have not to date been subject to review by SIRC. All of this takes place while many countries around the world – Western and non-Western alike, and evidently including the US – still face significant terrorist challenges, and with no additional funding for Canadian agencies. Canada’s strategy continues to work according to

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ever-more private information to private corporations like Google and Facebook, one could argue that the many professions to surprise at these revelations were somewhat overdone – not least because such major corporations face little, if any, of the oversight or review to which most Western intelligence agencies are subject in respect of their collection activities. The cumulative consequence of the Snowden leaks and the various associated reactions and counter-reactions has been a marked drop in the public’s trust in Western intelligence services – and this despite the fact that the agencies of most Western countries outside of the US, including those in Canada, had been operating within their legislative authority, with regular oversight and review. This trust deficit will be difficult to repair. In Canada, the transition from the Harper government to the Trudeau government saw the implementation of positions taken by Justin Trudeau in the run-up to the election that seem to have been calculated to respond to concerns about alleged intelligence overreach, but were otherwise largely uninformed by serious policy and operational knowledge of the relevant security and intelligence issues in their multiple dimensions. As a result of proposed new legislation, Canadian intelligence agencies now find themselves facing burdensome new review structures, including the new prime ministerial review committee comprised of Members of Parliament, which comes on top of review by the existing Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) – a review regime that, by international standards, is already heavy.

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If one adds the Trumpian ideas about spheres of influence, it seems likely that US agencies will be much more demanding of, and far less forthcoming with, the agencies of other countries in the future. This will present unique challenges for Canadian intelligence.

the general logic that, while protecting a Canadian target from an attack is a key role for Canadian agencies, protecting a target in the US from an attack emanating from, or originating in, Canada is equally important. However, in its response to this state of affairs, Canada seems to be unique among its traditional partners and the intelligence services with which Canadian agencies work around the world in imposing substantial new review workloads on already-stressed agencies without any proper rationalization of the proposed new review process in relation to the delivery of intelligence outcomes in a difficult threat environment. To be sure, no adversarial agencies, all of which aggressively use their technological capabilities (e.g. the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 American election), as well as more traditional techniques, find themselves challenged in any similar way. Moreover, we are living in a time in which the said strategic stability that has underpinned the operational success of Canadian agencies and Canadian security since WW2 is fast-changing. The US under President Trump no longer appears committed to, or supportive of, the Pax Americana. More broadly, the Trump administration appears to see the world in terms of more narrow spheres of influence – a posture that is very different from the world and ‘strategic game’ in which Canadian agencies have functioned to date. For now, American intelligence agencies, notwithstanding the President’s apparent aversion to intelligence and the intelligence community, seem not to be particularly troubled (in professional terms) by the new administration – at least insofar as there have not, to date, been any problematic leaks beyond those in the early days of the Trump presidency in relation to the Russia ‘affair.’ If that is true, it is hard to imagine that the ‘America First’ strategy of the new administration will bother them a great deal. Indeed, this doctrine is, for all practical intents and purposes, their default setting. If one adds to this emerging brew the Trumpian ideas about spheres of influence, it seems likely that US agencies will be much more demanding of, and far less forthcoming with, the agencies of other countries in the future. This will evidently present unique challenges for Canadian intelligence. So where, in terms of the future of Canadian intelligence agencies, does that leave the discussion? While it may be too early to forecast out to the end of the century, some things are relatively clear, given the reality of how often it is possible, politically, to deal with changes to security and intelligence legislation and policies regarding security and intelligence agencies. Domestically, the prognosis in Canada is not positive. The Trudeau government appears to be firmly wedded to its positions and has shown relatively little flexibility

for manoeuvre (as demonstrated, albeit in a different policy sphere, by the decision to withdraw CF-18s from Iraq, even when there was, arguably, an opportunity for the government to change its position with relatively little political risk). This suggests that Canadian agencies are likely to be progressively weakened by policies that will impose greater burdens, while increasingly impairing their effectiveness. Of course, this state of affairs could be changed by a major terrorist attack in Canada. But such an attack, in historical terms, remains unlikely. This may be because Canada is simply too small a target for organizations like Al Qaeda or ISIS in a world of plentiful soft targets, or indeed for reasons having to do with Canada’s relative effectiveness among the nations in integrating immigrant and refugee communities into Canadian society – all of this perhaps in combination with more effective work by Canadian law enforcement and intelligence organizations in preventing such attacks.

he worry that will remain, of course, is the question of what would happen in the event of an attack in the US of Canadian provenance, or perceived Canadian provenance. Against the critical Canadian imperative to prevent such attacks, any impairment of the efficacy of Canadian agencies would appear to be short-sighted. Internationally, Canada’s situation or position is not much better. While it is not clear what the future holds for the Trump administration and therefore for its policies, the general policy posture, settings and momentum in the US are unlikely to change in any foreseeable future. This means that Canadian intelligence agencies will find themselves much more circumscribed – within an American ‘sphere of influence’ – than they have been in the past. Canada’s traditional security and intelligence partnerships are likely to remain important, although it is difficult to anticipate the effects on the UK agencies of any ‘hard’ Brexit and a very possible future Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn. These effects could well be very serious (in the negative sense) for what has been an important relationship for Canada. In respect of other relationships beyond the traditional ones, the reality is that the ability of Canadian agencies to maintain all of these relationships is likely to be increasingly circumscribed both because of reduced effectiveness and the new international strategic reality. While some may argue that Canada should, as a result, now embark on the creation of a new or enhanced foreign intelligence capacity, I still consider such a move ill-advised. It is not clear that Canada could truly make up any intelligence deficits on our own, and in any case all of the well-established arguments against such a major step are very real and remain apposite in the present circumstances. | GB

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Quelle stratégie pour le Canada en Afrique?

QUERY

Le Canada cherche à devenir un acteur incontournable sur la scène mondiale. Pour y arriver, il lui faudra passer en partie par l’Afrique – et cela sur trois vecteurs d’activités PAR JOCELYN COULON Jocelyn Coulon est chercheur au Centre d’études et de recherches de l’Université de Montréal (CERIUM). Il a été conseiller politique principal du ministre canadien des Affaires étrangères en

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2016-2017.

e Canada doit repenser ses relations avec l’Afrique si le gouvernement de Justin Trudeau veut atteindre ses objectifs diplomatiques, économiques et sécuritaires. En effet, il sera difficile pour Ottawa de jouer un plus grand rôle sur la scène internationale et d’obtenir un siège au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, de diversifier son commerce international, ainsi que de lutter contre le terrorisme et le radicalisme, sans une nouvelle stratégie d’engagement avec les pays du continent africain. L’action diplomatique est le premier élément de cette stratégie d’engagement. Elle s’incarne de deux manières: une présence physique, sur le terrain, et une relation soutenue avec les dirigeants du continent. Mais si l’échange de messages électroniques et la vidéoconférence sont les moyens de communication privilégiés en Occident, les Africains aiment toujours le contact physique, la rencontre et la conversation. Depuis une dizaine d’années, l’empreinte diplomatique du Canada en Afrique s’efface. Le nombre d’ambassades et de missions est passé de 26 à 21 sur un continent qui compte 54 pays. Les budgets sont réduits, les chancelleries sont microscopiques. Or, plusieurs puissances étrangères renforcent leur présence diplomatique. La Turquie a maintenant 40 ambassades en Afrique, la Corée du Sud 22, et la Norvège, un pays de cinq millions d’habitants, en concurrence avec le Canada pour un siège au Conseil de sécurité pour la période 2020-2021, en compte 19 et prévoit en ouvrir deux autres dans les prochains mois. Bien entendu, ouvrir une mission est un geste coûteux, mais il n’est pas toujours nécessaire d’acquérir un bâtiment pour l’y installer. Il est possible de partager des locaux. Au Mali, la chancellerie canadienne a longtemps accueilli la mission diplomatique britannique. Au Cambodge, ce sont les Britanniques qui accueillent maintenant les diplomates canadiens. Les politiciens canadiens doivent aller à la rencontre des Africains s’ils veulent que le Canada soit pris au sérieux. Le premier ministre et ses ministres doivent multiplier les visites sur le continent. À Ottawa, on ne semble pas, jusqu’ici, avoir suffisamment apprécié l’importance des rencontres. En 2016, Justin Trudeau a décliné une invitation à prononcer un discours lors du sommet des chefs d’État de l’Union africaine à Kigali, au Rwanda. En 2017, il n’a pas été invité. À ce jour, il s’est rendu au Liberia

et à Madagascar. Plusieurs de ses ministres, ceux des Affaires étrangères, de la Défense et du Développement international en particulier, ont été plus assidus. Toutefois, cela ne demeure pas suffisant. Le Canada fait face à des concurrents qui s’activent et certains ont même décidé de suivre la pratique française des sommets France-Afrique (voir Cabinet Room à la page 47). Ainsi, la Chine, l’Inde, le Japon et les États-Unis organisent régulièrement ce type de sommet où le chef du pays hôte prend le temps de rencontrer un à un chaque dirigeant africain. De son côté, Israël travaille à organiser un sommet avec ses partenaires africains pour traiter de questions d’investissements et de sécurité, mais aussi de la candidature de l’État hébreu au Conseil de sécurité pour la période 2019-2020. Israël comprend bien que chaque vote compte dans cette délicate démarche diplomatique. Le Canada ne peut donc rester sur le bord du chemin. Il doit se montrer ambitieux et viser à l’organisation d’un sommet similaire. Ouvrir des ambassades, multiplier les visites des dirigeants canadiens, nouer des contacts directs et réguliers avec les leaders africains – ce sont les outils d’une action à court, moyen et long terme qui permettra au Canada de prendre sa place sur le continent et d’étendre son influence en Afrique et dans le monde. Le deuxième élément de cette stratég ie d’engagement est le renforcement de la présence économique. La volonté du président américain Donald Trump à vouloir revoir de fond en comble l’Accord de libre-échange nord-américain a révélé l’étendue de la dépendance du Canada envers les États-Unis et l’étroitesse de sa marge de manœuvre sur la scène internationale. Les Canadiens se sont habitués à la confortable relation avec leurs voisins du sud et n’ont pas fait beaucoup d’efforts pour diversifier leurs relations économiques avec le reste du monde. Il y a plus de 40 ans, le premier ministre Pierre Elliott Trudeau avait exploré, en vain, de telles options commerciales. Son fils, Justin, semble comprendre l’importance stratégique de la diversification. Quelques mois avant son élection en octobre 2015, il avait tiré la sonnette d’alarme. Au cours d’un discours sur les relations canado-américaines, Justin Trudeau, alors chef du Parti libéral, admettait que le temps était venu pour le Canada de «renforcer davantage [ses] liens avec les marchés mondiaux florissants, particulièrement en Asie et en Afrique». Il faut maintenant passer de la parole aux actes.

PHOTOGRAPHIE: LA PRESSE CANADIENNE / EPA / ANDREW GOMBERT

quantité vers plusieurs pays africains. Cependant, il existe de nombreuses possibilités d’investissement dans la transformation, l’entreposage et le transport de produits agricoles en Afrique. Le continent a un besoin urgent d’infrastructures agricoles qui lui permettraient de limiter les pertes et d’arrêter l’énorme gaspillage de produits agricoles. Selon l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO), l’Afrique perdrait jusqu’à 20 pour cent de sa production de céréales. Ce projet de cartographie des ressources canadiennes est la voie à suivre dans d’autres secteurs, comme les infrastructures, l’énergie et les transports. Le troisième et dernier élément de cette stratégie d’engagement est l’aspect sécuritaire. Si le Canada veut profiter de la croissance économique de l’Afrique et étendre son influence sur la scène internationale, il a tout intérêt à participer au règlement des conflits sur ce continent. L’Afrique concentre le plus grand nombre de conflits et de crises sur la planète et accueille présentement huit des 15 opérations de paix de l’ONU, sept missions de paix militaires et civiles de l’Union européenne, et une mission de l’Union africaine. Depuis l’éclatement du conflit dans l’est de la République démocratique du Congo en 1996, qualifié de «première guerre mondiale africaine», un pays africain sur deux a été touché par des guerres, des activités terroristes ou des conflits politiques violents. Les zones les plus touchées sont la bande sahélienne qui s’étire du Sénégal à la Somalie, et une partie de l’Afrique tropicale de l’Ouest et centrale. Les conflits et les activités terroristes déstabilisent certains États africains déjà fragiles et jettent sur

Le premier ministre canadien Justin Trudeau prononce son discours lors du débat général de la 72e session de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU à New York en septembre 2017.

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La présence économique canadienne en Afrique se limite essentiellement au secteur de l’exploration et de l’extraction minière, pétrolière et gazière. Les compagnies canadiennes sont présentes dans 43 des 54 pays du continent. À titre d’exemples, Sherritt International participe à un consortium qui a investi neuf milliards de dollars à Madagascar dans l’exploitation du nickel et a créé 7 500 emplois. Iamgold est présente dans les mines d’or au Burkina Faso et au Mali. First Quantum Minerals exploite une grande mine de cuivre en Zambie. Cette présence est un atout qu’il ne faut pas négliger. Toutefois, selon le rapport 2017 de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) sur les perspectives économiques du continent, la croissance africaine repose moins sur les ressources naturelles et est de plus en plus favorisée par l’amélioration de l’environnement des affaires et de la gouvernance macroéconomique. La diversification de l’économie et la croissance de la classe moyenne africaine demandent des investissements massifs dans plusieurs secteurs d’activités: infrastructures, technologies de l’information et des communications, énergie, agroalimentaire, transport et hôtellerie. Il est frappant que le Canada soit absent de presque tous ces secteurs. Pourtant, le savoirfaire canadien est reconnu dans plusieurs d’entre eux. Prenons l’agroalimentaire. Le problème lié à la nourriture en Afrique demeure l’une des cinq priorités de la BAD pour la prochaine décennie. L’objectif est de contribuer à éliminer l’extrême pauvreté et la malnutrition, à mettre un terme à la dépendance aux importations, faire de l’Afrique un exportateur net de produits alimentaires et accélérer l’industrialisation de ce secteur. Le Canada peut certes trouver sa place dans ce plan de revitalisation de l’agriculture africaine. D’ailleurs, le ministère des Affaires étrangères a lancé un projet visant à tracer le portrait des compétences et de l’expertise du Canada dans le secteur de l’agroalimentaire en Afrique, qui engloberait à la fois le secteur privé, les provinces et la communauté technoscientifique. Des entreprises canadiennes (Richardson International, pour le blé, ou Saskcan Pulse Trading, pour les légumineuses) exportent déjà leurs produits en grande

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La Turquie a maintenant 40 ambassades en Afrique, la Corée du Sud 22, et la Norvège, un pays de cinq millions d’habitants, en concurrence avec le Canada pour un siège au Conseil de sécurité pour la période 2020-2021, en compte 19.

les routes de l’exil des centaines de milliers de migrants, avec une bonne partie qui se retrouve sur les côtes de l’Europe (voir l’article In Situ de Christian Barry et Nicholas Southwood à la page 30). Il faut évidemment noter que l’Union africaine dispose de très peu de moyens pour stabiliser le continent. Enfin, les Canadiens sont maintenant victimes de ces conflits: depuis le début 2016, huit ressortissants canadiens ont été tués dans des attentats terroristes à Ouagadougou, au Burkina Faso. Justin Trudeau a annoncé l’an dernier le retour du Canada dans les opérations de paix. Un ambitieux plan de financement et de déploiement a été dévoilé. Ainsi, le Canada est prêt à mobiliser jusqu’à 600 militaires et 150 policiers dans des opérations de l’ONU et à fournir du matériel spécialisé. Le ministère des Affaires étrangères s’est doté d’une enveloppe annuelle de 150 millions de dollars canadiens pour les trois prochaines années afin de financer des initiatives de paix et de sécurité ciblant les États fragiles, la protection des femmes et des filles, ainsi que le renforcement des organisations régionales de paix et de sécurité. Si, sur le papier, le plan canadien a été bien accueilli par l’ONU, le gouvernement tarde à le mettre en œuvre. L’ONU cherche de nouveaux pays pour contribuer à l’envoi de troupes au Mali et en République centrafricaine, et les alliés européens du Canada déjà sur place attendent avec impatience la contribution d’Ottawa. L’absence du Canada dans les opérations de paix et les missions de contre-terrorisme en Afrique est une erreur géopolitique. L’insécurité sur ce continent

ne peut qu’avoir des effets néfastes sur la sécurité de l’Europe et sur celle de l’Amérique du nord. Et il n’est pas passé inaperçu aux yeux des observateurs les plus avertis sur les questions de sécurité en Afrique que le Canada se retrouve aujourd’hui dans la situation absurde où des Casques bleus chinois et des forces antiterroristes françaises et américaines stabilisent des pays – Mali, Niger, République démocratique du Congo – où les minières canadiennes sont installées et prospèrent. Le Canada doit prendre ses responsabilités et remplir sa part. Des risques associés au déploiement de militaires demeurent néanmoins présents. La région du Sahel, en particulier, pose de nombreux dangers pour les forces internationales. Ces risques restent pourtant limités, car les pays occidentaux engagés dans les opérations de paix ou dans les missions antiterroristes au Sahel ont développé des mesures de sécurité et de protection limitant grandement les pertes. En Afrique, le Canada n’est pas en terre inconnue. Il y a des racines profondes. Ses missionnaires, ses coopérants, ses industriels, ses diplomates et ses militaires y ont tracé des sillons depuis la fin du 19e siècle. Ils y ont bâti des collèges et des universités, creusé des puits et des mines, construit des routes et des monuments, maintenu la paix et, parfois, fait la guerre. Il y a risque que cette présence s’efface lentement à cause du désintérêt des élites d’Ottawa. Or, le Canada cherche à devenir un joueur international, un acteur incontournable sur la scène mondiale. Pour y arriver, il lui faudra passer en partie par l’Afrique. | GB

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On North Korea, China and Asia-Pacific Futures GB discusses Pyongyang, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow with one of Asia’s leading strategists Conversation with BILAHARI KAUSIKAN

Bilahari Kausikan

GB: How should we understand China’s position on the North Korean crisis?

is the former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore. He is now Ambassador-

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at-Large.

BK: First of all, we should understand China’s bottom-line position on North Korea. The Chinese and the North Koreans have never loved each other, and mutual distrust has grown under Kim Jong-un, whose aggressive pursuit of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the continental US has diminished Chinese security – for example, through the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea. Still, North Korea poses a dilemma for which Beijing has no solution. Although Beijing has economic leverage over North Korea, it cannot deploy that leverage to the extent that there is a risk that the regime in Pyongyang will collapse. But to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile programmes will certainly require pressures of that magnitude. Pyongyang considers its nuclear weapon and missile programmes to be existential in nature – vital and irreplaceable requirements of regime survival. Since what is at stake for Pyongyang is regime survival, no sub-existential pressures will dissuade North Korea from pursuing such programmes – that is, every other cost that could be imposed by China or anyone else is necessarily a lesser cost. How can the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), at a time when it is already feeling internally insecure for a variety of reasons (including because of the cadre shakeup caused by Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign), be complicit in the regime change of a fellow Leninist state? There are, after all, only five Leninist states left in the world – China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Laos. If the CCP is seen to be complicit in the destruction of a fellow Leninist state, that could – and indeed probably will – give the Chinese people very bad ideas about their own system. For the CCP, that is just too great a risk. The most vital of all Beijing’s core interests is the preservation of CCP rule. Measured against that interest, all other risks and interests are of a second order. So while the Chinese may go along with UN Security Council sanctions and signal their displeasure to Pyongyang in other ways, what the Chinese

will do on North Korea will always fall short of American expectations, and short of what it will take to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon and missile programmes. This is a reality that the Americans have only recently and reluctantly come to recognize, even if I do not think that most Americans have entirely accepted it yet. GB: What will China do if North Korea attacks the US? BK: Nothing. Or nothing much. Some Chinese media – notably the Global Times – said, after Kim Jong-un had threatened to bracket Guam with missiles, that if North Korea started a war with the US, it was on its own. The Chinese know that a war with the US will jeopardize the most core of their core interests – the preservation of CCP rule – because such a war cannot have a favourable outcome for China. GB: What will China do if the US attacks North Korea (see the Feature article by Barthélémy Courmont at p. 42)? BK: For the same reason – the preservation of CCP rule – China must respond in some way if the US attacks North Korea. Beijing cannot stand idly by while the US effects regime change in a fellow Leninist state. The legitimacy of CCP rule is at stake. That is why Maoist China, although infinitely weaker than contemporary China, had to respond during the Korean War and sent signals to the US that it had no choice but to do so. Unfortunately, those signals were not heeded. At the same time, I think that the Chinese will limit their response, as they will not want to get into a full-fledged fight with the US – a fight that they know they cannot win. The Chinese will therefore do what they can, short of risking regime change in Pyongyang, to stave off such an American action. The Trump administration’s approach to North Korea and its actions in other theatres, such as bombing Syria while President Trump dined with Xi Jinping, have done much to restore the credibility of American power. Indeed, President Trump has a valid point when he says that unpredictability is an asset. The US under Obama was far too predictable.

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PHOTOGRAPH: UN PHOTO / PAULO FILGUEIRAS

GB: Is there an ‘exit’ to the Korean crisis? What is it?

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The Chinese may go along with UN Security Council sanctions and signal their displeasure to Pyongyang, but what the Chinese will do on North Korea will always fall short of US expectations, and short of what it will take to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon and missile programmes.

BK: There is no ‘exit’ if by that we mean de-nuclearization. That is a pipe-dream. It is too late to stop North Korea from eventually getting the capabilities that it seeks. It can be delayed, but it will eventually get what it wants. So the only way to deal with North Korea is how you have dealt with all nuclear weapon states: through deterrence. The North Korean leadership may be very brutal, but it is not mad. Pyongyang is rational and therefore can be deterred. Since its goal is regime survival, once it has the capability that it believes it needs to ensure regime survival, there is no reason for it to risk its own survival. Of course, a peace treaty with North Korea would allow deterrence to be maintained at a lower level of tension. This is an idea worth pursuing seriously in tandem with maintaining deterrence through a

show of overwhelming force. If I have understood statements by President Trump and US Secretary of State Tillerson correctly, this is something to which the US administration is open. GB: What does China think of the present political situation in the US (see the Feature article by Jeremi Suri at p. 32)? BK: My guess is that the Chinese are as baffled and concerned as everyone else. They may be a little gleeful to have some of the flaws of Western democracy exposed, but this is little more than a quite understandable and superficial Schadenfreude. More essentially, while they project confidence, the Chinese are as worried as anyone else about the possible consequences for China in the event that the present US-led world order should fall apart. When Xi Jinping stood up at Davos in January 2017 and delivered an eloquent defence of globalization, it was actually a defence of the US-led order (for which ‘globalization’ is a short-hand term) and an implicit admission that there is no real alternative to this American-led order. After all, China has been among the greatest beneficiaries of globalization and the post-Cold War US-led order. It follows that China would be among the biggest losers if that order should crumble or the world should become protectionist. And the stakes are arguably higher for China than for the rest of us, as the legitimacy of CCP rule rests on growth, and China’s continued growth depends on the world remaining open. China cannot replace the US as the leader of the current world order for the simple reason that in order to lead an open order, you must yourself be open. Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative is a bold and ambitious vision. But it is not a substitute for the current order because it plainly rests on the foundation of the current order. Can OBOR succeed

if the world turns protectionist? Can OBOR succeed if China gets into a trade war with the US? Thus far, the CCP under Xi Jinping has opted for more central control rather than more economic openness or more room for the market to operate in key sectors. Here too China is in a dilemma. Beijing knows that the next stage of Chinese growth depends on giving the market a greater role in key sectors of the economy in order to make them more competitive. At the same time, the CCP wants to maintain tight central control. Can this circle be squared? No one knows. But we should all hope that the CCP succeeds, as I see no practical alternative to CCP rule for China. All the alternatives are worse. GB: How do you see the evolution of BeijingMoscow relations over the next five years? BK: They will be more or less as they presently are:

surface cordiality masking deep inner tensions – something more than a mere “axis of convenience,” as the scholar Bobo Lo called it, but also something less than the strategic partnership that Moscow and Beijing claim it to be. Moscow hates being the junior partner to China that it has become, but what choice does it have? The West should think carefully about whether it is in Western interests to give Moscow no other choice. And it would be wrong to blame everything on Moscow. Ukraine was the dénouement of a fundamental Western mistake after the Cold War: to confound the USSR with Russia, and to treat the latter as a defeated power whose interests could forever be disregarded. What links Moscow and Beijing is mainly a negative interest: discomfort with US dominance and a preference for a more multipolar world. At the same time, China has a far greater stake in the current order than Russia. Beijing is therefore happy to let Russia take the lead in confronting the US, while keeping its own relationship with Washington as stable as possible. GB: How do you see the evolution of Beijing-Tokyo relations over the next five years? BK: Again, more or less as they currently are: periods of relative calm, followed by periods of tension, and oscillations between calm and tension. But I do not think that the tensions will lead to conflict. The Chinese are well aware of the importance of the US-Japan alliance and, for all the reasons that I have mentioned, do not wish to get into a fight with the US. China and Japan are interdependent and, as rational powers, recognize this and deal with each other on this basis. They do not necessarily like this state of affairs, but they accept it. The fundamental problem between China and Japan is that seldom in their many centuries of

are therefore already at the beginning of a major strategic shift in Northeast Asia. When Japan goes nuclear, South Korea will surely follow. The process will be fraught with tensions, but in the end you are going to have a US-China-Japan-South Korea-North Korea nuclear balance – one that may well be more stable than the current situation. In any case, a nuclear balance has the effect of freezing the status quo. In that sense, it is an absolute obstacle to the Chinese dream of a new hierarchical order with itself at the apex. GB: How do you see relations between Beijing and Singapore over the next five years? BK: This is a more complicated question than many people may think. You are therefore going to get a much longer answer than you may have expected. To understand Singapore-China relations, we have to keep two facts about Singapore in mind. First, we in Singapore never sought independence, but rather had independence thrust upon us when we were expelled from Malaysia – a process that we and the Malaysians politely call ‘Separation.’ Second, Singapore is the only ethnic Chinese-majority country outside ‘Greater China’ (defined as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). What made ‘Separation’ inevitable was our insistence on a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ (a Malaysia based on the principle of multiracial equality), rather than a ‘Malay Malaysia’ (a Malaysia based on the principle of Malay dominance, as enshrined in Article 153 of the Malaysian Constitution). Having, for the sake of a principle, been cast out on the perilous seas of independence, we had to make the principle work. And we did make it work. I am not arguing that Singapore is a perfect multiracial meritocracy – for there is no perfection to be found this side of heaven – but a country based on meritocratic, multiracial equality is in fact a very rare animal in Southeast Asia or in the broader East Asian or South Asian region. This social compact of multiracial, meritocratic equality is the foundation of modern Singapore and the basis of all that we have achieved. This is what makes Singapore, Singapore. Singapore is the only ethnic Chinese-majority state in Southeast Asia – a region where the Chinese are typically not always a welcome minority. Too often our neighbours project onto us their attitudes toward their own Chinese minorities, and seek to structure their relations with us on the basis of the place that they see as right and proper for their own Chinese minorities. We have, as such, gone through a lot of trouble to ensure that we are not regarded as a ‘Chinese country.’ (continued) For the rest of the interview with Bilahari Kausikan,

While they project confidence, the Chinese are as worried as anyone else about the possible consequences for China in the event that the present US-led world order should fall apart.

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interaction have they had to deal with each other as equals. To be sure, neither is comfortable dealing with the other as an equal. Both have hierarchical cultures. Substantively, it makes little difference whether you are the largest, second largest or third largest economy in the world – that is, all three are going to be crucial economies. However, it makes a difference to your sense of self – to your identity. What China wants from Japan and other countries in East Asia is not just recognition of its rise as a geopolitical fact. Japan, like all other countries in East Asia, does recognize China as a geopolitical fact. And yet China wants recognition of its rise as a geopolitical fact to lead to acceptance of its superiority as a norm of East Asian international relations in a manner akin to the traditional hierarchical pattern of East Asian international relations in which China was the apex. Of course, accepting China’s superiority as a norm is an entirely different matter from acknowledging China as a geopolitical fact. Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea in the 16th century was an explicit rejection of the traditional Chinese order and a vital step in the evolution of the Japanese sense of self. Five hundred years on, I do not think that the Japanese are going to accept subordination to China. It would mean changing the definition of what it means to be Japanese. In fact, in dealing with the Japanese, and in terms of their ambitions in East Asia, the Chinese face yet another insoluble dilemma. To force acceptance of China’s superiority as a norm of East Asian international relations, China must shift the US from the centre of the strategic equation and occupy that space. But how to do so without provoking conflict, and how far can the US be shifted without causing Japan to lose faith in the alliance with the US (and American extended deterrence)? If the Japanese begin to question American extended deterrence, Japan will go nuclear. It has the ability to do so very quickly, and has been preparing for this eventuality for decades – with American acquiescence. In fact, it is only a question of when, not whether, Japan will become a nuclear weapon state with its own nuclear deterrent within the US alliance – somewhat like the UK in the European context. For its part, China is modernizing its nuclear force to ensure a more credible second-strike capability. There is nothing unusual or sinister in this, and it would be irresponsible for Beijing to do otherwise. But when China acquires a more credible secondstrike capability, the question will surely be asked in Japan: will San Francisco be sacrificed to save Tokyo? I believe that this is already being asked. And there is only one answer. I do not know when exactly Japan will go nuclear, but North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programmes have almost certainly accelerated the thinking through of this option in the Kantei. We

please visit the GB website: www.globalbrief.ca

Illegal Migration: The Limits of the ‘Australian Solution’

IN SITU

Refugees and reflections on the limits of feasibility-based policy arguments CHRISTIAN BARRY & NICHOLAS SOUTHWOOD report from Canberra

Christian Barry is a Professor in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University in Canberra. Nicholas Southwood is an Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Moral, Social and Political Theory in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University

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in Canberra.

dvocates of the so-called ‘Australian solution’ often argue that it represents the only ‘feasible’ strategy for effectively addressing the refugee crisis. However, this involves serious errors about the nature and proper use of feasibility-based arguments in politics and public policy. Hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants have sought refuge in Europe over the past several years. A great many of these migrants have fled war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. Many thousands of irregular migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean during this period, and countries in which they arrive face significant challenges in assessing their claims to refugee status and finding ‘durable solutions’ in a timely fashion. Bref, policymakers have scrambled to find effective strategies to address this crisis. One such strategy is the so-called ‘Australian solution’ (or ‘Pacific solution,’ as it is generally called in Australia). Although its details have varied since it was first introduced by the Howard government in 2001, its central features have remained relatively constant. Rather than having their claims processed in Australia, applications by irregular migrants for refugee status are assessed in offshore processing facilities (euphemistically called ‘regional processing’) – most recently in Manus Island and Nauru. Since July 2013, irregular migrants who arrive in Australian territorial waters by boat have been excluded from any pathway to resettlement in Australia as refugees. As the 1951 Refugee Convention requires signatory states to grant travel and work rights to those they recognize as refugees, measures like offshore processing are in effect attempts to circumvent compliance with these obligations. And yet despite criticism of these policies from refugee advocacy groups, the UNHCR and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, both major political parties in Australia have supported the strategy. Two kinds of arguments have been presented in support of the Australian solution. The first appeals directly to values such as fairness, sovereignty and security. For example, when he was leader of the opposition, former prime minister Tony Abbott made much of the idea that asylum-seekers arriving by boat are ‘queue-jumpers.’ Others have argued that the Australian solution is to be preferred on humanitarian grounds: it saves lives by creating disincentives to

irregular migrants who would otherwise embark on life-threatening journeys with the hope of settling in Australia. And others still have argued that the Australian solution is necessary to prevent a large influx of refugees that would bring security risks. The second kind of argument appeals to considerations of feasibility. Proponents of the Australian solution often insist that (potentially more desirable) alternatives to it have been shown to be simply unworkable, non-viable and infeasible. By contrast, the Australian solution is highly effective in dissuading irregular migrants. Its introduction saw the number of boat arrivals in Australia fall from 5,516 in 2001 to only one in 2002. Its suspension in 2008 saw an increase in the number of arrivals from 148 in 2007 to 20,587 in 2013. Because the Australian solution is the only feasible means of addressing irregular migration, we are apparently left with no real choice. Prominent Labor Senator Doug Cameron, for example, abandoned his opposition to offshore detention while acknowledging its defects because “[t]his is the best approach we can adopt.” It bears emphasizing that such feasibility-based arguments are distinctive in two key respects. First, they are supposed to be value-neutral – that is, whether or not something is feasible is not supposed to depend on whether it is desirable, but rather on cold hard facts about the world. The desirability of a proposal is one thing; its feasibility is another. Even if the Australian solution has undesirable features – as many who support it insist it does – it is still supposed to be feasible. Conversely, even if certain alternatives to the Australian solution may strike us as more desirable, they are supposed to be infeasible. Second, the charge of infeasibility is intended to remove dismissing proposals from further consideration. It works, in effect, by taking proposals off the table, rather than weighing their costs and benefits. Whereas it would be right to say of some undesirable but feasible proposal, “Yes, we could do that, but why on Earth should we want to?”, infeasible proposals are not supposed to be considered at all. Feasibility-based arguments are rhetorically powerful. Yet they must be used with great care, since we are prone to various errors and confusions when we make them. For one thing, our judgements about feasibility tend to be infected by our judgements about costs. There is a tendency to confuse what is genuinely infeasible – and hence cannot be brought

PHOTOGRAPH: AP / RICHARD MILNES / REX /

SHUTTERSTOCK

politicians are implicitly appealing in their feasibility arguments are relevant, and whether they are being balanced appropriately. For example, are the costs of processing claims to refugee status in Australia really prohibitive, and does offshore processing really reduce the risks to asylum seekers of serious harms (including death)? Whereas a claim that some policy is unfair because it rewards queue-jumping, or that it is too costly to the Australian taxpayer, or that it undermines the security of Australians, naturally invites and encourages critical engagement, feasibility-based arguments typically foreclose such discussion under the guise of hardheaded realism. Even more problematic is the possibility that certain potentially desirable proposals are being taken off the table prematurely. Many of those who brought about important social changes – consider the abolition of the African slave trade – were dismissed by contemporaries who considered such proposals to be simply infeasible. Moreover, even if a proposal for addressing irregular migration is infeasible in one form, it may be that all that is required is some imagination to envisage alternative ways of bringing it about. It may be possible to, say, process all irregular migrants in Australia without incurring great cost if the government is able to negotiate a multilateral scheme of burden-sharing with other affluent countries, such that the costs of resettlement are not borne entirely by the country where refugees settle. How might policy-makers do better? First, they should use feasibility-based arguments sparingly. They should consider more carefully whether the arguments that they deploy really are based on feasibility, or instead draw attention to some feature of proposed policies that they regard as undesirable. They should avoid feasibility-based arguments when this invites misunderstanding or miscommunication. Second, they should use feasibility-based arguments judiciously. In making such arguments, they should be specific about the range and content of policies they are considering. They should be explicit about the suppositions that are in the background of their arguments, such as the costs and benefits that they assume to be associated with policies they are assessing. And they should be forthright about which costs they consider to be unacceptable when evaluating these policies. There are few more complex and urgent challenges in this early new century than devising a just, effective and humane refugee policy. Feasibility-based arguments doubtless have a role to play here. But such arguments should be used with great economy, judiciously, and with far more sensitivity to the ways in which they may misfire. | GB

Protesters march in Sydney to close the refugee camps on Manus and Nauru, October 2017.

The claim by advocates of the Australian solution that it is the only feasible one makes no sense unless it is interpreted as the claim that alternative strategies are unacceptably costly.

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about – with what is merely costly. Suppose that a socialist government dismisses as infeasible the idea of sharply reducing corporate tax rates because doing so would alienate its core constituency. This would be an error, for it does not follow from the fact that a proposal is (even very) costly that it is infeasible. In particular, it is illegitimate to dismiss some proposal simply because it is costly. Rather, we must weigh the costs of the proposal against its benefits, comparing them with other alternatives that we can adopt. It may be that, although the proposal is very costly, the costs of the alternatives are greater still, relative to the benefits that they confer. We also have a tendency to confuse what is infeasible with what is infeasible given certain assumptions about acceptable costs. Suppose that a US-led coalition rejects as infeasible the idea of ousting Bashar al-Assad. Presumably, this would reflect the judgement that ousting Assad cannot be brought about without incurring certain costs (large financial costs, escalating tensions, and diplomatic or even military conflict with Russia or Iran). If these assumptions are correct, then it may indeed be perfectly legitimate to dismiss as infeasible the combination of ousting Assad and not incurring these costs. But it is entirely illegitimate to dismiss as infeasible the idea of ousting Assad per se. For his ouster might be perfectly feasible so long as we incur these costs. Such errors are omnipresent in discussions of irregular migration. It is surely not impossible that, rather than implementing offshore processing, Australia could instead process the claims of all irregular migrants who arrive by boat in Australia and grant asylum to those who are found to have refugee status. So the claim by advocates of the Australian solution that it is the only feasible one makes no sense unless it is interpreted as the claim that alternative strategies are unacceptably costly, or as the claim that alternative strategies are infeasible without incurring certain costs that are assumed to be unacceptable. Of course, the same mistakes are sometimes made by those who oppose the Australian solution. When human rights organizations claim that that offshore processing is not a feasible solution to the problem of irregular migration, this is only plausible if it is understood as asserting that the costs of such policies are unacceptable. After all, this policy has been a fixture of Australian foreign policy for over a decade and a half. The prevalence of such errors continues to distort the debate about the Australian solution. Even when there is no active deception or manipulation at play, the fact that feasibility claims that are clearly expressing or assuming certain value judgements are being presented as if they are value-neutral risks being highly misleading at the very least. It also risks shielding the value judgements of political actors from proper scrutiny. We need to know whether the values to which

Isolation, Intervention and Diminished American Expectations

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His new book

BY JEREMI SURI

is The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office.

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WHITHER THE US OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?

he future of the US has perhaps never been harder to predict. On the one hand, the American economy remains strong, with low unemployment, low inflation, and very reasonable growth. The US continues to attract the lion’s share of global foreign direct investment, innovators still thrive in various fields, and American research universities continue to lead in global rankings. Despite the continued possibility of terrorist attacks on US soil and tensions – some acute – with various states in Northeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, the US remains one of the only states in the world that is largely ‘secure’ in terms of its general invulnerability to territorial occupation. It arguably still has no peer competitor in this regard – not even China, despite its manifest military and economic rise. On the other hand, the US shows signs of rapid decline and growing domestic dislocation and disruption. American society has become one of the most stratified in the Western world, with sharp income inequalities that often ensure wealth to those born wealthy and reproduce poverty for those born in poverty. One can now, in principle, predict the future income of young American children by their parents’ earnings and education. That was not the case throughout most of American history. Stratification is reducing economic and social dynamism in the US, as those with advantages seek to protect what they have against innovation and reform. The present political revolt against immigration and free trade – two cornerstones of US policy since at least 1965 – is an effort, quite literally, to build walls that preserve wealth for those who already have it, while keeping competitors out. In the US,

these walls have clear racial and ethnic implications. We must add guns to the story too. In the US, there are now more privately owned guns, including handguns and automatic rifles, than people. The majority of gun owners are white men. They have been the perpetrators of most domestic terrorist incidents in the US – including mass killings in Oklahoma City, Newtown, Charleston and, among many others, the recent massacres in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs. White male gun owners inclined to take the law into their own hands are generally too scattered to constitute an insurrectionary force. However, American vigilantes are today too zealous and heavily armed to be ignored, even in the context of increasingly sophisticated policing. The prospects for increased racial, political and other manifestations of domestic violence in the US are therefore very strong. It is hard to know how long Donald Trump can last as president, and how long the prestige and legitimacy of the modern presidency can last with him in office. He is rapidly mobilizing resistance to the White House in Congress, the courts, the states, the press and, perhaps especially, many foreign countries and populations. He continues to make new enemies – often in his own party – and to neglect key parts of the job, including the appointment of high-level diplomats and other officials. The findings from Robert Mueller’s investigation and the results of the 2018 congressional elections could shift American politics decisively against Trump, and perhaps even bring about his impeachment. Then again, Trump has defied the odds many times before, and the conflicted nature of contemporary American society plays to his strategy of distracILLUSTRATION: TRACY WALKER

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ILLUSTRATION: JAMES MARSH

tion, attack and bombast. Major consolidation moves are not to be excluded in the context of the crises to come. So where is the US going? What will the country look like in five years? Answer: There are three most likely scenarios for the year 2022 (see also the One Pager at p. 5). Elements of all three will take shape, but none of the scenarios will emerge fully formed. Instead, we are likely to see a mix of three different Americas, with the third scenario described below the most evident in five years’ time.

Scenario 1: Fortress America

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he US has a long history of rejecting the rest of the world. From its founding, Americans have thought of themselves as somehow chosen by God to build a ‘city on a hill,’ separate from a degenerate world. The most important first statement of US foreign policy, George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796, counselled against alliances of all kinds, recommending a steady neutrality in all foreign conflicts. John Quincy Adams elaborated on this point a quarter century later, when he explained that the US does not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” As secretary of state, Adams wrote the language for what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted a separate region of influence for the US in the Western Hemisphere. President Franklin Roosevelt had to fight against these powerful isolationist impulses in the late 1930s. He contended with an American public and Congress that resisted any American intervention against the fascist forces that overran France, and soon most of the European continent. The military isolationism of Americans was accompanied by economic nationalism. The US maintained some of the highest trading tariffs in the world before 1945. They protected national industries and provided revenue for the federal government. The period after WW2 is historically anomalous because, during this half-century, the US embraced globalism as never before. Beginning with efforts to reconstruct Europe and Japan, followed by the formation of permanent alliances in both regions, the US abandoned its isolationist traditions to prevent both the spread of communism and another worldwide economic collapse. This meant bringing trade tariffs to historical lows, which opened the vast American market to foreign competitors – many of them former adversaries. It involved creating the largest peacetime military in American history, with permanent bases on all continents. Most significantly, post-war globalism redefined the US as a multicultural society, accepting more immigrants, opening higher education to them and to various American-born minorities, and instituting new

protections for civil rights. Global America was more open, diverse and inclusive than ever before. That inclusive and open half-century was not normal in American history. Now it might be history. Fortress America has deep roots in the country’s experience. Supporters of the recent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, as well as Donald Trump, in many cases argued that the experiment with globalism hurt too many citizens by allowing increased competition from foreign workers, students and entrepreneurs. According to these voters, foreign wars – particularly in Afghanistan since 2001, and Iraq since 2003 – sapped American resources from needs at home. Millions believed that foreign aid was a waste, while international institutions, like the UN, only constrained the country’s independence. Even if a more traditional president replaces Donald Trump, Fortress America remains a strong future possibility. Millions of Americans will continue to demand ‘protections’ for their businesses and jobs. They will argue that the nation’s universities and other institutions should be reserved for them. And they will insist on an end to costly American commitments abroad. Immigrants will not, as a general instinct and perhaps even rule, be welcome. Protections for minorities will remain, but their enforcement will lag as police powers grow to protect ‘law and order’ – that is, to assure and ensure wealth and control for those who already have it. The rhetoric and culture of the country will be hyper-nationalist, emphasizing a resurgent ‘White America.’ Fortress America will be less engaged in the world. The US will continue to trade and citizens will continue to travel, but the American economy and society will look primarily inward. Although these activities will reduce economic growth and curtail innovation, the decline of the country will encourage more separation and nationalism, not less. Blaming others for deprivations that are self-induced, the country will enter a spiral of isolation – first raising tariffs and limiting immigration, then abandoning major alliances, and finally, refusing to pay foreign creditors. The rest of the world will not remain idle before such a scenario. Fortress America will be met with hostility from former allies and long-time adversaries alike. America’s retrenchment will encourage others to work together. The EU and China (and also Russia and China) will expand their emerging partnership, increasing their mutual trade and closing access for US companies on their soil. The same will happen in India, Japan and other regions. Free-trade zones and regional security frameworks that largely exclude the US will emerge in Asia (West and East Asia alike), Africa and Latin America. Even Canada and

Mexico may find ways to redesign post-NAFTA continental trade for their continued benefit, and for containment of American influence. Fortress America will avoid war, but it will face a world of more vigorous competitors and more determined adversaries. That will make Americans feel less secure. It will also make American democracy less vibrant. Every transaction or project that crosses outside US territory will be slower and more costly. Many presumptions of foreign ‘love’ for things American will dissipate. The president will no longer be a world leader, but rather the leader of a big country.

Scenario 2: Interventionist America

The shock of another major terrorist incident on US territory or a foreign government’s attack on American citizens will convert isolationists into born-again interventionists, as happened, with disproportionate intensity, for Bush and others after 9/11. to negligent alliance management from Washington. When North Korea, China, Iran or Russia takes forward action against exposed American positions, the president will feel pressured to act decisively. With diminished international power, however, American retaliation will trigger a broader regional war that the US will be poorly prepared to manage. American military forces will find themselves fighting as the weaker regional force, possibly suffering defeat. Simultaneously with a violent regional conflict, the US could suffer another major foreign terrorist attack on American soil, or a military base maintained by the US abroad. Various terrorist groups are planning another big strike, and a more nativist and self-interested US arguably invites efforts to hurt Americans. As the president struggles to show strength in a regional war, he will also feel compelled to take strong military action against any terrorists (and their supporters or sponsors) who attack Americans. Increased drone strikes and a second major deployment of American soldiers

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he twin to America’s longstanding isolationist instincts is an equally strong interventionist tradition. When its self-imposed isolation is challenged, and particularly when it feels attacked, the US frequently turns to the projection of its formidable military qualities against perceived adversaries. The history of US foreign policy is filled with rapidly alternating cycles of stubborn isolation and aggressive intervention. This was, of course, the pattern that George W. Bush followed during his presidency. Originally elected on a promise to focus the country’s resources on American security and wealth, while avoiding foreign nation-building, the trauma of the 9/11 attacks motivated the president to reverse himself and undertake massive nation-building efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. If ‘failed states’ nurtured enemies of the US, Bush reasoned, then the US had to build functioning democracies, on the American model, far away. “Ending tyranny in our world,” the president explained, was the only way to secure American freedom at home. The effort to protect America’s separation from the ‘evils’ of the rest of the world motivated a boundless ‘global war on terror’ that brought thousands of American soldiers and trillions of American dollars to parts of the world that most Americans disdained and few could find on a map just a few years earlier. The curious desire to change societies without understanding them (American leaders remain profoundly ignorant of most foreign cultures, traditions and languages) reflected this intervention born of isolation. The US entered a decade and a half of continuous war to destroy threats. We can expect the US to pursue a similar path in a world where isolationist-minded citizens confront a proliferating range of potentially threatening actors, including North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, ISIS and others. Even if the US, as mentioned, remains generally secure, each of these adversaries has

the capability to bring direct harm to American citizens and territory (and certainly to US interests, assets and citizens abroad). Each of them has been emboldened by the retreat of America’s presence overseas and the ever-growing divisions that are debilitating policy-making within the US. The shock of another major terrorist incident on US territory or a foreign government’s attack on American citizens will convert isolationists into born-again interventionists, as happened, with disproportionate intensity, for Bush and others after 9/11. President Trump has already shown this urge in his language about North Korea, Iran, ISIS and even Venezuela. We can expect more unilateral American warfare in the coming years. Emboldened adversaries in East and West Asia, as well as in the former Soviet space, will expand their military challenges in the face of receding American power. Local allies will not be willing to assist American efforts due

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American leaders will plod forward in reaction to a wide range of challenges at home and abroad. Their reactions will produce no major victories, advances for US national interests, or enhancements to American democracy.

will occur. Anti-terrorist retaliation may, in turn, open a second regional war for an overstretched and unprepared American military, and a startled American electorate. The public focus on war, and the sense of righteous anger, encouraged by political leaders, will erode democratic freedoms inside the US. The White House will exert pressure on the press to avoid reporting critical information. Courts will allow increased domestic surveillance. The federal government will use the precedent of enemy combatants in the global war on terror to begin incarcerating and deporting minority residents – and even some citizens – with familial connections to enemy nations. The US will have become a much more fearful and less free country. The interventionism that follows American isolation will be militaristic, poorly strategized and harmful to American values. It will be more destructive than the wars after 9/11, and likely more permanent in its international and domestic damage to American national interests. In this context, an interventionist US will find itself fighting costly, losing wars.

Scenario 3: Plodding America

cenarios one and two – Fortress America and Interventionist America – both undermine long-term American strength, prosperity and prestige. Of course, neither scenario is inevitable, and there are forces pushing against each – especially from the majority of Americans who oppose Trump’s presidency. The most likely circumstances for the US in the next five years are much more mixed, confused and contradictory. American leaders will plod forward in reaction to a wide range of challenges at home and abroad. Their reactions will produce no major victories, advances for US national interests, or enhancements to American democracy. As a whole, American security will decline and the US will become less prosperous. However, the accumulated wealth and predominance of the US will allow it to weather the storm, to carry on, and to remain the most powerful country in the world. Still, American power will be far less internationally dominant than at any time since 1945. And American democracy will be far less stable than at any time since before the Great Depression. The very real prospect of scenarios one and two will contribute to continued uncertainty, anxiety and division within American society. The president in 2022 will act to lower American expectations. He will speak less often of American ideals, and act less frequently as an international agenda-setter. He will not be able to assume nearautomatic European, Japanese and Canadian support

for key initiatives. Americans will not look forward to more growth and opportunity, but instead the difficult preservation of what they have. In this sense, the US of 2022 will be a pessimistic and restrained nation, rather than an optimistic and activist power. Reacting inconsistently to international crises and curtailing its own democracy, the US will approximate an empire in slow decline, echoing in some respects the UK of the 20th century. There will be no obvious replacement for the US on the world stage (China, Russia and the EU will all have their own major internal and external problems). And there is no obvious substitute for American democratic institutions at home (authoritarian alternatives will prove insufficiently attractive and, given the size and diversity of the US, administratively ineffectual). The US will draw on its accumulated resources and beneficial geopolitical position to slow its decline, avoiding catastrophic disruptions. In contrast to the ideological and partisan American politics of the last two decades, the debates inside the US will become less severe. With diminished prospects and many looming dangers, American leaders will become increasingly managerial and risk-averse. Technocrats and centrists will reassert themselves, promising to bring stability and relief. Longstanding American social welfare programmes, including President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, will remain broadly in place, but with fewer supporting resources and more modest goals. Major long-term challenges, including income inequality and environmental sustainability, will get attention only in their most immediate manifestations. American leaders will have little political capital or creativity for longterm transformational reforms. US policy changes will be incremental, reactive and crisis-driven. The year 2022 will mark a new and unprecedented American era of diminished expectations. If, after the Cold War, Americans argued over how to use their unmatched power and political legitimacy, they will now contend with having to conserve their power and re-establish political legitimacy. This will not be easy, and the country will suffer repeated setbacks and humiliations. Citizens will not experience the economic growth that they expect. To be sure, American isolationism and interventionism will still be in place and on display, as will American hubris. These historical tendencies will decline as American power recedes and democratic institutions become less secure. But the point is that the conspicuous limits on the US will be of growing consequence to allies, adversaries and Americans themselves. And the year 2022 will be one of uncertain adjustment to this fact. Even enemies will come to miss American power, and the international order that it enforced in the ‘American Century’ – now history. | GB

“In this major book (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), Irvin Studin, one of his generation’s top inter-national policy thinkers, brings together Russia’s leading thinkers and specialists to tell us about how this massive, mysterious, and hyper-complicated country, in its many dimensions, works and can, in very practical terms, be improved. Studin’s book is a must-read for anyone who truly wants to understand Russian strategy, policy and administration beyond the surface level, and indeed for all those who want to learn where the world is headed in the first part of the 21st century.” HUBERT VÉDRINE Former Foreign Minister of France

TÊTE À TÊTE

The Consequences of Brexit, Thus Far GB breaks bread with one of the world’s foremost historians to discuss the foreseeable fate of the UK, the EU and European democracy Conversation with MARGARET MACMILLAN

Margaret MacMillan was Warden of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, between 2007 and 2017. She is a Professor of History at the University of Toronto.

GB: Where will the UK and the Brexit process be in two years’ time? MM: The answer is not clear because the British do not seem to know where they are going with Brexit.Theresa May’s recent speech in Florence, as well as other public interventions before and since, did not really clear things up at all. And when you have a government that is divided like the Tory government is, and an opposition that, while moving to a more proRemain position, is also divided, it is very, very unclear what the political situation in Britain is going to be. It is not even clear that Theresa May is going to be in power in a year. All of this is unknown. The fate of the Brexit negotiations depends also on the UK’s European partners, and most of them are inclined to take a very hard line. Of course, the EU is itself not necessarily united on all fronts, and the negotiations evidently depend on both parties. So it is exceedingly difficult to make predictions. There are some in the UK who think that the whole thing will fall to pieces, and that the country will end up remaining in Europe because sheer inertia will prevent it from leaving.

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GB: Why has no major British political party taken a ‘reverse’ position on Brexit?

MM: I do not know. The Liberal Democrats are not a major party, but they once wanted to reverse Brexit. Today, they are arguing in favour of staying within the single market, post-Brexit. The Scottish Nationalists would, in principle, like to reverse Brexit, but they are not a strong Westminster party. The Labour Party – clearly a major party – has moved a bit, and is now wanting some sort of deal with the EU. I doubt very much that the Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn is going to take a strong pro-Remain

position. Of course, this is peculiar, as a lot of the people who voted Labour would like to remain. But the Labour Party itself is increasingly populated by people who have an ideological agenda that is not particularly concerned with the UK’s relations with Europe, but much more interested in what is happening at home. In short, I do not see Labour moving very far toward the pro-Remain position – even though many Labour members supported it, and the majority of Labour MPs are pro-Remain. PHOTOGRAPH: ROB JUDGES

GB: Can Brexit be reversed over the next two years? MM: I do not know. It would be very difficult to reverse, even if the original referendum vote was extremely narrow. Those who are in favour of Brexit claim that the British people have spoken. But I think that this is not a very strong claim because only part of the people spoke, while many of the people who voted for Brexit were voting for all sorts of other things besides Brexit. Now, what often happens in referenda is that people vote just to show that they are fed up with the people in power. A lot of people therefore voted for Brexit without really knowing what was involved. Today, many of these same people are quite surprised to find that, say, their subsidies might disappear. Special deals from the EU might disappear, just as important markets might disappear. Quite a few of those who voted for Brexit are now getting cold feet. So far, however, the Tories are saying that they will not put the issue to the nation again for a vote. They believe that they have a mandate. It may be that the parties will simply move in the direction of Brexit. And yet there are so many moving parts that it remains difficult to predict what will happen.

to renewed sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. That is a real worry. Many Irish in the Republic of Ireland are furious with the British because, in their view, the Britons who voted for Brexit did not think about what such a move would mean for Ireland and the EU. Now one of the half-dozen major issues for Brexit negotiators concerns what is to be done about the border between the Republic of Ireland (and the EU) and Northern Ireland (and the UK). GB: Is Wales a player in any of these dynamics? MM: No, I do not think so. The majority of North Wales voted to remain, while the majority of South Wales voted to leave. Again, people had complicated reasons for voting the way they did. Much of South Wales has done very well with the EU subsidies. It tends to be a poorer part of the British Isles, but it has done extremely well. And yet, again, the majority of people in South Wales voted to leave. Now, there certainly are Welsh nationalists, but I do not think that the push for independence there is anything like what it is in Scotland. GB: How do you rate the British political class today?

GB: What is the fate of Scotland over the next couple of years? MM: The Scottish Nationalists are not doing as well as they thought they might coming out of the referendum. They have lost seats to both Labour and the Conservatives, which is really interesting because Scotland has really been terra incognita for the Conservatives ever since Margaret Thatcher. Today, we have a very effective Scottish Tory leader in Ruth Davidson. Still, even if Scottish cities voted largely to remain, many people in Scotland have cold feet about independence, just as a lot of them are properly worried about Brexit. GB: What is to be the fate of Northern Ireland, and Ireland more broadly?

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MM:The real problem with the possibility of the UK leaving the EU is what happens to Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement, which was hammered out during Tony Blair’s government, opened up the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. If you go to Ireland now, you do not even know that there once was a border there. But if the UK pulls out of the EU, this means that Northern Ireland will be out. What happens now to the border? From the British point of view, if the border remains open, those who wanted Brexit will say: “Look at all those immigrants and goods coming in.” So there will be pressure to close the border. In my judgement, this will be disastrous for the Good Friday Agreement and would lead

MM: The leadership is pretty grim, actually. Theresa May is weak. She weakened herself by calling an election that very few wanted, and she ran on a platform focussed on herself. When people looked, they did not much like what they saw. She promised to provide strong and stable leadership – something that she kept repeating ad nauseam – and yet it appeared to many that she was actually going to do quite the opposite. In matters of foreign policy, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is almost totally and openly defying her. He is gunning for her job. So too is Philip Hammond. May is trying very hard to hold the party together. But she is not in a strong negotiating position. As for the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn is someone who, in my view, is stuck somewhere in the 1970s, which is when he formed many of his opinions. He is a natural oppositionist. He has voted against his own party whips over 500 times. As a political leader, he has certainly become more effective in speaking, but he does not speak for a lot of the country. What’s more, I think that the party is moving. Its membership has been opened up quite a bit. Many of the local party organizations are moving to the left, having been taken over by people who used to belong to a fairly hard-left group called Momentum. Let me add that there really is a rather unpleasant cult of the leader building up within the party. At certain party meetings, proceedings are preceded by the reading out of a poem in praise of the leader. This is rather peculiar behaviour, to put it mildly.

There is a fantasy that is peddled by the Brexit people to the effect that the UK will be a power once it frees itself from the ties of the EU – that is, that the country will fly into the stratosphere.

In short, I do not think that Labour is in any great shape, even if it continues to speak about the last election as if it were a victory. GB: What, if anything, has the British political class got to teach Commonwealth countries today? MM: This is a confusing matter. Many in today’s British political class are well-intentioned, but I do not see any particularly strong figures on the rise. There may be younger generations coming along, but it is very hard to see them for now. At the moment, political leadership in places like Canada looks a lot stronger. Indeed, if I look at the Canadian cabinet in Ottawa, it is much stronger than the British cabinet in London.

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There will be pressure to close the border. In my judgement, this will be disastrous for the Good Friday Agreement, and would lead to renewed sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. That is a real worry.

GB: How does the American situation look from Westminster today? MM: I think that people are horrified by Trump. There is a distinct feeling that Theresa May made a real mistake. She rushed off to Washington immediately after President Trump’s inauguration and extended an invitation – including to the effect that he could come and stay in Buckingham Palace. I believe that many Britons wish she had not done that. The general feeling in the UK is that Trump is very dangerous indeed. GB: How do you interpret the recent German federal election results? MM: Angela Merkel did okay.The Social Democrats did not do as well. And the Alternative für Deutschland, the far-right party, with almost 13 percent of the vote, passed the five-percent threshold it needed to sit in the Bundestag. That is a reason to worry. The party now represents a chunk of the voters. It has a real voice, and it will use that voice. GB: How are French political developments seen in London today – favourably, indifferently or with envy? MM: The jury is out. Macron is about to take on the French employment code, which is something that has defeated previous presidents. To be sure, that code is widely seen by employers and many others in France as something that holds back French employment and French enterprise. There is great resistance to change on this front in the country. The unions have said that they are going to fight it tooth and nail. And last time France’s young people and students even came out to fight such changes – although I think that some of the resulting employment opportunities would have helped them. The employment code and its reform are unbelievably complicated. The code itself is thousands of pages

long. I do not know whether Macron can deliver this major reform. He does not really have a party, but rather a movement that he is trying to turn into something more or less resembling a party. And this reform push will, in many ways, be make or break for him. Of course, there was huge relief when Macron defeated Marine Le Pen. But Le Pen is still there, as is the Front National. This is not a good picture. I had hoped that this kind of populism had come and gone, but if you look at what is happening in Hungary, Poland, Germany and now Austria, the picture is not particularly calming. GB: Do you see any movement toward bona fide federalism in the UK in the foreseeable future? MM: The country is moving toward federalism in any event. Parliament at Westminster devolved powers to the Scottish parliament, to the Welsh assembly, and to the assembly in Northern Ireland. But how far will this go? How will this work over time? David Cameron panicked before the last Scottish referendum, promising more devolved powers. The country is still attempting to determine how this is actually going to work in practice. The trouble is that British federalism would comprise a very large England, a tiny Wales, a slightly bigger Scotland, and an extremely small Northern Ireland. In Canada and Australia, by contrast, federalism is more equally balanced. But the worry that many in the UK have is that it is England that will dominate because it is that much bigger. GB: What is your view on the emerging situation in Catalonia and Spain, from the British perspective (see Strategic Futures at p. 62)? MM: There is interest in it, and also concern. I suppose that for the British, the Catalan situation reminds them a bit of what they went through with the Scottish referendum and the continuing push for an independent Scotland. Of course, in the case of Scotland, it looks as though the enthusiasm for independence may be waning, even if slightly. This is in part because the Scots are beginning to realize that they might find themselves rather lonely should they leave the UK – particularly if the EU is itself weakened. A key difference is that the Scottish referendum was a perfectly legal one, while the Catalan one was not. This is a very unfortunate situation – for Spain and Europe alike. It is going to leave scars. It may well reactivate some of the more radical and violent elements of Catalan nationalism. If, at the end of the day, Catalan nationalism is frustrated, there is a danger that this will give new life to those who believe in more violent methods to obtain independence.

For now, the British reaction has been to condemn the violence and also to criticize Prime Minister Rajoy for how he has handled the matter. Still, I do not get the impression that there is much sympathy for Catalan independence. The EU has been very clear so far that it will not recognize Catalan independence after a referendum that was not legal. GB: In 10 to 15 years from now, will the UK be a major country or power? MM: No. There is a fantasy that is peddled by the Brexit people to the effect that the UK will be a power once it frees itself from the ties of the EU – that is, that the country will fly into the stratosphere. I even had one argument with a prominent Brexit spokesperson who said that the UK will resume its rightful place as the leader of the Anglosphere. I replied that a country like Canada is not standing by waiting for the UK to lead it. So we may well see a diminished or smaller Britain. It is also not a total impossibility that enough people in the North will decide to throw their lot in with the Republic of Ireland. I was in Ireland recently, and people there are saying that such a scenario, even if improbable, is not totally impossible. And if Scotland were to become independent, then we would end up with little England and Wales. The country would be back to the size it enjoyed at the time of Henry VII. This evidently is not a good position to be in. Perhaps I am totally mistaken, and perhaps Britain will bloom economically after it leaves the EU. But British growth rates are not doing very well at the moment. The latest national growth rate was among the lowest of all the developed countries of Europe. Of course, it is difficult to tell how Brexit will turn out. The British keep saying that the Germans are going to trade with them because Germany needs the UK. But I fear there will be a lot of bad feelings if and when the UK leaves the EU. This may well affect trade. And London may well lose its place as a preeminent financial centre. GB: In retrospect, how did the UK get to this point?

GB: How do you see Canada’s position over the next 10 to 15 years – especially given Brexit and the situation in the US? MM: Canada has always believed in multilateral organizations. It has always been part of multilateral organizations. Canadians feel safer that way. They are going to continue to feel that way because the world is looking very, very uncertain. If the US continues to go down its peculiar path, Canadians will have great reason to worry. Canada has been trying to build better relations with Asia – in my view, fairly successfully. But if things go badly in Asia, this is going to affect Canada. Canada also now has the real worry of the Arctic, given climate change. The Arctic is becoming more enticing for outside powers. For now, Canada cannot defend the Northwest Passage. Other powers are increasingly sending their ships through. Canada is going to feel vulnerable in ways that geography has in the past prevented or mitigated. Today, that geography is changing the country’s fortunes and pressures. | GB

A key difference is that the Scottish referendum was a perfectly legal one, while the Catalan one was not. This is a very unfortunate situation – for Spain and Europe alike. It is going to leave scars.

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MM: What the Brexit people did was run a very, very clever campaign. They appealed to emotion – to the sentiment of taking back control – and that meant a great deal to people. The people who were against Brexit ran a rather dull-as-a-fence campaign. They emphasized that Britons would be far worse off if they left the EU. But many people simply said: who cares? In short, the Remain campaign was a bad campaign. It did not come out and explain the reasons for which the UK should be in the EU, why the EU was necessary in the first place, and why the UK needed the EU.

I recently was in Stoke-on-Trent, in the Midlands. It has suffered from declining industries. A lot of people there voted to leave. I was giving a lecture on something to do with history. Someone asked me what I thought of the vote. I said, “I suspect that many of you here voted against London, and not against Brussels.” People in the audience nodded in agreement. Of course, this happens often in referenda. When people are fed up with their own government, they have a chance to show it. However, I believe that many people did not know exactly what they were voting for. The Conservative Party has always been divided on the EU. Even when the UK applied to join the European Community, it did so in the spirit of, “We will go in because this is a good economic arrangement for us – although we do not much like the rest of it.” That reticence has arguably always been there since. In addition, there is a strand of British thinking that holds that the British are different – they are not European, with the Channel serving as the physical and mental dividing line. To be sure, there is also a very powerful strand of British thinking that says that Britons are indeed part of Europe. If I look at Britain as an outsider, then I dare say that it has very much been part of Europe. As for the Channel, it can be seen either as a barrier or a highway. But if you look at how closely enmeshed Britain has been in the history of the rest of Europe, I would not really distinguish the two. In short, I would say that the UK is clearly a part of Europe. It may not want to be part of Europe economically, but culturally, geographically and historically, it is deeply involved in Europe.

Pour Washington, Pékin et Moscou, la prolifération se retrouve, une fois de plus, à la croisée des chemins PAR BARTHÉLÉMY COURMONT

QUE FAIRE DE LA

CORÉE DU NORD Barthélémy Courmont est maître de conférences à l’Université catholique de Lille (France), directeur de recherche à l’IRIS et rédacteur en chef d’Asia Focus. Il a récemment publié L’énigme nord-

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coréenne.

ne fois de plus, la Corée du Nord s’est invitée à la une de l’actualité. Pas parce qu’elle a soudainement émis le souhait de se lancer dans une guerre, pas non plus parce qu’elle a élevé son niveau de menace au point de faire craindre un conflit inévitable, mais consécutivement à un échange d’amabilités entre le dirigeant nord-coréen et le président américain Donald Trump. Guerre de rhétorique donc, et qui surtout ne résout pas le problème fondamental, qui est de savoir que faire de la Corée du Nord, régime totalitaire, État proliférant, et pays en grande difficulté économique et sociale. En réponse à cette question, les différents acteurs émettent des positions a priori très divergentes, mais plus proches qu’il n’y parait.

À Washington, tout changer pour que rien ne change

PHOTOGRAPHIE: LA PRESSE CANADIENNE / BALKIS PRESS / ABACAPRESS

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lors qu’il était encore en campagne pour la Maison-Blanche, Donald Trump avait annoncé pendant l’été 2016 de grands changements dans la politique asiatique de Washington en cas d’élection. Dans la ligne de mire, le retrait du partenariat trans-Pacifique (PTP) et une invitation à la Corée du Sud et au Japon à assurer eux-mêmes leur défense face à la Corée du Nord. Une fois élu, le président américain n’a pas tardé à tenir sa promesse sur le premier point, mais a totalement renversé sa position sur le second, en

haussant rapidement le ton face à Pyongyang – son souhait étant de créer un électrochoc en faisant pression à la fois sur Pyongyang pour accepter une dénucléarisation, et sur Pékin pour lâcher son voisin. Tout au long de la crise, les responsables américains ont claironné leur détermination. Mais à quoi? À empêcher que la Corée du Nord ne se dote de l’arme nucléaire, alors que ce pays a procédé à six essais depuis 2006 et nargué deux administrations américaines successives? À éviter une guerre, alors que personne n’a manifesté le désir de se lancer dans une offensive, et ce même avant l’arrivée au pouvoir de Trump? À renverser le régime? Ou alors à éviter que Pyongyang ne se serve de son chan-

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Dans ce contexte, peut-être faut-il entendre cette détermination comme une volonté farouche de vouloir rester présent sur un dossier qui échappe de plus en plus à Washington.

tage nucléaire pour marchander sa survie, ce que le régime parvient à faire depuis plus de 20 ans? Dans tous les cas, il semble y avoir un grand écart entre la détermination et la capacité à la confirmer par des actes. Et cet écart traduit la difficulté de plus en plus grande qu’éprouvent les États-Unis à imposer leurs objectifs stratégiques dans le monde, et tout particulièrement en Asie (voir l’article One Pager de John E. McLaughlin à la page 5). Les rapports de force ont évolué, et si Washington était il y a deux décennies au centre de toutes les attentions, et donc du règlement de tous les nœuds politico-stratégiques, l’émergence de la Chine s’est traduite par un retrait progressif. De quels leviers dispose ainsi désormais l’administration Trump face à la Corée du Nord (voir l’entrevue Tête à Tête avec Bilahari Kausikan à la page 26)? Le régime des sanctions est un échec, la recherche du dialogue n’a jamais fonctionné, et l’option multilatérale est désormais entre les mains de Pékin. Dans ce contexte, peut-être faut-il entendre cette détermination comme une volonté farouche de vouloir rester présent sur un dossier qui échappe de plus en plus à Washington. Et l’histoire des relations internationales nous enseigne que quand une puissance sur le déclin, relatif mais réel, cherche à préserver ses acquis et à réaffirmer son leadership, elle devient potentiellement déstabilisante. En attendant, les annonces fracassantes ne sont que de la palabre (voir l’article Feature de Jeremi Suri à la page 32).

Séoul en première ligne

n Corée du Sud, la menace nord-coréenne ne se limite pas à la question nucléaire. À portée de tir de n’importe quel missile balistique, et même de pièces d’artillerie, Séoul sait qu’elle est en première ligne d’un éventuel conflit. Et la région métropolitaine de la capitale sud-coréenne compte 25 millions d’habitants, la moitié de la population du pays, sans compter qu’elle regroupe le pouvoir politique, le centre de l’économie, et l’immense majorité des activités culturelles. Dès lors, un conflit aurait, quelle qu’en soit l’issue, des conséquences catastrophiques sur la Corée du Sud. Élu le 9 mai dernier, et bénéficiant d’un soutien populaire important, le démocrate Moon Jae-in incarne le nouveau visage de ce pays – un visage qui rompt avec ses deux prédécesseurs conservateurs, Lee Myung-bak et plus encore la présidente déchue Park Geun-hye. C’est un visage qui semble également déplaire à Donald Trump, le nouvel homme fort de Séoul étant très critique de l’accord sur le déploiement du bouclier antimissile THAAD – qu’il a stoppé à peine entré en fonction dans la Maison-Bleue. Moon a plus récemment demandé des renforts à Washington devant les risques, tout en se montrant disposé à renouer le contact avec

Pyongyang et à réparer les dégâts avec Pékin causés au passage par le déploiement des THAAD, que Pékin jugeait dirigés contre la Chine. Moon souhaite donc renouer le dialogue avec Pyongyang parce qu’il estime que c’est l’absence de dialogue qui a pourri tout effort de négociation depuis une décennie, et que c’est sur cette base que la question nucléaire pourra être abordée. Cette position n’est pas étonnante quand on sait que Moon œuvra au rapprochement entre les deux pays au temps de la sunshine policy. Mais côté américain, on semble faire de la dénucléarisation de la Corée du Nord un préalable à toute négociation, si c’est bien le message que cherche à faire passer l’administration Trump. Bref, les dissonances relevées depuis plusieurs mois nous invitent à considérer que les deux alliés vont avoir du mal à s’entendre une fois la crise passée, et on attend presque avec impatience les réactions américaines si Moon réussit à terme son pari – à savoir renouer le dialogue avec Kim Jong-un, ne serait-ce que de manière symbolique. De même, s’il est légitime de la part du président sud-coréen de se préparer au pire dans l’éventualité d’une attaque de son voisin, et cela s’est traduit par la réactivation du dialogue avec Washington sur le déploiement des THAAD, les gesticulations de Donald Trump sont accueillies avec beaucoup d’inquiétudes à Séoul, où le président américain n’a pas encore désigné d’ambassadeur. En première ligne de la menace nord-coréenne, la Corée du Sud voit son allié américain faire défaut depuis un an. D’abord, ces déclarations du candidat Trump l’été dernier, quand il invitait Séoul et Tokyo à assurer leur propre défense face à Pyongyang, et à contribuer financièrement à la présence militaire américaine – ce qui, rappelons-le, est déjà le cas – puis les tensions actuelles qui créent un sentiment d’impuissance, là où c’est justement Séoul qui devrait être au cœur des négociations. Les nuages pourraient ainsi s’amonceler sur la relation Washington-Séoul, et ni la Corée du Sud, ni les États-Unis n’ont de raisons de s’en réjouir.

Pékin entre apaisement et opportunisme

epuis déjà une décennie, et plus encore depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de Kim Jong-un, la Chine a pris ses distances avec la Corée du Nord, condamnant systématiquement chaque tir de missile ou essai nucléaire. Pékin a voté la dernière résolution du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU renforçant les sanctions, et a même imposé de manière unilatérale d’autres sanctions. On ne peut dès lors pas vraiment considérer que la Chine soit un allié de la Corée du Nord, mais plutôt un voisin qui a su tirer profit de manière opportuniste de l’isolement du régime de Pyongyang. Il ne faut pas, de la même manière, sous-estimer l’indépendance dont fait l’objet la Corée du Nord – indépendance

orientale. Pour y parvenir, Moscou multiplie les appels au calme et à une gestion multilatérale de la crise, qui consacrerait sa participation et renforcerait son influence (voir l’article Feature d’Irvin Studin à la page 48). Mais les risques de rivalité avec Pékin dans le cas d’une évolution sensible du dossier nord-coréen n’en demeurent pas moins importants, notamment dans le repositionnement face à une péninsule coréenne réorganisée, ou encore face aux perspectives d’un désengagement progressif américain. La crise nord-coréenne semble ainsi, au-delà des postures très proches, confirmer la fragilité de la relation Pékin-Moscou.

Le Japon en panique

okyo est inquiet des développements en Corée du Nord et a toujours pris très au sérieux le risque d’un embrasement, considérant que la menace est réelle, et que les conséquences en seraient particulièrement néfastes pour le Japon. Cela est encore plus net aujourd’hui que pendant la Guerre froide. À plus long terme, le Japon se sent particulièrement concerné par les risques liés à un effondrement de la Corée du Nord, en raison du rôle économique de soutien qui est attendu de Tokyo. Enfin, il ne faut pas négliger l’hypothèse d’une Corée qui se réunifierait afin d’assurer une sécurité durable dans la péninsule. Ce scénario inquiète Tokyo, qui se retrouverait en présence de deux puissances nucléaires sur le continent – une perspective qui invite le Japon à apporter une aide économique à la Corée du Nord pour maintenir le statu quo et éviter une rupture d’un équilibre précaire, mais sans lequel les incertitudes sont trop grandes. Parallèlement à un pragmatisme par défaut qui semble rapprocher la position de Tokyo de celle de Séoul, la crise nord-coréenne alimente les thèses de certains faucons qui souhaitent saisir la balle au bond pour faire entrer le Japon dans une nouvelle ère, avec comme objectif principal la réforme de la Constitution. Pour ces stratèges désireux d’en finir avec la tradition pacifiste de Tokyo, le dossier nucléaire nord-coréen constitue un véritable alibi. Le principe d’un changement constitutionnel sur la question des forces armées fut même à plusieurs reprises clairement à l’ordre des priorités du gouvernement – en particulier sous l’impulsion des milieux conservateurs du Parti libéral-démocrate. Le gouvernement d’Abe Shinzo en a même fait l’une de ces priorités en matière de politique étrangère et de défense. Ce n’est cependant pas une nouveauté. Déjà en 2009, un groupe d’experts dirigé par Gen Nakatani, ancien ministre de la Défense, envisageait d’inclure ces propositions dans le prochain Programme de défense nationale: «Nous n’allons pas rester assis en attendant la mort. Nous devons avoir une défense active de missiles en plus de la

Dès lors, on peut considérer que Pékin gagne quel que soit le scénario de l’avenir de la Corée du Nord, à l’exception évidemment d’une guerre aux conséquences incertaines.

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érigée en dogme et affirmée par la doctrine du Juche de Kim Il-sung, grand-père de Kim Jong-un. Cette indépendance est présentée par la propagande d’État comme une autosuffisance, dont on connaît bien les limites, mais elle se caractérise surtout par un refus de se plier au bon vouloir des grandes puissances depuis la disparition de l’URSS. En clair, Pyongyang n’attend pas le feu-vert de Pékin, et ne prend pas non plus le soin de communiquer à son voisin sa stratégie – ce qui a pour effet d’irriter de plus en plus le géant chinois, qui n’hésite plus à faire mention d’un «problème» nord-coréen. Le temps où Mao Zedong envoyait ses «volontaires» prêter main forte aux combattants nord-coréens au début des années 1950 est bien loin. Cela dit, la Chine a bien pris la mesure des gains potentiels dans cette crise à épisodes. D’une certaine manière, les appels de l’administration Trump à ce que la Chine fasse preuve d’une plus grande fermeté sont la reconnaissance de l’importance de Pékin. Il y a deux décennies, quand l’administration Clinton signait les accords de la Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), Pékin était au second rang et signait pour ne pas être isolé. Les rapports de force ont changé, et c’est désormais la Chine, et sans doute uniquement la Chine, qui a les cartes en main – à condition, bien entendu, de parvenir à raisonner la Corée du Nord et d’éviter une escalade. Dans ce contexte, la Chine a une position ambigüe quant à l’avenir du régime nord-coréen. Si celui-ci tombe, il ne sera certes plus une menace sécuritaire pour ses voisins, mais cette chute aura des conséquences très lourdes sur la Corée du Sud, confrontée à la réalité d’une réunification ingérable. Elle impliquerait aussi à terme le retrait des forces américaines de la péninsule, voire même du Japon, sinon à en redéfinir la fonction, et donc clairement afficher l’hostilité face à Pékin. En revanche, la chute du régime nord-coréen et une réunification coréenne permettrait à la Chine de mettre en œuvre un vaste projet d’investissements dans la péninsule, de relier par voie terrestre Pékin et Séoul, et d’imposer à la Corée réunifiée un partenariat qu’elle ne pourra pas refuser, et que ni le Japon, ni les États-Unis ne seront en mesure de concurrencer. De son côté, le maintien du régime nord-coréen permet à la Chine de maintenir son rôle d’arbitre, ce qui n’est pas pour lui déplaire – en particulier dans la relation difficile avec les États-Unis. Dès lors, on peut considérer que Pékin gagne quel que soit le scénario de l’avenir de la Corée du Nord, à l’exception évidemment d’une guerre aux conséquences incertaines. Le cas de la Russie est différent, même si Moscou et Pékin convergent à la fois sur le soutien aux sanctions de l’ONU contre Pyongyang et sur les inquiétudes face à un risque de conflit. La Russie, qui dispose d’une frontière terrestre avec la Corée du Nord, cherche à conforter sa présence politique et militaire en Asie

défense passive». Mamoru Sato, membre de l’Institut Okazaki de Tokyo, groupe de réflexion sur les questions de défense, estimait pour sa part que le débat sur la révision de l’article 9 de la Constitution a été évité trop longtemps: «Nous avons besoin à la fois du bouclier et de l’épée. Le Japon ne devrait pas s’y opposer s’il veut devenir un pays normal».

Reconnaître la puissance nucléaire nord-coréenne, une hérésie?

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Pour ces stratèges désireux d’en finir avec la tradition pacifiste de Tokyo, le dossier nucléaire nord-coréen constitue un véritable alibi.

epuis un demi-siècle, le traité de nonprolifération (TNP) et les différents traités qui furent signés par la suite, s’efforcent de limiter le nombre de puissances nucléaires. Les résultats sont plutôt satisfaisants, puisque seuls quatre États sont parvenus, depuis le milieu des années 1960, à composer un arsenal nucléaire: Israël, l’Inde, le Pakistan, et la Corée du Nord qui, rappelons-le, a effectué son premier essai en octobre 2006. Compte tenu des craintes de voir des dizaines de pays se doter de l’arme suprême soulevées en pleine Guerre froide, ce constat n’est pas parfait, certes, mais il démontre la capacité de ces traités à limiter la prolifération. Il n’en demeure pas moins que les faits sont là, que cela plaise ou non: la Corée du Nord est une puissance nucléaire, et ses capacités, certes limitées, ne doivent pas être négligées, de même que sa stratégie de dissuasion. Nier cette réalité, et continuer de faire pression pour dénucléariser le régime de Pyongyang, est sans doute moralement acceptable, mais s’avère totalement contre-productif – d’autant que ce n’est pas un précédent. Les ÉtatsUnis, pour ne citer qu’eux, ont bien dû se résoudre à accepter de voir l’Union soviétique procéder à son premier essai en 1949, puis la Chine en 1964. Notons d’ailleurs que c’est à la suite de ces reconnaissances de facto que le dialogue bilatéral sur le contrôle des armements a pu progressivement se mettre en place, et que les traités internationaux purent être signés. En clair, si le défi sécuritaire que la Corée du Nord fait peser – sur son voisin sud-coréen – doit être l’objet de toutes les attentions, ce n’est pas parce que Pyongyang dispose de l’arme nucléaire qu’Armageddon pointe à l’horizon. Peut-être même le contraire, à condition de reconnaître, ne serait-ce qu’implicitement, comme c’est le cas avec les trois autres puissances nucléaires hors-TNP, cette réalité. Paradoxalement, pire encore qu’une guerre dont l’intensité reste incertaine serait un effondrement du régime nord-coréen. La stratégie de défense de la Corée du Nord, comme de l’ensemble de sa politique, repose sur l’idée selon laquelle le régime ne peut compter que sur ses propres capacités face à ses adversaires. Cette idéologie eut pour effet de ruiner le pays, mais constitue le plus grand danger pour la stabilité de la région en gros. En effet, les voisins de la Corée du Nord, en particulier le Japon et la Corée

du Sud, s’inquiètent de ce qu’un effondrement soudain du régime provoque un exode massif de sa population vers les États voisins, avec des conséquences économiques difficiles à gérer. Certains experts considèrent que la Corée du Nord pourrait même chercher à se servir de sa situation sanitaire et économique désastreuse pour faire pression sur ses adversaires, et exiger des accords lui permettant de recevoir une aide de plus en plus importante, sans pour autant devoir infléchir sa politique. Face aux calculs stratégiques de Pyongyang, qui sont finalement plutôt prévisibles et répondent à tout sauf à une supposée irrationalité du régime, quelle serait la meilleure réponse? Voilà une question que se pose avec insistance, à Séoul comme à Washington et à Moscou, et dans d’autres grandes capitales, un grand nombre de stratèges depuis deux décennies. Des réponses sont formulées, et s’opposent. À ceux qui plaident en faveur d’une intégration progressive de la Corée du Nord dans un dialogue intercoréen, voire régional et même international, répondent les partisans d’une ligne dure, faite de sanctions et, en certaines circonstances (pas les meilleures), de frappes préventives. Si on observe l’évolution du traitement fait à la Corée du Nord depuis 20 ans, on arrive à la conclusion que pratiquement toutes les options ont été, à divers moments, mises à l’épreuve. On relève aussi que toutes se sont soldées par des échecs – même si, et c’est là leur raison d’être, les stratèges se déchirent et se renvoient dos à dos, pour expliquer leurs mauvais choix. En attendant, le nœud nordcoréen n’est toujours pas dénoué, et le problème reste inchangé. Ou, plus exactement, il s’est renforcé, l’immense pauvreté du pays rendant les perspectives d’une réunification harmonieuse improbables, et le nucléaire imposant de nouvelles grilles de lecture. Reste que le principal problème de la Corée du Nord ne repose pas tant sur les risques, somme toute limités, que ce régime utilise l’arme nucléaire, mais sur le mauvais exemple qu’il offre à la communauté internationale, ainsi que sur les perspectives inquiétantes qu’il ouvre en matière de prolifération des armes de destruction massive. La prolifération se retrouve, une fois de plus, à la croisée des chemins. La tentation nord-coréenne risque d’être grande pour les autres États dits «voyous», et la dissémination des matières fissiles, technologies et autres produits indispensables à la fabrication d’une arme nucléaire pourrait prendre les allures d’une grande foire internationale. Ainsi, faut-il parvenir à un accord comparable à celui adopté avec l’Iran en juillet 2015, renforcer les sanctions, admettre de facto la Corée du Nord dans le club des puissances nucléaires? La méfiance doit être de mise, et les dispositifs renforcés afin de contrôler le plus efficacement possible les filières. C’est là sans doute le plus grand défi que Pyongyang impose à la communauté internationale. | GB

IN THE CABINET ROOM

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ILLUSTRATION: DUSAN PETRICIC

Irvin Studin is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Global Brief.

Reflections on hybrid administration, algorithms for exiting the conflict, and how to govern the world’s most complex country G LO B A L B R I E F • W I N T E R 2 0 1 8

BY IRVIN STUDIN

THESIS 1: The future of Russian governance is neither necessarily democratic nor strictly non-democratic. This choice is likely too binary for Russia’s extremely complex realities. Instead, a future Russia may well be – and perhaps should be – decidedly hybrid, drawing promiscuously on the best in 21st century structures and practices from around the world. Russia is a very young country – even if most people, including many Russians, forget that this Russia, in its post-Soviet incarnation, is only just completing its third decade. It is therefore naturally still solidifying and indeed inventing, improvising and legitimating its governing institutions, not to mention forming (with inconsistent success) its future political elites. The country’s constitutional youth, coupled with its present unique internal and international pressures, means that Moscow can look non-dogmatically westward and eastward alike (and elsewhere besides) to adopt the best in governing approaches, even as it indigenizes these and ends up with its own idiom – as is, by history and mentality alike, the Russian wont. Let me propose that there are two dominant governing paradigms in the world today – on the one hand, the democratic tradition or, more tightly, what I would call ‘argumentative governance’; and on the other, ‘algorithmic governance.’ Argumentative governance prevails in the presumptive West – the deeply democratic countries of North America, Western Europe and indeed much of the EU, Australia and New Zealand. Algorithmic governance is led almost exclusively by the dyad of modern China and Singapore. Most of the remaining countries in the world – in the former Soviet space, the Middle East (including Israel), the Americas, Africa, and much of Asia (including India) – are still in what might be called the ‘voyeur’ world, still stabilizing, legitimizing or relegitimizing their governance regimes and institutions according to one tradition or the other, or actively borrowing from, and experimenting with, both. Argumentative (or democratic) governance is characterized by fairly elected governments that are constantly opposed, challenged or corrected by deeply ingrained institutions (like political oppositions, the courts or other levels of government) or ILLUSTRATION: ARMANDO VEVE

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broad, activist estates (like the media, the academy, and various non-governmental organizations and groupings, not excluding religious organizations). Algorithmic governance, however, is characterized by the centrality of a smaller, select, highly professional group of national ‘algorithm-makers’ who, having been selected largely through intense filtering based principally on technical and intellectual (and perhaps ideological) qualifications (the so-called ‘smartest people in the room’), are constitutionally and culturally protected in their ability to generalize these algorithms throughout the country over the long run. Algorithmic governance lays claim to legitimacy via the securing of visible, concrete results in the form of consistently rising material wealth, advanced physical infrastructure, and general public order and stability – and indeed the rapidity (and predictability) with which such outcomes are realized and real-life problems are solved. Argumentative governance, on the other hand, maintains its legitimacy via procedural argument in the contest for power among political parties, and in the information provided to power through

various feedback loops. A large number of these argumentative regimes are federal in nature (just as the number of federal regimes globally has grown markedly over the last couple of decades), and so centre-region relations are both another source of procedural argument and a type of feedback to power (from the local to the general or macro). What would hybrid Russian governance look like in the 21st century? Answer: It would draw on the obvious strengths of the dominant algorithmic and argumentative governance models, while guarding against the major weaknesses of each of these idioms. What are the key strengths of the algorithmic system that Russia should wish to adopt? First and foremost, Russia must invest in properly creating, over time (the next 15-20 years), a deep policy elite, meritocratically recruited and trained, to populate all its levels of government, from the federal centre in Moscow to the regional and municipal governments. Such a deep, professional post-Soviet policy elite is manifestly absent in Russia today, across its levels of government – a problem that repeats itself in nearly all of the 15 post-Soviet states. Second, Russia must develop a credible longterm national planning capability (as distinct from the current exclusively short-term focus and occasional rank caprice of Russian governments, pace

ARGUMENTATIVE Strengths

ALGORITHMIC

• Procedural legitimacy

• Results-based legitimacy

• Rich feedback mechanisms to political power

• Highly trained, filtered and culturally respected and protected political and policy elite

• Tendencies to constitutional decentralization, if not federalization (another type of feedback mechanism)

• Capacity for long-term planning • Capacity for rapid practical policy fixes

• High marginal value of individual life • More porous majority-minority relations

Weaknesses

• Weak long-term planning function

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• Slowness (in extremis, paralysis) in delivery of practical results or in delivering practical policy fixes (‘too much argument’)

• Weak feedback mechanisms to political power, resulting in ‘palace ignorance’ • Instrumentalization of individual life to the general algorithm • Succession challenges (see Thesis 5: who determines the next generation of algorithm-makers?)

Hybrid Governance

• Development and recruitment/selection of bona fide policy elite (‘algorithm-makers’)

(Future possible Russian scenario)

• Development of a long-term planning capability • Deliberate fostering and protection of multiple feedback mechanisms to political power, including media, the academy, civil society, and among individual citizens • Gradual decentralization, if not federalization (including for purposes of richer informational feedback to the centre)

the various longer-term official national strategies and documents), led by the said algorithmic policy elite at the different levels of government, and implemented with great seriousness across the territory of the country. Third, Russia requires an intelligent degree of very gradual decentralization (rapid decentralization being potentially fatal to national unity, or otherwise fragmenting the country’s internal coherence across its huge territory) and, if necessary or possible, a degree of genuine federalization of governmental power across the Russian territory. Fourth, Russia’s policy elites must foster the development (and protection) of many more feedback mechanisms from citizens to political power in both the federal centre and in regional governments – not for purposes of democratic theatre or fetish, but rather to avoid making major or even existentially fatal policy mistakes, or indeed to correct policy mistakes and refine the governing algorithms in the interest of on-the-ground results and real-life problem-solving (a major imperative in Chinese algorithmic governance today, where the governing elites, as with past Chinese emperors, are, whatever their intellect, said to be excessively ‘far away’). These feedback loops – from the media, the academy, various groups and, evidently, from all Russian citizens – help to ensure that even the smartest algorithm-makers in the future policy elite do not make catastrophic mistakes based on information that is wholly detached from realities on the ground in Russia, across its massive territory.

THESIS 2: Beyond this decentralization,

THESIS 3: Mentality is critical to the future of Russia. There once was a ‘Soviet person.’ But what is a ‘Russian’ person, mentally, in the post-Soviet context? Answer: He or she is still being moulded. The Soviet collapse

What would hybrid Russian governance look like in the 21st century? Answer: It would draw on the obvious strengths of the dominant algorithmic and argumentative governance models, while guarding against the major weaknesses of each of these idioms. left Russians with at least three types of anomie or general disorientation – strategic, moral and, to be sure, in identity. All three species must be reckoned with – not with fetishistic searches for single national ideas, but rather through deliberate investments in real institutions and public achievements, and through long-term, patient investment in the legitimation of these institutions and achievements, both inside Russia and, to a lesser degree, internationally. Indeed, part of this investment and legitimation must involve the fostering of a far deeper and more robust policy culture in Russia’s intelligentsia, among its still-venerable specialists in various professional disciplines, and for its younger people, who are both the future algorithm-makers and drivers of the feedback mechanisms that are essential to the effective governance of the country. Such a policy culture is dangerously underdeveloped in today’s Russia, which militates against effective pivots to either of the argumentative or algorithmic traditions, and indeed against the creation of a uniquely Russian hybrid governance this century.

THESIS 4:

What of Russia and Europe this century? The conflict between the West (especially Europe) and Russia that erupted over Ukraine in 2014 and that endures, without foreseeable resolution and in multiplying manifestations in several geographic theatres, can be properly and fundamentally understood as having originated in what I would call an ‘inter-

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Russia should ideally federalize substantively, even if the country is already, according to its present constitution, formally federal. At a minimum, as mentioned, the country must before long effectuate a gradual, controlled decentralization. Uncontrolled or excessively rapid federalization or decentralization, of course, could lead to the breakup of the country or to generalized chaos (a fact well underappreciated outside of Russia) – so strong are the centrifugal and also regionalized ethnic forces across Russia’s huge territory and regional diversity. Unintelligent or careless federalization, for its part, could lead to excessive ethnic concentration, to the detriment of the legitimacy of the federal centre in Moscow and the overall governability of the country – including through the destruction of the critical informational feedback to the centre provided by citizens and local governments in decentralized regimes. Critically, because there is no felt – instinctual or cultural, rather than intellectual – understanding of how federalism works in any of the post-Soviet states – most of which are not only unitary but indeed hyper-unitary states, built on strict ‘verticals’

of power – it is perhaps appropriate (if not inevitable) that Russia should end up, through iteration and trial and error (the only way of doing policy in Russia), with what the Indians call a federal system with unitary characteristics.

stitial problem’ – that is, as the result of two regional regimes and geopolitical gravities (the EU to the west and Russia or, more loosely, the Eurasian Economic Union to the east) pulling ferociously, in opposite directions, on a poorly governed space (Ukraine), with weak institutions and unstable legitimacy at its own centre (the said problem of the ‘youth’ or ‘newness’ of all post-Soviet states). How can this be fixed? Answer: by creating, to the extent possible, a ‘Europe 2.0’ framework that interstitially – and tendon-like – binds Moscow with Brussels, or indeed the Eurasian and European planes, via Kiev. The ‘thickness’ of the binding mechanisms may well be de minimis to start, comprising strictly confidence- or trust-building measures and renewed economic exchange, and evolving over time to bona fide security and po-

sistic isolation and find economic and intellectual openings to Europe, then this Europe 2.0, although facially improbable today, will still have to be ‘invented’ and engineered. As such, there is a distinct strategic opportunity here for Moscow, if it is smart and plays its cards properly, to play a key role in its formulation and erection. Indeed, as Russia, on top of its juxtaposition with the EU, shares borders with several existing, emerging or potential economic and political blocs or international regimes in AsiaPacific, the Middle East and even, via the melting Arctic, North America (a juxtaposition still underappreciated in North American capitals), Russia has an opportunity to play a pivotal role in constructing a wide array of interstitial bridges and mechanisms that would help both to give its strategic doctrines greater and more constructive focus, and to drive the country’s institutional and economic development this century. Moreover, to the extent that collision between two or more of these international blocs or regimes may, as with the Ukrainian case, lead to conflict – including, in extreme scenarios, nuclear conflict early this century – the opportunity for intellectual and strategic leadership in such interstitial ‘knitting,’ as it were, by Russia assumes a worldhistorical character.

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THESIS 5: Russia has a serious succes

litical arrangements. To be sure, with the EU significantly weakened by several concurrent crises (Brexit, refugees, economic stasis, the Ukrainian crisis and Turkish authoritarianism at its borders, the growing presence of Eurosceptic governments on the Continent, and now the Catalan crisis), an emerging strategic perspective from Moscow would seem to be that the ‘European’ option or pivot is now no longer on the table for Russia, even if the vision of constructing a common space between Lisbon and Vladivostok has been, with varying degrees of intensity and coherence, in the strategic psyche of, and expressed in many public statements by, Russian leaders going back to Mikhail Gorbachev (‘Big Europe’) in the late Soviet period through to Vladimir Putin from the early 2000s. As Europe 1.0 transforms, it seems inevitable that, if peace is to be maintained on the continent, and if Russia is to avoid accidental or even narcis-

sion problem. If this is not negotiated properly and carefully, it could result in civil conflict or chaos, and even the breakup of the country into several parts. (This is a fact that, as mentioned, is deeply misunderstood outside of Russia.) The absence of ‘argumentative’ institutions in Russia, including the peculiar weakness and superficiality of its political parties, means that the identity of, and nature of the contest and process for determining, the next President and other strategic leaders of Russia are not uncontroversially clear. This, again, is not a question of democratic fetish, but indeed one about the ability of the centre in Moscow to project legitimacy across the entire gigantic territory and population of the country. In the absence of a process deemed legitimate and a persona who, in succession to President Putin, is able to command the agreement of the masses to be governed by him (or her), there is a non-negligible risk of civil destabilization of the country. What’s more, should the presidency end more suddenly, for whatever reason, then the country could be seriously destabilized, as the process of relegitimation of the centre in succession will not have been triggered in time. It is in the interest of Russian leaders to make the succession process extremely plain to the Russian people immediately. It is also manifestly in the interest of outside countries to understand this succession challenge – not least in order to be

disabused of any interest in destabilizing the Russian leadership artificially, in the knowledge that a weak governing legitimacy in the aftermath of President Putin (or any Russian president, for that matter) could create not only wholesale chaos in Russia, but indeed major shockwaves in global stability (beginning at Russia’s 14 land and three maritime borders, and radiating outward).

THESIS 6: The creation of a true policy and political elite in the Singaporean or Chinese algorithmic idiom requires significant, long-term investment in education, and the creation of top-tier educational institutions, from kindergarten to the post-secondary levels. The USSR, for all its pathologies, obviously possessed such institutions (including ‘policy’ and administration academies through its Higher Party School). Russia, as a new state, does not. On top of world-class institution-building in education, Russia must, in order to improve the feedback mechanisms of the argumentative tradition, invest in, and deliver, renewed institutions of politics (including federalism), economics (including credible property rights protection), the judiciary (including serious judicial protection of the legitimate constitutional powers of different levels of government), as well as in other spheres of Russian social life (including the religious sphere).

THESIS 7: How to solve the Ukraine conflict

Uncontrolled or excessively rapid federalization or decentralization, of course, could lead to the breakup of the country or to generalized chaos – so strong are the centrifugal and also regionalized ethnic forces across Russia’s huge territory and regional diversity. Today, the paradox of the Ukraine conflict is as follows: Ukraine cannot succeed economically or even strategically without re-engagement with Russia (no amount of Western implication or goodwill will make up for the loss of Russian engagement); Russia cannot succeed (or modernize) economically without the removal of sanctions, and without a deeper reconnection with the EU; and the coherence of Europe suffers for the disengagement and economic weakness of Russia, as well as for the Ukrainian crisis at its borders. No resolution is currently in sight because both Ukraine and Russia remain ‘two houses radicalized’ in respect of this conflict, with key Western capitals not understanding (or believing) sufficiently the finer details of the conflict and its genesis, with Moscow gradually becoming ‘used to’ the economic sanctions and the renaissance of tensions with the West (including in its domestic political narrative), and with the government in Kiev increasingly weak and unstable, and therefore unable either to deliver major domestic reforms or make decisive moves to resolve the Donbass war. In addition, the accelerating disintegration of the Middle East, in Syria and beyond, has grossly complicated any prospects of exit from the crisis – effectively fusing together the European theatre with the Western Asian theatre. (The crisis in North Korea, if it erupts into war, may turn out to be yet another theatre of secondary conflict between Russia and Western countries.) Leaving aside Russia’s succession issue, there is a clear risk of systemic collapse in one or both of

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and, by extension, Russia’s conflict with the West? We have discussed this extensively in past issues of GB. Moreover, 21CQ has itself, for the last three and a half years, been leading the track 1.5 work around the world, in leading capitals on three continents – from Moscow and Kiev to Paris, Washington, Ottawa and New Delhi – to find ‘exit’ algorithms for this conflict. The recent surge in interest in a peacekeeper-led exit from the conflict has direct roots in 21CQ’s work since the days immediately after the Ukrainian revolution, the Crimean annexation and the start of the Donbass war. Still, at the time of this writing, I confess that the window for any clean, comprehensive resolution of this conflict may by now have passed (something that both leading Russians and Ukrainians know fairly well, even if some Western analysts may not yet). In 2014 and 2015, a winning algorithm for resolution, in my judgement, would have seen the insertion into the Donbass region (at the ceasefire line and along the Russo-Ukrainian border) of neutral peacekeepers (led by peacekeepers from Asian countries – nonNATO, but also not from the post-Soviet space – that are respected in both Ukraine and Russia), constitutional reform in Ukraine (including possible federalization in toto – recalling the aforementioned need for most post-Soviet states to decentralize or

federalize – and/or special status or special economic zones for several regions of the south and east of Ukraine, in concert with the enshrinement of an Australian-style indissolubility clause for the Ukrainian union in the national constitution), and, finally, strong guarantees regarding the permanent non-membership of Ukraine in NATO (including through a possible UN Security Council resolution). These steps would have been accompanied by the removal (at least by the EU) of economic sanctions not related to Crimea.

Ukraine (for political and/or economic reasons) and Russia (more likely for economic reasons) in the near to medium term. Collapse of either country’s system would be devastating for both countries, as well as for European and global stability (including in nuclear terms). Ukrainian collapse would accelerate the slide toward direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO. Only a systemic solution is possible to the conflict, and yet I do not believe that Europe is sufficiently strong and united at present to be able to drive a solution. The US, for its part, is politically unable to relieve Russia of sanctions, and so Moscow will not see much utility in the American play except insofar as Washington can play a role in pushing or incentivizing Kiev to make or not make certain moves. Therefore, the ‘solution’ to the conflict can for now only be partial, rather than general and global. In my assessment, it is Asia – particularly China, or perhaps India – and not Western countries that

The key question for Russian statecraft in the early 21st century is whether, allowing for limited corruption as an informal institution, the governing classes can move the country to greater wealth and stability, improving meaningfully and substantially the daily lives of citizens (and the perceived value of those lives). must play the pivotal role here. (Indeed, Moscow could cleverly seduce both New Delhi and Beijing, geopolitical rivalry between the two oblige, to play co-leads in this partial resolution.) The two key elements of the winning partial algorithm could include:

i. to stop the fighting, neutral peacekeepers from leading Asian countries (starting with China or India, but perhaps also Indonesia and Singapore) and a police or constabulary force in the Donbass region, as well as along the Russia-Ukraine border; and

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ii. to rebuild and stabilize Ukraine, reconstitute the

Ukrainian-Russian-European relationship (in new, interstitial terms), heavy Russian state reinvestment into all of Ukraine, and, concurrently, heavy Ukrainian reinvestment into all of Russia, with both countries combining economically to rebuild the Donbass in particular – all with significant loan guarantees from the new Asian Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), the new BRICS bank, the Chinese and Indian governments proper, and with opportunis-

tic but possibly subordinate participation by the EU (including through Donbass-specific sanctions relief for Russia), the US, Canada and other units and countries. Issues like NATO guarantees of non-membership for Ukraine and also the future status of Crimea, as well as global sanctions relief for Russia, all require deep and coherent Western engagement, and so are not on the table for the foreseeable future. The above algorithm also insulates the Ukraine conflict somewhat from the Middle Eastern conflict – or, in other words, delinks, diplomatically, the resolution of the Ukraine conflict from that of the even less soluble Middle Eastern theatre.

THESIS 8: Despite its cultural dynamism and deep intelligentsia, Russia’s economy is unacceptably primitive. Natural resources and energy products will continue to dominate this economy for the foreseeable future, just as they did in the last century – which also makes the national economy and the federal and regional budgets exceedingly vulnerable to significant commodity prices swings (with no serious countervailing revenue sources in sight). However, what appears to be missing in Russia today, in addition to proper investment in infrastructure across the territory, is a matching of state purpose, deep entrepreneurial talent, and large-scale venture investment in export-oriented sectors outside of commodities – the predictable result of which is a disproportionate dearth of great, global Russian companies and brands (again, outside of the commodities sector). And so here the model for Russia is likely Israel, from which algorithmic countries like Singapore have borrowed heavily in fashioning their own state-private sector models. Applied to the Russian context, that model would seem to commend two critical reform vectors for Russian industrial policy: first, the creation of a handful of national educational, military or technical-scientific institutions (elite or quasi-elite) that are able to develop an achievement-oriented mindset among Russia’s young adults, as well as lifelong friendships and ‘thick’ professional networks among these people; and second, assurances that the Russian state, with minimal bureaucratic friction, is positively disposed to giving entrepreneurs from the ‘class’ of young achievers passing through these institutions a first contract (procurement), initial funding, or indeed future contracts of scale.

THESIS 9: A key aspect of the argumentative paradigm of governance is that the marginal value of human life is greater in the societal geist of argumentative states than in that of algorithmic states, given the high importance ascribed to procedure and feedback to political

THESIS 10: Excellent Russian

public policy and administration will never wholly eliminate Russian public corruption. Russian corruption – narrowly con-

ceived – can, to a limited extent, be seen as an informal institution of Russian state and society. In this, Russia is not that far removed from many countries and societies around the world, including the more advanced countries of Northeast and Southeast Asia (or also Israel and India). Instead, the key question for Russian statecraft in the early 21st century is whether, allowing for limited corruption as an informal institution, the governing classes can move the country to greater wealth and stability, improving meaningfully and substantially the daily lives of citizens (and, as mentioned above, the perceived value of those lives). Evidently, it would be best to improve the lot of citizens with negligible corruption, as is the standard in the argumentative states of North America or Western Europe. And just as manifestly, it is unacceptable to remain corrupt while the quality of life for Russians stagnates or deteriorates. But the story of leading algorithmic pioneers like Lee Kuan Yew or, on a more serious scale, Deng Xiaoping, is not one of perfunctory non-corruption – as that would likely remove all lubrication from the administrative system, institutional inertia oblige – but instead public achievement and policy-administrative delivery to citizens in the context of significant corruption that, over time, enjoys a demonstrably downward trajectory. The paradox of Russian public administration as it applies to matters military versus non-military is instructive in this regard. In Russia, short-term military or emergency orders or decrees (or algorithms) are typically dispatched with remarkable rapidity and efficacy (demonstrating a prodigious national organizational ability to scale very quickly). And yet long-term plans and projects (including military procurement) are delivered with notorious inefficiency, slowness and procedural corruption. For these long-term projects, presidential decrees are issued, with considerable regularity, even to repeat or remind the bureaucratic system about the existence of still-unfulfilled past presidential decrees. Quaere: What type of strategic, policy and administrative seriousness and quality would Russia need to be able to deliver on the long term but prosaic with the same inspiration with which it delivers on various emergency prerogatives? Can the country maintain its focus (and cool)? Can it develop a professional leadership class across the country, at different levels of public power, that has a ‘synoptic vision’ that is sufficiently vast to incorporate Russia’s endless complexity while constantly iterating and refining this vision through citizen input and feedback? Can this class of people both populate and in turn discipline the administrative apparatus of the state? And, whatever the compromises it may require en route, can it deliver the goods for the Russian people? | GB

Russia has an opportunity to play a pivotal role in constructing a wide array of interstitial bridges and mechanisms that would help both to give its strategic doctrines greater and more constructive focus, and to drive the country’s institutional and economic development this century.

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power from citizens. This larger marginal value of life is given expression through very robust constitutional and cultural bulwarks for protecting human life, which is viewed in absolute terms. By contrast, algorithmic states, especially of the Asian ilk, may, at least implicitly, attach greater instrumentality to human life – that is, viewing human life as being in the service of, or subordinating to, the preferred Asian freedom: not freedom from government repression, but instead freedom from chaos. The Singaporeans and Malaysians, for instance, refer to the fear of chaos and death, in the Hokkien idiom, as kiasi, in response to which extreme or radical private or public measures may occasionally need to be taken: consider the death penalty or, more commonly, the use of standing emergency laws and measures. An individual life or, short of that, what Westerners view as fundamental rights, may, on this logic, need to be compromised or traded in the service of the more important general protection and freedom from chaos. This may lead to swifter and less compunctious resort to peremptory punishment (like the death penalty) for what might, in the argumentative states of the West, be considered micro-torts (including some drug offences), or to draconian emergency laws and prerogatives in response to perceived threats of a political ilk (including terrorism). The policy implication for Russia is that the ‘care’ given to each individual Russian citizen (or the value of the individual Russian life) can be improved indirectly or circuitously – that is, that improvement may come not necessarily through direct legislative, regulatory, judicial or jurisprudential changes (and certainly not from well-intentioned rhetoric and nice proclamations), but indeed through investment in some of the ‘argumentative’ institutions themselves – including through improvement of the health and sophistication of the various estates, from political parties to Russian civil society (and even Russian businesses), that comprise the feedback mechanisms from the governed to the governors, thereby removing some of the edge from the bureaucratic leviathan as it touches the human condition in all corners of the country. On this same logic of increasing the value of individual life, increased investment in argumentative institutions can arguably lead to better, more porous relations between the ethnic Russian majority and the many important minorities of Russia – from the Tatars, Chechens and Ingush, to the Jews, Ukrainians and Armenians.

NEZ À NEZ The Consequences of the Ukrainian Revolution On balance, the Ukrainian Revolution has achieved its goals PROPOSITION:

YURIY ROMANENKO vs GRIGORIY SYTNIK

Yuriy Romanenko is co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, in Kiev.

Grigoriy Sytnik is president of the Academy for National Security in Kiev, and past professor in Ukraine’s National Academy of Public

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Administration.

YR (in favour): Nearly four years after the start of the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, one hears more and more voices in Ukraine (and outside of Ukraine) arguing that no real ‘revolution’ has actually taken place in the country. The most optimistic among these observers affirm that the revolution continues, although more slowly than they would have liked. But let me offer a number of theses that will allow readers to better understand the core of the changes and transformations occurring in Ukraine, post-revolution. In Ukraine and in the West (and East) alike, there is considerable confusion about what Ukraine could reasonably have accomplished over the course of its 26 years of post-Soviet independence. Discussions to the effect that Ukraine could have followed the path of Poland, the Baltic states, Romania or even South Korea do not reflect a serious understanding of the state of Ukrainian society in 1991 and in the subsequent three decades, the structure of the economy, the role of the erstwhile nomenclature of the Communist Party in the emergence of an independent Ukraine, and also, to be sure, the influence of Russia on the political and economic processes of the young Ukrainian state. The decisive factors in shaping and indeed preserving the amorphous state of Ukraine prior to its present conflict with Russia were twofold: first, Ukraine’s conservative society; and second, the questionable quality of the country’s elites. Still, the Second Ukrainian Republic fulfilled the essential and, for all practical intents and purposes, only mission that it was really able to fulfill – to wit, the creation of a proper urban middle class, which eventually became the driver of the revolutionary changes in 2013-2014. The emergence of this middle class or social group is unique in the entire history of Ukraine, as Ukraine has never enjoyed two-plus decades of peace

in the context of independence. The Euromaidan explosion was driven by three fundamental conflicts: first, conflict between then-President Victor Yanukovych and a number of oligarchs; second, conflict among Ukraine’s oligarchs over access to the state budget and control, through state institutions, of monopoly positions in various sectors of the national economy; and third, conflict between the oligarchs and the emerging urban middle class, which was fighting for de-monopolization of the Ukrainian economy and democratization of the general political system. This internal game within Ukraine coincided with the geopolitical games of external actors (the West and Russia), which played for the advancement of their own interests through alliances with various groups in Ukraine’s elite and society. What is notable is that when the Maidan revolution happened, the urban middle class did not have any formal or professional political organization. It was therefore unable to assume the entirety of state power after the collapse of the Yanukovych regime in February 2014. The Ukrainian state remained, de facto, in the hands of oligarchic groups, even if there was a significant change in the balance of power and influence between government and the oligarchs. Nevertheless, the structure and character of the political regime in Ukraine did not change: Ukraine today remains an oligarchic democracy, where powerful patronclient relations and corruption are a form of defence within, and reproduction of, the existing model of state. To be sure, the oligarchic state nearly collapsed during the 2014 crisis. This was due to three overlapping factors – the fiscal crisis, the geopolitical clashes, and the uprising of the masses. The oligarchic state was able to survive only because the protesting middle class was, in the end, used for the legitimation of cosmetic changes, while the annexation of Crimea and

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radical-right parties failed to make it into the Rada (parliament), while the political left was ousted by populists behind whom loomed the interests of oligarchic groups.

Former Georgian president and ex-Odessa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili walks through his

GS (opposed): First, any revolution presupposes fast, often sudden, fundamental changes in the social system of a country and in the subjects and objects of social relations, injecting them with new meanings and senses, which in turn changes the trajectory of the development of the overall system (post-revolution). Any serious analysis of the changes in Ukraine – before, during and after Maidan, whether one calls the events of that time a revolution of dignity, a European revolution, or a more basic change in the country’s political regime – allows us to assert that Euromaidan was, above all else, a prologue. In other words, Euromaidan was but one step among many long-overdue transformations in the political, economic and other spheres of Ukrainian life and society. In that sense, the Euromaidan revolution was not dissimilar to the 1905 revolution in tsarist Russia. Second, it is very important for GB readers around the world to understand what exactly is happening in Ukraine today. One sometimes gets the impression that a fairly large portion

supporters during a rally in downtown Kiev, October 2017.

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the ensuing Donbass war eventually became key factors in distracting Ukrainian society from the internal or domestic crisis toward the threat emanating from the Russian Federation. Western support, of course, mitigated the fiscal crisis in Ukraine, putting off into the future solutions to the country’s balance-of-payments problems and the massive inefficiency in the use of national resources. At the end of February 2014, I called what was happening the ‘Girondist’ stage of slow Ukrainian revolution, by analogy with the French Revolution. This stage is characterized by half-measures in national decision-making, where neither the allies of the ancien régime nor the allies of the revolution enjoy a decisive balance of power. As a result, we see in Ukraine today unstable or temporary coalitions of convenience or opportunity, comprising conditional or unreliable elements: radical old-timers, moderate old-timers, and radical newcomers. The various alliances among these groups determine the nature of the transformations in the state system and in the country overall. In 2014, an alliance was created between the moderate old-timers and moderate newcomers. This alliance survived through the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2014, when the

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The Second Ukrainian Republic fulfilled the essential and, for all practical purposes, only mission that it was really able to fulfill – the creation of a proper urban middle class, which eventually became the driver of the revolutionary changes in 2013-2014.

of Ukraine’s citizens themselves do not fully comprehend, in the words of the 20th century Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, “where the fate of events is taking us” – that is, the pith and substance of the country’s events and transformations, and where and why Ukraine is moving according to particular vectors. This proper understanding of Ukraine’s realities must be formed in the context of the threefold drop in the value of the national currency, ever-growing inflation, daily gun-shootouts – including in Kiev – and, among many other pathologies, general fear among countless Ukrainians for the security of loved ones, on both sides of the conflict, in the war zone in the Donbass. As we debate here, before the very eyes of Ukraine’s citizens, a kaleidoscope of political show-fights is taking place, involving ancien régime politicians who were able, as it were, to ‘change their colours’ in time, as well as younger politicians, working energetically and emphatically, with all parts of their body and mind, to gain a foothold on this political ‘Olympus.’ These politicians, incessantly reaching out to grab the throats of their opposite numbers in order to demonstrate their apparent love for Ukraine, are constantly in the company of so-called experts and analysts of unknown genesis and quality – especially as concerns the national security sector. This horde, typically bereft of respect for facts or evidence, often gives birth to all manner of delirium under the guise of clever ideas – so long as these ideas can be sold to the public; and where also possible, monetized. This spectacle applies to any number of subjects of national concern, from the fight in the Donbass to the fight against corruption, educational reform, health care and the civil service. Alas, the aggregate consequence of all these transformations and mutations has been the death and maiming of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians, the moral and economic suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced people (all citizens of the country), and massive material losses for the people and the country alike. Bref, the time has come for truthful answers to uncomfortable questions – an intellectual reckoning that will be fundamental to the future of Ukraine as an independent state. Of course, I cannot disagree, in general, with your assertion about the existence of popular confusion in respect of what Ukraine could truly have accomplished over the course of its independence following the disintegration of the USSR. But let me emphasize certain reference points that I believe to be fundamental to a proper apprehension of the content of

the processes that will be key to the construction of the Ukrainian state in the near future. First, from the previous (Soviet-era, pre-state) Ukraine, Ukraine effectively inherited the essential logic of the relationship between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of state power. The core of this logic is that everything – absolutely everything (including, of course, the distribution of positions at all levels of government and the allocation of corresponding resources) – is decided in and by the centre. In the Soviet period, this was the Politburo, headed by the general-secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Today, it is the president of Ukraine and his department, the Presidential Administration. That there is in present-day Ukraine, as in other post-Soviet republics (recognizing that the Baltic states, as EU members, have a different juridical reality), a de jure, constitutionalized division of powers among the legislative, executive and judicial branches does not at core change anything. The Ukrainian president is not, in constitutional terms, the head of the executive branch, and yet, in practice, no single material issue of the executive branch, under the Ukrainian prime minister, can be decided without the president’s approval or agreement. Moreover, the Ukrainian president often gives direct orders (decrees) to the prime minister. For its part, the legislature (the Rada) cannot do what it could do even in the Soviet era. The assignment of higher military ranks, for example, beginning with that of major-general, is the exclusive competence of the Ukrainian president (whereas in Soviet times, it fell to the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR). Finally, there are various non-negligible vectors of presidential influence on Ukraine’s judicial branch. In short, if the Ukrainian Constitution was agreed only in 1996 – a full five years after independence – it is also true that, since 1996, each new Ukrainian president has undertaken, lawfully and unlawfully, to ‘modernize’ this constitutional framework in the goal of consolidating and widening his own powers. Such a state of affairs satisfies not only Ukraine’s bourgeoisie (first and foremost Ukraine’s oligarchs), but also Ukraine’s ‘strategic partners’ (Western and Asian alike), as it allows them to solve key issues of interest to them with one person alone. The extent to which critical Ukrainian interests are protected under this arrangement is an open question – to say nothing of the fact that Ukraine is constantly threatened internally by the prospect of usurpation of power. Indeed, we might say that the current system of administration in Ukraine is

for Ukraine as an independent state. I would not exaggerate the importance of the urban middle class in the events of Euromaidan in 2013-2014. Euromaidan was, for various reasons, supported, organized, coordinated and generously financed by certain Ukrainian oligarchs, politicians and well-established external players. Let us also not harbour illusions in respect of the Ukrainian urban middle class as the decisive factor in the revolutionary changes that await Ukraine in the foreseeable future – if only to stave off the degradation or erosion of this very middle class. There are several reasons for this degradation, including

We might say that the current system of administration in Ukraine is actually ‘pregnant’ with the prospect of power usurpation – a prospect that could eventually lead to a bona fide dictatorship. the marked fall in Ukraine’s standard of living since the revolution, ever-increasing signs of national deindustrialization (a number of hightech national companies are on the verge of disappearing), the loss of important technologies, the exodus of highly qualified specialists and, to be sure, the push from a significant number of young people with higher education to leave Ukraine for good. Let me add that in the post-Maidan period in Ukraine, some 300,000 people have the status of participants in the Donbass conflict (in what are called ‘anti-terrorist operations’). By comparison, over the course of a decade (not four years), as many as 40,000 people in the Soviet period had the status of Afghanistan veterans. Now, we all know what is meant by the ‘Afghanistan syndrome’ in the Soviet context, or the ‘Vietnam syndrome’ in the American context. As such, a future major driver of revolutionary change in Ukraine could well be not the country’s educated urban middle class, but rather, as was the case a century ago in tsarist Russia, a semieducated proletariat and peasants – in many cases angry at the authorities and the state for their miserable life, and with all of the manifest consequences of this blowback from revolution, counter-revolution and war: violence, theft and property expropriation, murder and all manner of crime and antisocial behaviour. (continued) To read the rest of this debate, visit the GB website

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actually ‘pregnant’ with the prospect of power usurpation – a prospect that could eventually lead to a bona fide dictatorship. More than a decade ago, the Ukrainian politician and statesman, Evgeny Marchuk, stated publicly that, in the long run, it makes strategic sense for Ukraine to distance itself maximally from global centres of power and to concentrate, above all else, on its own problems. Failing this, Ukraine will be forced to operate on the terms set by the national interests of the countries comprising these power centres. Unfortunately, no one listened to Marchuk. And yet I believe that his thesis remains perfectly apposite today. Until Ukraine can stand firmly and solidly on its own feet, in terms of political and economic independence (and especially in terms of national security), it will not be able to create a modern system of public administration capable of reckoning with the challenges of this new century. And in this deficient state of affairs, it is very dangerous for Ukraine to play geopolitical games in one direction or another – eastward or westward. For the country risks simply becoming a bargaining chip in great games that are beyond its proper pay grade, with all of the attendant consequences. Understandably, as long as the national system of strategic decision-making – that is, fatemaking decision-making – remains under the control of one person (which, I repeat, greatly pleases Ukraine’s oligarchs, who know to or with whom, when and how much to offer and share, not to mention Ukraine’s international partners, who can more easily advance their interests on Ukrainian territory by negotiating with this one person alone), the risks to Ukraine remain exceedingly high. In other words, in the absence of the development of a system of truly national priorities for Ukraine, and the implementation of these priorities – above all, the defence of national sovereignty (in all its dimensions) – the national economic system and territorial integrity of the country will remain under real threat. It is not accidental that Ukraine needed more than 15 years of independence to develop its first national security strategy (in 2007), which affirmed the principal threats to national security – among these, threats to national unity, destabilization of national economic development, the inadequacy of the national security sector vis-à-vis the demands of society and the challenges of modernity, and the variability and contradictory nature of Ukraine’s external environment. It is unlikely that the intensity of these threats will change in the coming decades. Moreover, new threats have since emerged, quite evidently,

at: www.globalbrief.ca

THE DEFINITION “The Situation in Myanmar … …over the Rohingya crisis has exposed

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The Myanmar army is now bent on putting this insurgency down as a strategic priority. This is a harsh reality that gives the situation an entirely different character from the collective humanitarian action coordinated by ASEAN in the wake of Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

polarized attitudes toward the issue, entrenched over decades, as well as the obvious need for practical, long-term solutions. Since Myanmar became independent in 1948, periodic clashes in Rakhine state (formerly Arakan state), Myanmar’s westernmost region, have caused at least two large-scale exoduses (in 1978 and 1992) of people across the border to Bangladesh. There has been increased international reporting on the humanitarian situation in Rakhine in recent years – particularly in the wake of the 2012 communal clashes and the 2015 migrant crisis at sea. But the overall dynamic remains unchanged: the different communities in Rakhine have been polarized through decades of compounded mistrust and negative feelings about critical questions like citizenship and identity. The National League for Democracy (NLD) government has inherited the Rakhine legacy, with all of its complex nuances and roots dating back to colonial times. The cyclical clashes in Rakhine took on more militant overtones from October 2016, when Myanmar’s military mounted a disproportionate retaliation to armed attacks by the Harakah al-Yaqin on border police posts. The Harakah al-Yaqin has been characterized as a nascent insurgency movement (International Crisis Group, December 2016), with reported external links to Saudi Arabia. In an unprecedented move, Myanmar convened an informal meeting of the ASEAN foreign ministers in Yangon in late 2016 to discuss the situation in Rakhine. Following that meeting, an advisory commission led by Kofi Annan started work to identify measures to prevent future relapses into violence. In August 2017, barely a day after the advisory commission submitted its recommendations to the Myanmar government, the nascent militancy returned in full-blown form as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). This provoked a response of even larger magnitude from the military. This military response to the ARSA insurgency has in turn created the present massive humanitarian crisis, which has seen great displacement of communities in Rakhine, spilling over into neighbouring countries – in particular, Bangladesh. Bref, what is happening in Rakhine today is the result of the military’s counter-offensive against militant Rohingya attacks. It has been termed an

insurgency by the Myanmar government, while the ARSA has justified its actions principally in ethno-nationalist terms. The Myanmar army is now bent on putting this insurgency down as a strategic priority. This is a harsh reality that, despite the ongoing humanitarian implications for all the displaced communities, gives the situation an entirely different character from the collective humanitarian action coordinated by ASEAN in the wake of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, when the military junta allowed the international humanitarian community access to the cyclone-affected populations in the Myanmar delta. While the acute need for humanitarian access to all affected communities is similar to the post-Nargis period, the current crisis involves a community, the Rohingya, toward which a large part of Myanmar’s population feels no affinity. In Myanmar, the Rohingya are often referred to as Bengali, and many in Myanmar view them as illegal immigrants. Indeed, an estimated one million residents in northern Rakhine, where most of the Rohingya communities reside, were not included in the 2014 population census. What of ASEAN credibility in the face of this crisis? The statement in September by the current Philippine chair of ASEAN on the humanitarian situation in Rakhine state aimed to be constructive, but did not garner support from all ASEAN members. Malaysia’s dissociation from the statement was highly unusual for ASEAN, reflecting to a certain extent the fraying of ASEAN centrality to regional strategic dynamics and decision-making at the altar of domestic pressures. Under the ASEAN framework, however, individual member states – most notably Indonesia and Singapore – have met and discussed the issue bilaterally with the Myanmar government (meeting mainly with Aung San Suu Kyi, and with the Indonesia foreign minister also meeting with Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar armed forces). This, of course, is part of ASEAN’s practice of quiet diplomacy, including with complex countries like Myanmar – but evidently in recognition of the fact that the crisis, while still largely within Myanmar’s domestic ambit, has major regional spillover effects, and has now taken on alarming humanitarian dimensions. What’s to be done? The Advisory Commission on Rakhine State presented its final report this

past August, and the Myanmar government has committed to implement its recommendations. (Of course, that commitment has been overwhelmed or displaced somewhat by the ARSA attacks and the ensuing military response.) The commission’s 88 recommendations address multiple facets of the problem, including its regional implications. ASEAN member states may consider, on a case-by-case basis, whether bilateral, sub-regional or regional approaches can assist the Myanmar government in implementing the recommendations effectively. Let us also note that the value of the convening of ASEAN foreign ministers at the end of 2016 in Yangon to discuss the Rakhine issue should not be discounted. The fact that ASEAN is discussing this issue with Myanmar’s full participation means that the NLD government appreciates the importance of discussing the broader regional implications in an ASEAN setting. The Rakhine issue may yet catalyze new ways of ASEAN engaging Myanmar. As before, understanding Myanmar’s constraints, including the uneasy power-sharing arrangement between the civilian government and the military, may help to find pathways toward a solution. But any effort to solve this decades-old dilemma will not yield overnight results and will, as mentioned, require sustained commitment and pressure.” Moe Thuzar is Lead Researcher at the ASEAN Studies Centre of the ISEA-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. She is also cocoordinator of the ISEAS Myanmar Studies Programme.

…now represents a paradox of de-

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be as problematic today as it used to be during the military regime. While the UNHCR says that it is dealing with about 30,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Myanmar’s national security adviser, U Thaung Tun, has asserted that the number is actually approaching one million. This figure does not include the Rohingya refugees fleeing to other countries like Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and India – some of them dying in the effort. The Rohingya issue is thus rapidly becoming a trigger for a larger religious conflict in the region and beyond. First, the racist attitude toward the Rohingya and communal violence in Rakhine state are fuelling grievances and triggering radicalization within the Rohingya community not only in Myanmar but also in neighbouring countries in South and Southeast Asia. Second, the recruitment of Rohingya by terrorist groups in Bangladesh is exposing them increasingly to militancy and operational training. Third, many jihadi and radical groups in South and Southeast Asia sympathize with the Rohingya issue and use it to incite the community to jihad in the region. (continued) For the remainder of Arabinda Acharya’s and Abhishek Srivastava’s responses, please visit

Hundreds of Rohingya wait after crossing Bangladesh’s border as they flee from Budichong, Myanmar, October 2017.

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mocracy – especially as the government is allegedly facilitating the persecution of an ethnic and religious minority, the Rohingya, even more than was the case under the previous military regime. This, of course, is unfortunate for a country that, at least formally, transitioned to democracy from a military dictatorship and was richly rewarded in terms of international recognition (legitimacy) and economic assistance. While the international community as a whole appears to be extremely exercised by what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described as a “human rights nightmare” and “the world’s fastest developing refugee emergency” – and this

in order to put pressure on the Myanmar government – the efforts of the various relevant UN agencies, especially the UNHCR, remain piecemeal and certainly not commensurate with the scale of the problem. Evidently, this could be a question of the nature (and degree) of access enjoyed by these same agencies to good and full information on the ground – something that should not, in principle,

the GB website at: www.globalbrief.ca

STRATEGIC FUTURES “In 2022, Spain... …et la Catalogne seront des sociétés La Catalogne semble vouée à débattre de son avenir politique pendant au moins une génération, tandis que l’Espagne devra donner à cette communauté autonome une attention toute particulière.

divisées, comme elles le sont aujourd’hui. Le processus d’autodétermination qui a débuté en 2012 a forgé un profond clivage dans la société catalane entre indépendantistes et non-indépendantistes. La réponse du gouvernement espagnol, consistant à déclarer illégale toute velléité d’indépendance de la Catalogne, a aliéné bon nombre de Catalans qui traditionnellement se sentaient aussi bien Espagnols que Catalans. En même temps, les initiatives indépendantistes du gouvernement de la Catalogne ont offusqué beaucoup de Catalans qui y ont vu un coup de force anticonstitutionnel. Ce contexte de division génère des dynamiques bien connues pour les Québécois et les Canadiens. La politique catalane se structure autour de la «question nationale». Elle suscite des conflits entre amis et collègues de travail. Le gouvernement espagnol, pour sa part, explore des avenues de négociations constitutionnelles, mais en même temps sait qu’il jouit d’un appui important à l’extérieur de l’Espagne en faveur de sa défense du statu quo. Madrid a pris tous les moyens pour empêcher une indépendance qui était toujours très improbable si elle devait être décidée par le biais d’un référendum reconnu officiellement. Ce faisant, il a créé des indépendantistes qui contestent la légitimité même de l’État espagnol en Catalogne. Sans majorité claire pour ou contre l’indépendance, la Catalogne semble vouée à débattre de son avenir politique pendant au moins une génération, tandis que l’Espagne devra donner à cette communauté autonome une attention toute particulière». André Lecours est professeur titulaire à l’École d’Études politiques de l’Université d’Ottawa. Il a notamment publié Basque Nationalism and the Spanish State.

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…will be recovering from one of the

most significant crises it has endured in centuries – one that will shake the foundations of the modern Spanish state. The Catalan crisis, which will almost certainly culminate in the independence of Catalonia, will expose the shortcomings of the Spanish transition to democracy. As Catalonia transitions to independence, we will have witnessed events that are unsettling in any democratic context – from police brutality to the cancellation of the results of a referendum, to the

imprisonment of an elected government for purely political considerations. In 2022, if not earlier, the international community will be urging Spain to modernize and really democratize its country. A reasonable separation of powers, with an independent judiciary, will be the most important reform in this respect – and the one for which there will be the most external and internal pressure. Rule of law cannot exist without it. In political terms, we will see the erosion of the existing political parties. The failure of Mariano Rajoy’s ruling People’s Party, with the support of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, to meet the demands of the Catalan people head-on will cause Spaniards to demand serious change in the political system. Traditional parties will be doomed to political oblivion. Finally, the secession of a territory that accounted for about a fifth of Spain’s GDP will bring about a national economic crisis in what remains of Spain, and also economic hardship for Catalonia – at least in the short term. The model around which the Spanish national economy was based – that is, big transfers of fiscal resources from the wealthy to poorer autonomies – will need to be rethought. For Spain, perhaps the only saving grace will be that the loss of Catalonia may allow the country to reformulate its national project, and ultimately become a properly modern, successful democratic power in Europe and in the ever-complex world of the 21st century.” Andres da Silva is a political activist in Barcelona and a member of Catalonia’s ruling Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT).

…will be conditioned by the results of several regional and national elections that will follow the December 2017 regional election in Catalonia. In all probability, Spain will also have a national referendum to modify its 1978 Constitution. Will the ballots lead to stable governments in the regions – Catalonia included – and in Madrid, or will we be facing weak majorities and/or unstable alliances? The latest events in Catalonia were preceded by the continuous shrinkage of the CiU-CDC coalition that ruled the region since 1980. In 2010, after 30 years of absolute majority, this centre-right coalition was forced into a desperate alliance with more radical leftist and pro-independence parties in order to stay in power. This alliance finally led to the dissolution of both parties in 2015 (the CiU) and 2016 (the CDC). The two national parties that have ruled Spain since 1982 – Partido Socialista (PSOE) and Partido Popular (PP) – have suffered a similar fate. They needed two national elections in six months (December 2015 and June 2016) to produce an unstable government requiring the support of three parties.

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been forced to withdraw 70 billion Euros from the Pensions Reserve Fund in order to cover current expenditures. Fewer contributions from active workers to the Pensions Fund (Spain’s unemployment rate is 17.6 percent) plus an increasing number of citizens receiving pensions may soon collapse the pension system. Spain’s ratio of active workers per retired person is approximately two, but projections for the coming decades bring this number closer to unity. Critiques of the sustainability of the pension system have emerged sporadically in recent years, but they have been overshadowed decisively by the general political turbulence. Lacking longer-term plans, the government has resorted each time to new credits – bref, nothing approaching what is needed to reverse the dark projections for the pensions system and Spain’s ever-worsening public debt position (which is close to 100 percent of GDP). The policy prescriptions for an exit to these pressures will not come easily, but a solid parliamentary majority and a more stable general political context in the country would give it a far better chance at addressing these deep structural problems.” Jose Lopez Bueno teaches at the University of Winnipeg and the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology. Between 2003 and 2014, he was president of an economic

Demonstrators protest the imprisonment of former members of the Catalan government, in Barcelona, November 2017.

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After the elections in Catalonia this December, this fragile coalition will lead to national elections in the winter of 2018 or the spring of 2019. A reform of the Constitution, already announced, will be followed by a referendum, plus a second national election, as mandated for any constitutional reform. The resulting political panorama might lead to more stable governing majorities. Short-term tactics and opportunism will – one can hope – be reduced substantially. While creative and dynamic, Spain, like many Western countries, has a rapidly ageing population. A 2014 report from Spain’s National Statistics Institute showed that the national population has been decreasing since 2012. From a peak population of 47.3 million in 2012, it fell to 46.5 million in January 2017. Forecasts for the upcoming years deepen this trend of demographic decline. A smaller population is not necessarily a problem; a smaller and older population is. At 82.8 years, Spain’s life expectancy at birth is among the world’s highest. However, with publicly funded pensions and free health care provided for all Spaniards, an older population means higher public expenditures. Workers’ contributions are not sufficient to pay for today’s Spanish pensions. As much as 80 percent of the Pensions Reserve Fund has already been exhausted. Since 2012, the government has

development public corporation of a region of Spain.

EPIGRAM

What Was “Globalization”? There are more things in heaven and earth… Than are dreamt of in your philosophy BY GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE

George Elliott Clarke is the 7th Parliamentary (Canadian) Poet Laureate (2016-17), and Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. His latest book is The Merchant

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of Venice (Retried).

lthough human beings are resolutely the same, our cultures are adamantly different. Thus, there was a touch of arrogance in the Fukuyama thesis, some thirty years ago, that, once peoples – whatever their differences – began to abide by the same economic and ideological regimens, international conflicts would be averted or mitigated. Once all peoples could elect their own governments and seek satisfaction of essential needs – as well as leisure goods – and fashion their own lifestyles, so the thesis ran, so much prosperity and harmony would result that History itself would end as a dusty, museum curiosity. “Give everyone a ballot and a credit card,” went the refrain, and Nirvana is ours. M ay b e t h e g l o b a l i s t s t h o u g h t , pace Columbus (1492), that, because the world is round and, pace the film Cabaret (1972), that ‘money makes the world go round,’ it was sensible that liquidity should flow – unchecked by national(ist) economies – around the globe, only touching down – pooling – where labour was cheap and/or where bank accounts were off-the-books. Who dast blame ’em? If we conceive the classical, classroom globe as a Kindergarten-toy top that is spun until a sudden stop, why would the giddy spinners – geopoliticos and economists – not suffer dizzying bankruptcy, and the victims of their ‘spins’ – those G-force market-forces – go flying off in every busted, Tilt-A-Whirl direction; experience drastic crashes of markets and income; and discover, bruised, that the ‘safety nets’ of Keynes and FDR – constructed painstakingly since the Great Depression – are themselves too frayed now to be useful? Maybe the ‘spinners’ of spam scams, ‘fake news,’ beggar-thy-neighbour investment frauds, asymmetrically unfair (pro the ‘one percent’) tax regimes – plus divisive election strategies and corporate lobbyists’ policies – ought to get ‘spun’ right into the closest mega-prison until the survivors of their reckless warmongering, environmental degradation and cyber-pillaging are able to right the globe, set it back on its axis and, taking a page from the FlatEarth humanists, seek truly ‘level playing fields’ for trade and common ground for pacifist diplomacy. Why not? The globalists have had three decades of ‘having it their own way,’ of ‘spinning’ economies away from manufacturing to ‘information’; from

national economies to half-gleaming, half-smoggy slave-states (whose peons labour in service to the rich, upper-half – Nordic and white – of the world); from independent sovereignty to the establishment of a worldwide, interlocking piracy. Maybe the mistake was in thinking that, because the world is uniformly round, its inhabitants gotta be uniform – as if neoliberal capitalists had adopted the dreaded, one-size-fits-all tyranny that was communism-as-actually-practiced (imposed ). It is true that the capitalist version was gaudier: ‘United Colours’ of this and ‘Free Trade’ of that. But the results were not absolutely dissimilar: democracies become plutocracies (ideal for the rise of vulgar, billionaire bullies) and police-states become sweatshops and/or comfy tourist-traps. In both cases, whenever protest or unrest occurs, soon materialize the water cannons, tear-gas canisters, tasers, batons, bullets (rubber and metal), handcuffs, body bags, refugee (and/or homeless) tents and camps, and propagandistic, trumped-up charges. (Witness Spain; witness Greece; witness Kenya; witness Myanmar.) We have come a long way from Bretton Woods and Maastricht, and yet we have not gotten very far at all, given the tendency of rich states to hoard and hog, despite the baleful wails of the poor and oppressed – still hungry, homeless, unhealthy and, bleakly, hateful enough to become guerrillas and/or terrorists, opposing despots and/or murdering innocents in the most casual, banal circumstances. For a brief period – maybe during the Clinton administration (that wink-wink, kiss-kiss and whizbang golden age) – it seemed that we could deem George Orwell’s 1984, his novel of global, socialist dystopia, fit for Lenin’s ‘dustbin of history.’ But Orwell’s back in vogue: see Animal Farm (1945), 1984 (1949) and even, these days, Homage to Catalonia (1938). And rightly so. The only difference between the Comintern conformity and the lying ‘newspeak’ that Orwell deplored – nearly 70 years ago – is that the powers of capitalist state espionage against citizens and exploitation of news ‘cycles’ are now so stupendous as to imperil democracy itself. Globalists strove to displace geopolitics with economics, to replace maps with e-transfers. Well, Hamlet checks such hubris: “There are more things in heaven and earth… / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” | GB